During the last decade the ‘voice of the employees’ has become ever more important. Fewer management layers, semi-autonomous teams, agile organizations: management would be foolish not to listen to the collective wisdom of their workforce. Yet, troughout the years I have wondered why so many (or perhaps: all?) employee surveys lead to so little change. Ever heard on a birthday party about that fantastic employee survey? Hmmm, ….no.
Invariably, employee surveys are concluded by the dreaded sticky-notes sessions. Basically, you’re going to ask the employees AGAIN what they think. First, you survey employees about the situation in generic terms and then again to specify on a Post-It what they actually meant in the first place. The team manager gets the flipchart with the collected sticky notes ... never to heard again of.
In this magazine we feature an article about two different approaches to asking employees. One is about the usual approach of asking opinions and always getting a positive endscore. The other one is about asking for verifiable facts and understanding what works and what doesn’t. And we conclude with an article about the alternative to Post-It parties: the Focus Festival. I would love you to read these. Still think that these Post-It parties are cool and contributing to the company? Still think there is no alternative?
About PRAIORITIZE
PRAIORITIZE is the world’s first SaaS platform for Virtual Consultancy. We use artificial intelligence to help organizations digitally transform in a smart, efficient and science-based way. PRAIORITIZE is owned and operated by Transparency Lab, a Dutch employee-owned company. We started in 2008, understood patterns around 2016 and started with generative A.I. in 2020.