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A look at employment trends and what that means for employee engagement in 5 years time.

What does the future of work look like for a new starter?

For 11 years of my career I ran a digital marketing and brand agency. In the time I was there I worked on hundreds of brands for clients of all shapes and sizes, and in all fields and particularly loved the creative outcomes of the work we produced.
The term &lsquo;brand&rsquo; has a lot of different connotations. In retail, a brand often associates a product with it&rsquo;s manufacturer and gives a sense of identity and often value to the product. It can have tangible elements such as a logo, colours, typefaces, materials and slogans, all of which make the brand instantly recognisable and give it a sense of identity.
Good brands are consistent and well recognised. If you remove the logos and writing from a whole variety of consumer products you can still easily identify those brands by other facets such as colour and design.&nbsp;
Building an amazing brand inspires huge customer loyalty. The nirvana of any good brand is to inspire such deep rooted psychological love of the brand, that your customers won&rsquo;t consider other options. Personally I wouldn&rsquo;t consider any tech hardware options other than Apple.
The way that Apple products have been woven into the fabric of my everyday life means that it&rsquo;s different for me to move anywhere else now, but I also love the brand for a whole bunch of reasons including usability, design, marketing and of course the founder vision created by the late Steve Jobs.
For consumers, brands inspire loyalty. With that loyalty, your customers become sticky and keep on buying. But how does this brand loyalty transcend into your workforce?
&nbsp;
<h3>What is 'employer brand'?</h3>
In the same way that marketers create a compelling &lsquo;customer brand&rsquo; to inspire customer loyalty, so too must HR teams create a compelling &lsquo;employer brand&rsquo; that they can apply to the entire employee lifecycle.
All businesses have an employer brand. It&rsquo;s the way in which businesses differentiate themselves in the labour market to recruit, retain and engage people. It helps businesses gain a competitive edge in the recruitment of great people and establish greater credibility.&nbsp;
In the CIPD 2008 guide &lsquo;Employer Branding - A no nonsense approach&rsquo;, employer brand is defined as '...a set of attributes and qualities, often intangible, that makes an organisation distinctive, promises a particular kind of employment experience, and appeals to those people who will thrive and perform best in its culture'.
In the wider context of the business, a solid employer brand should be linked to a company&rsquo;s values, policies, people strategy and external brand. Without this there can be a huge misalignment between the type of people that the company hires and their ability to deliver the brand promise outlined by the marketing team.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Why is it so important?</h3>
Developing a high value &lsquo;employer brand&rsquo; can benefit a company in many tangible and intangible ways.&nbsp;
For marketers, a quality &lsquo;consumer brand&rsquo; makes it easier to attract, engage and retain customers and build extreme loyalty. This is known as the customer lifecycle. For HR people, adopting the same approach builds extreme loyalty with employees for the &lsquo;employee lifecycle&rsquo;
&lsquo;Employee lifecycle&rsquo; is the experience that an employee has with their employer. It can start way before they ever become an employee, but is associated with their experience of how they are recruited, onboarded, managed, rewarded, communicated to and ultimately how they exit.&nbsp;
Positive experiences in these areas will lead to a better &lsquo;employee experience&rsquo; and build an engaged employee that feels valued and respected by their employer. The payback here is that they usually want to work harder to adopt the company&rsquo;s mission , vision and values in their working behaviours. Even if a highly engaged employee chooses to leave the organisation, chances are they'll still add value by acting as a &lsquo;promoter&rsquo; of that organisation; telling everyone they know about their positive employee experience! Conversely a negative experience in one or all of these areas can have the opposite effect, as was experienced by Brewdog recently.
&nbsp;
<h3>How do you create and amazing employer brand?</h3>
This is where a blog could easily become a 100 page whitepaper. There is a written methodology to this, which is very similar to the marketing methodology around customer brands. This involves;
<ol>
<li>Discovery -&nbsp;Understanding more about your employees, your management and the&nbsp;current situation</li>
<li>Creation -&nbsp;Analysis the data from your discovery process and create an employee value proposition</li>
<li>Implementation -&nbsp;Getting the employee value proposition out there and embedding it into the culture</li>
<li>Maintenance -&nbsp;Ensuring that the company lives and breathes the employer brand through careful measurement and optimisation&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
This is not a one-off exercise, this is a strategic exercise and it&rsquo;s an ongoing exercise too. In just the same way that a consumer brand can be devalued overnight, so too can an employer brand so it&rsquo;s vitally important that building an employer brand is viewed as an exercise in continual improvement.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Make a start today - The discovery!</h3>
Without a good discovery (or good research) you run the risk of making the wrong decisions or even reversing some of the good you&rsquo;ve managed to achieve. I&rsquo;ve seen first hand how the car industry invests millions of dollars into market research to ensure that they make good decisions about the future of their products. These sums are huge, but the consequences can be billion dollar losses.
Using great technology and great methodology to achieve a great discovery is helpful. Running workshops with your senior management, running focus groups with your employees and conducting employee engagement surveys are a great start. If you have a great way to collect this data, to measure improvement and importantly to understand &lsquo;what good looks like&rsquo; then you&rsquo;re taking your first steps in the right direction.&nbsp;
And as a final thought, don&rsquo;t get hung-up on the scores - these are often vanity metrics. Instead invest your energy in the qualitative feedback that comes back from your employees. That&rsquo;s where the great ideas come from that help you build a brand that your employees really buy into.
&nbsp;
We&rsquo;re here to help you make that start. Drop us a message on our contact form and we&rsquo;ll show you how.

Why should it matter so much to your business?

