Case Study

Employee Listening 

Inclusive Group led a listening exercise across the North American offices of a global consultancy firm, conducted through focus groups with 15% of the firm's workforce. The goal of the exercise was to understand the lived experience of staff at all levels, in order to identify strengths and areas for improvement in relation to workplace inclusion and culture. These insights were used to inform a firmwide people strategy. 

Our consultants supported the process from start to finish, from crafting communications and designing interview questions that got to the heart of the issues, through to creating a detailed, solutions-focused report and presenting key findings to all staff. We worked closely with key firm stakeholders at every stage in the process.

During any listening programme, whether group-based or 1-1, our priority is to create a safe and open environment, where all staff feel they had a voice. Our consultants are adept at building trust, engaging participants and gaining meaningful insights into the factors that shape employee experience. Without this, listening exercises won't achieve their full potential in closing awareness gaps among organisation leaders around firm culture.

It is crucial that staff both understand the objectives of the exercise, and have visibility of the output. The Inclusive Group team worked closely with firm leaders to consider lessons learned from the exercise, and how the findings and recommendations should influence and inform the firm's people strategy, and wider firm policies. We also supported the firm in considering how findings and next steps should be shared with staff. 

At times employee listening programmes can feel like a confronting process, but it doesn't need to be this way. Listening is as much about identifying and celebrating strengths as it is about identifying what's not working. We work on the basis that when issues and challenges are identified and addressed at an early stage, bigger issues can be avoided. Our discussions brought to life inconsistencies across locations and practical issues which mattered deeply to staff, but were easily fixed. We also identified pockets of excellent practice across different locations, as well as creative approaches to foster inclusion and belonging. As a result of the exercise, the firm's people strategy truly reflected what mattered most to people across all levels, leaders greatly increased their understanding of cultural strengths and shortfalls, and small changes were introduced which made a huge impact on staff.