You have a real-time business. Why not capture real-time feedback?

They aren’t. The problem is that when you poll people so infrequently, you disregard the fact that they are people. Their moods and opinions can change daily. They are heavily influenced by their environment, their colleagues, their health, their home life, and so much more. To measure them just once a year is to ignore all of that. There’s another problem too. When you run an annual survey it becomes bloated because you shoehorn in every question you can think of. It’s like you’re overcompensating for a year-long hiatus by making sure the results look BIG. Look at all those data tables! So many tables! (Never mind the fact that you’ve produced an overwhelming dataset. Or that it still only represents how people felt at just one moment in the whole year). And this leads on to a third problem: Cynicism. If you run a huge survey just once a year, your people become jaded and cynical about the point of it all. There’s too much to take on board, and if they can’t see the impact quickly, then what’s the point of it all anyway?

But we know all that! That’s why we run quarterly pulse surveys!

Go back and read the first section, but swap the word ‘annual’ for ‘quarterly’. Done? Good. Let’s move on.

It’s an easy fix: Flip it around

Instead of asking loads of questions once a year, ask just one question all year round. Imagine for a second that you could poll your workforce every single day, maybe even multiple times each day. Imagine you could see clearly presented results more or less immediately. Imagine you had the agility to ask new questions whenever you like. If you had all these things, your staff survey would be as real-time as everything else in your business. There are various ways you could achieve this. Our take on it is the Ombea Insights dashboard, using Ombea ExpressPods.

Ombea ExpressPod

The ExpressPod is a smiley-face feedback pod. It features a single, simple question, such as, "How is your day?" People use one of the five emoji-themed buttons, from happy through to sad, to express their answer. Being so simple, people can vote without breaking their stride which means you’ll get more data. You can place as many ExpressPods as you want around your premises, and you can change the question as often as you wish. ExpressPod results are fed to a central dashboard where they are presented as clear charts ready for you to act on. Think of it as a living version of your staff survey, with new results every hour.

Every hour?! How will we cope?

Don’t worry, it’s not your full, 500-question staff survey every hour. It’s a simplified, clarified set of insights which means it’s way easier to focus and act. Trust us, you’ll cope.

But what if I want to run a few questions per year?

Changing the question on the ExpressPod is as simple as changing the question sheet on the device. This is great for when you want to examine specific elements under a time period, for example every quarter or half-year. If you wanted to focus on overall employee wellbeing the first half-year (“How are you today?”), then switch to focusing on specific areas (“How clean was the cafeteria today?”), it only takes a few seconds to switch the questions. You’re in full control of when to change the question, and what exactly you want to ask.

Ombea ExpressTab

The ExpressTab does everything the ExpressPod does, with some additional benefits. Similar to an ExpressPod, you can have the ExpressTab ask staff only one question and gather tons of feedback without interrupting their day. But why stop there? With the ExpressTab, you can ask follow-up questions in a natural way. For example, you can start by asking a simple “How is your day so far?”, and follow up with an open-text question “Could you please tell us more?” The ExpressTab is also useful If you would like to see whether a specific phenomenon is the cause of certain behavior. At the end of the workday, you ask your staff “How was your workday?” That question is then followed by “Which of these had the biggest impact on your workday? A) My boss, B) My colleagues, C) The environment, D) None of the above. You get a more nuanced view of why your staff feels a certain way, letting you know when and where to act. And yes, without having to drown staff in 500-question surveys.

Wait. Wouldn't all this constant polling exhaust my staff?

Using either the ExpressPod or ExpressTab takes only a few seconds (or less), and can fit around people's daily behaviors. You can place the terminals or tablets at the exit, at the entrance, at the break room, or any other relevant location that naturally fits your staff. This will give you regular insights that you can use to continuously improve the employee experience. You can then tell staff exactly what you're doing to respond to their feedback, encouraging them to leave even more of it.

What if I want to treat negative responses differently from positive responses?

That’s all possible with Ombea’s branching logic. You can choose what happens when a specific response is received. You’re asking the question “How is your day?” and a staff member leaves a positive response. They then get an open-text follow-up question “That’s great! What’s making your day so great?” If the staff member were to leave a negative response, they can instead get the follow-up question “We’re sorry to hear that. What can we do to make your day go better?” By tailoring your follow-up questions based on your staff’s initial responses, you’re not asking them to fill a survey – you’re having a conversation with them.

This all sounds great, but my staff works remotely and can’t be reached with the ExpressPod or ExpressTab.

We get it. In fact, half of our team here at Ombea works remotely. That’s why we have our Ombea Anywhere and Online solutions. These solutions are designed for people to use any device to leave their feedback, no matter their physical location. After each web meeting, you can send an email with a smiley-faced question asking “How was this meeting?” The staff member can then click on the desired smiley option, taking them to further follow-up questions if you have them. At specific intervals during the day, you can program a non-intrusive web widget to appear on your staff’s devices. The widget can contain a smiley-faced question among the lines of “Scheduled check-in! How are you doing?” The staff member can then click on the desired option and continue working, all this without freezing the device (unlike pop-ups) or disturbing work routines.

Sounds great! But how will I see all this data from all these places?

All your data – from your ExpressPods, to you ExpressTabs and even your Anywhere and Online links – go to the same central dashboard. You’ll be able to see everything from a single place, allowing you to spot problem areas and act decisively. And remember: Everything is happening in real-time.

About Ombea

Ombea provides leading solutions for capturing and analyzing real-time feedback. Governments, Fortune 100 corporations and top-rated universities across the globe use our solutions to visualize feedback, generate insight, and make evidence-based decisions. This helps them make their students smarter, their customers happier and their employees more engaged.