HR data improves culture: A Q&A with Greg Barnett

In a time of inflation and a looming recession, keeping up with a good company culture can be difficult. However, one can leverage technology to help keep up and improve company culture.

So says Greg Barnett, Chief People Scientist at Top Workplaces, an employer recognition survey program. Barnett dives into how and why you should leverage technology for your employees.

How can data insights help organizations improve their company culture and employee engagement?

Data insights can be leveraged as a tool to build employee/employer trust, which ultimately strengthens the relationship over time. The process of surveying, thanking employees for their feedback and then doing something with that data really shows employees that their voice matters, which is just as important as collecting the data itself. When employees feel like their voices are being heard, they’ll gradually share more nuggets of information on larger topics. This feedback gives leadership teams an authentic idea of what’s working and what can be improved on not only a company-wide scale, but also from an individual perspective. There is a significant opportunity to improve culture by improving leadership, and data provides insights that individual managers and executive leadership can utilize as a tool for self-reflection.

What are key employee metrics HR teams and leaders should be regularly tracking?

Senior leaders and HR teams should regularly review progress and success in areas like culture, engagement and basic employee value propositions. Below are just a few examples of important HR metrics to track as part of this process:

• Employee engagement – Measuring employee engagement not only helps to understand whether employees are bringing their hearts and minds to work every day, but it also provides opportunities to build better trust with employees and develop stronger leadership.
• Diversity – Organizations vary with regard to their diversity for a lot of reasons, but the metric itself should be front and center so it becomes a focal point of future progress.
• Goal achievement - Successful companies are able to set goals at all levels of the organization and work consistently to achieve them. Tracking individual goal achievement can help identify where the organization may be having challenges before it becomes a business performance issue.
• Turnover rate – Whether focusing on voluntary or involuntary turnover, there is a huge cost associated with turnover. It’s important to know that not all turnover is bad – a company wants to be retaining their top talent, while managing poorer performers out.
• Vacation days used - Even when companies offer generous PTO policies, there are many reasons that employees may not use them. When employees don’t take vacation, burnout increases, engagement declines and the outcome is less productivity.
• Absenteeism/sick days taken – Since the pandemic, people are more diligent about staying home from work when they aren’t feeling well, and there’s a greater understanding from employers when people need to take time off to care for sick family. A sudden increase in sick days taken, especially if vacation days remain unused, could signal that it’s time to check-in.

Other key metrics to help gauge the effectiveness of HR programs and initiatives include ​​compensation/award metrics, internal promotions, and time and/or cost of hire. In addition, revenue per employee – a number derived by dividing revenue by the total number of employees – can provide a strong perspective on the strength of the workforce when evaluated in comparison to benchmarks.

How can organizations use employee feedback and HR data to combat burnout and promote wellness in the workplace?

Employee feedback tells an organization a lot about how their employees are doing not only professionally, but mentally as well. Not all employees feel comfortable discussing topics related to mental health with leadership, which can eventually lead to burnout. By using surveys to help gauge how employees are doing emotionally, organizations can spot signs of burnout before it happens and step in with additional layers of support when necessary. Giving employees the option to provide feedback promotes wellness in itself. When employees are given the tools to voice how they feel, there’s a layer of psychological safety that’s met where employees know they’re being seen.

What are some of the top commonalities you see between organizations that are able to achieve great cultures?

It all comes down to how organizations utilize employee feedback to achieve great cultures that are people-centric. The biggest thing we see when it comes to organizations that are able to achieve and sustain great cultures is the ability to receive feedback and proactively make changes based on that feedback. Organizations must be receptive and ready to enact changes or adjust current systems they have in place to really get the most out of the data. Organizations who achieve great cultures usually are able to approach their leadership style through a subjective lens, take accountability and make internal changes because they recognize that workplace culture has a direct correlation to business performance.

Related: 5 tech trends HR should have on their radar for 2023

For companies new to gathering data to inform HR strategies and improve their culture, where do you recommend they start?

We recommend organizations start within themselves when deciding to gather HR data to improve culture. Sometimes the hardest part is actually interpreting the results and believing that employees feel a certain way about the workplace culture. The worst thing an organization can do with results is nothing, which means that leadership must be prepared to receive and take action on the data regardless of how they personally feel about it. Once leadership decides they’re ready to prioritize receiving and enacting changes, they should start with a simple employee engagement survey. These surveys are a good way to encourage conversation on a variety of topics. As employees begin to feel more comfortable with providing feedback and seeing actions taken based on that feedback, they’ll be more inclined to continue engaging in this way. Organizations should give themselves enough time to make changes in-between survey collection periods. It’s important that employees are feeling heard and not just fatigued with constant surveys, so leaders should be very intentional about what they’re doing with results instead of how many they’re collecting.