Do You Hear What I Hear?

Want to know what employees think about the combination of long hours and teeny tiny merit increases? Give them a questionnaire. Want to know why they feel that way and what you can do about it? Invite them to a focus group.

Focus groups have been a mainstay of employee communications and organizational research for a long time. I remember working with my coworkers on a skit about "the last remaining adult in America who hadn't been part of a focus group" at least fifteen years ago. (You know how weird those internal meetings can get!)

The reason I bring it up is that I bet focus groups are on lots of 2011 wish lists. I know they are going to be on mine. So it occurred to me that it might be a good time to for a few reminders. Here goes.

• Don't do anything until you decide how you are going to use what you hear.

Starting an initiative? Test whether employees are as eager for it as you claimed. Have ideas that need a reality check? Ask employees for input. Got an employee survey result you just can't make sense of? Talk it over with employees. Have a customer service problem that you need to diagnose? Listen to what's really going on. 

Four different examples. Four very different approaches. Four different outcomes.

•  Do you want to be able to say, "Most of our employees feel strongly about ____"?

Those are predictive statements that will only be valid if your employee sampling and discussion methodology are built on research protocols. You may have someone on staff who can help with social research or you can hire someone.

If you can't afford the money or time realize the limitations of your findings. You will learn a lot from those twelve people around the table, but be circumspect about how much their opinions represent all employees.

• Don't ask employees for opinions on things that you can't or won't do anything about. You might as well spray paint "Trust" with a gigantic X over it in your lobby.

In my experience with hundreds and hundreds of focus groups, employees are typically candid in their comments and earnest about their intention to help. If you don't act after you've asked, it's natural that they will feel that you've two-timed them -- and they'll have a point.

• Ask employees if there is anything that should have been covered that wasn't.

It's possible to have a discussion outline that totally overlooks the 500 lb. gorilla. The employee see it. They trip over it every morning. But you never noticed it. It happens. Regularly.

• How much truthiness can you take? Here's where I could use your views. I think that focus groups run by internal facilitators provide suspect data.

Participants are likely to hold something back, just to be careful. Facilitators, even if they are not directly involved with the employee participants, will have "filters" because they are part of the organization. At some level, the facilitators are judging or weighing what they hear against what is "acceptable' or "the way things can realistically happen here". I think you need a disinterested third part if you really, really want the straight skinny. 

Think I'm on the right track?

 Margaret O'Hanlon is founder and principal of re:Think Consulting.  She has decades of experience teaming up with clients to ensure great Human Resource ideas deliver valuable business results.  Margaret brings deep expertise in total rewards communication to the dialog at the Café; before founding re:Think Consulting, she was a Principal in Total Rewards Communications with Towers Perrin.  Margaret earned her M.S. and Ed.S. in Instructional Technology at Indiana University.  Creative writing is one of her outside passions, along with Masters Swimming.

Comments

[Drew Hawkins]

I think employee focus groups are huge. You can learn a ton from those focus groups on pure body language and knee-jerk reactions alone that you can't gauge on a survey alone. A great way to improve communication

[Margaret O'Hanlon]

I agree. I think they are immensely powerful for listening, learning, understanding -- and getting the bugs out of a "corporate" program that will be mediocre without employee insight.

And, you know, I just realized that I didn't remind everyone to thank focus group participants for giving of their ideas and their time.

Thanks, Drew!