12 November 2009
Guardian News and Media reveals stats from staff survey
GNM, home of The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, practices corporate transparency as it makes employee opinions public – a brave move in what is a delicate climate for the company and the wider newspaper industry.
UK media group Guardian News and Media (GNM) yesterday published results from its latest all-employee survey on The Guardian newspaper's website. The survey was carried out during a time of major restructuring, but findings reveal that employees have widely accepted the necessity for restructure and cost-cutting and feel better-informed about commercial matters, but there's less confidence that change will be fairly handled.
Jo Confino, Executive Editor of the Guardian and Head of Sustainable Development for Guardian News and Media, blogged that despite the threat of redundancies across the organization, engagement levels are still higher than the benchmark.
Nicole Dempster, head of internal communication at GNM, told the Hub why they decided to make these results public. "As a media organization we put others under the spotlight and expect transparency, so it's only right that we, as a company, behave in the same way. Our values, as laid down by the Scott Trust, are "honesty, cleanness [integrity], courage, fairness, and a sense of duty to the reader and community", so publishing all our employee survey results, both the positive and the less good, is a natural step to take," says Dempster.
Redundancies imminent for GNM staff
The findings were published almost at the same time as a series of briefings at GNM's Kings Place headquarters were taking place yesterday afternoon, during which Tim Brooks, managing director of GNM, told staff there will be more than 100 redundancies across the company.
The Press Gazette website reported that members of staff in GNM's commercial department are expected to learn their fate within a month, editorial changes are expected to take longer to complete because cuts are likely to be made through voluntary redundancies and redeployment. However, editorial staff fear compulsory redundancies.
Employees have accepted the necessity for restructure and cost-cutting and feel better-informed about commercial matters but there is less confidence that change will be fairly handled.
Pride in the company
Where many companies shy away from employee feedback during sensitive times like these, GNM is actively gathering opinions from the workforce.
Jenny Davenport from People in Business managed the employee survey and believes that GNM can take great comfort in the continuing high scores in key areas such as pride in the company and having a friendly working environment.
"For example, 86% of staff say they're proud to work for GNM. While this is marginally less than the previous year, it remains well above the general benchmark of 70%. The highest score in the entire survey is the 93% of staff who choose to put in extra effort over and above basic job requirements," says Confino in his blog post.
Journalists and editorial staff are well known for viewing things with a degree of skepticism, many would say it's the nature of the job, and that rings true at GNM. When asked whether the company adheres to its corporate values, editorial employees were more cynical than the GNM's commercial employees. Although overall scores went up from 54% in 2008 to 58% in 2009, 21% actively disagreed.
Areas of weakness
Confino says last year's survey highlighted four areas of weakness:
- Appraisals
- Recruitment
- Career progression
- Fairness and consistency in the way we pay and reward staff
The company has addressed these issues in 2009 by making them management priorities, and providing monthly updates on the company intranet, however scores continue to be poor. Of these four areas, understanding of how pay and rewards are allocated recieved the lowest scores. The number of staff who had an appraisal in the last year rose by 17% however 42% don't believe that the action points agreed at the appraisal were carried out.
Davenport believes this is due to people's perceptions about a lack of opportunity for career progression in the current economic climate. The survey's response rate was 69%, down only one percent from the previous year.
How will the findings be actioned?
A widespread complaint from employees and a challenge for research teams is the lack of action that follows large employee surveys. Employees often feel that their feedback is heard but nothing changes as a result.
Dempster says the feedback will help improve communication within the organization. "The survey helps us to get a real sense of how staff are feeling - especially in the current climate. The results - which we take very seriously - help inform our internal comms strategy, and identify areas on which we need to focus over the coming year," she says.
Ongoing change
GNM employees have certainly experienced turbulence in recent months. The Internal Comms Hub published a case study on the company's large-scale office relocation and resulting shift in culture, written by Dempster. In this case study she describes how along with the move, traditional ways of working were changing to become more interactive, collaborative and fast paced. Dempster explains how employees were heavily involved in many parts of the move and that feedback showed that there was widespread satisfaction in the new Kings Cross GNM headquarters.
Have your say
As internal communicators we know that listening to employee opinion is most important during times of uncertainty. But has GNM made the right move by publishing their staff survey results? In the interest of transparency, the BBC also recently published its director's expenses, following the British MP's expenses scandal. This would usually be considered as highly confidential information. Do you think this level of transparency is damaging to companies or is it required in today's business climate?
How do you ensure that employee feedback is actioned upon? Can you offer any advice on how effective internal communication can improve employees' understanding of pay and rewards? Leave your comments below.
Recommended resources:
Guardian News and Media: Moving onwards and upwards
How to engage employees during extreme uncertainty
TOP TIPS: Preparing managers to communicate bad news
How FedEx delivers on employee feedback
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