Many companies have employee surveys titled “engagement, culture, feedback, etc.” HR often controls this process. Few (by which I mean none) of the organisations I’ve spoken to have a good experience of engagement surveys. The reasons vary, but some common themes emerge:
🚦 They’re not anonymous 🚦 They’re hard to answer 🚦 They’re too long 🚦 Who cares?
Gathering feedback from employees about risk is essential. Most issues (evidential and anecdotal experience) stem not from control failures but human (in)action. If we are to make any risk or compliance program work, we need to understand:
👉 Knowledge gaps - who doesn’t know what to do 👉 Accessibility issues - who isn’t getting supported 👉 Accountability - most issues stem from fear and/or orders 👉 Trust - psych safety, speak-up, and team-level decision-making
When we gather this data it’s proving to be as powerful as any other risk management technique I’ve seen. But we’re not going to get it through HR and their survey. Why?
INSERT SCREENSHOT
The image above is a sample of questions from a market-leading culture survey company. HOJ (the acronym we use in our family when you “had one job”). It’s rubbish. Question 1 asks us to estimate someone’s impact on unspecified others, “Which employees?” A manager could play favourites, and support a select few while neglecting the others. Question 2 assumes learning and development are synonyms and fails to define “well” (a variable construct when most of us have worked with total cretins who think they’re rockstars). Question 3: quality and improvements are not the same, and “top priorities” for whom?
Those who know me will know I judge my work similarly ruthlessly, and I look back on questions I used six or even three months ago and cringe. We must be that critical because gathering this vital risk data is essential. The benefits are manifold, but two clear themes emerge.
- We now know who needs what (kind of support)
- We need data - senior leads get data and listen when we speak it
First, we need to correct the common issues:
💪 Ensure no one group of respondents is smaller than five people - preserving a level of anonymity
💪 Opt for simple questions about personal experience (“I and my”), avoid compound questions and multiple variables.
💪 Keep the question set to 20 questions or below (normally takes 3-4 minutes).
💪 Communicate with respondents quickly and transparently. “Who cares” stems from not knowing what (if anything) happens with the responses.
In 22 years of risk work, this is one of the top three tools I’d rely on to build an effective risk culture. But you don’t get many shots, so when you get yours, get it right.
AI vs Legalese
“How will AI help us?” Over the past few weeks, I’ve been asked this question (in a call, conference, and podcast). Here’s one example.
This is the UK Bribery Act text defining “improper performance.”
‘Improper performance’ is defined at sections 3, 4 and 5. In summary, this means performance which amounts to a breach of an expectation that a person will act in good faith, impartially, or in accordance with a position of trust. The offence applies to bribery relating to any function of a public nature, connected with a business, performed in the course of a person’s employment or performed on behalf of a company or another body of persons. Therefore, bribery in both the public and private sectors is covered.
I asked Claude to first simplify the text for a 12-year-old. Then I asked Claude to “make it funny, using examples.” I find asking AI to do things in steps easier (same principle as avoiding the compound questions in surveys). Claude replied:
‘Improper performance’ means messing up your job or doing unfair stuff when you’re supposed to be trustworthy. This includes things like a police officer accepting free donuts from the new bakery in town in exchange for not giving tickets to the delivery trucks. Or a referee taking a bribe from one team to ignore fouls against them. The rules are the same whether you work for the government or a company. So it’s not okay for the mayor’s assistant to get free massages at the spa in exchange for approving their permit. Or for the manager at Burger Blast to get a cut of the profits for ordering bad meat from shady suppliers. So no funny business allowed! Stick to your duties and keep things fair, whether you’re the crossing guard or the CEO!
Is this perfect? No. Is it x10 (x50?) quicker than doing that job ourselves? Yes. Can we then spend some of that time saved adapting to our cultural and communication preferences? Yes.
AI isn’t about to take over our jobs, but it helps me when struggling with the most arduous task: thinking (creatively).