Published on November 10, 2020
Following on from a successful launch of our Vibe 360 Employee Engagement survey with the British Geological Society in May this year, we were kindly recommended and referred to the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) to carry out a cultural assessment with their 200 employees and students.
About Plymouth Marine Laboratory
For over 40 years PML has provided evidence-based environmental solutions to societal challenges by applying cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that benefits society and promotes stewardship of marine ecosystems. Since 2002, and in association with a wide range of national and international partners, they have provided these capabilities as an independent company limited by guarantee with charitable status.
“ The impact of our science is far-reaching ranging from highly cited scientific papers to providing scientific evidence for policy and training the next generation of marine scientists. Through the delivery of our science plan, we are also contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goals to promote healthy, productive and resilient oceans and seas”.
Cultural assessment
Before the survey launched, we spent time in the business understanding the culture of both the employees and the management teams. Understanding the values of the organisation and how these are demonstrated on a daily basis is a key element of our diagnostic process, as it helps us to get to the heart of how people behave at work. Following the diagnostic, we worked with the HR team and across the representative working group to design a set of questions that truly reflect the organisational culture to measure how employees were feeling about PML and the people that work there from colleagues through to the senior management team together with individuals’ engagement in PML, its strategy and goals.
Following the survey, we will use benchmarking information to enable PML to gauge how they scored in comparison to both the public sector and other organisations within their industry. Benchmarking your data is always a useful exercise and it can help you to see where your key strengths are and also development areas in relation to like-minded cultures.
One of the most important elements in the success of our Vibe survey platform is post-survey conversations. We work with the key stakeholders, HRBP’s and Line Managers to ensure that the feedback you collect is managed in an effective and positive way. Communication is key following any feedback survey and it’s important to talk to your teams about the results. It’s good to talk – yes, we live in a digital world and have used a digital format to capture the feedback and the emotional insights of the employees; however, it’s only going to make a difference if we use the big data to communicate and build relationships. On-going conversations play an important part in the employee engagement process; therefore, we provide additional follow on coaching to help your key team members navigate the data and create and deliver follow up communications. Innovation and ideas bring teams together, and by coaching managers to have the conversations around ‘ how we can do things differently’ creates a culture of diversity and inclusion where all ideas are listened to and considered.
We created Vibe to improve relationships at work by listening to your colleagues’ feedback on a regular basis. Only by exposing yourself to different and diverse viewpoints will you be able to create a more rounded performance culture. Organisations that listen carefully to the thoughts and feelings of their people can use the feedback to power positive change with their business functions and across the wider company.
About Vibe feedback, Survey and live polling technology
Our Vibe platform has many components and feedback, survey and live polling modules that can be turned on/off – up/down in real-time and offers unlimited scalability in terms of numbers of users, surveys and feedback. Vibe is also available on any device, any time, in any language, anywhere in the world. Discover more about our Vibe feedback and survey technology here.
Find out more about the world-leading Marine research PML do on their website: www.pml.ac.uk