Stakeholder perceptions

Lesson Outcome

By the end of this lesson, you will have used a number of tools to understand how your stakeholders perceive what your firm is like to work for

what people really Feel about your firm

Early in the course we have highlighted that you will have a Brand and Employer Brand whether you manage this or not.
Your Employer Brand is created by every interaction people have with your firm.
Those who have no contact with your firm may well have a view about your firm and whether or not it is a good place to work.
This happens because people talk about you and your firm or possibly don’t talk at all. Think about how you approach talking about your work and firm too?

  • What do other people say about your firm when they are in the presence of friends or family or non work contacts - would it be complimentary or critical?
  • If one of their friends or family members was considering applying for a job at your firm - what would they say to them?  Would they encourage it or discourage it?
  • What has caused them to feel this way?

Now consider the question more broadly and think about how your colleagues would act or what they would say?
Also think about that one step removed.
What would your partner, friends or children say about your work or your firm?

promotors and advocates

How we feel about our job spills over into our actions and behaviour.
When directly asked about our jobs we may talk positively, or we may skip over the question.
What impression does this create?
How visibly is our mood impacted by our job?
Is this the same when we have a good or bad day.
Through your actions and behaviour you are positively or negatively promoting your role and your firm .

net promotor score

One easy and quick way to understand how people feel about your business is to use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric. This methodology can be used to measure just about anything and is commonly used to measure a companies customer service.
However it is also a useful tool to understand how you are perceived as an employer.

What is NPS?
NPS measures the perception of your business based on one simple question. The question is used to identify “Detractors” and “Promoters”.
To measure your Employer Brand the question is likely to be:
On a Scale of 0-10, how likely are you likely to recommend (your Firm) as a place to work?

You can then ask a simple free text follow up question to identify the primary reason for them giving their score. This information will help you to understand the drivers behind these responses.
(The initial question can be adapted to understand different aspects of your business).

Evaluating NPS
In response to an NPS question respondents give a rating between 0 (not at all likely) and 10 (extremely likely) and, depending on their response, fall into one of 3 categories to establish an NPS score:

  • Promoters respond with a score of 9 or 10 and are typically loyal and enthusiastic customers, partners or employees.
  • Passives respond with a score of 7 or 8. They are satisfied with your firm but not happy enough to be considered promoters.
  • Detractors respond with a score of 0 to 6. These are unhappy with your firm and are unlikely to deal with you again as a customer, partner or employee and may even discourage others from engaging with your firm.

It’s simple to calculate your final NPS score – just subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

For example, if 10% of respondents are detractors, 20% are passives and 70% are promoters, your NPS score would be 70-10 = 60.
Turning detractors into promoters can impact your NPS and improve loyalty to your brand.

Internet Link To Resources

If you want to dig more into how NPS works and how to implement it here is a link to some additional resources
Learn More...

What to avoid

Using NPS is an indicator and does come with potential challenges. Chasing an improvement in the score and that becoming the focus will not help your firm. More important is understanding “why” people respond this way and using these insights to make changes. For some insights into the limitations of using NPS click here. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): Pure Analytics Theatre 

Survey for success
What the best firms do

The best firms take practical steps to implement and test new approaches quickly. Rather than taking large amount of time to review, design and consider new approaches, they trial, test and iterate new ideas quickly using pragmatic and cost-effective approaches. 
You can easily trial the use of NPS using one of the templates build into a tool such as www.surveymonkey.co.uk. They also do not focus on scores but the quality of the feedback and how this can help them to improve.

Workbook exercise

This lesson has outlined two possible options of obtaining perceptions from your stakeholders.
Firstly, a set of informal questions designed to identify how people think and talk about your firm.
The second NPS is a more formal and structured approach. It can be useful to use a blend of formal and informal approaches as you will obtain more rounded information.
Consider what approach is best for your business and in your workbook capture your approach, the outputs and any actions you wish to take.

during this lesson

Holding Script

next steps...

When you are ready, move on to the next lesson using the button below.

Resources
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