How we’re using a metric to build a good team culture

How we’re using a metric to build a good team culture
Time to read: 5 minutes
You could be forgiven for thinking team culture is just a fluff metric. It’s one of those terms that’s thrown around the corporate world and smushed into those long LinkedIn posts. But it does actually matter. We’ve all seen the articles about how a good workplace culture improves productivity and employee retention. But more than that, it demonstrates how engaged your team is with your business, its success, and how your business performs. You might be thinking, “Yeah, sure, but team culture is a feeling – how are you meant to measure that?” We’re going to take you through exactly how we measure our culture, how we define the metrics, and how we put those metrics into action.

Our team culture directly impacts our company vision 🎉

Our company vision is "To be Australia's most recommended digital agency."

Two key metrics contribute to that vision: the happiness of our team and the happiness our clients.

We want all of our clients to be so stoked with their Excite Media experience that they recommend us to all of their friends and family.

At the same time, we also want all of our team members to recommend Excite Media to their friends and family as a great place to work.

Measuring our team’s happiness allows us to keep eyes on that goal and know exactly how we’re progressing towards our vision.

Side note: We measure our client happiness, too, but that’s an entirely different blog post.

Can you measure company culture? 🤏

Company culture kind of feels like something you shouldn’t be able to measure. After all, what is it? It’s not something you can tick off in a checklist

A man named  Bill Marklein coined the quote, “Culture is how employees’ hearts and stomachs feel about Monday morning on Sunday night.”

That quote has turned into a moment of its own on LinkedIn.

And it’s pretty accurate.

We define it as how likely our team members are to recommend Excite Media as a good place to work to a friend or family member.

We feel like this question sums up how well we’re doing with our workplace culture. Is it a good place to work? And is it good enough to recommend it to someone you care about?

Because, beyond office perks and fun events, good workplace culture comes back to just that: is it a good place to work?

We use Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) was created by a man called Fred Reichheld. He was a partner at Bain & Company, and he wanted to measure how well companies treated their team members.

It’s not a niche metric by any means. Most Fortune 500 companies use this score — it’s become a global standard.

So, how does it work?

You ask your team members, “How likely are you to recommend us as a place to work for your family and friends?”

They answer the question with a 0-10 rating. Their rating organises them into one of the following:

Now, the above feels pretty harsh.

You’d think 7 to 8 is a pretty good score and a 6 okay, too.

But if you think about how you rate experiences and businesses, people are typically pretty generous. You’ll give a 9 or 10 to something you’re happy with and a 7 or 8 to something that’s pretty much alright (that would probably be a 5, if we used the 1-10 rating correctly). As far as eNPS is concerned, 6 and 0 are the same. A rating, whether 0 or 6, isn’t great and it requires action regardless.

eNPS has factored in human psychology and how we actually use the 1-10 rating.

The score is then calculated from -100 to +100 🥅

The eNPS score is calculated by the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. The passives don’t come into play at all.

So, the score could sit anywhere from -100 to +100.

Our goal score for eNPS is 80. Scoring 80 would put us in the top 1% of all companies, according to Officevibe.

So, how do we get that metric? 🔺

So, how we do actually get the metric from our team members? Well, we ask the golden question, “How likely are you to recommend us as a place to work for your family and friends?” It’s important this is done anonymously, so we can’t impact the score they provide.

Officevibe checks in with our team weekly ✅

Officevibe sends each of our team members a five-question survey each week. It cycles through a range of questions that give us insight into how we’re performing as a company, including questions around workload, management, and pay

The golden question is cycled through occasionally so we can get frequent feedback on how we’re performing without over-asking the question.

These tools give us the insight to understand exactly how our culture is performing 🏌️‍♀️

Often, companies can lose sight of how their culture is actually performing. By asking the question and being open to hearing the feedback, good and bad, we can know exactly how we’re performing. It’s not just about knowing the number, though. When we receive critical or constructive feedback, we hear the person out and take steps to investigate what’s going on and make it right.

Tips for getting started 👇

We highly recommend using eNPS to get a snapshot of how your team is feeling. It can offer some really great insight into your workplace culture.

Find a tool you love to collect and measure feedback 🛠

Find a tool that you can use to survey your team. We love Officevibe because it automatically sends a weekly survey out to our team members. The day it sends is randomised to ensure our team’s anonymity and we can use it to collate the data and respond privately to any anonymous feedback.

Respond to feedback & take it seriously 💭

To make it work, it’s important that you take the feedback seriously. That means hearing out your team members if they have constructive feedback and taking the steps to implement necessary changes.

Focus on your people over the numbers 💚

eNPS gives you a really clear number to inform your business decisions. But it’s important to remember the people behind the metric.
Karl Paustian
AUTHOR

Karl Paustian

Head of Team Success | Client Experience

Karl Paustian is our Head of Team Success | Client Experience at Excite Media. His role consists of making sure that our clients are getting results, have everything they need, and are getting amazing value from their relationship with Excite Media. Karl also ensures Excite Media’s own team members are thriving within their roles and are always working towards the next steps in their professional growth. Karl has nine years of experience in digital marketing, with a further decade of experience in the wider creative industries.

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