Client study · Employee experience research
Beyond the average in an employee survey
Overall satisfaction looked positive. The question was what sat underneath the averages. I analysed item-level responses, working-style profiles and an earlier survey to show where employee experience was less good, and what to look at next.
My part: instrument development, survey analysis and reporting. Client identifiers and organisational labels are withheld.
Wellbeing
Positive averages did not tell the whole story.
Frequency distributions added detail to the broad wellbeing ratings and pointed to experiences worth investigating.
Share of responses
How often employees reported each experience
Strain was common
Between 20% and 28% of employees reported frequent or constant fatigue, irritation or anxiety, emotional exhaustion or changes in sleep. In each case most of the others said “sometimes”.
Mistreatment was less common, not absent
For the items on bullying, discrimination, verbal mistreatment and violence, between 1% and 7% answered frequently or always. Most of the rest said never.
Priorities
From evidence to priorities.
Survey patterns and qualitative feedback informed three proposed areas for further attention.
Recognition and development
Review how employees receive appreciation, feedback and opportunities to learn and progress.
Communication and participation
Improve access to information, leadership contact and opportunities to contribute to decisions.
Wellbeing and working conditions
Investigate the contexts behind fatigue and sleep difficulties, alongside employee accounts of workload, support and physical conditions.
Proposed priorities are not claimed as implemented or shown to improve outcomes.
Working styles
How employees approached difficulties and change.
A ten-item working-style section explored responses to problems, unfamiliar situations, rules and everyday work demands.
Profiles
Share of employees in each working-style profile
Passive
Preferred familiar, previously successful approaches and tended to be cautious or resistant when change demanded extra effort.
Adaptive
Focused on meeting expectations, cooperating and implementing practical, incremental improvements.
Innovative
Questioned established approaches, explored alternatives and looked for opportunities to develop new solutions.
By job group
Working style differed by job group
What stood out
Adaptive was the largest single category, about two in five employees. Around one in five were innovative. Managers were the most likely to be innovative (34%, against 12–13% among technical assistants and other staff) and the least likely to be adaptive (26%, against 40–49% in the other groups).
Why it mattered
The profiles added a behavioural lens to the satisfaction analysis and a starting point for differentiated communication and support. Satisfaction scores were similar across the styles. The profiles do not show fixed personality types or predict individual performance.
Over time
Satisfaction improved across survey periods.
The historical comparison asked a second question: how had employee experience changed since an earlier study?
General satisfaction
Reported index, 0 to 100
Reading it carefully
Overall satisfaction was roughly ten index points higher in the later survey. That improvement could sit alongside continuing gaps in recognition and development.
A defensible comparison means checking item wording, scoring, response scales, workforce composition and participation across periods. Repeated organisational surveys describe respondent groups; they do not necessarily follow the same individuals.
Limits
What the evidence does not show.
Stated up front, because several views of one workforce are not a single finished verdict.
- Results describe the roughly 1,700 employees who responded (about 60% of 2,800 questionnaires), not the whole workforce.
- The index change is a result reported in the original deck, not an independently validated trend. Historical raw data were still awaited for part of the comparison, and no significance test or cause is claimed.
- The experience items are not clinical diagnoses and do not establish that work caused the symptoms.
- The working-style profiles do not show fixed types. Validation evidence and classification cut-offs are not documented in this excerpt.
- No intervention effect is claimed, and the proposed priorities are not presented as implemented.
Where it sits in the method: Stage 05 · Deliver · Stage 04 · Analyse