Employee Listening For Leaders
Leaders seldom hear the full truth of things; we help solve this problem by running deep listening studies inside the workplace.
Employee Listening
Executives confront a paradox: They have access to more listening channels than anyone else, but the information that flows to them is often tainted.
As a result, leaders are frequently blindsided by problems they never see coming or end up making decisions without all of the facts. It doesn’t need to be this way.
At Newlens Research, our unique approach to employee listening can help senior executives break out of their information bubbles, engage their people, and access the unvarnished truth.
Our secret sauce? By guaranteeing employees’ anonymity, we provide them with the psychological safety that frees them to speak openly about the issues at the top of the leadership team’s agenda.
Our focused listening studies tap into a workforce’s collective wisdom to identify early signs of danger, unearth opportunities, and capture insights that deliver game-changing solutions.
Clients use our research findings to build trust, achieve clarity, start conversations, build consensus, make decisions, and move forward.
Pain Points
Many C-suite executives believe their organisation already has employee listening fully covered. If anything, they are worried about over-surveying their people.
While we agree about the risk of survey fatigue, there is a yawning gap in the typical workplace listening strategy, with little or no investment in leader-focused employee listening.
We have identified five pain points where a survey-based or face-to-face approach to employee listening may fail to work for senior executives.
1. Binary answers can be simplistic. Sometimes, a five-point agree/disagree survey response or a two-line open-text answer is inadequate. A qualitative approach allows for a more in-depth examination of a complex issue.
2. Surveys don’t look forward. A leader’s ability to sense danger can decline as they move up the hierarchy. Unfortunately, most listening channels have no mechanism for warning senior executives about problems on the horizon.
3. Too many voices; not enough time. Even a leader with the very best intentions can struggle to find space in their calendar for those all-important face-to-face meetings with employees on the frontline, and a survey will not fill the void.
4. WFH has changed everything. Leaders used to be able to walk the corridors and informally pick up on hidden problems and opportunities inside their firms. It is a far less effective tactic in a half-empty office.
5. Markets and events are moving faster. It makes sense that HR owns an organisation’s listening strategy and schedule. Nevertheless, leaders need the flexibility to deploy agile listening tools whenever and wherever they see the need.
Our distinctive approach to employee listening is a complement, not a replacement, for traditional practices such as surveys and face-to-face interactions. By helping leaders expand their listening ecosystem, we enable them to hear from more voices, on more topics, more often.
How We Can Help
For leaders keen to expand their listening ecosystem and amplify the voice of their employees, our listening consultancy service offers six key benefits.
1. We are independent. As outsiders, we can assist leaders in accessing their employees’ collective intelligence by providing a psychologically safe space for employees to express their views and opinions. Our independence enables us to deliver our findings objectively and without the fear of consequences.
2. We run focused studies. Most listening studies only gauge staff engagement or the employee experience. Our research programs explore issues at the top of the leadership team’s agenda — strategy, change, growth, etc. This laser-like focus generates far richer feedback.
3. We dig deep. Using qualitative research methods lets us tap into employees’ experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours. The careful construction of open-ended questions identifies root causes and potential solutions. The findings we deliver clearly illuminate the path forward.
4. We work online. By leveraging the world’s most advanced online market research tools and customising them for workplace use, we can now run qualitative studies globally. This flexibility enables us to conduct research at a significantly lower cost compared to in-person studies.
5. We work at speed and scale. Our easy-to-deploy research tools generate the fast feedback leaders need to navigate increasingly complex environments. Furthermore, the flexibility of our approach enables us to gain feedback from groups as small as six or as large as 5,000.
6. We create narratives. Our agile, unstructured approach uncovers powerful anecdotes that get to the heart of an issue. We connect these insights into a coherent narrative that explains what’s happening and why. Our results-focused approach ensures that we always present a compelling case for action.
Employees who participate in our research programs find them engaging and a refreshing change from completing yet another survey. At the same time, leaders enjoy gaining access to the knowledge and insights they need to shape their strategies and make better decisions.
In a 30-minute conversation, we can show you exactly how our unique approach to employee listening can help to pick up on early signs of danger, head off potential crises, and highlight emerging opportunities.
Through case studies, we will give you real-life examples of how we help senior executives establish trust, build engagement, drive change, and improve business performance.
To arrange an informal meeting, you can contact David Croston using the form below, phone him on +61 438 250 709, or connect with him on LinkedIn.