Richard Branson once said, “Customers do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of your customers.”
At EDSB we know how important employee engagement is, from listening to what our employees want, to showcasing our reputation of being culturally progressive within our industry. The last few years and the effects of the pandemic have seen huge changes in workplaces across the globe, so we decided this year we would put structure to employee engagement and start to measure our score.
We ran an employee survey at the start of the year which explored areas such as how people felt about their team, their manager, their personal growth, well-being and leadership within the company. By doing this, we were able to understand just how much our values, culture and ways of working resonate with our people, and what we can learn from the process. The survey was run by a third-party research company, so all answers, whilst broken down by team, were personally anonymous. As a business we listen, so it’s important that we get to hear all thoughts, whether constructive or positive.
88% of people completed the survey and we were not only delighted with the level of response, but also the quality and quantity of the feedback. Rather than it being just a tick-box exercise, we opened it up so that people could contribute free text comments, suggestions and ideas. From this, we got some fascinating insights into all areas of the business.
Our positives include a wealth of comments on our people and teamwork and how, when you join EDSB, you join the EDSB family. As a growing business, we also learnt that people enjoy feeling they have good job security and appreciate that there are opportunities for everyone to develop their careers. Our levels of well-being and overall support scored highly, emphasising our #oneteam approach. And our culture also scored well, with appreciation for EDSB’s forward thinking and modern people practices being recognised.
We realise that engagement levels will fluctuate year on year, so it’s important to look at factors outside of the questions, such as length of service, the teams people work in and location throughout the UK, to see what works well and where we can develop.
And being totally transparent – what can we improve? Well, recruiting more people, having bigger offices and the chance to get together more, were requests which will be delivered over the coming months.
The results of our survey and the importance we place on employee engagement went on to shape the theme of our Annual Conference – EDSB People. We took the findings further and took the opportunity to ask for more feedback so everyone can play their part in shaping how EDSB looks in the future.
And our scores? According to Gallup, just 32% of employees are engaged with their business.
EDSB has an engagement score of 94%.
We could not be more proud.
Finally, going back to those words from Richard Branson … we don’t have a hierarchy of who is most important, as we are nothing without either our clients or our people. However, we do know that by growing and developing a team that is committed, engaged and dedicated to delivering the highest possible service to our clients, it’s a win-win situation all round.
