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Gathering Employee Input From Around the Globe
Reed Elsevier publishes more than 15,000 different journals, books and reference works, offers more than 500 online information services, and organizes 430 trade shows and exhibitions. With its 35,000 employees operating in more than 200 countries, it is truly a global giant. Reed Elsevier's size and global reach offers many business advantages, but also creates major challenges when communicating with employees.
A few years ago, Reed Elsevier launched an employee recruitment, retention and training campaign to position the company as an “employer of choice.” This effort was built around the company's core values and was designed to help employees understand and live those values. Reed Elsevier chose The TRACOM Group to conduct employee research to evaluate the impact of the campaign and to advance its employee development efforts.
The Reed Elsevier Values were developed to create a common sense of direction and a performance atmosphere,” said Jean-Luc Augustin, director of human resources at Reed Elsevier. “We want to be more than a holding company with unconnected business units and our people can make that happen.”
TRACOM initially developed a 360-degree measurement (or a Leadership 360) of the company's top 300 managers. Peers, supervisors and direct reports rated the managers’ support of and commitment to the values. The surveys findings led to a significant talent review of senior management, resulting in promotions, new work assignments and even some dismissals.
Encouraged by this management evaluation, Reed Elsevier decided to undertake a global Employee Opinion Survey (EOS), which would further research the company's values and other workplace performance issues.
TRACOM created an online survey in 13 languages and deployed it simultaneously around the globe. More than 28,000 employees responded. Despite the massive amount of data, TRACOM was able to provide management with preliminary data analysis just a day after data collection ended. A complete quantitative and qualitative report of global findings was presented to the management committee within two weeks.
“We were quickly able to understand the global issues and break down the data by geography, business divisions and even specific businesses,” said Augustin. “TRACOM's service and turn-around were tremendous.”
With the major issues identified, TRACOM facilitated a series of focus groups to better analyze significant performance-related issues. More than 70 focus groups were held globally over the next few months.
TRACOM and Reed Elsevier used the survey and focus groups to develop specific action plans to build on organizational strengths and address problem areas. These plans are being implemented and progress will be tracked in the next EOS.
“We've seen several benefits from this initiative,” says Augustin. “First we have a true understanding of our performance in key areas and can undertake specific tactics to improve performance. Second, our employees know that their involvement is valued and put to use.”
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