You can't wait for the employee survey each year to see if
you're making improvements in your change communication - you
need to measure now. Tudor Williams, ABC, outlines the critical
factors in ensuring your polls are accurate, usable and result
in valid sets of data.
Managing Change as It Happens -
How Regular Polling Can Support Communication
of Change
By Tudor Williams, ABC and Ryan Williams
Every organization needs its pulse taken regularly and employee polling is
one quick and cost-effective way of doing it. I like to think it is as the
business of "organizational healthcare" - using diagnostics to
bring about a state of organizational wellness.
Polling is one of a variety of diagnostic tools that include full audits and
annual checkup surveys. Audits and checkups are planning and evaluation tools.
Polls are implementation tools. They tell you what is changing and by how much.
Polls are the pulse takers that give snapshots of perceptions. They describe
how people are coping with change, what they are thinking, how they are feeling
and the extent to which they are supportive of organizational goals.
Avoiding common pitfalls
Bad polling reinforces the adage "junk in, junk out" - if your methodology
is faulty, your data will be useless. One currently popular example is the
web site "poll" tool. These are "toy polls" intended for
entertainment and curiosity, not scientific research. You have no control over
the sample and no way to track them.
A good poll, however, is short, sharply focused on a few key issues you really
need to track and is conducted with a random, representative sample of the
people involved in the issues. Online technology provides inexpensive, quick
tools to collect the data in ways that are reliable, secure and respect the
privacy of your audience.
Case Study 1: Caring for members opinions
The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) has about 7000 members comprising physicians,
medical residents and students who depend upon the Association to represent
them on health care, medical, political and economic issues of the day.
In recent years, the Association has had to deal with major changes in Canada's
government-run healthcare system. The public's expectations are changing of
the system, and of the role of physicians.
The AMA recently introduced pulse-taking polls to track member opinions of
these issues. The 2002 benchmark satisfaction survey identified issues considered
critical to the AMA's strategic priorities for the coming year. They included
regionalization of healthcare, the role of physicians, the doctor-patient relationship
and compensation. A bi-monthly online poll to 1000 members is now exploring
these issues throughout 2003.
One of the key issues, for example, is that of primary healthcare renewal -
providing healthcare through teams of healthcare professionals rather than
the traditional physician office. Communication strategies are in place to
build member understanding and support for the Association's plans for renewal.
Ronald Kustra, ABC, the AMA's assistant executive director says, "The
poll is now tracking the impacts of these strategies on physicians' awareness
of the changes, how they feel about them in terms of the standard of care and
their role, and their views on the AMA's proposals."
So what makes the AMA's approach sound research? Good polls play off baseline
data, anchor points with which comparisons can be made. They use small but
valid representative samples of the target audience. They are focused on a
few key issues.
Each poll gives you a baseline for the next - it's the second, third and subsequent
polls that provide the real value, enabling comparisons and analysis of cause
and effect.
Case Study 2: The vagaries of employee support
This is a good news, bad news story. The good news - the polls showed things
going wrong. The bad news - management ignored the message. Three years ago,
an international energy company proposed a merger with a smaller partner that
would impact about one third of the work force and lead to major changes. It
was, by no means, a "fait accompli.". To move ahead, the future partners
had to secure the support of key stakeholders. Employee support for the proposal,
in particular, was considered critical.
A series of online employee polls, in three languages, measured the pulse of
the organization immediately after the initial announcements, and then bi-weekly
for six months as the merger plans proceeded to final decision.
Understanding the job impacts of the merger began low but steadily increased
with more communication (see Figure 1).
In month four, leadership communication disappeared, the grapevine went rampant
- and the poll reflected it with a sudden dip into uncertainty. This was recovered
by reassurances from the senior management team in month five and six.
A round of meetings to announce the merger brought initial excitement (see
Figure 2).
But enthusiasm declined with inconsistent face-to-face communication from senior
management. These champions for change rarely made an appearance - three times
in all. Each time excitement soared upwards again but only temporarily.
Questions to measure effectiveness of information sources showed supervisors
and managers started out well respected, but, as they were starved of information,
their effectiveness declined
(see Figure 3).
The biggest downturn was in the employees sessions held by the leadership team.
After early success these declined in frequency and effectiveness. E-mail remained
the number one source of information
Despite these figures being reported every two weeks, the leadership team only
appeared twice at employee meetings after the initial announcements. Employee
confidence in the merger quickly declined and skepticism crept in. This was
a contributing factor to the loss of confidence in and cancellation of the
plan.
Polling for change
The lesson that polling can be a dynamic tool in tracking change is clear.
In an era when crisis, reputation and issues management dominate our priorities,
we need measures to tell us, objectively, what our organization's state of
health is really like on a regular basis. These issues develop fast - altering
at the whim of any number of developments.
Regularly tracking the few issues that are critical to change, with targeted
questions and representative samples, gives you the leverage to demand, in
these cases, more time to communicate and more open communication.
Tudor Williams and Ryan Williams are principals of twisurveys Inc. a research
firm specializing in communication and satisfaction measurement.
Discuss this topic with other IABC members at: www.iabc.com/memberspeak.
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