Staff consultation methods

Staff consultation methods

This resource was created by our Technology Taskforce, a group of senior IT accessibility individuals from leading UK and global organisations. For more information, including how to join, see our website. 

Introduction

Employees are the most valuable asset for most companies. Enabling every employee to perform to their maximum potential is crucial for an efficient and engaged workforce.

Employers need to understand the demographics and experiences of their workforce to enable them to perform at their best. In the case of disabled employees, feedback is particularly important, as each person’s needs, situation or experience will differ.

This guide examines the more popular methods of organising a feedback route from staff. We are focused on disability related inclusion, but the principles remain the same for any staff consultation purpose.

Consultation methods

Organisations may use a range of tools and methods, some proactive and others reactive, to consult with and obtain feedback from staff with disabilities.

These could include:

• Periodic surveys with an entire workforce (Employee Opinion Survey)
• Surveys carried out with employees within a disability network
• Disability network focus groups
• Disability network listening groups
• User testing panels
• Data from workplace adjustments / accommodations or workplace assessment process
• Data from reviewing recruitment and training processes
• Feedback from the workforce on outsourced third-party services (such as catering or occupational health).

It is vital to create easy and effective feedback mechanisms to improve processes continuously. There are many ‘business as usual’ processes that can be leveraged to gain useful insight into the experiences of disabled staff across the organisation.

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to staff consultation. Whether a method of obtaining feedback will be more or less effective will depend on a number of factors, such as the culture of the organisation (or the department or team), the size of the organisation, and the sector.

Organisations will need to work out for themselves which methods will be most effective in their specific circumstances.

Periodic surveys of entire workforce

What is an Employee Opinion Survey?

An Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) is an anonymous barometer of staff views. It should be a way to allow all staff to feed back their views about the way the organisation affects them and their customers. This gathers insight so that matters that affect staff morale can be identified and addressed.

An EOS also enables analysis of the responses of staff split by those who have or have not told the organisation that they have a disability, which can prove insightful as you may discover what is working for non-disabled staff is not working for disabled staff. For this analysis to work, staff must have shared information about their disability, as not everyone chooses to talk about their disability at work, for a number of reasons. It is therefore vital to design the survey in such a way as to allow respondents to complete it anonymously.

How often should organisations conduct an Employee Opinion Survey?

It is good practice to conduct an EOS annually.

As an organisation’s accessibility agenda matures and disability confidence grows throughout the workforce, the proportion of staff telling them about a disability may increase, both because they are employing more people with disabilities and because existing staff are more open and confident about doing so.

Therefore, we recommend an annual EOS in order to capture these changes regularly.

What can organisations learn from an Employee Opinion Survey?

Analysing the responses of disabled versus non-disabled staff can be insightful. This can identify where there are sizeable differences in positive or negative opinion, which can help you to understand the root causes.

If the organisation identifies that staff with disabilities have had a more negative outlook and/or faced more challenges with regards to training and career development opportunities, this can become a key focus area. Often staff struggle to locate information and resources explaining what additional support and services are available to them, highlighting the increased need for clear and effective communications and relevant signposting to information.

How to conduct an Employee Opinion Survey

Top performing organisations have developed accessible online forums open to all staff to ‘have their say’ and discuss and exchange views on the organisation’s purpose and values.

Alternatives to electronic feedback are suggestion boxes, comment boards or postal addresses for receiving feedback. The outputs identify action and shape the planning and thinking for how the organisation could embed the values going forward.

The qualitative information captured can be grouped into themes to help to identify hot topics affecting staff morale, including those with regards to disability. This real-time social networking style ‘suggestions box’ of ideas creates a collaborative environment, letting staff decide the hot topics and discuss improvements.

Disability network groups

What is a disability network group?

A disability network group is an employee-led group of disabled people who want help and receive help from their disabled colleagues. These can take whatever form the group finds most useful – online or offline, regular or ad-hoc meetings, etc.

Network groups for staff with disabilities can help individuals overcome barriers they encounter at work. This benefits both the members of staff, who are enabled to perform at their best and the employer, who gains a more efficient workforce.

Example – Department for Work and Pensions

An example is the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which hosts support groups on their intranet. There is one for each of the main assistive software (AS) packages in use, plus dyslexia, hearing-impairment, and mental health groups. They are designed for mutual support; members support each other with help and advice, and the everyday admin is done by the members themselves.

