Work Bridgeable
Transforming employee experience at a major North American financial institution
Problem
How to better understand the current employee experience in one of the institution’s internal divisions in order to improve engagement and reduce turnover
Solution
A thorough understanding of the division’s current employee experience, with key opportunity areas identified and mapped out across the phases of the employee lifecycle
Impact
A comprehensive, prioritized roadmap of employee-designed guidelines for improving the employee experience within the division
Author
Seeking a deeper understanding of the employee experience
According to Harvard Business Review, only 13% of employees worldwide feel engaged in their workplace. Despite access to more training opportunities, greater workplace flexibility, and enhanced wellness resources, employees in leading organizations around the world continue to feel disengaged, burnt out, and unsatisfied with their jobs.
Bridgeable was approached by an internal division of a leading North American financial institution that was experiencing some challenges relating to employee experiences. The division had recently undergone several significant changes, including a major restructuring and transition in work processes. Compounding this was an overall push to use data analytics at a grand scale to increase efficiency and add more value to the business.
The internal division wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the current state of their employees’ lifecycle, from hiring through onboarding, training, and exiting the department in order to attract and keep top talent within the division and at the institution.
Over the course of 13 weeks, we worked with the division to understand the entire employee experience, identify opportunity areas for improvement, and create a roadmap of prioritized initiatives and next steps.
A multifaceted approach to engaging employees
In order to build trust and rapport, we embedded ourselves within the division, engaging employees through a wide variety of research touchpoints. We received feedback from over 300 employees through a series of individual interviews, ideation labs, on-site open house sessions, generative surveys, and on-site validation sessions. Engaging with the division’s employees on a more human level led to building a relationship of greater trust, which in turn elicited more authentic and honest feedback.
We synthesized our research findings into a framework of insights that provided an in-depth understanding of the current employee experience. Using these insights, we created both a lifecycle map of the employee experience and a roadmap to guide our client’s future decision-making.
By co-creating the employee lifecycle map with employees themselves, we were able to map out the different phases of the employee lifecycle and highlight both the positive and the negative moments that matter most to employees.
We also worked with the client to build a roadmap to guide their thinking as they move from understanding the employee experience to testing, measuring, and iterating potential solutions that address the opportunity areas.
At project completion, senior executives reported being
45%
clearer on the strategic priorities and tactical action required to improve employee experience
At project completion, senior executives reported being
50%
more confident in understanding employee needs
Shortly after project completion, all
11
categories of the division’s annual Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) evaluation improved, including employee enablement
From understanding to action
Within a few weeks of project completion, our focus on delivering highly actionable insights resulted in increased employee engagement, streamlined work processes, and the approval of notable changes in leadership.
The senior leadership team reported that, by being included in the research process, they were better equipped to attract and retain talented employees. Senior executives reported being nearly 50% more confident in their understanding of their employees’ needs and over 45% more clear on the strategic priorities and tactical action required to improve the employee experience.
Bridgeable’s superpower was their ability to listen. They established a sense of relatability and trust with our people in a very short amount of time. They asked meaningful questions, listened intently, and synthesized what they learned into an actionable, succinct set of opportunity areas for leadership to focus on.
Division Chief Executive
Leadership committed to addressing more than a dozen opportunity areas for employees, and employees have been encouraged and supported in holding the organization accountable to this commitment. The division has built these commitments to employees into its strategic plan.
Using Bridgeable’s comprehensive roadmap as a guide, the division has already tackled several employee experience initiatives focused around selected high-priority objectives, and they are currently rolling out further improvements.
Through this work, the division has seen its Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) scores improve dramatically. After the project was completed, over 90% of division employees filled out the EOS, nearly 10% more than the institutional average. The division ranked higher in all 11 categories of evaluation compared to the previous year, including employee enablement, even while the institutional average decreased in some categories.
The Bridgeable team was personable, flexible, and highly sensitive to the needs of our employees as well as how to communicate those needs back to our senior leaders in a way that was informative, evidence-based, and non-threatening.
Division Vice President