I reflect on an example of how to use results from employee feedback in a productive way. I also cover some technical aspects of project management for our online training game.

Survey

I completed our annual workforce survey. The questions have been the same for several years, with one or two minor tweaks. Questions cover workload, support, relationships with management, stress, bullying and harassment, and demographics.

It will be interesting to see how COVID-19 is used to interpret the results. There were no questions about COVID-19 in the survey.

A few years ago, I worked in an organisation that had a productive way of acting on employee sentiment surveys. Leadership would take the top three highest scores, and the lowest three scores. We would have a discussion about management’s ideas to keep doing what works, and how to address the gaps. They would have practical steps that were easy to understand. People could also give anonymous feedback on what to focus on to achieve change. There was a deadline for each task, and management would report on what we had or hadn’t achieved. It was clear how our survey results were actively being used, how, and to what effect. This is the best example I’ve ever seen of using workpclae surveys in a productive way.

Cyber

On our cyber security game project, the consultants came back with a revised quote that meets our budget and requirements. My next task is to negotiate the contract.

The rest of the day I spent chasing up actions and liaising with our stakeholders. This includes reaching out to our I.T. team who are helping us to transition the game’s URL to a new address, upgrading the hosting, and doing a bunch of other security upgrades.

I also worked with my colleague to revise our project plan. We’re putting together a proposal to have our partners take on 50% of the work, to try and bring down my number of days on this project from four to two days. This is to improve my work-life balance.