Nimble: Using Feedback to Stay True to Company Values

Once-a-Year Surveys Aren't Enough

BACKGROUND
Nimble wanted to be as quick-footed as their name implied. After using an annual employee survey tool that wasn’t up to snuff, they decided they needed an easy, lightweight employee feedback solution that matched their company ethos:

Our company is about 8 years old and our founders have a passion for preserving the culture they set out to create. When I started about 2 years ago we did have an annual engagement survey... but it had been run about 6 months prior without any followup...

The impetus for introducing TINYpulse was a desire to act as our brand, Nimble. We wanted to drive employee engagement by creating a culture of feedback and transparency. It was important for us in terms of retention initiatives as well as ongoing initiatives to improve feedback loops and communication across all departments. We wanted to prove to our people that we were agile with ears wide open.

“Best tool I have used for engaging with employees — offers such a rich source of live feedback that can be actioned in a very timely way.”

Kerrie Brown, Head of People & Culture

THE PROCESS
Even with over one hundred staff members, Nimble got TINYpulse up and running in no time, and uses the tool regularly to record and share employee feedback:

It was super easy, very intuitive [to get up and running]. We all cracked it within minutes, not hours. There are about 150 of us but it was easy to get our team set up. We had done the trial... with ease. We communicated the initiative over a couple weeks and got great response rates from day one.

We pulse weekly...I spend about 3 hours a week reviewing feedback, and up to 2 hours sharing information with the team. We share feedback in all sorts of ways—meetings, emails 1:1's. Whatever makes the most sense for the feedback we get.

"It was definitely a situation where anonymous feedback facilitated an open discussion about the good and bad of the existing system. Prior to this, I think people held back views in fear of upsetting colleagues."

Kerrie Brown, Head of People & Culture

THE RESULTS
Nimble’s contact center was staffed by full-time and part-time employees, each with different compensation structures. This was a known pain point, but feedback received from TINYpulse’s weekly survey showed that the frustration was greater than once thought. Armed with this knowledge, the company leveraged a collaborative process to overhaul the structure resulting in the broadly-accepted plan in place today

We received consistent feedback through TINYpulse about our compensation and reward structure in the contact center—there were strong feelings of inequity regarding how we paid commissions/bonuses to one team compared to another. They are both customer-facing functions of our business and we had some legacy issues around [how the] structure had evolved over time.

The TINYpulse feedback gave us the opportunity to open up discussion about compensation with the team in a much more meaningful way. We had verbatim feedback that people might have otherwise not shared because of the emotion involved in discussing a sensitive topic. It was definitely a situation where anonymous feedback facilitated an open discussion about the good and bad of the existing system. Prior to this I think people held back views in fear of upsetting colleagues.

The feedback and data that we gained from TINYpulse made making significant changes to our compensation structure a more informed process and resulted in more broadly-accepted change. The vast majority of our team is happy with the changes and is responding in a positive way.

"It was super easy, very intuitive [to get up and running]. We all cracked it within minutes, not hours. There are about 150 of us but it was easy to get our team set up. We had done the trial... with ease. We communicated the initiative over a couple of weeks and got great response rates from day one."

Kerrie Brown, Head of People & Culture