Is your employee research failing you?
Employee Survey companies sell technical expertise but at times
it this expertise more resembles a magical black box. Employees
answers are placed into the box and with a few taps of the wand,
statistically significant conclusions magically appear.
Of course what we call magic is such circumstances is really nothing
more than trckery -- talented trickery but trickery just the same.
Here are five signs that a little of that trickery may be at work
and that as a result, your employee research is failing you.
1. Your research leaves you with an empty feeling. The reports are filled with statistics and graphs detailing all
the data from the questions asked. The problem is you are still
not sure what to do to improve things. Somehow you feel your research
is missing the fundamentals of what is important to the employee
and to the business. If you cannot see an explicit connection between
what is being measured and what should be done, then your employee
research is failing you.
2. Your research talks statistical significance
but what you want to hear is business significance. Statistically
significant results say nothing about the importance of these results
from a business or organizational perspective. Statistically significant
differences can be completely unimportant. Statistically insignificant
results may be vital to your continued growth and organizational
well being. If your research keeps talking statistical significance
or equates such significance with importance, your research is failing
you.
3. Your research leaves you with more questions
than answers. Research may raise new and useful questions,
but the purpose of research is still to deliver answers. Answers
that management and staff can use to redesign products, services
or business processes in a way that is directly linked to customer
satisfaction. If your research program suggests you should do more
research, maybe the problem is the quality of research being done.
4. Your research is speaking a different language. Do you sometimes wonder if your customer research is conducted in
a different language? Is jargon such as significance tests, hypothesis
testing, t-tests, normal distribution, standard deviation, Z-scores
and correlation coefficient used when discussing results? Some equate
such statistical analysis with quality but just the opposite is
true. Good research is research that can be expressed in simple
English, concisely and with clarity. Jargon is an indication of
sloppy method, misleading results and more often than not, incorrect
or invalid interpretation.
5. You hear a lot about the ‘average’
but not a lot of what is behind it. Does your market research
present the data as averages that seem to hide more than they reveal?
Averages are summaries of the data. Like all summaries they make
for quick and easy reading but they also hide all the detail where
differences and improvements are made. Averages, by themselves,
are useless for purposes of product, service or process improvement.
If all you see is the average but little of the detail, your customer
research is failing you.
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