The chemistry of a good employer
Great Place to Work® survey at Huntsman
How
do you make your organisation a
Great Place to
Work®? And how do you keep it that way? The answer lies in having
a committed workforce and a corporate structure that builds on your strong
points. Chemical giant Huntsman and Vlerick Leuven Gent
Management School joined forces to provide the proof.
About two years ago the management of Huntsman Polyurethanes Europe decided to conduct an employee satisfaction survey. The company had been through many organisational changes in recent years so it welcomed the chance to find out more about its employees’ views on the subject. The survey had to fulfil two conditions: the workforce had to be convinced that there was a point to it, and it must not be just another survey – one that would not be acted upon. Huntsman therefore decided to team up with Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. What was at stake? Meeting the standards of the Great Place to Work® philosophy.
Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School’s HRM Centre operates as the Great Place to Work® Institute Belgium, the local partner of the Great Place to Work® Institute Europe. Together they have defined an international standard for high-quality HR and management practices. Maaike van Ameijde, project coordinator at the Great Place to Work® Institute Belgium: “A Great Place to Work® is one where you trust the people you work for, take pride in what you do and have a good relationship with the people you work with. The Great Place to Work® model is based on three relationships that all centre around the employee: his relationship with management, with his job and with his colleagues. We ask employees to judge these relationships on five aspects: credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie. Based on the feedback from the questionnaire and the action points identified, the employer undertakes to implement an improvement cycle that will be repeated every year or so.”
Commitment at the highest level
Commitment at the top was very evident at Huntsman right from the start of Great Place to Work®. Central management, local HR managers and site managers were all asked to place the initiative high on their agendas and to convey that message to their staff. Marion Verheyden, EAME HR Process Coordinator: “That level of commitment was necessary to get the project started, to guarantee that it would be followed up on the different sites and to implement subsequent action plans.” Sandra Hoeylaerts, HR Manager Europe, nods in agreement: “Senior management also had to set an example. The fact that they acknowledged their own action points and committed themselves to improve encouraged employees to join in and do the same.”
European project
If you want people to take a project seriously and show commitment, you have to get them involved and make sure that they feel comfortable with it. Sandra Hoeylaerts: “Great Place to Work® is a European project for Huntsman. We asked our local HR managers to take a look at the survey and check whether there was anything in it that might go against the grain with employees, bearing in mind local cultures and work structures.” Marion Verheyden adds: “The questionnaire was translated for use in some countries, because not everyone at our sites has sufficient command of English to complete the whole survey.” Huntsman also kept its workforce posted on the progress of the survey and response rates. The School supported them with this.
Think positive
The Great Place to Work® survey highlights the strengths of an organisation and exposes areas where there is room for improvement: an essential basis for a proper evaluation. Maaike van Ameijde: “Positive feedback is very important. Every organisation has areas that require action, but also a number of unique strong points that mustn’t be overlooked. You have to build on those. A one-sided focus on the things that are poor won’t work.” The results are also benchmarked against other organisations in the sector and against other countries to ensure that they are evaluated and interpreted properly.
Focus groups
You may have your suspicions about the reasons for a higher or lower score, but you can never be certain. Maaike van Ameijde: “To get a clearer picture, we organised focus groups for Huntsman. We brought people from similar levels in the hierarchy together to discuss a specific topic, listened to their experiences, looked for potential problem areas and let them make suggestions to management. Often it was little tips that the company benefited from enormously. The focus groups created a sense of involvement in the project and also ensured that the actions taken much more fully addressed what employees really felt and wanted.”
Timing
Huntsman and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School began the Great Place to Work® project in the summer of 2007, and Huntsman had the results of the employee survey by the end of the year. These were presented to central management, site managers and HR managers early in 2008. The local focus groups got started around April/May 2008. Action plans were proposed and planned in detail in September. Sandra Hoeylaerts: “Since then we’ve been following up with the sites on a three-monthly basis: we ask them what actions were agreed, we check how far the site has progressed with them and we report back to central management. The site teams do the same with their local staff.”
The initial plan was to conduct a new survey in early or mid-2009, which would also have served as an evaluation of the action plans, but since these were only implemented in the autumn of 2008, the second questionnaire has been postponed. The timing has also had to be stretched a bit because of the economic crisis, though Sandra Hoeylaerts assures us that “postponed doesn’t mean cancelled. We’re committed to doing this survey several times more to see whether we’ve made progress. A one-off survey is pointless. You have to show your people that you’re doing something with it, that you’re in it for the long haul.”
Even in times of crisis Huntsman’s senior management are favourable towards the idea of a second survey. Sandra Hoeylaerts: “They’re not afraid of a possible negative impact on the findings. Only it has to be feasible in practice. Some sites are temporarily on short-time working, so now is not the time to launch a Great Place to Work® survey. But as soon as we’re through this phase, we’ll be very keen to sound out how our employees feel we’ve evolved as a Great Place to Work®.”
Value for money
Sandra Hoeylaerts does not need to wait for a second survey to form an opinion about the return from Great Place to Work®. “The main benefits to come out of the first survey are the tangible commitment of senior management and the site managers, and the clear message conveyed to the workforce that we’re serious about this survey. We’d done a one-off survey before but it wasn’t really followed up. We had to be able to put that bad experience behind us once and for all. Our aim with the second survey will be to find out how we’ve grown as an organisation, whether we’ve implemented the suggested improvements and whether we’ve managed to focus on our strong points. That’s why we’re trying to link the actions we’re taking today to Great Place to Work® as much as possible. The ROI of the project up to now is a common language, trust and commitment within the company. We’re working towards the same goals, even in the current difficult climate.”
Competition
Will Huntsman ever take part in the Best Workplace competition organised by Great Place to Work®? Sandra Hoeylaerts: “We felt comfortable keeping the project out of the competition the first time. This meant that we could honestly say to our employees: we’re launching this initiative because it’s important for us, for the management, not to get a high score that we can use in marketing campaigns. Once our people are able to identify with the idea of Great Place to Work® and are proud of it, we can use the label to raise the company’s profile in the outside world.” To be continued…
What is Great Place to Work?
Every year around 40 countries, including Belgium, draw up a list of Best Workplaces. The list throws a spotlight on companies with exemplary HR policies – the Best Workplaces. The Great Place to Work® model is used to select the Best Workplace. Based on the national lists of the Best Workplaces in the EU member states, the Great Place to Work® Institute Europe puts together a list of the “100 Best Workplaces in the EU”.
The survey to find the Best Workplace is conducted in close collaboration with the participating organisations. Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School’s HRM Centre, headed by Professor Dirk Buyens, organises the survey in Belgium in conjunction with the weekly jobs magazine Vacature and its French-language partner Références.
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