Employee opinions: Getting to the heart of the matter

CompassJersey strategy and growth director James Horrigan and All Island Media chief executive James Filleul

MANY employees, particularly those in larger organisations, will be no strangers to filling out questionnaires. 

In the majority of cases, these surveys, originated by the company, may give an insight into engagement levels among the workforce but are less likely to give a “deep view into people’s opinions of their place of work” than an independently managed and anonymously completed review. 

Indeed, the level of “frankness and honesty” shown by respondents to the inaugural Jersey’s Best Workplace initiative was, says CompassJersey strategy and growth director James Horrigan, one of the greatest benefits to participating businesses. 

Launched last year, the collaboration between All Island Media – the parent company of the Jersey Evening Post and Bailiwick Express – and CompassJersey was designed to give businesses of all sizes and from any sector the opportunity to gauge their employees’ views on eight key areas: reward and recognition, information sharing, empowerment, personal pride, job satisfaction and wellbeing, line management, and learning and development. 

It was also, he added, an “opportunity for employees to give their opinions, openly, honestly and fairly, in a way which can be used to help the company market itself externally as well as to shape its internal practices”. 

Equally valuable to participating organisations, added CompassJersey founding director Jacqui Richards, was the benchmarking service which the initiative provided. 

“Business leaders have found this particularly valuable, as, on its own, a statistic is of limited use,” she said. “For example, if 80% of staff respond in a certain way, it gives you an idea of sentiment but it doesn’t give you additional context and therefore you do not know whether that result is above or below average. However, if 80% say that they like a particular aspect of the business, and we tell you that, across all responses, the question was only answered positively by 45% of people, you have the colour and context to add meaning to that figure.” 

That, she added, made the exercise valuable for all participants, not just those who can now proudly proclaim that they are Jersey’s Best Workplace. 

“Even if you didn’t win, you have some really meaningful data which you can use to shape your policies or the way you do certain things,” she said. “Just by taking part in the initiative, you have also shown to your staff that you value their feedback and that you want to listen to, and engage with, them.” 

Perhaps most telling for many participants, she added, was the information about their employees’ “flight risk”. 

“This looked at how many people were planning to leave the organisation within the next 12 to 18 months,” she said. “In the worst cases, up to 44% of staff said that they were looking for a new position or were planning to leave within that timeframe, something which was a real red flag for the business.” 

But while some headline statistics were startling, James said that some of the most valuable feedback came from the narrative. 

“We found the real depth of intelligence came from the questions which invited open answers,” he said. “In these cases, some of the responses were tremendously honest and detailed, and it was clear that employees felt really passionately about their workplace. In fact, some stand-out responses really made the organisation sound like somewhere we would all want to work.” 

In many cases, Jacqui added, one of the key factors shaping a person’s feelings towards their employer was the relationship they had with their immediate line manager. 

“The impact of this relationship on a person’s morale cannot be underestimated,” she stressed. “Where people felt that they had a solid and respectful relationship with their line manager, they felt supported and had a better perception of the organisation as a whole.” 

And while acknowledging that there had been some “rogue comments”, she said that the general views of leadership were more positive than the results revealed by the annual Leadership Jersey surveys. 

“I don’t think this is surprising, though, because the companies taking part in Jersey’s Best Workplace are those which want to show themselves off as being one of the best businesses to work for,” she reflected. “Those leadership teams will have been talking to staff about celebrating best practice and recognising what they are doing well, something which it can be easy to lose sight of during day-to-day business operations.” 

But while this can sometimes be swept to one side as businesses strive to identify areas of improvement, Jacqui and James agree that highlighting the positives is crucial for retaining and attracting both employees and customers. 

“We all know how hard it is to recruit staff, so for businesses to stick their head above the parapet and showcase themselves as being a good employer and somewhere that people want to work can be hugely valuable,” she said. “That recognition of being one of Jersey’s Best Workplaces also has a knock-on effect because, if employees are happy, they will look after customers. Therefore, if you can show that you look after your staff well, there is a good chance that you will attract new customers as well.” 

While a lot of the feedback was positive, another “eye-opener” for many businesses was the level of loneliness that employees experienced in the workplace. 

“That was quite high in a number of organisations,” she said. “In fact, it was much higher than both we and the employers were expecting. As this is becoming a hot topic, it is great that the survey has highlighted the issue and has given employers the opportunity to open conversations and explore solutions.” 

Having attracted participation from businesses in almost every sector, from construction, retail and healthcare to financial services, hospitality and digital, All Island Media and CompassJersey are now looking forward to launching the 2025 iteration of the awards. 

“We were greatly heartened by the response to the inaugural awards and, as we build further on this initiative, this year, we will be running both Jersey’s Best Workplace and Guernsey’s Best Workplace, something which responds to requests from many pan-island businesses,” said James. “We hope that this year’s awards will attract a similar diversity of participants and will also enable those businesses who took part in the first awards to participate again, giving them the opportunity to benchmark their progress over the past 12 months.”