Your Employer Brand

There is a lots chatter on social media from recruiters and talent managers about the risk and challenges of mass resignations. They&rsquo;re referencing employees who have waited out the pandemic and are now looking to make a career move.&nbsp;
But there is also an equal amount of chatter about the lack of candidates in the market place and how difficult it is to find talent at the moment.&nbsp;
So which is it? We take a look at whether the &ldquo;great resignation&rdquo; is actually happening, how you can take advantage and how you can prevent it happening in your organisation.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>What is Driving the Great Resignation?</h3>
A recent&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://hr.personio.de/hubfs/EN_Downloads/202104_HRStudy_UKI.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">survey by Personio</a>&nbsp;found that 38% of respondents planned to quit their job in the next six months to a year. This shift is largely due to the pandemic making people question their priorities. Right now, more and more people are setting off to pursue their dream jobs, or are quitting working life altogether to spend more time with their families. In fact, a whopping&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/most-employees-would-grade-their-jobs-a-b-/553087/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50%</a> of employees say that they&rsquo;d sacrifice their salary for a job they enjoyed better. Times truly are a-changing!
<h4>But why now?&nbsp;</h4>
Many people have, up until this point, felt under-valued and unheard &ndash; a key reason for&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic work culture</a>&nbsp;and employee stress. And while this feeling isn&rsquo;t anything new, the pandemic has pushed many of those who were already stressed and under pressure over the edge.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Does The Great Resignation Present an Opportunity?</h3>
While &lsquo;The Great Resignation&rsquo; of 2021 may seem like a looming threat to all UK businesses, it may in fact have its own silver lining. Just as what comes up must come down, most of those who leave a workplace will eventually have to return to employment. But does that mean there&rsquo;s a pool of hot talent out there ripe for the taking? Well, yes. The only catch is that they may not want to work with you, or at least with you on a full-time, in-office basis.&nbsp;
Because many workers are now favouring remote or hybrid roles over in-person jobs, this presents companies with, depending on how you look at it, an opportunity or a predicament. On the one hand, there&rsquo;s a lot of hot talent out there willing to work on a remote or contractual basis for businesses. This allows the company in question to save on overheads and potentially employment costs. On the other hand, businesses that aren&rsquo;t willing to adapt to changing times may struggle to source the employees they need in-house, and stall as a result.&nbsp;
And it&rsquo;s not just about the office, either. Many employees have gotten so used to working from home that they realise how much they dislike their workplace in general. Office politics, bullying managers, and a lack of recognition are all factors that can play a role in an employee wanting to leave. So before you go thinking that The Great Resignation presents an opportunity, you need to make sure you&rsquo;re creating a great place to work.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Likely Are You to Lose Out?&nbsp;</h3>
This is an employer&rsquo;s biggest fear right now, and rightly so. While there&rsquo;s no way to accurately project how many of your employees will hand in their notice, there&rsquo;s one key indicator &ndash;&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-can-employee-feedback-change-your-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employee engagement.</a>&nbsp;
Because The Great Resignation all boils down to employee satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), any business with a&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/what-is-enps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low eNPS score</a> is at risk of losing a large chunk of their workforce. Employees will simply choose to work somewhere better.
&nbsp;
<h3>How Can You Take Advantage of The Great Resignation?</h3>
There are two ways you can take advantage of The Great Resignation:
<ol>
<li>Hire hot new talent</li>
<li>Give your existing workplace a much-needed shakeup and retain your current talent</li>
</ol>
In either case, it&rsquo;s imperative that your workplace lives up to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-your-future-employees-want-most" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the standards that a 2021 employee wants</a> to see. Because although &lsquo;The Great Resignation&rsquo; is an unprecedented event, there&rsquo;s likely been a complete shift in the mindset of the modern worker. This means that things probably won&rsquo;t go back to the way they were. Employees now want their workplaces to tick most of their boxes, and they won&rsquo;t be afraid to leave swiftly if otherwise!&nbsp;
Whether you choose option 1 or 2 from this list, one thing remains constant: great employee satisfaction rates are key to a thriving business in the modern age. Try as you might to hire that hot new talent floating around, if you&rsquo;re refusing to adapt to changing expectations, they&rsquo;ll be gone before you know it.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Can You Increase Employee Engagement Rates?&nbsp;</h3>
There&rsquo;s no straightforward answer to this question, because every business is different, with unique strengths and challenges that only the employees can tell you. From micro-managing leaders, to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic workplace cultures</a>&nbsp;and lack of adequate&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/duty-of-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Duty of Care</a>, the list of things that can negatively impact how it feels to work in an organisation is significant. But don&rsquo;t let that scare you away from inviting your employees to share feedback. In fact, this is the most important thing you can do to boost employee engagement, and is the first step to creating a better working environment.&nbsp;
Using an anonymous employee engagement tool such as&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Space HR</a>&nbsp;can give you extremely valuable insights into how your workers are feeling. You&rsquo;ll receive honest feedback presented in a quantifiable&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/what-is-enps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">eNPS score</a>, so that you can begin to understand exactly which areas need attention.&nbsp;
While we could talk all day about what you can do to increase employee engagement, here&rsquo;s a non-exhaustive list of the things you&nbsp;shouldn&rsquo;t&nbsp;do:&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>What NOT to Do:</h3>
DO NOT Throw More Salary at the Situation
We hear the phrase &lsquo;money can&rsquo;t buy happiness&rsquo; probably a lot more than we&rsquo;d like, but there&rsquo;s an awful lot of truth within it. If you&rsquo;re&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-stress-impacts-on-creativity-in-the-workplace" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">overworking your employee</a>, or not giving enough back, you might assume that &lsquo;overpaying&rsquo; them will balance everything out, but&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/the-impact-of-salary-on-employee-engagement" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">higher salary doesn&rsquo;t positively correlate with higher employee satisfaction rates.</a>&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s because an &lsquo;overworked&rsquo; employee is likely to be&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-stress-impacts-on-creativity-in-the-workplace" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feeling stressed</a>&nbsp;out with deadlines, undervalued for their hard work, or simply in need of a better work-life balance. That&rsquo;s what being &lsquo;overworked&rsquo; really means. Anyway, the best way to cure an overworked employee is to get to the bottom of&nbsp;why&nbsp;they&rsquo;re feeling overworked i.e. employee feedback.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
DO NOT Focus On New Things You Can Introduce, Rather Than Fixing Existing Problems
Another common conclusion that business owners jump to in order to solve low workplace engagement is to spend additional money and budget on treats and rewards. And while this sort of thing might just boost employee engagement rates in an already happy workplace, it&rsquo;s not a cure for most common causes of employee discontent.&nbsp;
Bad leadership is one of the most common issues that lead workers to resign, accounting for at least&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">70% of variance in employee engagement scores</a>. This is why it&rsquo;s imperative to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/want-to-become-a-fantastic-leader" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">train your managers to be great leaders</a>, rather than focusing on a superficial or aesthetic area of your business. Again, anonymous feedback really is the only way of accessing the insights you need to make positive changes within your management team.
&nbsp;
DO NOT Take For Granted The Team You Already Have&nbsp;
You need to be especially sure that you are doing enough to make your existing team stay. Things like having great recognition schemes in place, long term career paths and that all important focus on wellbeing will all ensure that when opportunity calls, your team don&rsquo;t answer.&nbsp;
If you aren&rsquo;t sure if you have people thinking of leaving, that&rsquo;s when an engagement survey can help once again. Low engagement in particular teams might be a good indication that you need to pay more attention and tackle issues before they turn into resignations.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Summary</h3>
The Great Resignation poses a major threat to businesses who for years have allowed issues to lay under the radar. Now they face an &lsquo;adapt or die&rsquo; situation, which will force them to change their workforce for the better by actually listening to how their employees feel.&nbsp;
Whether you&rsquo;re confident that your employees will stay, or you fear a pile-up of resignation letters on your desk, now is the time to act. Find out how your employees are feeling, make the changes you need to encourage them to stay, and attract hot new talent with your newly improved workplace.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Get in touch with us</a>&nbsp;to see how we can help you take full advantage of The Great Resignation.&nbsp;

Is It Really Happening? How Can You Protect Your Organisation?

