Converge Looks to Transform Employee Research

Canadian firm Converge Consulting Group has been awarded trademark protection for its Voice of the Employee approach, which seeks to move the industry forward from 'the flawed practice of reporting employee survey findings based on statistical significance tests'.

Partner Robert Gerst said statistical significance tests used in consumer research and employee research were an example of 'junk science', and have been recognised as such in the former for some time, but 'live on in much of the employee survey industry.' However, 'as HR becomes more evidence-based, the quality of evidence comes under greater scrutiny. You don't have to look too closely before seeing that the statistically significant emperor has no clothes.'

Just as Voice of the Customer (VoC) is the consumer research answer to this error, replacing statistical significance with scientific significance, 'Voice of the Employee' does the same for staff surveys. Gerst says statistical significance 'looks like real science but is much easier to produce.' He continues: 'Unfortunately, it gives 'Bell Curve' like results that no company or employee should or would want to tolerate. We're hoping trade mark protection for Voice of the Employee will help a little, providing a mark of quality for consumers of employee engagement research.'

Converge has clients in Canada, the USA, Europe and Australia and is online at www.converge-group.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.