Just ask me…

Daymark is in the midst of stakeholder survey ‘reporting season’. Several of our clients have asked us to complete stakeholder sentiment surveys for them; some for the first time, others are on their fourth or more annual iterations.

Our sentiment surveys generally involve one-to-one, face-to-face surveys based on an agreed set of questions with a combination of quantitative questions and qualitative as well. We encourage interviewees to be open and honest and we capture verbatim comments which are supplied to clients without attribution. Some of the most informative feedback is in the verbatims; they provide rich insight and add a touch of colour too!

We thought it might be valuable to share some insights – not about client-specific survey outcomes – but some general themes that have emerged.

Without fail there is always a thank you! Most people are grateful to be asked for their opinion and invariably are happy to be frank. We often hear that our client is the only one to bother to seek their views.

Context is critical. It is vital when reporting the results back to clients the issues that were confronting their customers/stakeholders (plus broader macro issues) when we undertook the survey. This year we found that budget pressure within the public sector was driving behavior and influencing their views of our clients’ performance.

For clients that have undertaken surveys for multiple years, issues that have been identified previously and not addressed inevitably lead to criticism and frustration.  For some interviewees this perceived slight sets back the relationship that would otherwise be on stronger footing

Culture is said to start at the top and with our clients it is pleasing to get feedback that the CEOs and other leaders are taking time to address stakeholder feedback. We had a few instances where a relatively minor issue had not been addressed because middle managers couldn’t be bothered to ‘do the paperwork’. It was raised in the survey, fed back by us and the CEO addressed it the next day; the impact of the leader’s action is still being talked about in a very positive way with the client (and the middle managers). Without the stakeholder survey that matter would probably never have been addressed thus leading to tension in an important relationship.

Everyone, particularly those in leadership roles are in the stakeholder business. When we take clients through the surveys results at a team level there is often a view that stakeholder engagement is something done by the CEO or the Corporate Affairs team. Survey feedback invariably demonstrates that everyone with an external facing role has a role to play in effective stakeholder management.

Even those who don’t necessarily have direct and regular contact with your firm may still have views on you, for good or ill. This is why it is critical to engage as widely as possible with all potential stakeholders. Those with both influence and an interest in your organisation should be most closely engaged and those with influence but less interest should be carefully managed.

The bar keeps getting higher. When organisations perform well in stakeholder engagement the task to impress just gets harder but so do the rewards. It was encouraging to hear from a very senior public servant of a crucial State Government client that for the first time, the relationship had moved from client and contractor to a true partnership. None of the contractual arrangements had changed; just the commitment of our client to engage more deeply and address issues as they arise.

Several people ask what the most important question in our surveys is. Of course, that is very subjective but it is interesting to see how the issue of trust is addressed by clients. One of our longest standing clients found in their first survey that many of their stakeholders did not trust them. This came as a shock but many years on and with a detailed action plan to address that shortcoming, trust is now well established, and their trust scores have improved dramatically.

The results can make difficult reading but organisations that are primed for success always treat these insights as nuggets of gold and value them likewise.

Finally, it is essential to create a plan to address the feedback. This should address specific, short-term issues and longer-term ones also. It should also involve sharing the overall feedback, and issues that will be addressed, with the people who were surveyed. Based on our experience in both our former corporate roles and in consulting, a properly resourced and implemented plan will inevitably lead to an improvement in scores and relationships built on trust and partnership.