The Great Resignation

If you&rsquo;re an employer, you&rsquo;re like to be familiar with the concept of Duty of Care. And while it&rsquo;s pretty obvious at face value what it entails (welfare, support, and good practice), it&rsquo;s essential for companies to fully understand their responsibilities, for practical, legal and employee engagement purposes.&nbsp;
Here we explore what the Duty of Care umbrella covers, and what it might mean for your organisation.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>What Is Duty Of Care?&nbsp;</h3>
The&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);" href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/employers.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HSE&nbsp;</a>sets out an employers responsibility on duty of care:
&ldquo;It is an employer's duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and other people who might be affected by their business. Employers must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this.&nbsp;
This means making sure that workers and others are protected from anything that may cause harm, effectively controlling any risks to injury or health that could arise in the workplace."
Because the &lsquo;risks&rsquo; of employment will vary from industry to industry, this makes it difficult for some companies to know exactly where their legal responsibilities lie. But failing to understand exactly where responsibilities start and end can have serious implications for an organisation. Everything from&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic work cultures</a> to hefty negligence claims can arise from simple mistakes or failure to act responsibly, so it&rsquo;s crucial that employers are clear on their Duty of Care obligations.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Do Employers Know What Their Duty of Care is?&nbsp;</h3>
When it comes to the welfare of employees and employee engagement, legislation should be the minimum standards, not the aim. However it helps to understand the legislation as a starting point. All the standard measures in place are outlined in the&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/l24.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Health and Safety at Work Act 1992</a>. This covers things like:
<ul>
<li>Creating a clear Duty of Care policy, when a company has 5 or more employees</li>
<li>Training relevant individuals on basic health and safety issues</li>
<li>Frequently updating training and health and safety guides</li>
<li>Managing and recording misconduct</li>
<li>Displaying certification</li>
<li>Keeping training records up to date</li>
<li>Giving employees the right tools to fulfill their responsibilities</li>
</ul>
But it isn&rsquo;t just&nbsp;physical safety that employers need to look after, they also have a Duty of Care to support their workers&rsquo; mental health too.&nbsp;
Many organisations are now going well beyond the minimum duties and creating a culture based around employee wellbeing, supporting both physical and mental health. This employee-first approach can reap the rewards of high engagement and a positive work culture; reduce absence from work,&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/the-cost-of-low-employee-engagement-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">save on recruitment costs</a>, and encourage a more productive team.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How To Look After Your Team&rsquo;s Mental Health</h3>
According to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HSE</a>, as much as 40% of all work-related sickness in the UK is caused by stress. This stands witness to the equal importance of both mental and physical welfare in the workplace.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;re an employer, you know that time off leads to decreased profits and productivity. And decreased profits adds stress on other team members who pick up the extra workload to meet targets. The cycle repeats and the stress can spread across the team and even the entire organisation. To put it simply, your efforts as an employer should focus more strongly on&nbsp;preventing&nbsp;stress than curing it.&nbsp;
Here are some of our top tips for looking after your team&rsquo;s mental health &amp; moving towards a &ldquo;wellbeing&rdquo; approach:
&nbsp;
<h4>Encourage Anonymous Feedback&nbsp;</h4>
If&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-to-spot-the-warning-signs-of-stress-in-your-team-and-what-you-can-do-to-help" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">your employees are stressed</a>, it&rsquo;s likely that at the heart of the issue is a lack of support from their manager or leader. Once this cycle has begun, it can also mean that they&rsquo;re less likely to share their feelings and concerns with the same leader or manager. Eventually, left unresolved, team members may crack.&nbsp;
For this reason,&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-can-employee-feedback-change-your-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employee feedback</a> can be a company&rsquo;s greatest resource, but only if it&rsquo;s anonymous &ndash; aka, honest &ndash; and actioned. Anonymous employee engagement surveys will give you real-time insights into the state of your workforce&rsquo;s mental health, and offer suggestions about what could be improved.
Good data and insight can be predictive of issues that are forming, or help to uncover solutions to problems that have already surfaced.&nbsp;
By collaborating with a company like&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Space HR</a>, you can distribute expert-made employee engagement surveys via Whatsapp &ndash; surveys that have been specifically tailored to your organisation. The more you know about how your employees feel, the better able you are to fulfil your Duty of Care.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Ensure Your Leaders Have Received the Correct Training</h4>
Often employees are dissatisfied or stressed at work due to a breakdown in communication with leaders. Whether they feel generally unsupported, feel bullied, discriminated against, or placed under too much pressure to meet deadlines, leadership plays a massive role in your team&rsquo;s mental health.&nbsp;
Your anonymous employee engagement surveys, will provide you with critical insights into the general perception of your management teams. You can use the feedback to identify gaps in duty of care, teach them&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/want-to-become-a-fantastic-leader" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the best practices of leadership</a>, and encourage them to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/the-7-habits-of-highly-engaging-leaders" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lead by example</a>. Doing so will breed a positive workplace culture, and will make recruitment and regulation much easier going forward.&nbsp;
You may also want to invest in specialist support and training in this area. Managers and leaders armed with knowledge and confidence of how to support their teams and truly fulfil their duty of care, will have better outcomes than those who are under-invested in.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Treat Your Duty of Care Policy as a Basic Standard, Not the Gold Standard</h4>
Your Duty of Care policy is the bare minimum you can do to keep your company out of court, but it doesn&rsquo;t automatically build employee engagement. To truly look after your employees&rsquo; physical and mental health, you must put other measures in place to show them you care, along with checking back regularly and often to ensure that it&rsquo;s working.
&nbsp;
The tips we&rsquo;ve listed here are ways of taking care of your workers and improving workplace engagement. For more information about how Ten Space could help you create a thriving work culture to go above and beyond your Duty of Care, <a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">get in touch</a>!&nbsp;

What is it and what does it mean for organisations?

Duty of Care

For the last 20 years, I've been designing, building, supporting and managing technology and software teams in organisations ranging from tiny startups through to major multinational companies.
Some of those companies are "tech" companies and some are major brands for whom technology, although key to their success, is not their main value. With diverse experience in industries from logistics, through multi-national telecommunications, "generalist" tech giants and human capital management, even my time working in online dating has helped me spot some similarities; as a tech leader something I've always found hard is recruiting, retaining and motivating the high calibre talent that my teams have really needed to succeed.
I know I'm not alone in this. No matter what industry you're in or what your team's area of expertise is, I'm sure that as a leader you've experienced similar challenges. It always boils down to the same thing: good, skilled staff are hard to find and always have plenty of options elsewhere. If you're not their employer of choice, why would they want to work with or for your&nbsp;organisation? If they don't want to work with your&nbsp;organisation, why would you expect them to stay?
&nbsp;
<h3>Why would you stay?</h3>
Any half-way decent book on modern management will tell you that diversity is a great thing. It helps teams to uncover solutions that they wouldn't have thought about without those differing viewpoints. It helps to build a stronger team as individuals bring their own unique strengths to complement the areas where others may struggle. It even helps individuals to grow, learn new skills and develop themselves in ways they wouldn't otherwise have.
With that diverse team comes differing drivers, differing needs and differing ways of thinking and working. You may know why you love what you do, but do you truly know what motivates your team (and potential future team)?
Maybe you do. Maybe you don't need any help from employee engagement experts like Ten Space
After years of searching, I've come to realise that the people I need to make sure my team succeeds aren't all like me. And I don't want or need them to be either. To hire, retain and excite the diverse talent my teams needed, I've had to reach them and satisfy their needs in ways that, personally, don't always motivate or drive me. The key to making sure that those teams continue to perform at their best has always been in ensuring that the team's voices are heard and understood, taking actions to make sure that even the quietest of colleagues is properly listened to.
Among the many reasons I wanted to join Ten Space was the opportunity to help teams to hear the voices inside.
&nbsp;
Ten Space's employee engagement experts are able to provide amazing guidance to clients. In order to make sure that support is the best possible for their clients' teams, we have to do everything we can to provide even the quietest person a way to give crucial feedback. Underpinned by our <a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(219, 62, 98);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/employee-promise" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employee promise</a>, the technology that my tech team is delivering on every day is built with anonymity and safety in mind to make sure that safe space is provided, respected and guaranteed,&nbsp;in a way that is most convenient for those clients' team members.
&nbsp;
We're reaching those team members in ways that nobody else can and making sure that they have a safe way to express themselves easily, honestly and openly.

