MEASURING ENGAGEMENT THROUGH CHANGE

Over the last year we’ve worked with companies going through major change. We’ve successfully convinced each of them of the value of regularly measuring how their people feel through the period of transition.  Using Inpulse they were able to pulse their employees bi-monthly, simply asking how they felt about the changes and why.  

We also did some smaller and more frequent pulse surveys among senior members of staff (managers) to see how they were feeling as they had a key role in leading others through change.   

It’s amazing how may clients initially say to us “we’re thinking of not measuring engagement levels during times of change.”  

That’s a terrible idea!  

This is the perfect time to get a baseline measurement—not only to understand how your employees feel and therefore how engaged your employees are, but to then create the best ways to manage and resolve the issues of dis-engagement highlighted by Inpulse so these do not spiral during the period of change. 

The irony is that, whether you survey or not, the issues of dis-engagement are still happening but at least by using Inpulse you can find out what they are and how to resolve them more quickly, saving huge amounts of time, energy and effort in the process. 

Let’s give you a real life example… 

With one client when their employees were asked how they felt, 70% responded with negative emotions, worried, fearful, upset, uninterested. When asked why, they said that they didn’t feel they had seen or heard from their senior leaders once the announcement had been made. In particular, they didn’t really understand the new vision for the organisation.  

Simple solution. Senior leaders were organised over the next month to do formal communications through Town Halls and the informal by dropping into team meetings and gathering teams briefly for 10mins at lunch time to explain the new business direction and model. 

The result? When Inpulse was run a month later 40% responded with negative emotions. The 60% who responded with positive emotions, feeling hopeful, excited, focused and happy referenced having a clearer picture of where the organisation was heading and what this might mean for them personally. Still work to do but it shows the tangible impact Inpulse had in resolving the issues much more quickly than waiting for the ‘jungle drums’ or ‘water cooler’ conversations which are often not correct. 

We also know the impact change has on Managers, by using Inpulse to measure how they are feeling a large FMCG client was able to track engagement levels and deal with the issues as they arose. These were mainly to do with a need for clarity of communication and they said they were helped by being able to use Inpulse to ask the questions they were afraid to ask directly. A comment from one Manager after 3 months of using Inpulse regularly made our day!  

“I was seriously impressed that leaders chose to use Inpulse through our recent changes. In doing so they showed that they understand that change really does impact how I feel and not just what I think. I also loved being able to explain why, as that often led to the leaders changing their approach to the way changes were communicated and this made us feel like we had some influence over the changes. It doesn’t sound much but it undoubtedly helped us through the changes.”