ase study

Investigate the data you have by questioning what it is saying $$ it can provide persuasive insights

Business problem

This case study originates from a European financial institution, highly experienced in the implementation of their employee engagement process across all their business areas and support functions. It had created significant momentum, led by the CEO and the executive team, over several years.

Looking to the future, the organization had refined its strategy for the next five years driven by a digital approach in a rapidly changing world. This meant that the future focus needed to revolve around service, digitalization and a skill shift to meet future needs, underpinned by simplicity, commitment and wider co$-$operation across the organization. This highlighted the one item within the employee engagement survey that was always the lowest scoring and where efforts to improve had had minimal impact.

The digital transformation would only work effectively when a culture of collaboration was actively demonstrated, as the technological advancements being talked about would mean clear cross$-$selling opportunities and $$one stop$$ banking instead of multiple contacts. The CEO was looking for a clear data$-$based reason to push collaboration as a pre$-$digital transformation initiative.

Reviewing the data

The most recent collaboration$-$related data item showed a positive response of $57$ per cent, a neutral response of $23$ per cent and a negative response of $20$ per cent based upon $13,278$ responses from across the organization.

A review was undertaken with the data $$re$-$cut$$ to look specifically at the $57$ per cent of the workforce $(7,568$ employees$)$ who had experienced positive collaboration across the organization, and the $20$ per cent of the workforce $(2,745$ employees$)$ who had not seen positive collaboration in their jobs. What impact did it have on their perceptions about the whole organization? Were there any themes that highlighted a positive rationale to be more collaborative, other than that it$$s the right thing to do$?$

The re$-$cut data highlighted the differences in perception that existed across the workforce when positive and negative$/$lack of collaboration was seen:

Engagement: Where positive collaboration was seen, engagement was some $6$ per cent higher, for an organization with an already high level of engagement. Where negative$/$lack of collaboration was seen, engagement was $16$ per cent lower.

Enablement: Where positive collaboration was seen, employees felt $9$ per cent more enabled to be able to serve customers and take the initiative to resolve issues and explore opportunities with them. Where negative$/$lack of collaboration was seen, enablement was $23$ per cent lower.

Opportunities to develop: Where positive collaboration was seen, this theme was some $17$ per cent higher. Where negative$/$lack of collaboration was seen, this was $12$ per cent lower.

Customer experience: Where positive collaboration was seen, customer service was only $5$ per cent higher, but where negative$/$lack of collaboration was seen, the perception of service was $19$ per cent lower.

Future alignment: Where positive collaboration was seen, the workforce felt more aligned to the future by some $18$ per cent. Where negative$/$lack of collaboration was seen, this was $18$ per cent lower.

The essence of the feedback was that positive collaboration meant that the employee experience at work was even more positive than where silos and a more insular approach were evident. This gave the executive team the focus to drive collaboration as a key theme for post$-$survey activity and this was supported by forums, breakfast meetings, a suite of learning focused on behavioural change in collaboration and scorecard measures designed to drive change.

Outcomes

Key outcomes as a result of this data and the subsequent activity were as follows:

Collaboration in year $1$ increased by $9$ per cent to $66$ per cent.

In year $2$ this had further increased by $6$ per cent to $72$ per cent.

In year $3$ this had increased by $4$ per cent to $76$ per cent.

In year $4$ there was another increase of $3$ per cent to $79$ per cent.

By reviewing the data on the survey and aligning it with the learning data that was separately available, $78$ per cent of the highest$-$scoring business units had undertaken micro$-$learning activities $($reading short blogs on collaboration, watching short videos about improving collaboration, downloading simple tools to support collaborative behaviour, etc$).$ This has led to a change in focus regarding learning, with a more personalized micro$-$learning approach now being adopted in several other behavioural development areas.

SOURCE hrcurator.com

So$,$ whilst the clamour for new data, both breadth and depth, is important, don$$t forget the data you currently have been looking at$.$ See if there is another way of looking at the data differently, either by asking a different question or seeking a different analysis o