Case Study: Leveraging Engagement Surveys During Organizational Change

Consider major organizational changes and the havoc they wreak on employees. Major change naturally results in uncertainty and fear, and eventually in folks starting to look for new jobs. If you think your job is on the chopping block, you’d start brushing up your resume too.

If your organization is undergoing a massive change, you need to anticipate this fear. Fear stifles productivity and innovation, and it’s terrible for retention. But if your finger is on the pulse of employee sentiment, you can turn this situation around. 

This is the exact scenario Jesse Proudman, Founder & CTO of cloud-computing company Blue Box, faced. When Blue Box leaders decided it was time for a business pivot, employees became alarmed. Thankfully, as Jesse explains, his team was using TINYpulse, and employee engagement survey. They received feedback about these very fears, empowering management to embrace open communication and  save critical members of their team.

If your company is on the brink of any of these situations, or about to embark on them, make sure you have your finger on the pulse of employee sentiment:

• Merger/Acquisition: These situations can lead to the dreaded “redundancy” in roles. Employees will wonder if they’re one of the lucky ones to stick around. Listen in on their thoughts and nip those concerns in the bud.
• Company Pivot: Change is hard, and sometimes leaders don’t communicate it well. If your company is changing direction, ask employees if they understand this new direction, and how it will impact them.
• Company Sell-Off/Divestiture: Do employees know if they’re part of the team that will stay or leave? Leverage surveys to understand where their head is at.
• Major Leadership Change: New leadership can mean new strategies. And new strategies can mean layoffs. Regardless, you’ll want to keep your best employees in-house. Field surveys to understand pain points during this transition that you can smooth out.

 No matter the situation, the end goal is the same: keep your best employees. If proactively gauge their sentiment via an anonymous survey tool, they’ll tell you their fears. It’s then up to you to act on that feedback before these give you that dreaded two weeks notice.  

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