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Is your brand equipped to strategically protect and enhance your online reputation? Consumers increasingly trust online reviews in their purchasing process. Whether you purchase a new car or are in the market for a new physician, chances are you’ve sought out reviews to reinforce the decisions in your purchasing process. According to the National Research Corporation’s Market Insights Study, the digital experience informs purchasing decisions across all demographics, not just those of millennials. Brand authority is no longer in the hands of traditional sources of the past. In most cases, your potential customers rely on industry consumers and stakeholders to depict your brand, products and services. When these stakeholders take the form of a disgruntled ex-employee or a dissatisfied customer, how can brands take action to actively monitor and influence online perception? What Is Social Intelligence? One way is the adaptation of an online reputation management strategy, informed by social intelligence. Forrester defines social intelligence as the process of turning social media data into actionable marketing and business strategy. This strategy can include efforts to protect and improve your brand image, impact consumer sentiment and bolster your other marketing efforts. The ultimate goal is, of course, to use all of this information to strategically impact your company’s ability to succeed. How Do Brands Monitor Social Intelligence? Many brands capture the early phases of monitoring their online reputation but do not have the measures in place to fully integrate the pieces necessary for a robust social intelligence plan. Here’s how brands usually fall in the spectrum: Reactive: At this stage, brands have alerts to mentions on popular such as Google Alerts. This allows them to periodically check their social media platforms. Social Monitoring: Companies in this stage typically use a platform that allows them to monitor all owned social media channels, including mentions and comments. Social Listening: This is the point where companies start to identify and attribute value to not only what is being said about their brand and industry as a whole, but also who is doing the talking. Some examples of social listening include listening to conversations about competitors, tracking their share of voice in their industry and also tracking relevant themes and current issues. Strategic Listening: Brands who engage in strategic listening have intent-based queries and goals that they are hoping to answer an achieve through listening to specific channels, conversations and topics. Give Employees a Space to Speak Out Providing a non-biased, third-party forum for employees to voice their thoughts allows for you to collect valuable data about your organization’s most valuable asset – your employees. Conducting stay interviews allows you to have two powerful tools: Where does your brand fall in the spectrum? Are you taking measures to strategically manage your online reputation? Be proactive. HSD can help you start building your brand’s social intelligence internally by giving employees a space to air their frustrations that isn’t your Google reviews page. With HSD Metrics® Employee Engagement Surveys, you can increase retention and retain your most valuable resource, your employees. Contact us online today or call 877-439-9315 to learn more.
Each year, employee health—both mental and physical—is a top topic of conversation in the HR space. Employers and employees are starting initiatives to address the health concerns that affect workplace productivity and efficiency, and now, they’re considering the educational goals of their employees as well. Mental Health Concerns According to a study conducted by Willis Towers Watson (NASDAQ: WLTW), stress is the greatest mental health concern faced by American employees. Employee stress comes from a variety of sources in the workplace, but the No. 1 cause of employee stress is understaffing. This stress ultimately leads to lower employee productivity levels, decreased quality of work and a sense of anxiety. Often, employees carry this stress throughout the workday and into evening hours. Most American employees say that it is challenging to not reminisce on career stress even when they are at home, making it difficult to relax. Physical Health Concerns Employees can experience a range of physical health concerns associated with stress that include headaches, low energy, insomnia, tense muscles and increased heart rate. Additionally, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and eye strain often plague employees who sit long hours at a desk working on computers. Employers who encourage their employees to come to them when they feel stressed or strained not only develop a better working relationship, they can also help their employees find the root of their stress and make actionable steps toward feeling their best. The American Psychological Association has several tactics for coping with stress that employers can share with their staff. Stress and Employee Workload The strain of an unbalanced workload can upend even the best employee’s day-to-day. Whether it’s the inability to take a break during the day or feeling unsupported by managers and colleagues, the disconnect between employee expectations and actual workload can cause irreparable rifts in employee satisfaction. Solid employee retention comes from improving and balancing your employees’ workloads. Across the many industries we service with ExitRight surveys, we’ve found some telling results about how former employees–regardless of industry–talk about their workload-related qualms. When workload is a contributing factor to employees leaving their role, one common theme is that employees don’t feel heard. Employees are their own advocates in the workplace. But when the help they need goes unanswered for and acknowledgment