Dan shares his "why" as he joins the Space HR team

Our CTO shares his thoughts on what employee engagement means to him

In 2020, a whopping&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/one-in-five-brits-quit-their-job-due-to-toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one in five</a> British workers quit their job due to &lsquo;toxic workplace culture&rsquo;.
But what exactly qualifies as &lsquo;toxic culture&rsquo;, and how does an unhealthy working environment develop?
&nbsp;
<h3>What is a Toxic Culture?&nbsp;</h3>
According to Greg Barnett of&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.predictiveindex.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Predictive Index</a>, a workplace culture is &ldquo;typically considered toxic when trust, psychological safety, and employee morale degrade to unhealthy levels.&rdquo;
Affecting productivity, mental health and employee engagement, toxic cultures are incredibly dangerous for both companies and employees, with symptoms spreading through a workforce quickly if not treated.
Examples of a toxic culture could include a workplace where employees are chronically stressed, overworked, or feeling bullied by their boss. And in most of these cases, the problem boils down to a lack of communication and trust between those in the&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/organisational-structures---where-do-you-fit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">workplace hierarchy</a>.&nbsp;
Due to this sense of distance between employees and their leaders, staff turnover in toxic workplaces tends to be exceptionally high. This is because those who feel disregarded, abused, or exploited by their managers, often would rather leave a company than file a complaint, mostly due to a lack of trust that their issues will be resolved.
It&rsquo;s not hard to see how a toxic culture can have a huge negative impact on the performance of a business. It&rsquo;s estimated that a &lsquo;poor company culture&rsquo; costs UK companies an eye-watering&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/resources/culture-economy-report-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&pound;20.2 billion</a>&nbsp;every single year.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Does a Toxic Culture Develop?</h3>
Sadly, there are many ways in which a toxic culture can develop in a workplace. And while the &lsquo;root cause&rsquo; of the problem may vary from case to case, it&rsquo;s generally a lack of communication that exacerbates and conceals the problems.&nbsp;
When companies don&rsquo;t take the time to gather employee feedback; negative, or even abusive behaviour is allowed to go unnoticed and unaddressed. It can spread like a cancer throughout an organisation.
It&rsquo;s important for companies to send out&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-can-employee-feedback-change-your-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">anonymous employee engagement surveys</a>. Surveys can give early warning signs and red flags, of where problems are beginning to emerge. Low engagement teams, or concerning written feedback can provide opportunities for businesses to jump in early where the culture is becoming toxic, or employee engagement has dropped.&nbsp;
Where a toxic environment has already formed, simple measures like this enable a company to identify and rectify the signs of a toxic work environment. There are some huge red flags to watch out for, for when a toxic culture has already set in:&nbsp;
Here are a number of common red-flags of a toxic workplace:
<ol>
<li>Abusive managers who shout at or speak condescendingly towards employees&nbsp;</li>
<li>A general feeling of &lsquo;policies and/or profits over people&rsquo;, where workers feel disregarded or exploited</li>
<li>Micromanagers who continually intervene in others&rsquo; work</li>
<li>Extremely negative and unsupportive performance appraisals</li>
<li>Any form of discrimination and lack of diversity</li>
<li>A failure to recognise and reward employee achievements</li>
<li>Harassment&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
This isn&rsquo;t an exhaustive list, but if you recognise any of the above signs in your workplace or business, it&rsquo;s time to:
a.) leave (if you&rsquo;re an employee)
b.) do something about it (if you&rsquo;re an employer!)
&nbsp;
<h3>How to Gather Evidence of a Toxic Workplace Culture</h3>
You may be thinking it&rsquo;s difficult to quantifiably gauge the health of a workplace culture. After all, we&rsquo;re talking about people&rsquo;s feelings &ndash; and feelings are subjective, right?
To understand how it feels to work in your business, it can help to gather quantitative data about your company's culture. Here are just a few ideas of how you can approach this:&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Carry out regular employee engagement surveys</h4>
Employee engagement surveys can offer a wealth of measurable data, such as eNPS score and information through real-time feedback from current employees. They&rsquo;re most effective when carried out regularly. Quarterly surveys mean you are checking in with your team on a regular basis, whilst leaving enough time to action feedback and build trust in the process. Ten Space offers an innovative and anonymous method of surveying through Whatsapp, which delivers an engaging way to survey your team.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Check your company&rsquo;s reviews on&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Glassdoor</a>&nbsp;</h4>
<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Glassdoor</a>&nbsp;is an extremely useful (and free) platform through which employees, current and former, can leave honest reviews about their work experiences, and rate a company out of 5. Whilst engagement surveys results are likely to be shared within the business only, Glassdoor is a more public way of sharing feedback.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Keep an eye on your staff turnover and absenteeism</h4>
Employee turnover and absence rates are a dead giveaway of a toxic workplace culture. According to Monster, the average employee turnover rate in the UK is currently&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.monster.co.uk/advertise-a-job/hr-resources/workforce-management-and-planning/staff-retention/what-is-the-ideal-employee-turnover-rate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">15%</a>&nbsp;a year. And while not all staff turnover is bad, you might want to keep a closer eye on your culture if your turnover rate is much higher than this.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How to Prevent a Toxic Culture From Developing In Your Workplace</h3>
While there&rsquo;s no &lsquo;perfect&rsquo; way to shape your culture, there are a number of vital ingredients you&rsquo;ll need to cultivate a healthy working environment.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Listen to your employees</h4>
The first thing you need to consider is employee feedback. Right now your employees could be holding the answers to most, if not all of your problems. They&rsquo;re the driving force behind your entire company, and if&nbsp;they&rsquo;re not happy, how can you expect your customers and clients to be?&nbsp;
Take advantage of the insights employee engagement surveys can offer, and target the root causes of a toxic culture before one can develop. You can check out&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Space HR&rsquo;s powerful, stylish and easy to use platform</a>&nbsp;to get all the insights you need to keep your employees happy.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Foster great leadership</h4>
As toxic cultures often stem from miscommunication and bad leadership, it&rsquo;s crucial to instil great leadership skills in your managerial teams. Of course, great leadership comes in many different forms, so knowing&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/want-to-become-a-fantastic-leader" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">what makes a bad leader</a>&nbsp;is key to preventing toxic behaviour from festering.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Develop trust&nbsp;</h4>
Trust is a key element in any healthy organisation. Trust is built from operating transparently; doing what you say you are going to do; and doing the right thing, always. A lack of trust in an organisation can quickly slow it down and impact on performance.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Employees first&nbsp;</h4>
Finally and most importantly, always put your employees at the heart of your business. Without them, you have no brand, no clients, no service to deliver. Putting your employees at the heart of every business decision you make is the key to ensuring that your culture remains healthy and thriving.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
We&rsquo;re committed to creating healthier workplaces through innovative technology and employee engagement surveys. For more information on how our platform can help your business thrive, visit our website, or&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">get in touch</a>!&nbsp;

What It Is and How You Can Prevent It In Your Workplace?

