Putting the effort into gaining employee insights is great, but only if you're going to do something with them. If not, you'll erode trust, disappoint your staff and they'll never fill in another survey for you.
The good news is, it's really easy to put your insight data into action with our Six Golden Rules. Follow these, and you'll have a great framework for sharing your learnings with all levels of your organisation so they can bring about real change.
Introducing Our Six Golden Rules for using employee insights to improve your employee experience.
Golden rule 1: Involve your internal communications team
If you're not already acquainted with your Internal Comms pros, go and make friends. They will be your biggest allies and supporters as you start to understand what the data is telling you and want to get those messages into the organisation.
Think of your internal comms team as the eyes and ears of the workplace. They know what's going on and always have a really good grasp on the temperature of the organisation at any given time.
They also have an holistic view of the place, so will know if there are events or issues in other parts of the business that may clash with your messaging. They'll be able to use their plans and insights to help you find the right time to deliver your crucial employee insights messages.
Not only do the hold the keys to the channels you'll need to use to get your messages out, but they'll also be able to advise you on the best ones, any skills training that people might need and support you to build your narrative.
Seriously, look up your IC team today and invite them out for coffee. They'll soon become your new BFF and together you'll need to work together to implement the next five golden rules*.
Golden rule 2: Get your executive aligned
If your executive aren't on the same page, you might as well stop now.
Employee insights can tell us some 'home truths' - things that we don't really feel comfortable knowing or that might be hard to change. They can be personal and can be confronting.
But if we ask the question, we must be prepared to hear the answer, and importantly, deal with it.
Briefing your executive at the same time and giving them the insights is important. Spend time delving into the detail then work out a plan on how you will own these results TOGETHER.
You need to show a united front and be one organisation working towards one common goal. As soon as leaders start blaming others, disassociating themselves from the outcomes or saying its on other areas to fix, we have a real problem.
Golden rule 3: Give your managers the information
We know that time and again staff tell us they want to hear information about the business from their line managers. They know them best and can contextualise the information for them so it makes sense to their roles and their areas.
Or at least that's what we expect should happen, but with the Institute of Internal Communication's latest sector report showing, only a third of managers feel equipped to have conversations.
What's more, the Chartered Management Institute found in it's Why UK PLC Needs Better Managers report published earlier this year that while one in four people in the workforce have management responsibility, a staggering 82% become managers without formal training.
How is it therefore fair for us to expect our managers to be able to deliver messaging that makes sense to their people, empowers them and improves the employee experience if they don't know how.
Working with your Internal Communications team, develop a plan for briefing your managers. Share with them techniques for developing messages for their teams. Help them present and perform these messages, and give coaching and feedback.
Our managers play a pivotal role in this process and need to be nurtured and supported to do it well.
Golden rule 4: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you ask the question you've got to be prepared for the answer.
Not everything your employees tell you will be sunshine and roses. There will be some problems that you didn't know about, and potentially some issues that are worse than you'd imagined.
Now you have to face into the truth and play it back to your people. Tell them how it makes you feel, show vulnerability and show compassion.
Next tell them what you're going to do about it and how you're going to use the insights your employees have given you.
Even if you don't plan to do anything or can't influence the issue, tell them that too. Not acknowledging the elephant in the room makes them think you're ignoring the issues ergo ignoring them.
Golden rule 5: Involve your people in the solutions
All good comms people worth their salt have run a 'You said, we did' campaign. But what about if you flipped it and turned it into a 'You said, you did' campaign?
By involving the people in the solutions you'll get to your solutions quicker, and get what, they'll work. Empower the people who are experience the friction to fix it - they understand what's going wrong and probably already know what needs to change.
Support them with tools, time and money, if necessary, to design and implement the changes. Give them access to specialist skills and expertise internally. Champion this behaviour and celebrate successes.
Encourage the executive to support the initiatives too. Get them involved in project teams and give projects the chance to present their ideas back to the executive.
There are a plethora of growth, develop, stretch and networking benefits this approach can have, as well as actually getting the job done.
Golden rule 6: Keep talking and listening
Gaining employee insights is not a process with a start and finish point; it's an ongoing process. We must listen, learn, implement new ideas, request feedback, listen and learn again.
And we don't have to wait a year or two for the next engagement survey to roll around - we can do it with the tools we have at our finger tips. Whip up a quick survey on Microsoft or Google Forms, ask questions in your internal social media platforms, check the pulse with a poll in a live video call, and so on.
Working with your new BFF, you can also look at the data that is already being collected. Are people reading the content on the intranet relating to the changes you're implementing, what comments are they leaving in group chats and what kind of questions are they asking at the all hands meetings? All of this data and more is readily available and should help you in your constant listening quest.
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* Don't have an internal communications team in your workplace or perhaps they've already got too many BFFs and have no more capacity to help? No worries, we're always on the look out for new friends and we just so happen to love coffee too.
Drop us a line at hello@insideoutconsulting.co.uk to set up a date for a chat.
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