In most cases, employees are the backbone of all business operations. If they are unhappy, bogged down by a massive amount of work, they are not going to be very responsive. In turn, your customer experience will be greatly affected. Maybe a ton of your operations require direct customer interaction.
If your employees are disgruntled, how do you imagine they will be with the customers? Cue the fired-up Yelp reviews. To avoid this PR damage control, it’s best to revert to the basics and get to know who works for you, truly listening to what they have to say.
You may think that you know your employees well enough, knowing the standards like their name, their role, how long they’ve been at the company, etc. But beyond the surface level, do you actually know them? Do you know why they enjoy working for your company? Or better yet, do you know what gripes they have about working for your company? Both are equally important. Both need to be actively listened to.
What is the best way to do this? Simple, start the conversation. What’s the best platform to start this conversation on? An online employee market research community. An online market research community is an easy way to uncover how your employees feel.
By giving your employees a platform to speak freely about different topics, you will be able to understand what is and isn’t working and make changes accordingly. This in turn can allow you to make more insightful decisions that can not only improve your overall workplace conditions, but also enhance your bottom line. There are an infinite number of reasons as to why an Online Employee Community is a good idea, but let’s focus on the most important benefits.
Completely Virtual
First off, Online Employee Communities are done completely online. With the current pandemic still affecting daily lives, employees can safely join without leaving the comfort of their homes. In addition, the community is asynchronous, allowing your employees to participate when it is convenient for them.
Whether they feel like participating when they have a break at work for a few minutes, or if prefer to join after work during their free time, they can do so whenever they want. The site is open 24/7, with active activities to keep everyone engaged. Say goodbye to spending weeks/months trying to schedule long in-person focus groups or seminars, which are no longer a safe option due to the pandemic.
If your company was interested in completing a project in live, real time, an online community can also accommodate this need. Online communities are the easiest, quickest, and safest way to interact with your employees on a daily/weekly basis or as frequently as desired.
Wide Range of Methodologies
The types of topics you can cover are endless, going as deep or minuscule as you like. Online Employee Communities offer a wide range of methodologies that can tackle nearly all research questions you have, whatever they may be. Specializing in quantitative, qualitative, and co-creation activities, online communities will be able to deliver the results needed to make an actionable decision.
Depending on research objectives, a particular methodology will be recommended to you in order to get the results you need. Maybe your company is about to put a new policy into action, and you want to pick your employee’s brains before you pull the trigger. You can quickly post a quick poll or forum discussion and receive results in the matter of minutes.
Or maybe you simply want to know which company logo your employees prefer. You can survey the crowd to optimize which option to move forward with. Better yet, maybe you are in need of some inspiration to create the next best thing, whether it’s a product or a service. Your employees can participate in a CrowdWeaving® Challenge (KLC’s proprietary co-creation methodology) giving you the real-time insights, you need to uncover opportunities for innovation.
Regardless of the type of activity you run, your employees will play a hands-on role, providing their open feedback on a variety of topics. In turn, they will feel valued by the fact that you are asking for their help in the first place, and you will have direct insights into what your employees want. Did someone say, win-win situation?
Participants Remain Anonymous
Another advantage is the anonymity aspect. Your employees will be working with a moderator who is unaffiliated with the company. They may either work with the moderator on a one-on-one level, or in a group, collaborative setting with other employees.
Your employees will be required to register on the site and set up an anonymous username. No direct names or email addresses will be visible by other participants, giving your employees a platform to speak freely about different topics. Maybe an employee has a company question and is too nervous to ask HR or other colleagues.
An online community allows them to start their own discussion topics where other employees can share their two cents. Together, they can have a conversation about work-related issues or topics. Your employees remain anonymous, providing a safe space where they can share their thoughts.
Real Results
Last, but certainly not least, the most important benefit that Online Employee Communities offer are the results. They provide the clear-cut answers you need to make and actionable decision. Not to mention the speed that these results are delivered in!
You can reach out to your members in the morning about which topics to include in your next webinar and have an idea of what to choose by lunch, and a confirmed winner by dinner. Online Communities deliver nearly instant feedback.
If you are looking for more in-depth results, online communities offer the ability to probe and take a deeper dive into what your employees are saying. Over the course of a few days, the moderator will get to the bottom of how your employees are feeling about a certain topic.
These findings are then pieced together into a cohesive story that paints a clear picture, allowing your company to keep these considerations in mind throughout future decisions. If you do decide to make changes based on your employees’ feedback, your employees will not only be shown that you value their voice, but it will remind them why they work for you in the first place.
With an Online Employee Community, you will have full access into the minds of your employees. You can start to truly understand what gets them up in the morning, what keeps them going at night, and what makes them tick.
In turn, you can better communicate with them and improve the overall company engagement levels. By taking the time to get to know them, your employees will form new sense of faith and trust in the company, ultimately creating a stronger, unified mutual bond.