Employee Survey 2006: ‘The Most Important Thing Is Dialog’
Mr. Hermreck, the 2006 Worldwide Employee Survey is the first major project you oversee in your capacity as the new Executive Vice President HR. What are your feelings about this challenge?
Immanuel Hermreck: I admit there’s some pride. Prior to the first international employee survey in 2002, employee surveys were already performed at Bertelsmann’s German companies, since 1977 in fact. For roughly 30 years, the employee survey has been among the most important initiatives to foster our corporate culture of partnership. The survey will be available throughout the entire organization. This time, more than 84,000 employees at all levels will be invited to give a personal assessment of their immediate work environment. Afterwards, the supervisor of each department receives a tailored report that sums up, in anonymized form, the responses from everyone in the team. This report allows teams to explore where things are going well and where things need to improve. This is an extraordinary chance to receive feedback! The most important thing is that this feedback is followed by action. Each department receiving survey results needs to draw initiatives from the survey that improve what needs to be improved. It is this process of wide-spread dialogue and improvement that makes the survey invaluable for the whole company and for all its employees.
What did the 2002 Employee Survey achieve? What do you see as the key results?
Immanuel Hermreck: We analyzed the data from the survey and found statistical evidence that the financial success of our company is directly linked to our corporate culture of partnership: When our executives lead their teams in a spirit of partnership, when employees are given responsibility and autonomy to make decisions, when they can develop professionally and find fulfillment in their job, then they will in return identify strongly with their company and contribute to its success. These findings underscore that Bertelsmann’s corporate culture is not about handling people with kid gloves; treating each other respectfully and acting as partners is the foundation of our business success. Of course there have been a great many other measures and projects that grew out of the last employee survey. Some key items are the revision of the Bertelsmann Essentials and the international expansion of the Leadership Program for executives. Establishing the Bertelsmann Survey Services department allowed us to support our divisions and companies in performing a number of their own employee surveys, which has given more than 20,000 employees the opportunity to participate in additional surveys since the group-wide survey in 2002. But the most important impact of the 2002 survey is the dialog it sparked in companies and departments, and which has lead to a wide range of measures to improve local work conditions.
To what extent does the 2006 Employee Survey take its cue from the 2002 survey – and what adjustments and changes were made?
Immanuel Hermreck: Immanuel Hermreck: The first worldwide employee survey in 2002 was entirely new territory for us here at the Corporate Center. Many companies outside Germany weren’t yet familiar with the instrument. However, thanks to thorough preparation and hard work, the project managers on all levels ensured a very successful survey. As I already mentioned, many of our divisions and companies proactively conducted their own follow-up surveys. This wealth of experience has been enormously extremely helpful for the preparations of the new survey. We have also made some significant changes. Executives will receive additional support in dealing with the results, learning from them and initiating processes of change. For instance they can now complete an – optional – questionnaire in which they indicate how they think their employees will rate them. In their results report, they can then compare their own assessment with the actual scores given by their employees. For supervisors, this provides clear feedback on the extent to which they are aware of their employees’ needs. This instrument, first piloted in a survey at Gruner + Jahr, has proven very valuable.
There are other ways in which the results reports will be even more informative this year: For instance, executives can compare their current results with those from previous surveys, which shows how things have evolved over time. Also, we will be able to provide even more departments with their own tailored results report containing the summarized, anonymized responses of their employees. From now on, five submitted questionnaires will suffice to issue a results report, instead of six as in the past. This is in response to a suggestion by companies where many departments have fewer than six employees. We discussed at length whether lowering the threshold from six to five questionnaires submitted could trigger concerns regarding the anonymity of the survey results. So we tested the change in an interim survey in 2004 – with success. The participation rate of employees in this survey was very high. Our privacy protection and employee representatives also agree that this is a step in the right direction. Adjusting the threshold will raise the number of department reports by roughly 20 percent. We will be able to provide at least 500 additional results reports to departments. This means 500 additional times dialogue within teams, 500 times a chance to make workplace improvements.
We have also enhanced the IT systems that are used for the survey. For instance, this year more than 400 company representatives are responsible for implementing the survey locally. They use a common internet platform to prepare and administer the survey. This platform was developed in-house and is called "Survey Toolbox" and the .02 version of this website has been launched with many additional features. In combination, the changes I have described will again significantly increase the value of the survey. I myself can hardly wait to leaf through the results report for my own department!
Before 2002, employee surveys were carried out every five years. Now the interval has been shortened to four years. Why?
Immanuel Hermreck: In fact we asked ourselves whether we shouldn’t perform employee surveys even more often than every four years, but eventually decided against it. The divisions and companies perform their own interim surveys, some of them annually. These questionnaires are usually shorterand are tailored very specifically to local requirements. However, we also need more comprehensive surveys, not too few and far between, that reflect the entire organization down to the smallest unit and that allow every Bertelsmann employee all over the world to engage in a dialog with the company and to experience the whole group as just that, a whole. In a worldwide survey, even with the various differences between the countries and cultures, there are shared topics that can be queried and identified. Clearly, the results aren’t the only thing that counts in a survey: dialog and communication between Bertelsmann and its employees is also very important. In fact, we have learned that there is an explicit wish for this dialog on the part of our employees. For Bertelsmann, the group-wide survey every four years is one of the most important ways to communicate with Bertelsmann employees on a global scale. In conjunction with the interim surveys in the Bertelsmann divisions and companies, this yields an ideal combination for all sides.
What are your hopes for the 2006 survey?
Immanuel Hermreck: My main hope is that as many employees as possible will participate, that as many of them as possible seize this opportunity to have a say. The higher the participation rate, the more results reports are generated in the end, and the more specific improvements we can initiate. And from this, everybody benefits – the employees, their companies and Bertelsmann.
