Getting the best from research: Focus Groups

I think that focus groups are the best possible compromise. A compromise between the breadth of a survey and the depth of the 1-to-1 interview. Right now, they’re my most-used research tool. There’s some challenges, sure.

• For one, you’re often asking people to really open up in front of people they don’t know. Or worse, that they do know. So you have to establish an atmosphere of trust. That’s in what you promise them and in your demeanour, wherever the discussion goes.
• For another – and this applies to any research – they don’t always know what they don’t know. But they know a lot. So, you can uncover profound truths. You’ll know when you hit on them when ideas overlap and when they are expressed with passion.

So, how do you ensure a great focus group? For me, it’s about three things:

1. Good questions and prompts, and in the right order.
   You want to develop questions and follow-ups that lead you to what you want to know. And you need to remember that you don’t know what you don’t know either. So start with the most open questions, and drill down to specifics.
2. Mix it up
   Make sure that everyone has the chance to contribute. Or, make them contribute. A mix of group discussion, individual contribution and scoring will make sure everyone is involved. Group exercises will help too, and I’m introducing more of these now.
3. Make it flexible
   You need to make it enjoyable for the people taking part. If they feel appreciated and listened to, you’ll get more from them. Rigidly sticking to your script isn’t going to achieve that. Instead, you need to go with the flow, with one eye on the discussion, another on the time and another on the info you’re trying to get and the objectives you have.

A focus group can be really effective at getting at truth – but it must be run well or you risk wasting time and, worse, people’s goodwill.

Testing Recognition Programmes

A post about a very specific topic: testing employee perception of recogntion programmes. Getting the right sort of recognition at the right time is well-established as a key driver of employee engagement. And leaders can get maximum value from awards when they use them to recognise the people that represent their model employees - those that embody the values or deliver the mission.

Below are some of the questions, I'd look to ask - in order - and some of the experiences I'd be looking out for.

How do you know you’re on track? How are you told when you’ve done a good job? What does a good job look like? How is success shared?

Open starter questions on the general topic of recognition. (Will work slightly better if participants don’t know the awards are the main topic). Positions the discussion around showcasing and celebrating a good job – and tests if participants make that link to the awards.

What do you think of our annual awards?

An open question, so that you get honest perceptions, without leading the discussion.

When do you hear about the awards? What do you hear? When and how can you nominate?

Exploring comms around the awards. The typical experience is that comms are focussed in the lead-up to the awards. And hence all nominations tend to be in this period – not over the whole year.

What can you nominate people for? How are the awards judged? Can everyone get nominated?

Exploring understanding of the categories. Do people know what to nominate for, and do they link to desired values and behaviours. Typically this link isn’t always made, or the categories favour front-line/customer-facing staff. Sometimes the judging isn’t seen as being transparent.

What would make you participate more? What would you change?

A last open question to leave on a positive, and to leave people feeling their voice is heard.

Employer Brand Management for Graduates

Often when talking about employer branding – and maybe especially when applied to graduates – the focus is on attracting and recruiting people to your organisation.
And when looking for graduates, you can see the sense in that. There’s a big investment in wooing, influencing and persuading graduates to choose your grad scheme over all the others on the market – especially if you’re outside some the of the sexier sectors like accountancy and consultancy. (When did that happen by the way? What are we telling ver kids that mean they all want to join a big 4 accountant?!)
You hope that the graduates you hire will be some of your key middle-managers and even leaders of the future. You bring them in young, immerse them in your culture and show them a career path that can satisfy their ambitions. You grow your own generation to take your organisation into the future.
Or, to be more precise, you hope to keep enough of the people that you’ve made this huge investment in to be left with something of a generation for the future. It’s a numbers game.
That’s where your employer brand can help again. At the recruitment stage you made your graduates promises. And in an ideal world those promises were based on reality and research. They are what you can confidently see that your current crop of graduates and other colleagues enjoy, receive and are motivated by. And they are what you can confidently aspire to promise to them as your business evolves and grows.
Prove those promises to your graduates; don’t let them stumble upon the evidence. If you promised them a culture of recognition, show them it, demonstrate it, make it part of their everyday experience. If you promised them a fast-track career, draw their path out, show them what they need to do, and give them every bit of support to make their next step. That’s how you win the numbers game.
And that’s how you woo, influence and persuade next year’s graduates too – with real case studies of people like them having their career ambitions fulfilled.
Because if you don’t, then you can be sure that graduates will be the first to leave at the first sign of broken promises. And the first to share their experience with their social circles.

This article first appeared on www.recruitmentbuzz.co.uk

Giving a bit back

When I set out, one of the aspirations for my business was to be able to use my time and money a bit differently.

Now, I’m able to give even more time to Gene’s school as a governor. I should say that Work were fabulously flexible about this, but now I can often be there at the drop of a hat.

I was also conscious that I’d probably be paying less tax too. I can square that morally by collecting VAT too and, of course, by the fact that I now assume all of the risks that an employer would normally absorb for me.

But I also wanted, once I made a profit, to make a charitable contribution too. And I’m delighted to be able to make a donation in my first year to the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

Motor Neurone Disease is very close to me, it killed my Grandad. And it did so in the worst way. Grandad loved doing three things (after he had to give up his pipe…):

·         Being handy, especially wood-working and turning
·         Eating
·         Telling a yarn, teasing his grandchildren and winding up Gran

MND took all that away. So that’s why I’m donating 2% of my gross profits. It won’t change the world, but it will help. And if on the back of this blog a few more people visit the website and learn more about MND, that will help too.

http://www.mndcommunity.org/