Some 200 firms have been approached by Business Leaders Malta to participate in its latest initiative – an online employee study which aims to reveal how organisations’ human resources policies and strategies are perceived by their own teams.
There is no board or committee involved in the data analysis
The top scoring firm in each of seven domains will be recognised with a Business Leaders Employer Award at the annual BLM event next February.
Business Leaders Malta is a network established by team-building firm Jugs Malta, recruiter Konnekt, and training company Mdina Partnership, and is best known for its vibrant annual networking event which is now heading for a fourth edition.
Employees of participating firms will be asked to fill in a carefully designed 70-question online survey to rate their employer on leadership effectiveness, communication and team cohesiveness, training and development, reward and recognition, corporate culture, performance orientation, and employee well-being.
The entire process – from data collection to analysis and reporting – is anonymous.
“Organisations are increasingly keen to understand what staff think of how the company is managed and led, but most cannot justify the expense of obtaining that data, which can run into several thousand euros,” Mdina Partnership’s Steve Tarr told The Sunday Times.
“Businesses are asking where they stand in the pecking order as they try to benchmark themselves against other employers.”
Mr Tarr explained that BLM believed it was connected enough across the market – more than 800 invitations are dispatched across the business community for the annual networking event alone – and set about developing a product that would meet client organisations’ objectives in examining the success or otherwise of their human capital management cost-effectively.
Konnekt’s Josef Said added that despite the economic slowdown, firms still faced a scarcity of talent in disciplines like accounting, IT, and senior management. Participating firms are eager to prove to their teams and prospective employees that they are an employer of choice.
A year in the offing, the survey, governed by a confidentiality agreement, will involve tailor-made data processing software. The online questionnaire will run from October 15 to November 15 and will be dispatched to organisations’ staff members through a unique, one-use link which will be valid for a week. Participating firms will have access to live updates on their response rate performance and will receive average scores and statistical significances test for each question by December 2.
All results will be collected separately and individual answers will be checked for integrity and coded into a survey reporting system.
Comparative average scores will be issued to reflect each organisation’s position in relation to other entrants. Firms will individually become aware of statistically significant scores, indicating areas in which they excel or lag behind the market average.
The results will be communicated to participants on December 15.
Apart from the seven domain awards, BLM will also name one overall winner in each of four organisation size brackets – 20 to 99 employees, 100 to 199, 200 to 499, and more than 500. Organisations in the first bracket are required to supply all their employees’ e-mail addresses.
Companies with 100-plus staff members are required to supply at least 80 per cent. Firms will only be eligible for the Business Leader Employer Award if they score a participation rate of 55 per cent of their total workforce.
Jugs Malta’s Josef Gafa pointed out: “There is no board or committee involved in the data analysis. Organisations will find out how employees perceive them in the most transparent, straightforward manner.
“BLM is looking forward to examining the market insight the entire survey will offer.”