When it comes to managing human capital, many companies not only will hire an independent third party to conduct a “corporate culture” survey about how employees feel about their jobs, but also will give directors unfiltered access to the anonymous responses.
When I say “unfiltered,” this means giving each director the entire data dump, which includes all of the anonymous commentary that employees might have made, in addition to checking off boxes that scale from 1 – 5 or 1 – 10. The data dump will be voluminous, but it will be up to the directors as to what they want to look at and how much they want to delve into the results.
Senior management may take the survey results more seriously if they know the board will have access to them. And, overall, that is a good thing, as the value of human capital should go up if management is actively paying attention.
Note that a very low response rate to a survey of this kind could flag potential issues with company culture or indicate that employees don’t trust management enough to even participate in the survey.
Senior managers tend to dislike these types of surveys, but they’re one of the few ways that the compensation committee (or whatever committee is responsible for human capital) can draw a bead on the company’s culture.
Authored by
Broc Romanek