We’re a relatively small organization with a leadership structure where ownership/executives have the vision, and the “managers” implement to accomplish organizational goals. Consistently the scores between those demographics are not in line with each other (there is a 20 point or more spread on 65% of the CultureAmp questions).
Any suggestions on highlighting this differential while creating opportunities for the two groups to discuss why everyone sees things so differently?
Really interesting question. A couple of things to call out.
You mention that you are are a ‘relatively small organization’ - how small? If you are talking about an executive team in the single digits and a management team in the low double digits, just a few people with different views than the majority can create the appearance of large gaps where group discussion action really isn’t necessary.
65% of questions is a large number of the survey items. That said, the topics where you have the biggest gaps matters. For example, if you see the biggest gaps on top drivers of employee engagement, that would be more concerning than if they were on low impact questions.
Are executives scores higher than managers? In my experience, it is relatively common to see gaps between these groups where executives are more favorable. If that is the case, then you may decide it needs less focus than if you were to find that executives scores were much lower than manager.
As far as suggestions on how to approach this. What is your goal with the discussion?
I would definitely be cautious of flagging differences that may only look large because of the small group sizes and instead focus their conversation at this level on how they will use insights from all the employee feedback to drive organization success. If one of the areas selected for action is also an area where there is a significant difference in experience between executives and managers, by all means, have them talk about it - but in a more focused way.
Very curious to hear how others might have handled similar situations at their organizations.
thanks Sloan!!! really helped with some perspective, and reassuring that our thought process was similar with regards to only a few people “skewing” data.
We’re about 50 employees, 5 executives, a dozen in management level. Overall, executives (but only 8 replied to the survey). Overall, executives score at a 96% and management at a 68%. Executives have 38 out of 54 rated as 100 while management see’s/reports things much differently. Executives are concerned that this is the “problem group” - but yes, issue is this is only 8 people.
Some of the biggest splits (75 pt difference) come where management feels left out of conversations that impact them and their clients.
More focus on a particular driver might really help us avoid an all out finger pointing session and will work on narrowing things down, keeping in mind it very well could just be a couple people. I will also be reminding them all of the 6 blind men and the elephant, and that results are based on each INDIVIDUALS perception and that we cant take it for the whole truth.