Insights
The current Covid-19 pandemic is an enormous challenge to all organisations and in particular to those who deliver services to the public.
As HR professionals, there are an overwhelming number of implications and scenarios to think through. When thoughts are on service delivery and how to continue to deliver, one aspect that is at risk of being over-looked is how your employees and volunteers perceive how your organisation is prioritising and caring about their health and wellbeing.
Organisations often include this benchmark question in the Wellbeing section of their employee engagement surveys: “This organisation cares about its employees”.
It is a very discriminating question that gets to the heart of whether or not employees feel they are cared for and prioritised by the organisation they work for. People are not required to justify why they feel the way they do and reference a particular policy or working practice, they just go with what they feel.
As everyone in your organisation is affected personally and professionally by the current crisis, this is a moment of truth that employees will remember for years: did my organisation appear to care about me during this frightening time or not?
You will probably have many thoughts about how you can ensure a message of care and concern for your people still reaches them even when things are particularly stressful, and experiences of your own you can draw on.
Kind words that recognise the impact this is having on your people in amongst the many important pieces of information and developments that need to be communicated can make a big difference.
What does the data tell us?
From our database of employee engagement surveys, we can see the results for the question “This organisation cares about its employees” vary by sector.
INGOs have the highest median positive for this question, with an average of 73% of employees agreeing or strongly agreeing with the question.
The Interquartile Range is the difference between the lower and upper quartiles, so it shows how great the variation is between organisations in each sector. The Interquartile Range (IQR) is greatest for U.K Third Sector organisations at 23. We consider IQR of 16 and above to be high and IQR between 11-15 to be medium. As the IQR is in the medium or high band for all sectors, we can see that there is a considerable difference between the overall positive %s different organisations get for this question.
It is likely that how your people feel now about whether the organisation cares for them as we all go through this enormously difficult time will define how they feel about this for a long time to come.
“This organisation cares about its employees”
Find out more about how you can measure and maintain engagement in your organisation by clicking here.