Toxic Culture

A watch out for remote working & hybrid working

Can you hear me at the back?

Employee engagement is where employee happiness and alignment to your business goals meet.&nbsp;
Focusing on employee engagement can supercharge the performance of your business and deliver tangible results.
But what about the reverse? Does low employee engagement increase costs in your business? Let&rsquo;s take a look at some of the costs of low engagement. Some that you can easily calculate and others that are hidden.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Your business at 100 employees</h3>
Here are just&nbsp;some of the headline costs of low employee engagement we&rsquo;ve calculated for a business with 100 employees:
Replacement of Talent : &pound;7,500
Temps or Contractors : &pound;19,300
Sickness / Absence Payments : &pound;14,732
Under Performance: &pound;386,000
<h4>TOTAL PER ANNUM: &pound;427,523</h4>
&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ll agree, this is a HUGE sum, particularly when you consider that a business of this size may only have revenues of &pound;5m.
Below, we&rsquo;ll talk through how we&rsquo;ve calculated these figures. There&rsquo;s some maths we&rsquo;re going to use, that will help to bring these costs to life. Time to get your calculator out!&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Your wage bill</h3>
The average UK salary in 2020 for full time employees was<a style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;&pound;38,600.&nbsp;</a>Sticking with 100 staff, let&rsquo;s assume an annual wage bill of &pound;3,860,000.&nbsp;
Without taking into account national insurance, pension, benefits costs etc. - that&rsquo;s nearly &pound;4,000,000 invested in people.
Now think of this as a figure to be defended. If you were paying &pound;4m to an agency, you&rsquo;d be wanting to extract every ounce of value from your spend. It&rsquo;s the same with employee engagement. An engaged team will provide a much higher amount of value for your &pound;4m investment.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Replacement of Talent&nbsp;</h3>
A disengaged employee will leave (or even worse they could stay!).&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s hard to accurately measure the cost of an open vacancy, but there are certainly opportunity costs of a vacancy and the impact it has on other members of the team. These impacts often more than off-set the salary saved whilst you&rsquo;re recruiting.&nbsp;
For our calculations, maybe you are replacing some of the vacancies temporarily with temps, or paying contractors to pick up the slack. Let&rsquo;s modestly add in the cost of 50% of one of your team here in temporary resource across the year: &pound;19,300.
The average employee turnover rate in the UK is&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.monster.co.uk/advertise-a-job/hr-resources/workforce-management-and-planning/staff-retention/what-is-the-ideal-employee-turnover-rate/#:~:text=The%20UK%20average%20employee%20turnover,this%20varies%20drastically%20between%20industries.&amp;text=Industries%20with%20traditionally%20low%20turnover,accept%20them%20as%20the%20norm." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">15%</a>. So in our company of 100, 15 employees are likely to leave each year.&nbsp;
Maybe you replace them all via an employee referral fee that you pay to your team, say &pound;500 per role. That&rsquo;s &pound;7,500 per annum to replace your 15 roles.&nbsp;
Maybe you use a recruitment agency to help you to recruit. With a very modest fee of 10% salary for each role - &pound;3,860 x 15, that comes in at &pound;57,900 to replace your team via agency per year.&nbsp;
Or maybe you have an internal resource to help you with recruitment - say &pound;35,000 per year?&nbsp;
Other costs include un-budgeted salary increases, often incurred whilst trying to rescue a dis-engaged team member and convince them to stay. Evidence suggests that these rescue plans don&rsquo;t last long term, you&rsquo;re unlikely to see a return on investment for this spend.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Sickness / Absence&nbsp;</h3>
Not all sickness/absence in a business is down to disengagement of course, but high engagement can make a big difference.
The average number of annual sickness/absence days in the UK is 6.4. Reducing this by 1 per person (to 5.4) would save &pound;147. Across the business that&rsquo;s a total saving of &pound;14,732 in company sick pay.
&nbsp;
<h3>Under Performance&nbsp;</h3>
Whilst underperformance is difficult to measure, we can put some numbers against it.
What if every employee was operating at 10% below their maximum potential? Maybe they&rsquo;re making poor decisions, or not pushing hard enough for that critical client deadline. Maybe they&rsquo;re doing a whole bunch of personal things at work. Maybe they&rsquo;re taking twice as long to do a task than they should. Based on your wage bill, that&rsquo;s &pound;386,000 in lost performance.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Lost Sales / Lost Customers&nbsp;</h3>
What if your sales team isn't highly engaged? Or if your customer churn is high because the team is not servicing accounts well?
What is the value of a lost sale in your business, or the annual value of a lost customer?
&nbsp;
<h3>Reputation&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>
Could you measure the cost of your employer and customer reputation being lower than you&rsquo;d like? Maybe you are missing out on clients, or on employees who don&rsquo;t want to work with you as they know it&rsquo;s not a great place to be?&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Shareholder Value /&nbsp;Company Value&nbsp;</h3>
Highly engaged teams are also valuable teams. High value and performance translates to shareholder value and dividends. A demonstration of a highly engaged team can be a real selling point when it comes to securing investment for your business. Don&rsquo;t think the investors can&rsquo;t tell if your team isn&rsquo;t engaged as they walk through to your boardroom.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Wellbeing and Happiness</h3>
This is the ultimate &ldquo;unmeasurable&rdquo;. What is the happiness and wellbeing of your team worth to your business? What&rsquo;s it worth to the employee?&nbsp;&nbsp;
We can&rsquo;t put a price on our happiness, or on our health - but our employees are entrusting their businesses and leaders with it every day that they come to work. It&rsquo;s this last point that really gets to the heart of why employee engagement matters.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Conclusion&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>
So my calculation of the cost of low engagement to a business of 100 staff was&nbsp;&pound;427,523.
Some might say this seems high, others a little low, but I hope I've helped justify my argument a little here.&nbsp;
Whilst using an employee feedback platform as the basis for an engagement action plan, won&rsquo;t save you the full &pound;427,523, it&rsquo;s very likely to save you a huge amount more than you pay for it. For a business of 100 staff, the annual cost of using our platform is less than 2% of this figure.
Hopefully, this should provide a solid business case for putting employee engagement at the top of your agenda and spending list!

