Together, a better employee experience is possible.
First, let’s get some clarity about who your employees are and what they want.
Continuing to try to engage your employees through communication and experience strategies and tactics based on what the company wants is ineffective and expensive. It’s just guessing.
Instead of just guessing, know. Know your employees. Know what they want. Know what works…and doesn’t. Know what’s relevant and effective.
Here are three ways to do this:
Challenge Chats
What It Is: A quick and effective way to troubleshoot single issues that need solving, whether they’ve been lingering for years or have just cropped up.
How It Works: Through limited quick-strike team huddles and a very short supplemental digital survey as needed, my Challenge Chats ask employees to pressure test the validity of the issue. Then, using a Minimally Viable Product approach, employees lead a fast-paced ideation discussion to develop quick-strike solutions. The impact is immediate and the solutions are generated in days, not weeks or months.
Best For: Uncovering safety and quality issues, squashing rumors, improving processes, igniting innovation
Timing: Typically takes a couple of weeks to plan, a week or two to conduct, and a week to compile the results, depending on company size; subsequent efforts go much faster
Fees: Typically $10,000 to $15,000, depending on company size; get in touch for a specific range based on your situation
Influencer Mapping
What It Is: Not all employees are the same. Some have more influence inside your company than others. These are the people that your employees go to for “the meeting after the meeting.” In nearly every company, these influencers are just 3% of the workforce. But what they think/feel/say/do impacts a whopping 90% of the rest. And while you may think you know who they are, they aren’t always apparent. But their influence definitely is, in both good and not so good ways.
How It Works: Through a very quick digital survey powered by our partners at Innovisor and supplemental breakroom conversations as needed, we ask employees to share with us who they go to for insights, advice and direction. In the process, we also uncover what makes these INfluencers so trusted.
Best For: Once you know who your influencers are, they can help with speeding up time to adding value for new hires, identifying turnover issues, sharing insights about very local issues, accelerating change initiatives
Timing: Typically takes a couple of weeks to plan, a week to conduct, and a couple of days to get the results; could take a bit longer if breakroom conversations are needed
Fees: Completely depends on company size; get in touch for a specific range based on your situation
What Employees Want
What It Is: Engagement surveys can be helpful, if the right questions are being asked in the right way. But because the process, the survey and even the questions themselves are so clinical and rational, you end up with clinical and rational responses…lots of yes, no and maybe without any emotional relevance around their answers.
How It Works: What Employees Want takes a different approach, using targeted refocus groups, team huddle conversations and other boots-on-the-ground efforts across your company to make real connections with your employees that get the emotional context you need.
Best For: Additional context on top of your existing engagement survey, uncovering resistance to change initiatives, spearheading new product launches and process improvements, uncovering mission/vision/values alignment
Timing: Typically takes three weeks to plan, three-to-four weeks to conduct, and a week or two to compile the results, depending on company size
Fees: Completely depends on company size; get in touch for a specific range based on your situation
Abbreviated versions of What Employees Want are also excellent for smaller plant/team/functional reviews and audits.
Then, let’s build an employee experience strategy, using their answers.
After we get some much needed clarity by listening to your employees, it’s time to make an impact by doing something completely radical: answering them!
In almost every case, your employees want real change that improves their daily experiences and unleashes them to achieve the success they know they are capable of.
Employee Experience Strategy Development
With the clarity of knowing what your employees want, let’s create a comprehensive employee experience strategy designed to deliver what your employees want and what your operations need.
This refreshed (and refreshing) approach includes leadership, communication and employee experience recommendations designed to evolve your culture and impact your results. While this overall strategy guides your broad approach, smaller components within it are targeted at specific leaders, plants, locations, teams and functions. And the tactics are all designed to be as practical as they are effective. There’s no need to roll out in a fully-optioned Cadillac when a Chevrolet will take you just as far.
The deliverable is a clear roadmap with specific goals, objectives, key messages, audiences, channels, timelines and tools for measuring progress. With this strategy, you can immediately begin the work yourself or simply hand it off to your favorite partner firm to get it done. If you don’t already have a favorite partner firm, I’m glad to introduce to some of my favorites.
Best For: Any company that doesn’t already have one, regardless of size or industry
Timing: Typically two-to-three weeks after completing any of the previous exercises above; three-to-four weeks if I’m not starting from any of those baselines
Fees: Typically $15,000 to $20,000; get in touch for a specific range based on your situation; if you already have a strategy, I’m glad to review it and make recommendations for a flat fee of $3500.