Welcome to The Flourishing Culture Podcast! I’m often asked two questions: What do we need to do to improve our culture? And how long should it take to improve our organization’s culture? While there’s no cut and dry answer for every organization, our guest today can attest that it takes two things: surveying your employees consistently over time, and then taking action on the results.
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Today we have the privilege of talking with David Pickering, the Director of Business and Human Resources at Olivet Nazarene University, who has personally seen the improvement of his organization’s culture. For the last 12 years, he has surveyed the faculty and staff each year and helped to facilitate one of the best cultures among Christian higher education institutions. Olivet has been an innovator in the application of our engagement survey, and the results speak for themselves as engagement scores have improved significantly.
Tune into our conversation today to hear Olivet’s step-by-step action planning process, which takes their survey results off the page and into action in their workplace.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- Using an employee engagement survey to identify areas of improvement, rather than using anecdotal evidence
- Looking at general scores for the university as a whole, but also drilling down into departmental scores
- Departmental post-survey communication and action planning
- Specific steps you can take to start making progress based on survey results
- Working with departments whose scores are not as high as you’d like to see
- Importance of surveying consistently over time to see improvement in scores
- Building trust with employees simply through the frequency and consistency of surveying
If I feel cared for at work, then I love coming to work. I’m going to be much more engaged, and this changes our work.
Read the Transcript
Download a complete, word-for-word transcript of the episode here.
Explore Additional Resources
- Learn more about Olivet Nazarene University: olivet.edu
- Find Olivet on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
- Find David on LinkedIn
- Learn more on last week’s blog post: 3 Quick Tips for Increased Employee Engagement
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