A look at the additional costs that low engagement may create

The Cost of Low Employee Engagement £££

Brewdog. The artisan beer that grew into a global brewery and bar chain. The success story of scale and investment. The &lsquo;Punk&rsquo; brand that defied tradition with a &lsquo;growth at all costs&rsquo; mentality.
But what will June 10th 2021 mean for Brewdog? Yesterday&rsquo;s open letter from 50 staff about the &lsquo;culture of fear&rsquo; in the business has cast huge doubt over the brand, the culture and the leadership.
But if you were diligent enough to cut through the social media hype you could see the warning signs were there for a long time at Brewdog. Articles such as&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/24/the-aggressive-outrageous-infuriating-and-ingenious-rise-of-brewdog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this</a> from 2016, which describes their entire brand as marketing spin.
Or maybe the 3.1 out of 5 score on Glassdoor - with only a 50% approval rating of the CEO. An eye catching&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/BrewDog-Reviews-E1014146.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">review&nbsp;</a>headed "soulless, self righteous liars".&nbsp;
From the outside looking in, I can see how they might have got here. You start up a cool brand, position yourself as &lsquo;disruptors&rsquo; in the marketplace and wage war on those that challenge your vision and creative thinking.
You're loving the attention, it's working! Great, let's do some attention catching stunts. Sorry employees if this makes you feel uncomfortable, we're the cool kids, you just mustn't be cool enough. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s not us, it&rsquo;s you&rsquo;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Then a rumour spins that legal letters were sent out to those who challenged their actions. You fight dirty. &lsquo;Either back us, or you're out&rsquo;.
Your revenue is still growing, so let's recruit some more people. They join and get the gist pretty quickly &lsquo;it's FIFO round here&rsquo; (Fit in, or F off). Any feedback you give will be ignored now, it&rsquo;s gone too far. Sadly, this will also be the case for new ideas, creativity and innovation - if the cool kids didn&rsquo;t think of it, it&rsquo;s unlikely to be a winner.&nbsp;
I suspect the internal feedback will have been there. The signs that things weren't right. Maybe at one time, it was there to see in the employee engagement surveys. But maybe nothing happened with any of the feedback anyone gave. So people stopped bothering. The feedback dried up, maybe the response rates dropped too.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The evolution is complete. You're a fully paid up fear culture. You've surrounded yourself with people who like to say yes, or who are too scared to say no. The great thing now is, they&rsquo;ll do the gate keeping on the feedback for you. Those closest to you will be too worried about their jobs to say anything. So as a leader, you now don&rsquo;t even need to worry about the feedback, you have probably stopped hearing it - but it isn&rsquo;t because you&rsquo;ve created an awesome culture. It&rsquo;s quite the opposite.&nbsp;
Before you know it, your talent pool has dried up and you&rsquo;re moaning about skills shortages. You&rsquo;re wondering why no one in your business has any good ideas other than you. Wondering why your inbox is full of people asking for your approval on things.&nbsp;
If you let it get really bad, some ex-employees will take the time to collaborate and make a website on just how bad things are. You&rsquo;ll make the&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57428258" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">news</a> and be the talk of social media.&nbsp;
Maybe now your IPO isn&rsquo;t looking quite as rosey. Your subscriptions, monthly recurring revenue in the bag, have dropped and people have started to question the quality of your products. Maybe it all starts to unravel&hellip;.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>So what next?</h3>
What is unravelling right now for Brewdog is more than a PR disaster. Your people are a critical part of your brand and when they turn on you, it clearly demonstrates that your vision and values don&rsquo;t run as deeply through your business as you might have thought.&nbsp;
Building an amazing company culture is incredibly difficult, but it is completely achievable. If you do the work, put the correct processes in place early and take it seriously.&nbsp;
Here&rsquo;s a few things to think about;
1. Care about your people more than your brand -&nbsp;Products don&rsquo;t just magically appear. Behind every product is a team of real people with real ideas, real passion and real situations. They made your brand. They are your army of brand ambassadors and they can make or break it. It pays to care about your team more than your branding.&nbsp;
2. Get ready to listen -&nbsp;If you need to engage a coach, or a counsellor - someone who can help you see some clarity - do it. You have a lot of personal work to do first before you can go and change a whole culture.&nbsp;
3. Actively listen - What is your engagement survey telling you? What is your exit interview telling you? What feedback have the team given you directly that you&rsquo;ve ignored? You need to dig deep on this stuff. You need to get personal. You need to be courageous in asking for this feedback.&nbsp;
4. Be prepared for this to take time - if you&rsquo;ve asked for feedback and shown you&rsquo;ve listened, maybe next time you ask, the feedback will be a bit braver, go a bit deeper. Now we&rsquo;re really getting to the heart of things - we&rsquo;re really getting to the heart of what is impacting on the engagement of your team and what&rsquo;s really going on.&nbsp;
5. Consider who in your immediate circle, you haven&rsquo;t disagreed with for a while. We all disagree and share different opinions as part of growing and being creative. If there are people you haven&rsquo;t done this with in a while, these might be your &ldquo;yes&rdquo; people.&nbsp;
6. Trust your team - in fear cultures, trust vanishes. Be bold, extend the trust back out. Ask your immediate team for feedback, show them you trust them to be honest and that there will be no repercussions for their honesty.&nbsp;
7. Make commitments and then go and get them done - if you are truly listening, then there will be things you now want to change. Make commitments to the wider team, tell them what you intend to fix. Don&rsquo;t make another stunt out of it. Then go and get it done.&nbsp;
This next point is REALLY important - if you make commitments and then don&rsquo;t deliver, this is going to get SO much worse for you.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Transformation can be achieved. You can turn it around, but you have to listen.&nbsp;</h3>
If you haven&rsquo;t already got an anonymous employee engagement survey in place, get one quickly. In advance, make the commitment that you are going to take action, no matter what the feedback is and how uncomfortable.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
If you want help to turn around your culture, check that you&rsquo;re not leading with fear or just want to avoid getting anywhere close to it - Ten Space can help. <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="http://www.tenspace.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.tenspace.co.uk</a>.&nbsp;

The Dangers Of Ignoring Feedback

How BEAM Fieldwork increased their survey completion rate to 94% by creating action plans using feedback  gathered by Ten Space

Case Study

Following a successful HR career, Victoria saw the opportunity to build a pragmatic product for HR teams to fall in love with. Her mission to ‘create incredible workplaces through highly engaged teams’, is underpinned by the technology and service delivered by the Ten Space team. 

CEO / Founder

Ten Space is a team of experts in employee engagement, experience and technology. Our powerful survey platform and service helps HR teams build winning businesses.

<div>Right from the start our goal was always very clear. We wanted to help businesses be the best versions of themselves.So we combined technology, support and resources for HR professionals and business leaders to gain incredible insight.We’ve built a product that’s really easy to build into your current framework and delivers feedback from day one.</div>

Our platform is designed to help you understand the real problems in your business - fast!

Insightful articles, hints &amp; tips and company news

Featured Blog

Take our survey platform for a test drive and see what it can do for you and your business.

See how B-Secur used their 81% completion rate to inform engagement policies and strategies through Ten Space.

Featured Case Study

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Take our platform for a test drive and see what it can do for you and your business. Our team are here to answer all your questions.

Employee engagement is crucial for accountancy firms as it directly impacts productivity, client satisfaction and firm reputation. Engaged employees are more likely to go the extra mile to understand client needs, provide tailored solutions and build long-term relationships. High levels of engagement reduce turnover rates, saving recruitment costs and preserving institutional knowledge.
                

