3-D vs 2-D: The Next Frontier of Employee Insights

For too long, measuring employee engagement has been done in 2-D. Annual, biannual or even quarterly surveys only ever give a snapshot of opinions at a certain time, which are inevitably colored hugely by recent events like restructures. 

With advances in technology, it’s now possible for organizations to have a constant pulse on their people’s feelings on a range of topics. This always-on approach to listening enables underlying patterns to be identified, meaningful insights to be drawn quicker, and more effectively targeted action to be taken. 

Widening the lens

No matter their frequency, data from employee engagement surveys can be useful in highlighting specific spikes or dips at a given moment in time. 

However, such surveys are often backward looking, or suffer from recency bias when being completed. As such, their view, relevance, and usefulness are limited, providing only a narrow, 2-D picture of the overall mood in your organization. 

And while 75% of organizations collect feedback every quarter, only 15% have created a loop of continuous listening and action.

Employee listening products change the game. Instead of waiting to ask your people how they feel once a year, you can now continuously check in with them to get real-time data at scale.

This is about:

• Fast feedback – Gauge instant reaction to specific changes such as redundancies or new leadership.
• Being proactive – Pick up on emerging trends before they become potentially bigger challenges.
• Identifying patterns – Hear which opinions are ongoing, rather than one-off occurrences. 

While most engagement surveys often ask the same questions every time, better tools will enable you to constantly change what you ask in response to your employees’ needs. 

This marks a shift from traditional “employee listening” to “people intelligence,” painting a 3-D picture of your engagement.

This is vital to developing and implementing a successful employee experience strategy. 

From surveys to systems

Traditional surveys often seek to discover employee engagement at a macro level. They typically ask broad questions about how people feel about the company, their manager, and whether they would recommend the organization as an employer.

These are all valid. But by the time results dashboards are produced and presented, and action plans agreed, the moment – alongside the issues surfaced – may have passed. 

The very real risk is a lot of time and money wasted on fixing the wrong problems. 

Better people intelligence eliminates this risk. It provides an endless stream of data – on demand – that your team can analyze with the uniquely human added layers of organizational context, culture, and nuance. 

Drawing insights from data on a continuous basis, rather than waiting until after the fact, will give your organization the ability to respond and course-correct with greater agility. 

Research has shown that organizations with a continuous approach to listening and action have 11 times higher scores on engagement and retention than those who do it episodically. 

Moreover, when you move from simply irregularly surveying your people to integrating their views on an ongoing basis, these rich insights will become an everyday part of your organizational workflows, thinking, and decision making. By doing so, feedback occurs where work happens, rather than being in a separate system.

Augmented intelligence 

Employee listening may be technology-enabled, but the organizational value to be derived from it is human-led. Giving your people the best tools to capture the raw data they need puts them in the best possible position to successfully create rich insights that are specific, meaningful, and actionable. 

Turning data into insights requires knowledge, experience, and emotional intelligence. In short, it requires humans. The right people intelligence tool provides augmented intelligence that puts your people in the driving seat to do what they do even better. 

Transparency is key

Having a perpetual pulse check on your organizational mood through employee listening and insights is vital in such times of constant and ever-accelerating change. 

But while showing your employees that their views matter (through evidence of change) can improve engagement, employees expect and deserve transparency around what data is being collected, how, and for what purpose. 

Being open and honest about the tools and technology you’re using are vital for building and maintaining psychological safety, belief, and trust. 

The future is 3-D

Investing in people intelligence will help you derive insights that can deliver tangible improvements across engagement, productivity, and performance. 

And getting a holistic, 3-D picture of your workforce will undoubtedly put your organization at a significant advantage, now and into the future.