Gallup Survey Deep Dives
Every year, Exact Sciences runs one large company-wide Gallup Survey to better understand employees’ productivity and morale. However, when responses indicated confusion about responsibilities, poor communication, and job dissatisfaction, leadership wanted to learn why. I jumped in, conducting interviews and workshops with 12 participants across 4 different roles to find the answers.
Project 1: Expectations and Opportunities
Learning about why employees don’t understand what’s expected of them and how to help them find opportunities to excel.
My Role
I led the effort to learn more about the low scores in the Gallup survey: understanding what’s expected of them and having opportunities to do what they do best everyday.
Strategy
I partnered with the supervisor and director to understand what information they hoped to learn and what they expected to do with the findings I provided.
Execution
I conducted 1-on-1 interviews with 12 participants across three roles: quality assurance, developers, business analysts, and project managers.
Leadership
I presented my findings to the director and supervisor, sharing the concerns and impact if left unresolved. They escalated those findings to the IT vice president and CIO.
My Role: UX Researcher
Tasks: Recruitment, User Research, Analysis, Presentation
Tools: Teams, Miro, PowerPoint
Project Manager
Quality Assurance
Developer
Business Analyst
The Challenge
Connecting with Colleagues
12 of my colleagues, most of whom didn’t know me and none of whom were familiar with this kind of research, were suddenly being asked to give up an hour of their time and be vulnerable about sensitive topics.
My aim was to be empathetic and assure them of all the privacy I was able to provide.
With a gentle touch and absolute assurance of privacy, participants opened up about the their struggles communicating with larger teams and keeping up with all of their responsibilities.
Results
Employee Insights
We learned that recent departures had left many employees feeling overloaded with responsibilities they never felt suited them. We also learned that employees were very happy with their own teams, but struggled with communication and responsibilities between teams when working together.
The director escalated the issues to the IT vice president and CIO who backfilled some open positions and made structural changes to the lines of communications. Both scores made significant jumps in the next survey.
Project 2: Communication with IT Leadership
Learning about the breakdown in communication between staff employees and upper leadership.
The Challenge
Executing a New Format
I had much to learn about Miro, breakout rooms, and timers to make the workshop work. I reached out to a resident expert and practiced with a couple teammates to make sure I could make everything run correctly when the time came. I also made a strict timeline to ensure the objectives were covered while respecting participants’ time.
And if scheduling 12 interviews was challenging, getting 6 busy people in a room together was altogether harder. Due to low UX maturity, I knew it would be difficult to convince my participants to prioritize the workshop. I had to reschedule one meeting twice due to no-shows and unavailability. Learning from last time, I stressed that the request was coming from leadership and I follow up with participants individually and through the meeting chat and eventually succeeded in completing both workshops.
Results
Employee Insights
We learned where employees felt the breakdowns in communication between themselves and leadership and the effect it was having on productivity and morale.
I shared this with the director who impressed the importance to the IT vice president and CIO. As a result, both VP and CIO have implemented quarterly roundtable meetings with employees at all levels.
Leadership also made a concerted effort to send out more frequent and detailed information about changes and successes within the company.