Growing and developing in a dynamic world
Last week, I had inspiring conversations with a member of the management team of a housing corporation, a councilor, and HR director Ellen Boonen from s Heeren Loo. Conversations about employee and customer satisfaction. It was refreshing to see how these parties fulfill an important societal role. However, as we delved deeper into their approach to customer and employee satisfaction, it became apparent that there were many opportunities for innovation. Does the “measure = know” approach as we currently do it still fit in the current world?
A rapidly changing world
Our world is undergoing a turbulent transformation, driven by technological advancements such as AI and ChatGPT. This progress is happening so quickly that it is crucial to be forward-looking when collecting feedback. Traditional methods of customer and employee satisfaction surveys are often based on historical data and benchmarks from the past. Benchmarking is good, however: how relevant is that benchmark when the world has changed so much? Is it still valuable?
What does benchmarking achieve?
Benchmarking provides valuable insights into performance by comparing it against established standards or competitors. It helps identify areas for improvement, set targets, and monitor progress. However, there are limitations to the standard approach. Employees often receive the same lengthy questionnaires annually, making it easy to benchmark the results. A small increase in overall satisfaction, for example, from 7.4 to 7.6, may seem like a success. But how relevant is that benchmark from the past? The world has changed significantly since COVID-19, with 20% open vacancies in healthcare, absenteeism rates ranging from 5.6% to 14%, abundant job opportunities, increased digitalization, and more. Benchmarking to determine if “the basics are in order” is useful, but it may leave a significant untapped potential.
Benchmarking also carries a danger. Understandably, directors and management teams prefer insight and overview through dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs). However, such an overview often reinforces the status quo. For example, in customer service, common KPIs include accessibility, call duration, and responsiveness. But a standard approach does not foster innovation and growth within teams and organizations. Repeatedly focusing on the same KPIs and themes results in decreased interest and engagement among employees. Just as eating a peanut butter sandwich every day becomes less enjoyable after a few months. Why?
Last year we scored a 7.3, and now it’s a 7.2… The national average is 7.3. Well, considering everything that has happened, we’re doing quite well.
So what did the measurement achieve? Confirmation? Increased employee engagement?
One in a dozen
Another significant danger of benchmarking with competitors is that organizations start to resemble each other more. It’s understandable since everyone focuses on the same things. I sometimes call it the “one-in-a-dozen danger.” Employee and customer survey results push employees and the organization towards the KPIs. Processes, procedures, and KPIs are essential, but they can also limit development.
New Style
Towards future-oriented measurement and development
Providing direction and space offers real development opportunities for employees and teams. The HR director I spoke to expressed it with the following metaphor: if you put ten hamsters in a box with one exit, they will eventually find it. If you release ten hamsters in the woods, they will go in all directions. What if you make a combination? What if you set up different boxes, each with one or more exits, in a sequence?
Exactly! In this dynamic time, it is important not to offer the same box (read: the same traditional employee survey as one, two, or three years ago) every time, but to offer a different box each time. Boxes with an exit (read: focus area) or a journey (read: development) to another box, phase, or place. I call it “agile measurement and improvement.”
If you know where you want to be in one to two years and you assess where you are now, what challenges you are facing, what passions, enthusiasm, values, and norms are present or lacking, then what are the key focus areas for the coming years? Why not direct your employee satisfaction survey towards current and future developments instead of benchmarking with the past? By letting go of (part of) benchmarking and focusing more on the established focus areas, we shift from reactive and comparative measurement to future-oriented measurement of growth and development.
Stronger and more authentic
This “agile measurement and improvement” offers additional benefits. “Agile measurement” provides opportunities to strengthen the organization’s distinctive capacity. A strong distinctive capacity not only stands out better when recruiting new employees and customers but also attracts better-fitting employees and customers. This, in turn, leads to lower turnover, and so on.
Imagine that an organization has a core value of “Everything for a smile.” The internal bilateral conversations and customer satisfaction surveys focus on basic KPIs such as accessibility and quick conversation time. How does the visitor experience the organization then? How many initiatives spontaneously arise from employees for more “smile moments”?
What if we regularly ask employees what they have done to create an extra smile and ask them to share it? So that all these results are visible through the intranet (read: increasing awareness)? Beautiful gems of ideas always come out of this, creating opportunities. Opportunities for the organization to differentiate itself and build a stronger reputation.
Measuring Softer Goals
The same applies to the purpose and legitimacy of organizations. Social organizations, in addition to their basic tasks, also have softer goals, such as strengthening the “sense of community” among customers. These goals are more difficult to capture in KPIs, which is why they are rarely reflected in employee or customer satisfaction surveys. ‘s Heeren Loo has transformed its employee satisfaction survey into the “Mooi Werk Meter” (Beautiful Work Meter). This is because “purpose” is clearly one of the key pillars for why employees choose to work in healthcare, alongside “mastery” and “autonomy”. The organization aims to better engage and retain employees.
By integrating (core) values and purpose into future-oriented agile measurements, you stimulate reflection. You challenge them on a theme, increase their engagement, and stimulate spontaneous ideas and initiatives that strengthen the organization’s core values and unique qualities. This approach has an even greater impact when team-level research results are discussed using the ‘We Care & We Share’ methodology.
By incorporating core values, purpose, vision, and mission into your measurements, you anchor them in the organization’s development and increase employee engagement.
Would you like to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of current measurement practices and agile measurement together? Let me know, and we can have a good cup of coffee together.
With passionate regards,
Inge Proost
Directeur Rate.nl
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