Dear GPTW,

We are in the process of evaluating and selecting vendors for our upcoming employee survey. What are most critical differentiators between GPTW’s culture assessment approach and other conventional methods?

~ Differentiator ~

Dear Differentiator,

Thanks for your question. There is a wide variety of survey providers available to you but we believe GPTW is the best choice for a number of reasons. Here are a few of the KEY differentiators:

• Focus on trust as a central driver of culture, engagement and performance.  Our standardized Trust Index© employee survey measures the nature and quality of critical relationships between employees and their: management, co-workers, and jobs.  High trust relationships are central to high performance cultures.  Extensive research has demonstrated empirically that the most central underlying driver of employee engagement and high performance is trust.

  Our survey further measures employee engagement, management processes and behaviours, and other critical aspects of the culture, workplace and employee experience.  Our survey not only assesses levels of employee engagement but, most importantly, the vital underlying drivers and levers that are integral to managing organizational and culture change, strengthening employee engagement, and enhancing performance and achievement of organizational goals. 

• Integration of our Trust Index© employee survey and Culture Audit©. Complementing our Trust Index© employee survey is GPTW’s unique and proprietary Culture Audit© (CA) assessment process. The CA questionnaire is typically completed by a small cross-section of staff who are most knowledgeable about the organization’s various people management policies, programs and practices. The assessment tool includes our:
  • Culture Brief© (Part 1) – A structured questionnaire covering key demographic and contextual information about your organization, compensation & benefits, health & wellness, training & learning, work-life balance, diversity & inclusion, workplace culture, innovation, etc.
  • Culture Audit© (Part 2) – An open ended questionnaire requesting specific descriptive information, documentation and examples of your most distinctive management policies, programs, and practices in the nine major dimensions and 15 sub-dimensions of our Culture Management Model©.
  The integration of the Culture Audit© with our Trust Index© employee survey is unique in providing clients with a synthesis of their most important areas of alignment and/or misalignment, including:
  • Aligned strengths, i.e., aligned areas of strength between current culture management practices and the employee experience. 
  • Aligned opportunities, i.e., aligned opportunities for development between culture management practices and employee experience.
  • Misalignment, i.e., “disconnects” between current culture management practices and how employees experience them. Most common disconnects are where culture management practices are strong but employee experience and perceptions of them are weak. These typically indicate weaknesses in communication and/or application that are sub-optimizing strong culture management programs and practices.
  Less common are disconnects where the employee experience is strong but culture management practices are weak. These typically indicate strong values driven cultures which are not fully supported by more formalized best practices, policies and programs.
• Reliable and validated survey instrument and underlying conceptual framework based on extensive research and experience. Our survey instrument is based on regularly updated research going back over 30 years across a cross section of public and private sector organizations that is unsurpassed in scope.  Our survey instrument has been psychometrically validated and demonstrated to be highly predictive of key performance metrics.

  This means that our survey measures what’s most important to organizational success and performance and does so consistently (i.e., reliably) within and across organizations.  Most employee surveys available in the marketplace today are not built on nearly as extensive and scientifically rigorous a research based foundation as GPTW’s Trust Index© employee survey.

• Most comprehensive multi-company survey data base in the world.  Our standard Trust Index© is the world’s largest workplace survey program, annually surveying over 7,200 organizations employing 11 million employees worldwide…and growing each year.  This ensures that GPTW survey clients have access to:
  • the most robust, relevant and up-to-date benchmarks available in the marketplace against which to put their own results into sharp comparative perspective; and,
  • unique and compelling insights generated through GPTW’s ongoing research and “data mining” which further enrich the meaning and interpretation of each client’s own results.
• Integration with the world’s largest and most prestigious workplace recognition/employer branding program.  GPTW survey clients have the option of participating in our Best Workplaces list program in 50 countries.  The approach is seamless in integrating each client’s TI survey results with their Culture Audit© results to generate Best Workplaces rankings in each national list program.  This year, we’ve also introduced a new Great Place to Work® Certification Program which broadens opportunities for organizations to receive national recognition/branding as a great workplace even if they’re not named to our Best Workplaces lists.

  Certified and Best Workplaces organizations receive unparalleled brand recognition and market visibility through the comprehensive print, digital media, conferences, awards galas, executive networks, etc. published and delivered in collaboration with our strategic media and business partners.  In North America, these partners include FORTUNE magazine in the United States; and, the Globe and Mail and Human Resources Professional Association in Canada.

• Fully integrated organizational assessment and transformation services.  GPTW offers our clients end-to-end full service support including: survey planning and design (e.g., customization); pre-, in-flight and post-survey communication; survey administration; advanced analytics/research, reporting, presentations; survey follow-through strategy, focus groups, and action planning workshops; training in building high trust cultures and great workplaces; talent management and organizational consulting services.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO LAUNCH YOUR CULTURE ASSESSMENT, PLEASE CALL (866) 712-0630.