Why is it important for employees to understand the big picture of your organisation?
At BigPicture Learning, we work with senior leaders and organisational specialists who want their employees to understand the big picture of the organisation. Whether the goal is to communicate an organisational or functional story, we help to bring our clients’ visions, values, goals, strategies and priorities to life across large populations.
Why is this important? Regardless of the sector or industry an organisation operates within, employees have four core motivations:
- A desire to understand the context for the work they do and how they make a difference.
- Wanting to feel part of something bigger than their own roles, teams or departments.
- Wanting an emotional attachment to the organisation and the work it does.
- A need to feel that there is alignment with what is said and what is done at all levels across their organisation.
Helping your employees to connect to these core motivations and see and understand the big picture is vital. This is because employees who can see where they fit in are happier, more productive and more loyal to your organisation and the people it serves.
How do you measure how well employees understand the big picture?
Measuring how well your employees understand the big picture is not easy. The idea of the “big picture” encompasses many elements including the organisation’s:
- Vision
- Strategy
- Values
- External environment
- Culture
- Behaviours
- Systems and process
This can lead to confusion as to how to pin down what it is that people need in order to help them understand the big picture. However, measuring attitudes and perceptions in these areas is vital in establishing what your organisation is doing well and the gaps it needs to work on.
The BigPicture Pulse Check
“The BigPicture Pulse Check” provides a snapshot view of how connected your employees are to your organisation’s ‘Big Picture’. The short, 24-question survey will enable you to measure your organisation’s current status and will provide a benchmark for any future work in this area. The survey will look at the following areas:
- How well do your employees understand the drivers of change for your organisation?
- Do your employees relate to the organisation’s long-term vision and mission?
- Can employees see a connection between the organisation’s vision and the strategies and values you are committing to?
- How clear are employees about the way their roles and the behaviours expected of them link to your organisational direction?
- How much do your employees buy-in to the measures and goals used to assess the progress you are making?
- Do employees believe that the organisation is genuinely committed to its stated direction and values?
The BigPicture Pulse Check provides quantitative feedback in a dashboard format and summary report detailing how your employees’ views on these questions rate across the different departments and demographics that make up your organisation. Furthermore, your data will be benchmarked against other organisations who have completed The BigPicture Pulse Check so you can also see how your organisation compares externally in these areas.
The BigPicture Pulse Check is based on our ‘BigPicture Connections Framework‘ (see below) which shows the relationship between your organisation’s own beliefs and motivations and how these connect to the commitment and focused action of your employees. By looking at the correlation between rational and emotional engagement, we can help to identify how much your employees both understand and care about the direction your organisation is heading in. The BigPicture Pulse Check will help you to see what you are doing well and where you can improve across these core motivational areas.
How can you use the BigPicture Pulse Check?
All new and existing BigPicture Learning clients are given the opportunity to use the BigPicture Pulse check before and after we deliver an intervention for them to help to measure the impact of our work. We also offer the pulse check as a stand-alone service for organisations who want to measure how well their employees understand the big picture and prior to deciding if they need any support. More information about the BigPicture Pulse Check can be obtained via our information sheet.
Before we set up The BigPicture Pulse Check for an organisation, we will ask what demographic data the client wants to collect so they can identify any differences of opinions that may exist between different groups and teams. These can include:
- Function / Department
- Location / Office
- Grade / Level
In addition, we will collect generic information such as age group and tenure. To maintain confidentiality, each demographic filter does not contain less than seven people. If this is the case, when we clean and aggregate the data, any small departments/filters will be grouped so we can ensure anonymity.
The BigPicture Pulse Check is usually completed anonymously online via any device with an internet connection. For online versions, access to the survey is via a general link that will be emailed by the client to chosen employees. In this way, we will not need to handle any contact or personal details for employees. We can provide paper copies where employees do not have access to the internet. If clients require paper copies of the survey, these will be collected centrally in a sealed box and will need to be sent to us for processing.
The BigPicture Pulse Check is not intended to replicate a full employee survey as we are only asking 24 questions in a focussed area related to the organisation’s purpose and direction. In our experience, these areas are not often explored in detail in standard employee surveys. Therefore, if a client already have a more comprehensive survey, our survey can sit alongside it or complement it. Nevertheless, we will always discuss the current situation with a client in detail before running the survey. At any stage, if they or we feel it is not an appropriate time to run the survey with your organisation, we can defer, postpone or cancel the process without any further obligations.
What happens after running the BigPicture Pulse Check?
The choice is up to the client. If they are already working with us, we will use the pulse check how well their people understand the big picture prior to working with them and then repeat it afterwards to help them to measure their return on investment.
If a client are not sure if they have an an issue and just want to measure how well they are doing, we are happy to provide them with the data from the survey and to recommend any follow-up actions. They are under no obligation to work with BigPicture Learning and are free to work with another provider or to do nothing.
We are happy to present the findings from the survey to senior leaders and to help them to understand the big picture themselves when it comes to employee engagement and understanding with their company direction.
If you are interested in finding out more about The BigPicture Pulse Check or how we can help your employees to understand the big picture of your organisation, get in touch with us.