Measure employee engagement in accountancy firms through regular surveys assessing factors like job satisfaction, work-life balance and alignment with firm values. Include questions on communication effectiveness, career development opportunities and recognition. Analyse survey results to identify areas for improvement and gauge overall engagement levels.

 A great employee engagement platform will give you the data, insight and feedback you need to enact real change in your organisation. Using a third-party platform adds an extra layer of trust. By segmenting the data from engagement surveys, you can uncover valuable insights specific to different employee groups. You can find where your problems are coming from and create targeted actions.

How it works

<div><h3 class="heading pb-4">What is Employee Engagement?</h3>To put it in its simplest form: Employee engagement is the level of commitment, enthusiasm and dedication employees have towards their work and the organisation. Enhanced employee engagement reveals itself in employees reaching their full potential and delivering exceptional performance at work.</div>

Measuring employee engagement in your legal firm can be achieved through regular employee surveys. This first step is critical in gathering data that will help you make decisions. Ideally you should be surveying your business every month so you can quickly observe any drops in engagement and affect a plan quickly to resolve issues. Regular surveys provide the data you need to build a strategic engagement plan based on real information, not gut feeling.


Using an ‘engagement specific’ survey platform will help you gather data faster, more securely and more accurately. The right platform will also make it easier for people to submit their responses in a way that’s easy for them. You’ll be able to compare results over time to analyse trends. By segmenting the data from engagement surveys, you can uncover valuable insights specific to different employee groups. You can find where your problems are coming from and create targeted actions.

Once you’ve done your first survey, things will become instantly clearer. You’ll start to see the hotpots in your company by a variety of segmentation criteria such as team, location, gender, role and tenure. Open-ended feedback will often help provide a solution to the challenges you’re seeing. We’re always amazed how much insight a first survey provides to our customers from a high level right into the detail. Measuring consistent data-points over time will help gain a deep understanding of how to build your strategic plan.


Build your employee engagement strategy

<div><h3 class="heading pb-4">High engagement means higher performance</h3>Employee engagement is a critical activity for professional services firms. Retaining your high performing people will help you build a high performing legal practice. 

But if you don’t have a way to measure engagement and understand when engagement is dropping, you run the risk of losing your top performers and a potential domino effect of top talent.</div>

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An easy-to-use platform to helps you capture employee feedback simply, safely and securely.

Survey using Email, WhatsApp and SMS. Easily reach your deskless mobile and remote workers with surveys so everyone can share their ideas and feedback.

Reporting that delivers instant actionable insights, whilst offering rich detailed analysis.

The insights you need to prioritise, make decisions and track your impact. The data you need to help your team thrive.

<h5 class="heading mt-4 aos-init"> Take employee feedback to the next level</h5>If you're already gathering employee feedback but want to do more, we can show you how.

<div>The Ten Space survey platform does the hard work for you, reducing months of data collection and analysis into minutes.</div>

<div>Our survey platform delivers feedback surveys to gather responses back quickly for super-quick analysis and faster action.</div>

<div>Employee surveys, that allow you, your HR team and your leaders to focus on what they do best - building engagement and creating change.</div>

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Choose the plan that suits you

<ul><li>Access for up to 250 team members</li><li>Bi-monthly engagement surveys</li><li>Industry specific questions</li><li>Real-time results and analytics</li><li>Result segmentation, tracking &amp; comparisons</li><li>Suggested actions from experts</li><li><a href="/employee-engagement-model/">The Ten Space employee engagement model</a></li></ul>

<div class="text-center"><a>Find out more about advantage</a></div>

Fast and powerful engagement surveys

advantage

<ul><li>For all sizes of organisation</li><li>Advanced AI analytics</li><li>Build your own surveys</li><li>Distribution via email, WhatsApp &amp; SMS</li><li>Customisable data segmentation</li><li>Targeted surveys based on segmentation</li><li>Customised dashboards</li><li>Track key parts of the employee journey</li><li>Permissions based reports</li><li>Dedicated engagement managers to help you get the best results</li></ul>

For larger teams with dedicated requirements

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Build question sets unique to your business to get to the heart of the problem.

Set surveys to deliver when you want, to whoever you want, where you want.

Your business is comprised of lots of different teams that work in different ways.

Our platform is customisable to fit the needs of every part of your organisation.

Ten Space AI summaries reduce days of data analysis into seconds of processing. In a few clicks the key themes of your survey are summarised, allowing you to identify the parts of your business that need help. 

Simple, clear, easy to understand dashboards for faster desicion making.

Tag and segment data easily to identify areas of concern.

Get ahead by viewing results as they come in.

Confidently identify hidden meanings and discover trends.

Agile businesses need a flexible and inclusive approach.Ten Space reaches the parts that other platforms can't, using Whatsapp, SMS &amp; Email to gather employee feedback.This leads to higher participation and a more inclusive experience, capturing the data from all your people, easily.

The Ten Space survey platform offers a data-driven approach for HR professionals. You can easily design, gather and analyse real feedback from your across your business in real-time. 

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Engage your team to deliver the future of your business today. From only £3 per employee per month. Whether you're starting your employee engagement journey or taking your people strategy to the next level, we can help.

Capture and utilise diversity data to enhance your culture. Capture diversity data in an efficient and safe way. Explore diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in your organisation. Ten Space supports your DEIB strategy. We can help you capture diversity data from your team in an efficent way to enhance your people data.

Elevate engagement. Retain talent. Supercharge performance. An engaged workforce helps businesses achieve so much more. The Ten Space survey platform captures the insights you need to understand employee engagement &amp; culture across your organisation. Take action &amp; drive change.

Create exceptional employee experiences. Optimise engagement. Supercharge your EVP. Let us take you on a journey.... Explore the experiences of your employees. Ten Space can help you to explore the journeys your employees take as they join your organisation, all the way through to when they leave.

Accelerate the performance of your teams to drive business performance. Explore what is driving, or holding back, your teams from delivering high-performance. We can help you explore high-performance in your organisation. Using our performance-focused surveys, we can help you uncover what is holding a team back from achieving their full potential.

Our monthly subscription fee includes our intuitive survey platform and wrap around service.

Ten Space fully supports your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) strategy in the workplace. We offer comprehensive solutions to help you efficiently capture diversity data from your team, thereby enriching your people data. Additionally, our platform enables you to explore the topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within your workplace culture, providing valuable data and insights to inform and enhance your DEIB strategy.

Ten Space equips companies with the necessary resources, tools, knowledge and information to create the ultimate diverse and inclusive workforce. Our platform offers analytics and insights that enable organisations to develop and implement effective DEIB programs. From setting goals on equality to attracting diverse candidates during the hiring process, we provide solutions that address gender, race, ethnicity, and other dimensions of diversity.

Leveraging our data capture platform, we ensure that the process of collecting DEIB data is efficient, safe, and secure. Our platform is designed to capture data in a clean and organised manner, ready for your analysis and utilisation.

With our DEIB focused surveys, we enable you to capture the essential data and gain insights that support your DEIB strategy. We can explore general engagement across different demographics, or we can specifically focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as central themes, allowing you to delve deeper into this critical area of culture.

