Employee Research
Effective employee research helps companies to make robust decisions: it provides a qualitative and quantitative fact base from which to develop the people strategy.
To effectively track the success of a change initiative, it is critical to:
- Understand the current cultural 'climate' within an organisation - where it is now and where this is out of alignment with the desired culture needed to achieve strategic objectives.
- Understand the level of morale and staff commitment and any sub-cultures
- Identify key employee communication issues and priorities to support change or business goals (ie as a business/project planning tool)
- Test employee interest in various business or HR initiatives (eg options for new or improved benefits)
- Measure costs and benefits of proposed business or HR initiatives.
Watson Wyatt has helped a large number of clients worldwide to develop a better understanding of and to focus management attention on employee concerns through employee research. Projects have ranged from small-scale studies looking at a very specific issue to large-scale multi-country and multi-language projects (over 100,000 employees). These studies are typically repeated annually or biannually so that progress against the initial benchmarks can be tracked.
We use the full range of research methodologies from in-depth interviews, through focus groups and questionnaires. We are recognised as leaders in the application of Internet technology to collect survey data online. We also use Internet technology and software tools to provide customised electronic reports to individual line managers.
Integration of the survey process with communication consulting means that we achieve a high degree of employee buy-in, thus gaining high participation rates. This is reinforced by effective communication of the survey results, and training managers in working with the data. Our goal is to help clients maximise their return on their investment in the survey, all the way through from methodology selection and research design, to meaningful analysis and actioning the results.
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