An Employee-Centric Survey for an Employee Driven Company

There have been a lot of new faces in the office lately. It’s a very exciting time for censhare, as we continue to grow more and more each day. We aren’t your average IT company. This is not the kind of place where you sit at your desk and do the same task day-in and day-out. We pride ourselves on being a fast-paced, proactive, constantly evolving, and, dare I say, hip company.

However, with great growth comes great responsibility. An increasing number of employees means an increasing network of people who need their voices heard. The voices of the people of censhare is what makes the company so successful. At censhare, it is encouraged to speak your mind and present your ideas. You talk, and we listen. Why does censhare care so much about the opinion of its employees? Because censhare has a vision of innovative communication! In many companies, development comes from a top-down approach. Upper management makes a decision on how the business should be run, and employees have to adhere to the rules. This is not to say that we don’t value the opinions of our brilliant management team, but instead, all employees are on the same playing field.

This is where HR comes into play. We are the listeners. We want to hear the opinions and concerns of censhare employees because that is how we develop the company. And a company that is growing this fast needs continuous development.

At censhare, we not only encourage you to share your thoughts and concerns, we ask for them regularly. Every few weeks to be exact. We then use this feedback to further develop and strengthen the company. There are no extensive algorithms or scientific methods behind it, it’s as simple as it sounds. We call them Pulse Surveys.

Pulse Surveys are exactly as they seem. These anonymous, 5 question surveys are used to measure the “pulse” of censhare employees. They allow us to check in on the entire team and see what people like, what they don’t like, and what ideas might be brought to the table. We used these surveys to measure everything from how employees feel about coming to work to their thoughts on implementing new processes. Surveys include a comment section where all questions and concerns are addressed and answered by the management team. After results are analyzed, we are then able to turn ideas into actions. Employees are able to get their questions answered in real time and see their ideas come to life.

Pulse Surveys have been highly successful at censhare. Overall, colleagues like the idea of having short surveys throughout the year instead of having one big annual engagement survey. They feel that their voices can be heard and that Pulse Surveys allow more room for company development. While I’m pleased with the participation rate of between 50% and 70% for each, which gives us a good insight of the atmosphere in the Munich office as well as the attitudes of censhare employees from all around the world, I also know that even more of the company could be represented. Unlike a long, year-end survey, these are actionable immediately, so please let us know your thoughts. We have over 200 employees so I’d like to see over 200 completed surveys!

So far, our Pulse Surveys have centred around topics like employee satisfaction, the use of the chat tool, Slack, and the direction in which censhare is going. The results have been quite positive. Pulse Surveys have shown that…

• censhare employees enjoy their job. In fact, over 97% of employees reported that they like going to work at censhare.
• It has also been determined that Slack works quite well for our company. About 80% feel that Slack is beneficial to them in their day-to-day work, with 17% feeling neutral towards the tool.
• Employees are excited about DuMont Media Group, our new investor, and the future of censhare. We determined that we are a "glass-half-full" company – over 90% of employees are optimistic about the future of censhare and believe that partnering with DuMont is a step in the right direction.
• There has also been some great constructive feedback which has allowed us to examine our business strategy and determine what the company’s priorities should be.

Pulse Surveys have proven to be a great way for censhare employees to speak their mind in a way that provides satisfaction metrics. The results give us confirmation that censhare is headed down the right path and will redirect us when we make a wrong turn. They allow us to keep moving forward with confidence and let us continue being the proactive company that we’ve worked hard to build and, dare I say, stay hip.