Sponsored by: ThoughtExchange
For several months, we’ve been sharing insights from our partner ThoughtExchange. They’ve done some fascinating research on Gen Z employees, employee experience, boosting retention, and driving business value. They’re an essential tool for leaders across departments and industries looking to align and engage their workforces.
We finally got the opportunity to use ThoughtExchange to consult our network of HR and Talent professionals, and you shared some great insights with us and each other.
We asked:
As HR and Talent professionals, what areas are you focusing on at your organization to increase retention and drive business value?
With anonymity, anti-bias technology, and automatic translation capabilities, ThoughtExchange makes it easy to gather diverse perspectives and have equitable discussions.
What We Heard
Using ThoughtExchange’s tools, we analyzed the thoughts you shared to identify important themes and actionable insights. It’s an efficient way to hear from large groups of diverse people, particularly in a remote setting.
First, we looked at the Summary—an AI-generated snapshot of the top-rated ideas:
Onboarding and orientation – new hires should be set up for success from the start. Effective employee retention improves the productivity and performance of a company. Personal and professional mental health – a toxic work culture can really hurt productivity and business value. Pay equity. Personal wellbeing – avoid burnout.
Overall, you’re recognizing that business value is heavily impacted by employee experience, and you’re focusing on providing a healthy, productive workplace.
Ideas That Rise To The Top
Next, we looked at the highest-rated answers. ThoughtExchange’s Thoughts tool shows each thought’s rating, and also how ratings change by role. These were the top-rated thoughts for each of the different roles:
Talent Acquisition: “Leadership Development. Leaders need to role model behaviors to scale change.”
Recruitment: “Employees’ aspirations for career development. These days I noticed fresh graduates and junior employees are switching their careers for any salary variation. Career development enables employees to be competent and get expertise for their future career.”
Training & Development: “Performance appreciation and reward. By acknowledging good work done, it drives up their productivity.”
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: “Personal and Professional Mental Health. A toxic work culture can really hurt productivity and business value.”
HR Leadership: “Employee wellbeing. This helps the employees stay fit mentally, emotionally, and socially.”
What was particularly interesting is that, of the top thoughts for the entire group, none of the top thoughts by role were included.
- (4.2*) “Focus employer branding efforts on values and vision. Ensure you can articulate clearly how your company is making the world a better place. People in a group desire belonging. These factors serve as unifying tools and help employees feel that the work they do is not ‘just work.’”
- (4.0*) “Onboarding and orientation. New hires should be set up for success from the start. Your onboarding process should focus on employee guide to thrive and culture.”
- (4.0*) “Skills, skills, skills! We want to attract skilled talent, but we need to keep investing in their skills, so people want to stay and grow with us! Caring about the future viability of your workforce means business sustainability. Plus, it’s good for employees, too. Everybody wins.”
The variation in how thoughts are ranked demonstrates how ThoughtExchange can identify team or departmental priorities, but also surface common ground.
Where You Disagreed
It wasn’t all common ground. ThoughtExchange’s Differences tool shows the rating patterns for different groups and finds the polarizing ideas.
In our Exchange, compensation and pay equity was an area of contention. Group A (in blue), mainly HR Leadership, assigned high ratings (in the 4* range) to these thoughts:
Group B (in green), consisting mainly of Recruitment, Training & Development, and Talent Acquisition folks, gave ratings averaging 2*. This may indicate a difference in priorities between HR Leadership and those responsible for hiring and upskilling employees.
The Differences tool doesn’t stop there. It also finds thoughts that Group A and Group B both rated highly. Both groups agreed that employee wellbeing and engagement are top priorities. Holding space for both sides of an issue is vital, but identifying where those two sides agree helps build a strategy everyone supports.
Areas Of Focus
To understand the discussion’s general themes, we used the Theme tool to categorize thoughts into Culture, Performance, and Strategy.
Deeper analysis shows which issues are the most pressing for our community, and identifies actions to improve retention and drive business value.
Areas to Action:
- Company Culture: clarify organizational values, define employer brand, and consult employees on improving their work experience.
- Skills Development: provide employees with skills, career, and leadership development opportunities.
- Performance Appreciation: improve morale and productivity by rewarding high-performing employees.
What You Told Us
You’re invested in improving and streamlining every stage of the employee lifecycle. You value organizational culture and recognize the importance of robust onboarding and career development. You care deeply for the wellbeing of your employees and want to foster a more supportive workplace.
For us, this Exchange showed how valuable an inclusive, unbiased discussion platform is for identifying team and organizational priorities.
We can see how ThoughtExchange brings immense value to different kinds of leaders looking to innovate tactics, align on strategy, improve business efficiency, and engage employees.
Want to see how ThoughtExchange can give you mission-critical insights to make better decisions and transform your discussions? Talk to one of ThoughtExchange’s Talent & HR experts today.
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