Understanding employee satisfaction key to one organisation's cultural renaissance

In a picture-perfect world, corporations share knowledge of best practices across the organisation, ensuring all divisions operate at maximum potential.

But when the organisation is the market leading imaging company with more than 20,000 employees worldwide, maintaining an effective cross-flow of information can be an overwhelming challenge.

That was the situation faced by this organisation. Separate divisions tended to work completely independent of one-another, a problem highlighted by the executive team.

“We had a situation where we knew there were communication problems,” said the executive team leader.“But we had no way to evaluate what the problems were or how to figure out what was and wasn't working.”

Understanding current organisational culture

Working with the senior management, Getfeedback developed a survey designed to truly get a feel for the organisation's culture - which included regional differences in employee behaviours, as well as perceptions versus realities.

“We needed to be able to compare corporate values with actual employee behaviour, to see if people were really walking the walk - and if they weren't, find out why not,” said Alison Gill, managing director of Getfeedback. “Getting honest feedback was crucial to the project's success.”

Some employees were initially skeptical and concerned about confidentiality. But Getfeedback allayed those fears by ensuring employees understood the full nature of the process and by providing three different and equally secure ways to submit the survey. Employees responded favourably, with 83% submitting a completed questionnaire.

Results-based process

The organisation now had a snapshot of corporate culture that could be used to initiate best practices across the board. Perhaps most important, Getfeedback's in-depth analysis was able to establish the key drivers of employee satisfaction. This was critical for the organisation to be able to measure its own internal performance and track success over time.

“Understanding what pleased and what frustrated our employees has been invaluable in enabling us to improve efficiencies and move forward,”, said the CEO. “With this insight, we can effectively plan ways to consistently improve our performance.”

The executive team now has a deep understanding of the organisation's current corporate culture and what motivates employees to give their best. This knowledge of barriers to employee engagement, as well as ways to improve work satisfaction, has offered the capacity to develop a culture of success that will give the corporation a real edge in Europe's fast-changing business environment.