As a trusted third-party platform that captures feedback anonymously, we provide a safe space for your employees to share their experiences and provide valuable feedback. This anonymity fosters an environment of authenticity and trust, enabling you to build an accurate and comprehensive picture of the insights you need to drive your DEIB initiatives.

We understand that your DEIB strategy is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event. That's why we help you regularly capture feedback and insights, allowing you to track your progress over time. By monitoring and analysing this data, you can demonstrate the impact and return on investment of your DEIB efforts, ensuring continuous improvement and advancement.

An engaged workforce helps organisations achieve their goals. Ten Space captures the valuable insights you need to build a positive culture through high employee engagement. Your people managers and leaders can easily identify and address those critical issues preventing high engagement and build a culture that everyone buys into.

Ten Space empowers organisations to unlock the full potential of their employee engagement strategy. By utilising our platform, people managers and leaders can leverage their knowledge, experience and approach to drive positive change throughout the workplace. Effective communication, addressing challenges and fostering a supportive culture are integral aspects of our platform, enabling you to build a thriving organisation that values its employees. With Ten Space, you have the necessary insights and data to prove the impact of your employee engagement strategy and continuously improve the employee experience.

"Ten Space help HR teams identify and resolve retention hotspots quickly. The data helps you improve every stage of the employee journey including hiring, onboarding, probation, reviews and exit interviews to continuously improve the employee experience and reduce retention risks"

<div><h3 class="heading pb-4">What is the Employee Engagement model?</h3>Some believe engagement is solely about having happy employees, but engagement goes beyond this. Enhanced employee engagement reveals itself when your employees reach their full potential and deliver exceptional performance at work.At Ten Space we use a simple model. It helps you explore engagement in your organisation. It shows you where you already excel and where you need to focus to improve.</div>

When your employees feel connected to the mission of the company, their engagement improves significantly. They find meaning and purpose in their work, knowing that their efforts contribute to something larger than themselves. They become more invested in the success of your organisation, leading to higher productivity, increased job satisfaction and a stronger sense of belonging within the team.

A great leader inspires and motivates their team members, earning their trust and respect. They provide clear direction, guidance, and support, allowing employees to perform their best and reach their full potential. A great leader creates a sense of empowerment, job satisfaction and loyalty among the team, leading to enhanced employee engagement and overall success.

 Employee engagement improves when your employees feel fulfilled in their role. When individuals find their work meaningful and aligned with their values, they are motivated to invest their time and energy into their work, going above and beyond to achieve goals. This positive mindset and attitude contribute to increased productivity, stronger teamwork and a happier work environment, ultimately enhancing overall employee engagement.

The highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychologically safe workplaces. Psychologically safe workplaces promote healthier, more productive and more inclusive workforces. They also provide the environment in which innovation can thrive and people can perform at their best.

Ten Space is the platform to gather regular employee feedback. Every month, your employees are able to offer the feedback and insight you need to create positive change throughout your organisation.

The Ten Space engagement model underpins the data. It ensures a consistent approach to capturing feedback that can be measured over time. Our platform helps you build the perfect question set to understand the real issues preventing high engagement. 

 Ten Space does all the hard work, saving you days of admin. Questions are sent via email, WhatsApp or SMS and responses are gathered back in the platform. No matter where your employees are or how they work, there is always an easy way for them to provide their feedback. 

See responses as they're being submitted. Our dashboards display real-time information for you and your managers to access valuable insights at any time. This allows you to spend less time collating data and more time taking the actions that matter to build higher engagement.  

The Ten Space way

Retaining your best people is all about understanding the individual and collective journeys they're on. Ten Space allows you to predict retention issues before they occur and prevent your top talent from leaving.  

The Ten Space survey platform allows leaders to seamlessly follow their employees' journeys within the organisation, gaining invaluable insights into their professional growth and development. The platform provides a unique ability to monitor employee sentiment through live data streams from surveys, enabling leaders to make informed decisions to enhance workplace satisfaction.

All of your employees are on a journey. Even before they work for you, they're building an impression of your organisation through the hiring process. Common experiences for all employees may include hiring, onboarding, probation, promotion and exit. Ten Space allows you to unpack the employee experience at each stage of the journey, helping you improve the experience for future employees. 

Ten Space provides a highly customised in-depth feedback loop to understand which parts of your HR initiatives and processes could be causing retention issues. Our platform sends our feedback surveys at critical times to gather sentiment and understand feeling. At every step, you'll gain a true understanding of how employees really feel and what retention risks exist.

Ten Space makes the process of collecting feedback really easy. Our platform allows you to build and launch custom feedback loops that can analyse specific journeys being experienced in all parts of the organisation. You can customise your questions to gain a deep understanding of employee experiences. And our AI summaries make it easy to analyse retention hotspots at all times.

At any time, your HR team can log into Ten Space and view our feedback dashboards. Our customer success team will hold regular reviews and insights sessions with you, so you feel fully supported. We'll help you to get the most out of the insights you've captured and support you in taking the next steps to further enhance employee satisfaction. 

The Ten Space way

Ten Space assists you in exploring high-performance within your organisation. Leveraging our performance-focused surveys, we enable you to achieve your goals and unlock the full potential of your teams. Our platform helps you identify the unique qualities that make a team exceptional, empowering you to replicate and build upon their success. Analysing performance culture team by team in organisations where performance matters.

Ten Space equips you with everything you need to drive team performance and achieve success. By leveraging our platform, you can assess and enhance the culture, communication, management, individual commitment, projects and processes that contribute to team effectiveness. Through comprehensive performance evaluation metrics and insights, you gain a deeper understanding of your teams and can make informed decisions to drive improvement and productivity.

Utilising our performance-based question sets we’ll help you understand how to assess performance in organisation. We guide you by asking the right questions to extract the necessary insights on performance evaluation for teams. Whether your team operates in creative, technical, administrative, or sales-focused areas, we tailor the process to fit your team's specific requirements.

We assist you in segmenting your team data, enabling you to gain in-depth performance insights and understand the trends that impact team effectiveness. Our intuitive dashboard helps you quickly identify key insights from your results, allowing you to focus on actionable steps and next moves.

Harnessing the power of Ten Space as a trusted third-party anonymous platform, we provide a safe space for employees to share any challenges, barriers, or catalysts that affect their performance. This way, we foster a climate of openness, encouraging individuals to provide candid feedback that can uncover valuable insights.

We can help you integrate communication and training needs analysis into your surveys, allowing you to gather ideas and solutions directly from your team members. By capturing this information, you gain a clear understanding of work expectations and where your team would like you to focus your efforts to improve performance culture. There are no limitations or holding back when it comes to taking action.

Capture and utilise diversity data to enhance your culture.

Insights to understand the engagement and culture across your organisation

Identify and resolve retention hotspots in your organisation

Capture and utilise diversity data in an efficient and safe way to enhance your culture.  

Capture the insights you need to understand employee engagement &amp; culture across your organisation.

Create exceptional employee experiences. Optimise engagement. Supercharge your EVP.

Accelerate the performance of your teams to drive business performance

Build a high performing business powered by high performing teams

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