The groups are on a thread-based social media platform. Members post initial questions or suggestions, and others reply in the thread to give information. The threads persist, so members can go back to previous threads and questions don’t need to be repeatedly asked and answered. Frequently asked questions and top tips are compiled into a pinned post at the head of each group. To set up the groups, it was vital that the social media platform DWP chose complied with the WCAG standards and was tested with the Department’s major AS packages.

The software-specific groups have a strong element of technical help. If someone using the software is preparing to start a new role or is encountering difficulty with some element of their current job, they can post questions. Others then offer advice, including workarounds, techniques, and business practices to make the role easier with their assistive software. Even experienced users rarely know everything about their software and can learn from others.

All the groups have a strong ethos of mutual support on business and Human Resources processes. Workplace adjustments / accommodations are available for areas in which standard procedures might present barriers. However, sometimes the adjustments are unofficial workarounds, or not widely publicised. The input of people who have been through the process or experienced the same situation is invaluable.

Finally, they are a two-way feedback mechanism. They provide a route for the central Accessibility Team to cascade information to users to let them know of developments, updated versions of software, etc. In the other direction, each group raises issues which the central team can take up with subject matter experts and contribute by being on hand to provide advice, consultancy and user testing for the business.

Workplace adjustments and assessments

After implementing workplace adjustments, employers should seek feedback from the employee about their experiences of the adjustment(s) and the process. This should occur at the end of the process, and also with a follow-up some time afterwards. This can help identify issues with the adjustments themselves and the overall process.

Organisations should capture metrics surrounding the process:

• Case volumes
• Costs
• Time taken for each step in the process.

It is equally important to monitor and track end user satisfaction. Asking the individual whether they got the adjustments and support they needed. Organisations should find out:

• Whether the adjustment was correct and is helping the employee in their day job to be more productive or relieve symptoms
• What the employee thought of the assessment
• The general experience and duration of the overall process
• Any suggested improvements they may have.

Comparing the experiences of end users with HR, IT and procurement teams in the process is also a useful tool in reviewing the success of the process.

Further information

• Our People Manager Toolkit has more advice about making workplace adjustments / accommodations.
• BDF Members and Partners can contact our Advice Service for guidance on specific questions.

Recruitment, training and barriers

Obtaining feedback on recruitment processes

As part of the recruitment process, is it important that organisations seek feedback from applicants with disabilities. This will enable organisations to understand whether disabled applicants found the process accessible and inclusive, and in particular whether they were able to ask for and receive the adjustments they needed.

If your recruitment processes present a barrier to some people, the organisation may be missing out on the best-suited candidates for their vacancies, and may be at risk legally.

It is easier to obtain feedback on recruitment processes from successful applicants – however, since they were successful, they are less likely to have experienced a barrier serious enough to prevent their success. Therefore, it is also important to seek feedback from unsuccessful applicants.

Contact unsuccessful applicants with a follow-up survey asking for feedback on the recruitment process. This must be in an accessible format, and recipients must be invited to ask for an alternative format.

Our Recruitment Toolkit has guidance on inclusive recruitment.

Monitoring recruitment processes

As well as feedback from candidates, organisations should monitor their recruitment processes for:

• Number of adjustments requested
• How many of these requests for adjustments / accommodations were implemented
• Time and cost involved in making the adjustments / accommodations
• Diversity – asking applicants and candidates anonymously whether they identify as disabled, alongside other diversity criteria you want to monitor. Our Recruitment Toolkit has more advice about data monitoring during recruitment.

Establish mechanisms for capturing this data and processes for reviewing it, learning from it, and improving recruitment processes.

Obtaining feedback on training

It is important to understand accessibility issues around e-learning platforms and training curricula. Organisations should seek feedback from staff through clear escalation routes, to ensure that future courses are accessible for all.

There is a tendency to think that ‘one size fits all’ on e-learning, but the reality is that some people will not be able to consume badly designed online training. This will mean that staff will either not be trained or will require expensive alternative personalised arrangements.

Our resource, ‘Ensuring accessible e-learning,’ has more information. It is important to keep seeking feedback from those expected to consume this e-learning to ensure you are getting it right.

Where staff may come across any barrier, organisations should ensure that they can find clear routes to the right experts to escalate these barriers to decision makers.

Conclusion

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to obtaining staff feedback – though we have suggested some methods in this resource. Factors such as culture, sector, and the nature of the work will affect what methods are most effective in your organisation.

Find ways to consult with your staff, find the ways that work for them and for your business and revisit these consulting mechanisms regularly to ensure they are still fit for purpose after they have been rolled out. Act on your findings, make continuous improvements based on them and inform staff members you have done so, for them to feel they have been listened to.