Overview

Our Client asked us to work with them to halt the decline in employee engagement and to make the business a more positive place to work.

As a result of rapid growth, the business focus had been on achieving the commercials, but the employee experience had not received any attention for some time.  After losing a number of key-players, their level of staff turnover became of concern and they were keen to stop this from becoming a significant barrier to their progress.

We worked together on a project-basis to improve the employee experience and retain good talent for the long-term.

It was clear that the evidence of poor employee engagement was anecdotal, rather than being based on any form of data-collection.  First we needed to understand whether this perception was accurate, and how it could be reversed through policy and behavioural change at all levels.

A number of interventions were identified as being required to deliver the project:

An understanding of their current position. 

It’s not enough to think you know what the issue is; you’ve got to listen to the stuff that makes you feel uncomfortable if you are going to improve and change.

Honest feedback from leavers

Leavers have nothing to lose; no vested interest in pretending everything was okay. We found ex-employees’ feedback to be the most insightful of all we gathered.

Employee engagement questionnaires

These were developed to understand the mood amongst the teams, including what they valued and what they felt was missing and what they could offer to make things better.

Changing the feedback process

Development of methods of providing feedback were lacking within the business; formal monthly one-to-ones between managers and staff were replaced with shorter weekly check-ins and a mechanism for anonymously providing feedback to colleagues was introduced to promote honesty and demonstrate a commitment to improvement at all levels.

Our relationship is now based on a small monthly retained fee; we work together to evaluate progress, measure and celebrate success and continue to develop the business into being somewhere employees never want to leave.  Since the start of this project, staff turnover has reduced by 82%.

Services

Development of employee engagement questionnaire.

Interviews with recent leaders and development of “Truth Hurts” paper for Senior Leadership.

Revised performance management process.

Client

Recruitment Agency