What should we be able to answer before we decide anything?
Before you decide anything about a workforce problem, your leadership team should be able to answer seven questions. They're the questions we ask at the start of our own workforce work, and a leadership team can work through many of them on its own.
- What are you trying to understand?
- What decisions do you need to make?
- What do you already know?
- What assumptions are you making?
- What information would help you determine whether those assumptions are correct?
- Whose perspective is missing?
- What could you realistically change based on what you learn?
Only after those are answered should your organization determine what data it needs, if it needs new data at all, and the order matters. The first question keeps the conversation on the problem itself, before anyone attaches it to a solution they already favor. The last question keeps you from asking employees about things the organization has no intention of changing, which can undermine their trust in the process. We ran an engagement survey and nothing changed. What went wrong? looks at what happens when that question is skipped.
How do we tell what we know from what we're only assuming?
To tell what you know from what you're only assuming, write down the reasoning behind the decision and note the evidence behind each step. For example, a plan to raise pay on second shift might rest on three assumptions: that more people are leaving second shift than other shifts, that they are leaving because of pay, and that a raise would persuade them to stay. Your records can usually check the first, but they rarely answer the second, and no one can confirm the third in advance, which is why it's worth planning how you'll learn whether the change helped.
Look at the evidence by group as well as in total. Employees in one department, shift, facility, role, or stage of employment may be having a different experience from others, and an organization-wide figure can hide that. If your records can't answer even the first kind of question, We have plenty of HR data and still can't answer basic questions. Why? looks at why.
Whose perspective should we hear before we decide?
Before you decide, hear from the people the decision will affect, especially the people who aren't in the room where it is being made. Employees understand the day-to-day realities of their jobs, and supervisors see challenges that executives may not. People who stay can tell you what is working, and people who leave can identify the friction points that pushed them out.
A dashboard, a consultant's proposal, and a strong opinion from a senior leader each reflect one vantage point. Any of them may be right. Each one still needs to be checked against the experience of the people doing the work before the organization invests in it. Asking well is a skill of its own, and How do I find out what my employees actually need? covers how to ask in a way that lets people answer honestly.
What if the decision is due soon and there's no time for a study?
If the decision is due soon and there's no time for a study, you can still work through the seven questions in a single meeting and use the records you already have. Three steps are worth taking even on a tight timeline: agree in writing on the problem the change is meant to address, check the one assumption that would most change your plan if it were wrong, and decide now how you'll know whether the change helped. That last step is easy to skip and difficult to reconstruct later, and How do we know whether the change we made actually helped? covers it.
When the stakes are high and the cause is unclear, Grantibly's Data-to-Action Roadmap is designed for this moment. We work with your leadership team to identify the questions that matter most, what your existing evidence can and can't tell you, where the critical gaps are, and the most proportionate next step, before you commit to a larger investment.
The Grantibly perspective
Lauren's perspective
We don't believe organizations need more data simply for the sake of having more data. They need the right data, and that means starting with the problem instead of the survey. When a leader asks us what to put on an employee survey, we're more likely to ask what they're trying to understand, what they already know, and what they could realistically change based on what they learn.
Grantibly's role isn't to walk into an organization assuming we already know why employees are leaving or what leaders should do about it. Our role is to help organizations find out. Depending on the problem, that might mean analyzing existing workforce data, conducting an employee experience survey, facilitating focus groups, interviewing employees or supervisors, examining differences across departments, or combining several of those methods.
We also avoid making unsupported promises about return on investment. Good information can help an organization determine where an investment is likely to make a meaningful difference.
