An Education Company Learns What They Don’t Know
BACKGROUND
One of Magoosh’s core values is that data is better than intuition. But they were doing nothing to measure employee sentiment or culture. It was time for that to change.
We didn’t have any apparent issues, though it’s hard to know when you’re not using TINYpulse! But I decided to sign up because we had recently placed a renewed focus on company culture and values, and I wanted to measure the impact of those changes. One of our core values is Data > Intuition – I needed Data!
"TINYpulse is the simplest way to keep your employees happy."
Bhavin Parikh, CEO & FounderTHE PROCESS
In just 30 minutes, the Magoosh team got up and running on TINYpulse, sending out weekly surveys that get reviewed regularly. The company leverages Cheers for Peers to amplify positive energy and Private Messaging to probe on delicate issues.
[Getting TINYpulse up and running] was faaast. I think it took me fewer than 30 minutes to figure out what I needed to do and invite my employees. I wrote an email to the team... and framed it as an experiment...we’d try it out and then decide if it was worth continuing.
We send out the survey weekly, and we also see a lot of Cheers for Peers activity, which is great. Positive reinforcement is a very powerful tool. Our Operations Manager and I review the feedback weekly. [As our team has grown] it still only takes a few minutes to review.
For sensitive employee issues... I respond with a private message. I encourage the employees to engage with me either via private message [if they want to stay anonymous] or in-person if they are comfortable doing so.
"Feedback from TINYpule helped me realize that I needed to manage communication better overall."
Bhavin Parikh, CEO & FounderTHE RESULTS
TINYpulse feedback led Bhavin to realize sensitive information was being poorly communicated. When it came time to evolve the company’s vacation policy, the leaders took this feedback to heart and devised a communication plan that would educate employees and give them a seamless process to get on board.
We once received constructive feedback from an employee who overheard us talking about salary information for a new position out in the open, which understandably was awkward and frustrating for that employee. It took courage for the employee to speak up, and without TINYpulse, I’m not sure we would have received that feedback.
That feedback also helped me realize that I needed to manage communication better overall. Even though one of our values is Accessible > Exclusive, I realized that some conversations should take place behind closed doors first, and then be communicated to the team.
For instance, we recently evolved some of our [vacation practices]. If poorly communicated, this could look like a negative change from an employee’s point of view. Before [making] the announcement at our monthly team meeting, I met with all the managers to walk them through [the changes] and let them ask questions, equipping them with the ability to answer their teams’ questions. We then announced the change at the monthly meeting and encouraged employees to hold onto their questions until their weekly 1-on-1 with their manager.
In the end, we had a communication process that both updated employees and gave them a chance to ask questions and support the change. As a result, it was a fairly issue-free evolution.