of their hard work isn’t given, the residual stress is enough to drive them away from your business and into a new role elsewhere. Below are examples from exit interviews in which workload was a primary reason for leaving. “I had consistently asked for backup and cross-training and suggested a bunch of process improvements in order to alleviate some of the stress that I personally and my team as a whole faced and there was just never enough people because we were never fully staffed. There are certain times of the year that it is super stressful for the team, and although we can be prepared, there are better things that could be done from a systemic standpoint that are never taken into account.” “Yes, the workload was unreasonable at first. My manager divided the workload without running stats on the individual workloads. I had to prove to her that my workload was more than my co-workers. She finally realized that, after having someone run stats on our workloads and the workloads became more reasonable. She did not like me pointing this out, but finally realized it.” “Due to the reduction of resources over the past few years, everyone was asked to do more with less. When the facility offered a retirement package to reduce overhead, they let almost 1000 years of experience walk out the door within a few months of the package offering. That left a gaping hole for everyone who tried to do a good job to fill.” What Do Your Employees Wish They Could Tell You? The best way to learn the stressors of your employees is to ask them: What is the source of your stress? Is it situational? Is there an issue at work or at home? Do you feel paralyzed looking at your todo list? Face-to-face feedback between an employee and the manager is ideal. But if you are a professional who improves work climate for an entire system, unit, or organization, you can begin with fact-based data. Use surveys with targeted purposes such as new hire feedback or stay surveys. Exit interviews also provide a wealth of information on the subject of workload. Well-designed questionnaires and interviews with external norms provide a steady flow of information and solutions. If you worry that your employees feel undue stress due to increased workload and are losing satisfaction in their jobs, it can be difficult to arrive at meaningful solutions. By listening to your employees and through survey-guided development tools, you can keep your finger on the pulse, leaving nothing to assumption. Whether you want to focus on one department or conduct interviews organization-wide, HSD Metrics® has a full platform of engagement, exit and stay surveys targeted toward improved business performance and productivity. Contact us online today or call 877-439-9315 to learn more.
As an HR professional, it can be difficult to help an employee who has endless excuses or a closed-off persona. SHRM asked HR professionals across the country to share their methods of reaching tough employees, and we found these tips and answers especially helpful. Identify the Root of the Issues Start by letting go of all assumptions that you typically have about an employee. You can’t know if employees are careless, love their job, hate their job, or are just not cut out for the role until you speak with them. You may be surprised by what you learn about a person when you ask open-ended questions. Uncovering the root of the issue helps you create an actionable solution for your employee and your business. Employee Creates the Plan for Improvement with the Manager’s Guidance After you have successfully discovered the underlying problem, have the employee create a specific and actionable plan they will utilize to achieve success with the performance issues they are having. The employee must own the problem. It is the manager’s role to influence and adjust the plan created by the employee. Once a plan has been created, establish regular check-ins and assistance to help keep your employee on the right track. For example, realigning work to be a better fit for the employee, establishing procedures or processes to address the issue(s), or targeted training may help the employee realize their potential. Set Your Focus on Improvement Lastly, it is important to set boundaries and establish consequences if bad behavior continues or is repeated. According to Forbes, a good manager recognizes that encouragement should precede consequences. Not only does encouragement reinforce positive actions, but it can also inspire people and instill confidence. But if the behavior doesn’t change, consequences are vital. For instance, a consequence of poor performance or behavior could range anywhere from a weekly check-in meeting to a discussion regarding eventual termination if the problem cannot be resolved. The HSD Touch You can also keep your hand on the pulse of employee sentiment by conducting stay interviews. Stay interviews help employers gather direct and honest information from current employees. By using stay interviews, employers can identify problem areas and red flags before turnover occurs. At HSD Metrics, our Stay Interviews may be completed online with the data populating instantly to 24/7 secure web portals, where findings are easily retrieved and analyzed. Not only do you receive findings by targeted groups or departments, but you may also utilize other robust features of analysis including charts, data filtering, commentary analysis, and information on which groups, locations, or business units have the greatest retention challenges. Stay Interviews may also be compared with ExitRight interview data to better pinpoint issues common to individuals who ultimately leave the organization. Have you had success with stay interviews in the past? Would you like to learn more about how stay interviews can help your business? Contact HSD Metrics at 877-439-9315 or through our online contact form.
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