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It is only when you truly know the value of a product that you can share it with others, and so, at Best Companies we utilise all our engagement platforms as a reliable part of our working lives. In the following article, we spoke to some of our own mangers, and therefore users, to find out their recommendations for getting the most out of the employee group data presented in Workplace Insight.
At Best Companies, we are not only the developers of our products and services, but, crucially, we’re the users too.
This means we run our own b-Heard survey twice a year as a reliable part of our annual benchmarking, as well as executing the same company-wide engagement plan in-house that we recommend for our clients.
Part of this involves allowing all managers within the business to have access to their own team’s engagement data through giving them a unique login to Workplace Insight.
We believe that simply talking to managers about the overall survey data, and how it relates to their team, does not provide them the opportunity to fully digest it and identify areas for action. With busy work schedules, it is often the case that where key messages are retained, more in-depth insights can be quickly forgotten.
However, by involving managers in data analysis and allowing them to take ownership of their own team’s engagement data, they take note, they focus, and they understand. Most importantly though, these managers will be more likely to make change happen and see a return on the time investment they have put into their data with positive results next time their teams are surveyed.
To understand how this works in practice, we spoke directly to some of our managers to find out the value they have gained from being able to directly access their team’s data in Workplace Insight.
Julio Behambari, Principal Product Manager, manages a team of six product managers and so gets access to a single employment group that sits within a wider department.
His experience of accessing his own employment group data with the engagement platform has been transformative in supporting change within his team. The insight has not only enabled him to get under the hood of his data, but it has empowered him to take increased ownership of their scores.
“Without access to these insights, it could be easy to just rely on the senior team or CEO to be accountable, when really, I want to be accountable and contribute to driving positive change.”
As a result of this, Julio saw increased scores in My Team and Personal Growth workplace factors; the two that he had specifically focused on improving.
As a newly promoted manager, Heloise Simkiss wanted to make sure as she was clear on the areas she could directly influence. Since gaining a Workplace Insight login in December 2020, she has found the ability to focus on the intricacies of the data pivotal as she settles into life as a manager of our Customer Support Analysts.
Heloise specifically found herself drawn to the ease of SWOT analysis.
“Being able to easily obtain my team’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, has facilitated my ability to hone in on my areas of focus.”
Not only did Heloise get the strategic message from her own line manager about areas to improve upon, but she has also been able to work more closely with other managers around her to share best practice.
As someone who is ultimately responsible for multiple autonomous development teams, Principle Developer, Rich Jones, explained how it can be very difficult to be close enough to any of them to really understand what their unique challenges may be.
“With bigger teams, Workplace Insight has allowed me to see how different parts of the department are struggling with different aspects of working life.”
In his role as a manager of managers, he is integral to the cascading of this information and so, for him, knowing the key employee engagement data from each team he oversees allows him “to help the individual team managers, not only to know where their issues are, but where they might be able to turn for help and inspiration to solve these problems.”
All three of the managers we spoke to also mentioned that the value they gain goes further than just access to team data in Workplace Insight, with the connection to the manager-specific data platform, MC³, allowing them to join the dots and provide a fundamental part of strengthening how bought in they are to the engagement of their teams.
Julio explained: “With the combination of employment group data and manager data, I have even more context that I just wouldn’t get with MC³ alone.”
For both Rich and Heloise, they felt that the Workplace Insight login has served to enhance their individual manager scores. Rich said: “As a manager I get a set of personal MC³ Manager Index scores with every survey that we do.
“These scores are personal and sometimes contain some tough messages which can be quite hard to understand. While MC³ is great at explaining what these scores mean, the depth and breadth of analysis possible in Workplace Insight has really helped me to get additional context to get to the heart of the issue. I have used this to help both myself and my direct reports understand results.”
At Best Companies, we have found the use and development of both the Workplace Insight and MC³ engagement platforms have helped us to ensure that our data can be disseminated throughout the organisation quicker and more effectively, ensuring that the most important survey outcomes (whether good or bad!) are spotted immediately, by those who can have the biggest impact on them moving forward.
This is imperative not only in terms of extracting maximum value from our survey insights to create positive change, but, crucially, to our overall levels of employee engagement.
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