5 characteristics of a continuous listening strategy

If your aim is to listen to your employees, annual surveys are no longer sufficient. To learn from your employees’ feedback and really make them feel they are being heard, you must develop a continuous listening strategy. What does such a continuous listening strategy entail? Heleen Mes, an employee experience expert, details the options available to top employers.

If an organisation is continuously working to increase happiness at work and the employee experience, then listening to their employees is a must. The organisation needs benchmarks to determine where it actually stands and for measuring whether actions have had positive results. In a bottom-up approach, it is important to gather ideas that are actually important to employees, and to do this a broader array of survey methods is required – not just an annual survey. A continuous listening strategy allows you to gain greater insights into a wider range of the employees’ opinions, experiences and ideas.

Fast action and psychologically safe

Properly investing in the ownership of outcomes is a key to successful continuous listening strategies. Owners are held accountable for recognizing priorities, taking prompt action and communicating clearly with employees. If there is no feedback nor actions aimed at making improvements, employees become less enthusiastic about participating in future research.

The (survey) method must allow for a quick delivery of insights: much faster than the average 3-month turnaround time of standard annual surveys. It is only then that the organisation can respond quickly to the services and products provided, gain insights into trends, and better respond to current and future developments.

Employees should not be over-questioned. Consequently, to prevent this, part of the strategy is to use shorter surveys, spreading them throughout the year, and to conduct sampling measurements and change focus groups annually. A psychologically safe culture helps to start conversations with employees.

Using an array of surveys

Top employers combine several types of employee research, both quantitative and qualitative, and ranging from group to 1-to-1 interviews. The research involves immediately asking the participants about impacts, ideas and priorities, as well for their opinions about various matters. Quantitative types of employee research are a mix of:

• Surveys about engagement, wellbeing and/or happiness at work;
• Surveys about employee experience, organisational culture, leadership and the workplace;
• Surveys about employee journey products, like onboarding, learning & development and offboarding at the moments when the employees experience them;
• Ad hoc pulse surveys about specific topics or about keeping a finger on the pulse.

Integrated follow up

Top employers have set up their systems in a way that allows the output to be linked to HR and business analytics, which generates greater insights while also allowing them to make predictive analyzes of future developments. Teams also gain insights into their development over longer periods. Employees automatically receive individual feedback with which they can compare their scores with those of the team and organisation. Based on this, the system informs them about related nudges and learning & development options.

Qualitative research for definition

In addition to surveys, top employers particularly appreciate the value of qualitative feedback, as this provides more definition, openness and details than when solely using standard questionnaires. People are already listening to one another during conversations around coffee machines or in team meetings. Or during live Q&As with the executive board and management. Listening goes in both directions, so also from the organisation and team to employees, as with PCT (Performance, Commitment and Talent) or Grow conversations, and 360-degree feedback.

To take it a step further, top employers also use:

• An online feedback & discussion channel on intranet where anyone can comment
• Live dialogue & feedback sessions with groups of employees on specific topics
• Post-survey focus groups as follow ups for further exploring survey or KPI scores.
• Deep dive interviews with (individual) employees in preparation for service design
• Conversations, like a 100-day interview, stay interview and exit interview

It won’t be long before organisations start to also adopt passive listening technology, such as text analysis of all email traffic. Moreover, using facial and speech analysis, it’s already possible to measure emotions within organisations without having to question the employees.

Listen to more than just your own employees

The continuous listening strategies of top employers extend beyond only listening to their own (permanent) employees. It goes without saying that they also listen to their customers, but now they are involving an even wider group in their continuous listening strategy, including job applicants, interns, freelancers, contracted cleaning and catering employees, volunteers, alumni, retirees, suppliers and collaborative partners.

Not yet started?

What if your organisation has not yet started on a listening strategy? Or, as is your practice, you conduct a survey once every 3 years? What if management – after receiving a score of 7 – promptly returns to business as usual? Advice: if management is unwilling to work with the findings, do not measure more and more frequently. Raising expectations, but not meeting them, leads to a greater sense of dissatisfaction within an organisation. However, those who are able to take steps can quickly increase the value through qualitative research. Therefore, have conversations with your own colleagues.