Remote and hybrid work allow for a lot of flexibility around how exactly work can and should happen. At the same time, leaders may have less visibility into what is going on - which can present challenges when reviewing and updating policies.
So, how do you make sure that your policies have the desired impact?
In early stage startups, you can rely on the feedback you get through 1-1s with your team. As long as you can talk to everyone from time to time, you can get a good feel for what is working and what isn’t.
However, the “talk to everyone” approach does not scale. And while you get insights from team leads who continue to regularly talk to their own team members, you’ll need some overall metrics that allow you to spot trends across the org.
That’s where the eNPS can be helpful.
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our organization as a place to work to others?”
The eNPS is an easy way to understand overally satisfaction with the how of work in your company. It’s simple, and it gets you a snapshot of how people are feeling about their daily interactions with your company.
There’s one caveat though: knowing how many people are engaged (score 9 and 10), neutral (score 7 and 8), or unhappy (score 1-6) isn’t helpful if you don’t know anything about their circumstances.
Grouping employees into self-reported realities
Imagine you have 100 employees. 70 of those have given a score of 9 or 10. They are happy with the way you work. Another 21 have reported a neutral feeling, and 9 employees are so frustrated they chose a rating of 6 or lower.
Just looking at the aggregate data, there isn’t a lot that you can do. If you are lucky, they left a comment that can give you some indication that can help you decide whether you need to focus on a specific area of company culture.
Now, what would change if you knew that 8 out of those 9 people had no access to the office (fully remote)? And that none of your fully remote employees had scored anything higher than a 7? Now you have a strong indicator that you need to find out more about the daily reality of your fully remote workers.
Or maybe a big percentage of your detractors (score 1-6) are employees who have been with the company less than one year. This may indicate that the onboarding process needs an update, or that the buddy system isn’t working as intended. Either way, you know now which team leads to involve in finding out what’s going on.
To be able to slice and dice your data, you’ll need to add some self-reported statistical data to your eNPS survey. This works for companies with 70+ employees to make sure you can still ensure anonymity.
Adding self-reported realities to your eNPS survey can make the results more meaningful, for example:
Access to the office / fully remote
Female / Male / Other
Tenure (e.g. < 1 year / 1-3 years / 4+ years)
Note that “access to the office” does not mean that these people necessary work from the office. It simply means that they have other colleagues in close-enough proximity to meet at and outside work.
Enriching your eNPS with perk usage
If you are offering company perks like a coworking allowance, gym membership, mental health support, travel stipends, online company events, etc - you already have data at your hand that you can use to enrich the first impression from your eNPS score.
Using the same realities from your eNPS survey, analyze who’s using which of the perks and start to investigate what’s working and what isn’t. Here are some assumptions that you could dig into:
Contractors aren’t using some perks that are available, because the expense process is too chaotic.
Employees with office access don’t use the travel stipend, because they meet in person with other people in the area.
Employees with less than a year of tenure don’t use any perks, because they don’t know what’s available.
Fully remote employees miss out on online company events, because time zones do not align.
Creating these assumptions then allow you to investigate where your company policies aren’t working - and also what is working particularly well. You can then start looking for solutions for what you want to change, while amplifying the things that you are happy with.
It all starts with data, though.
Employee engagement isn’t rocket science. It does help to go at it with a scientific mindset :)
Coming up: Women in Product
May 9-10th, 2023. I’ll be (virtually) speaking at the yearly Women in Product Conference - about leading remote product teams, and my favourite plant. Come for the talk, stay for the community - it’s a breath of fresh air for anyone in Product.
Recommendation: Vivel in Cappadocia
Almost last call for Vivel - the immersive event focussing on remote work, web3, and music happenging in Turkey May 24-27, 2023. If you are a remote worker or entrepreneur - check it out (affiliate link)! I’ll be running Lozère Trail in the meantime.
About the Empress of Remote
👑 I am Valentina Thörner, Product Leader and Remote Expert.
✨ Supporting companies to engage and retain their remote (and hybrid) workforce
✨ Now open for board positions at companies that share my values
*️⃣ Find out more on my website or connect on LinkedIn