Organizational Climate Surveys

Situation:   A French multinational post acquiring an Indian company carried out organizational structure changes and introduced new policies and norms.  The impact of the changes on 2500+ employees spread across India dented the employee morale, despite top-down communication that had taken place.

The task:  The requirement was to enhance employee engagement through an atmosphere of co-creation and an enhanced sense of participation.  The remit included reinforcing the process-oriented approach of global practices for Indian employees who had thrived on informal work norms until then and paving the way for two-way communication.

Solution:  administered in a multilingual form (many employees would prefer a language other than English) with customized questions.  Besides calibrating the advocacy, commitment and loyalty of different teams, the divisional/ managerial scorecards provided actionable feedback.  The customized questions on organizational processes not only reinforced the message of global company but also help identify the weak links.  The psychological safety provided by Potentia’s process ensured employees offered candid views to open-text responses.  Our unique capability of analysing and making sense the response to open-ended questions (दिल की आवाज़, straight from the heart voice) helped the organization crowdsource the solutions.

Results:   After 5 surveys spread over 4 years, wherein each survey was followed by communication and action plans, the indicators of company unlocking their potential are evident through a) the work-commitment & productivity primarily seen through increased discretionary effort and b) the goodwill established for parent company.  The fact that the survey yields actionable insights and those actions are actually initiated, has increased participation levels in every subsequent survey.  The Indian unit’s employee engagement index is on a new high.

Background

A unit of one of the largest conglomerates, supporting innovation and business excellence in multiple business units, had an overarching imperative for self-renewal, even as they were making other entities future ready

The Brief

In seeking to catalyze the multiple units to move from being ‘good’ to becoming ‘great’, the desire was to have a similar approach applied to itself.  Towards that, they identified the need to foster excellence in their people practices, internal processes & systems, and customer orientation.

Intervention

A customized approach for this niche team of experts leveraged the pride drivers of our P-Pulse  framework.  The leadership desires included (i) fully honor employee perceptions and (ii) foster excellence in dispensation as well as internal practices. Following key stages  helped achieve the objective:

I) A thorough diagnostic leading to clarifying context, key business processes, and understanding of policies/cultural nuances. Focus group discussions and one-on-one interactions with key sponsor/leadership influencers helped develop the chosen framework and resulted in the buy-in of all stakeholders

II) Designing of questionnaire supporting the modified P-Pulse framework. Careful attention ensured every question reflected the ‘here and now’ experience for respondents and yielded actionable feedback.

III) Deployed our technology platform to collect the voice of every employee. The psychological safety generated through communications ensured candid participation, including rich qualitative comments.

iv) The analysis and the sense-making process used by team Potentia, yielded actionable feedback and organizational insights towards desired future.

(v) Dissemination of insights and an action planning workshop facilitated by our Principal consultant Kavita has become an annual fixture on the calendar of this unit.

 Outcome

Over the 8-year journey, through 6 surveys, the client has fulfilled their Vision and continued to adapt to changing context and increased demands within this conglomerate. Organization’s capacity to manage change and address the key strategic leadership & cultural issues more proactively has led to i) development of people ii) enhanced contribution in certain areas iii) deeper customer engagement iv) optimized their internal systems v) fulfillment of employee career aspirations and enhanced pride & joy