Strategies in Action: Member Highlights - Employee Experience Exchange
In this session Kate Miller, Director of Employee Experience at Robert Half, and Kelly Picone, Manager of Learning and Organizational Development at Independent Health, shared their stories and insights about a specific employee experience strategy in action at their organization. The audience questions made this a lively and productive conversation – we could have gone on for a few more hours.
Transforming a Culture Through Listening Programs at Robert Half
Employee listening is a critical business exercise that has shifted over time. Many organizations, including Robert Half, found their employee listening strategy an imperative during the pandemic as their culture shifted. They found it’s possible to gather great data in a listening strategy, but they key is what do you do with that information. Kate shared what the team leveraged and learned as their employee listening strategy has evolved.
Top 4 things we explored.
Building a business case for change. This initiative was able to:
- Identify what support people needed most.
- Open lines of communication between people and leadership.
- Get information to the right people at the right time.
Prioritization. This initiative focused on topics that:
- Best measured engagement and predicted turnover.
- Benchmarked best company trends that influence the employee experience.
- Related to the company ROI, shareholder investment, or external data.
Collaborating across stakeholders/owners. This initiative identified the following stakeholders:
- Executives who sponsor employee experience initiatives
- Representatives from Centers of Excellences and SMEs
- Core teams and their direct managers
- Volunteer culture ambassadors
Measuring results and ROI. As a result of this initiative:
- Employees felt heard and valued.
- Challenges were identified before they became problems.
- A culture of trust and feedback was fostered.
- Business plans were aligned to employees’ needs.
Q & A with Kate Miller
How did your key stakeholders understand the value of this comprehensive listening strategy?
We conducted an extremely valuable regression analysis with Glint to help us understand the possible drivers of attrition. It gave us key information about what was important to retain people. We review our departure survey data to determine whether there are shifts in what’s important. Additionally, our centers of excellence leverage data on specific topics to assess the effectiveness of their programs, products and services and inform their business planning.
How do often do you conduct listening strategies?
Our listening strategy is continuous and gives us insight into what matters across the employees’ lifecycle. We measure a variety of elements aligned with recruiting and onboarding to the company, engaging and attracting employees, and exiting the company. Within that lifecycle, we survey global employees twice yearly. The questions are revised each time and we have extensive input from SMEs and leaders regarding what questions are asked.
Did you use other methods than just surveys? What impact did that have on the culture?
Our executives shifted their approach to interacting with our people. They began hosting monthly calls where employees could see and hear directly from them. Additionally, the executives implemented several new, high-impact employee initiatives to provide additional support. Some of the increases we observed were related to increased flexibility, however, I am confident that our executives' new approach was a major driver of our culture transformation.
Who has access to the data?
It was important to us that the right people had the right information at the right time. We created targeted reports on various subjects important to Centers of Excellence (CoEs) and SMEs needs. Transparency is an important value of ours, so the CoEs and SMEs were able to see all those reports on a Teams site. And all leaders can see their team’s aggregate results in the vendor’s dashboard to facilitate self-service.
Looking for more?
Check out the Employee Listening Series. This collection of resources, to include i4cp member-contributed documents, case studies, and videos, address the all-important topic of gathering and understanding employee sentiment and taking clear, decisive, and meaningful action based on continuous listening.
Workforce 2022: Defining a New Associate Experience at Independent Health
Independent Health has been on a journey moving into a virtual working model. They have focused on what the associate experience is like from beginning to end. Independent Health started by designating a Workforce 2022 committee with visionaries in the company to create their future working model. After implementing a comprehensive listening strategy, Workforce 2022 created guiding principles and recommendations. Kelly Picone shared more about the Workforce 2022 journey including what they’ve learned, their moments to celebrate and the upcoming challenges they’ll be tackling.
We'll be sharing an overview of Kelly's presentation shortly. In the meantime, you can watch her video or check out the resource below.
Looking for more?
Check out The Many Facets to Connection. Kelly Picone shares her experience at Independent Health’s first Connection Week.
i4cp’s Employee Experience Exchange is a peer-driven working group that explores how to design, operationalize, and scale the moments, attitudes, and behaviors that shape a satisfying employee experience. The group, consisting of dozens of major employers, seeks to dissect the complex challenges organizations face when developing a comprehensive employee experience strategy—by connecting peers, sharing successes (and failures), and examining the latest research on the topic.
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