If You Are Not Assessing, You Are Guessing

If You Are Not Assessing, You Are Guessing.

Now more than ever, the quality of your organizational assessment is not only critical, but also a question of professional ethics. Trauma-informed leadership and workplace questionnaires are rarely used by new executives or prior to rolling out small or large strategic plans or other change projects. In fact, it's not uncommon for organizations to skip over the organizational assessment process all together before pushing down yet another new change without warning or engagement. This top-down approach is problemsome for the entire workforce given the increasing mental health challenges, burnout and dysregulation occurring in the workplace.

This absence of engagement and information raises many questions for me:

• How do leaders effectively guide their organizations and their workforce through change if they do not assess their organization first?
• How do leaders know if staff are ready for change?
• What are the levels of trust between leadership and staff?
• Do staff have the capacity to take on additional work associated with change?
• What are the underlying social and emotional needs presenting in the workplace?

Would you walk across a tightrope above the Everglades blindfolded to meet your change outcomes or KPI's? Of course, you wouldn't. You would most certainly fail. But leaders do it every day by guessing what staff need, taking shortcuts and minimizing staff input.??

Assess with Confidence

Understanding the statistical underpinnings of survey administration, accuracy,?and validity is fundamental when preparing for transformational change within an already exhausted workplace. When selecting the assessment instrument, you want to feel confident that you are measuring what you set out to measure. My?Employee Experiences Questionnaire confidently measures the degree to which change readiness, trust, capacity, and a trauma-informed work environment – over time -- influences an employee’s work experience. Instead of asking staff one question, once a year like the Net Promoter Score, the Employee Experiences Questionnaire collects data and takes the pulse on change readiness, trust, capacity, and trauma informed characteristics every quarter to measure the organization's progress, setbacks, and behavior change over a 12-month period.??

In early 2022, the Analysis Factor conducted a factor analysis (a statistical method that can be used to collect an important type of validity evidence) on the Employee Experiences Questionnaire to test whether there was a relationship between change readiness, trust, capacity, a trauma informed work environment (factors) and an employee’s work experience (construct). Analysis Factor found strong correlation between the Employee Experiences Questionnaire items and the construct, thus deeming the questionnaire valid.

Let’s Dig a Little Deeper.

Some variables in leadership or organizational design studies are directly observable?variables such as the percent of people of color in leadership positions or the amount of time staff spend on a specific task. Nonobservable variables such as fear,?safety, trust, or capacity levels are not directly observable?and must be collected from questions found on instruments like the Employee Experiences Questionnaire. When there is a strong correlation between the direct observable variables and the nonobservable variables, the questionnaire is more likely to measure what it is intended to measure. Assessing your organization with a valid tool like the Employee Experiences Questionnaire is like removing the blindfold.

People and Culture are the Soul of Your Organization

People-centered leaders keep their fingers on the pulse of their organizations. Why? Because people and culture are the soul of your organization. Assessing how new or tenured employees "feel" through the Employee Experiences Questionnaire helps leaders see and understand whether members of their team trust each other or trust their supervisor, do they feel valued and safe with their supervisor, are their social and emotional wellness needs being acknowledged, and do they have capacity to do their work well and on time, regardless of the location of their office??Knowing this, leaders can meet their teams where they are during small or large transformational change efforts, set them [and your KPIs] up for change success, build emotional safety-nets, and promote change resiliency both vertically and horizontally in the workplace-- without the fear of any alligators below.?

Putting the Employee Experiences Questionnaire into Practice

How would the information included in the two tables below be useful to you? (These are two, statistically significant Employee Experiences questionnaire findings extracted from a large California municipality).

For more information on the Employee Experiences Questionnaire, lets chat. Schedule a consultation today.

About Dr. Dawn Emerick

There is nothing more powerful than learning from and sharing space with people with lived, learned and recovery experiences, self-awareness, and professional application. Dr. Dawn Emerick confronted her childhood and adult trauma after witnessing how her own unresolved trauma was affecting the way she engaged her children, family, friends, peers, co-workers and teams- especially when her childhood trauma was triggered daily by a bully boss. The combination of Dawn’s childhood and adult trauma, healing, astute self-awareness, her 30 years of non-profit and county/city government executive leadership experience and stories from the field, creates the ultimate story learning, coaching and mentoring environment. Dr. Emerick is motivated as hell to start a new leadership paradigm today, right now. A paradigm that starts with creating?1M Trauma-Informed Leaders in America by 2031.

Dawn is a trauma-informed leader, TEDx speaker, trainer, coach, and podcaster. You can now add a LinkedIn Learning Instructor to her portfolio. Visit?Dawn Emerick Consulting?for more information on upcoming?trauma-informed leadership+ workplace training.?