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If you spend time on social media, you don&rsquo;t need to look far to find a troll. These are people or accounts who show deviant, malicious or antisocial behaviour online. Their aim is to offend and trigger<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/28349/1/Predictive%20Factors%20of%20Facebook%20Trolling%20Behaviour_skemman.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;conflict.</a> This is an obvious and prolific form of cyberbullying.
Often trolls hide their true identity online, so it wouldn&rsquo;t be obvious if you had an internet troll in your team.&nbsp;O<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/one-in-three-australians-say-they-ve-been-trolled-online/c8ec0e27-cb88-4c94-9505-77554520b692" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ne in three</a>&nbsp;people say they have experience of receiving abuse online. Sadly, we&rsquo;re not talking about something rare and unusual.
A<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;2014 study</a> showed those who said they enjoyed internet trolling had common personality traits. These included<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/narcissism" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;narcissism</a>,<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/dark-triad" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;Machiavellianism</a>,<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/psychopathy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;psychopathy</a>, and sadism. In short, trolls enjoy making you feel bad.&nbsp;
So if people are 'trolling' online, in their own time, with a hidden identity, should you care about having trolls in your team?
&nbsp;
Yes. You absolutely should.
Trolls are bullies. Their behaviour can lead to psychological damage of themselves and others. And there are many documented cases of where it has led to<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/charlotte-dawson-death-twitter-criticised-for-failing-to-act-against-trolls-20140222-338z6.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;suicide</a>.
It's also very likely that these character traits and behaviours are present in the workplace (albeit to a lesser degree). Some believe that internet trolling is a way of discharging this type of behaviour so that it is less likely to appear face-to-face. Having a secret troll on your team means having someone who is unkind, aggressive and unwilling to be accountable for their actions. They aren't the ideal team member.&nbsp;
Having people that display these personality traits and enjoy spouting hate online is bad for culture and employee engagement. All organisations should have zero tolerance on bullying, whatever form it takes.
A great culture is built around a psychologically safe space, where people can be themselves and everyone is welcomed. Trolls can be hugely problematic for creating a healthy &amp; inclusive working environment.
&nbsp;
<h3>How can you protect your team from trolls?</h3>
The best way to protect your team is to research a potential recruit online before hiring them. Be careful here, this is not a forensic deep-dive into someone&rsquo;s online activity! If you can find evidence demonstrating trolling behaviour, this should be a red flag against welcoming them to your team.
More workplaces have gone remote and rely on written communication for every day interaction. This helps shape the culture of a team and build employee engagement. There is now more opportunity for people to bring their toxic habits into the workplace. The wrong thing to do is to monitor online behaviour of your employees. This can erode trust and create engagement problems of a different kind.
Allowing employees to provide regular<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;anonymous feedback is a</a> safe way for them to raise concerns. Employees can pro-actively share their thoughts about culture and engagement. This allows you to spot any signs of toxicity creeping in and address them before they grow.
In extreme cases, cyberbullying is<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/how-can-hr-respond-if-an-employee-has-been-trolling-someone-online/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&nbsp;illegal</a>, it carries a prison sentence and a fine of up to &pound;5,000. As an employer, you are legally responsible for the actions of your employees whilst in your employment, even if you didn&rsquo;t know about it, or endorse it.
If an employee makes hateful comments online they can be traced back and may be considered to be representative of the business. Dealing with cyberbullying appropriately may be a legal obligation as well as a moral one. Many organisations are dealing with online behaviour &amp; social media in policies. If you are, it should cover trolls, cyberbullying and harassment.
The behaviours and traits of trolls and cyberbullies may creep into the workplace where they can be as damaging as they are online. Taking a zero tolerance approach on such attitudes is the only way to deal with trolls. Providing employees with a safe way to share concerns anonymously is an important way to protect the health of your organisation and its culture.
&nbsp;
To find out more about how Ten Space can help your employees to share feedback, find out more on our website<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="http://www.spacehr.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> www.tenspace.co.uk</a>.

Trolls hide their identity online, so you won't always know they are in your team - but you may notice the impact they are having on engagement.

Is there a troll in your team?

A look at employment trends and what that means for employee engagement in 5 years time.

What does the future of work look like for a new starter?

For 11 years of my career I ran a digital marketing and brand agency. In the time I was there I worked on hundreds of brands for clients of all shapes and sizes, and in all fields and particularly loved the creative outcomes of the work we produced.
The term &lsquo;brand&rsquo; has a lot of different connotations. In retail, a brand often associates a product with it&rsquo;s manufacturer and gives a sense of identity and often value to the product. It can have tangible elements such as a logo, colours, typefaces, materials and slogans, all of which make the brand instantly recognisable and give it a sense of identity.
Good brands are consistent and well recognised. If you remove the logos and writing from a whole variety of consumer products you can still easily identify those brands by other facets such as colour and design.&nbsp;
Building an amazing brand inspires huge customer loyalty. The nirvana of any good brand is to inspire such deep rooted psychological love of the brand, that your customers won&rsquo;t consider other options. Personally I wouldn&rsquo;t consider any tech hardware options other than Apple.
The way that Apple products have been woven into the fabric of my everyday life means that it&rsquo;s different for me to move anywhere else now, but I also love the brand for a whole bunch of reasons including usability, design, marketing and of course the founder vision created by the late Steve Jobs.
For consumers, brands inspire loyalty. With that loyalty, your customers become sticky and keep on buying. But how does this brand loyalty transcend into your workforce?
&nbsp;
<h3>What is 'employer brand'?</h3>
In the same way that marketers create a compelling &lsquo;customer brand&rsquo; to inspire customer loyalty, so too must HR teams create a compelling &lsquo;employer brand&rsquo; that they can apply to the entire employee lifecycle.
All businesses have an employer brand. It&rsquo;s the way in which businesses differentiate themselves in the labour market to recruit, retain and engage people. It helps businesses gain a competitive edge in the recruitment of great people and establish greater credibility.&nbsp;
In the CIPD 2008 guide &lsquo;Employer Branding - A no nonsense approach&rsquo;, employer brand is defined as '...a set of attributes and qualities, often intangible, that makes an organisation distinctive, promises a particular kind of employment experience, and appeals to those people who will thrive and perform best in its culture'.
In the wider context of the business, a solid employer brand should be linked to a company&rsquo;s values, policies, people strategy and external brand. Without this there can be a huge misalignment between the type of people that the company hires and their ability to deliver the brand promise outlined by the marketing team.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Why is it so important?</h3>
Developing a high value &lsquo;employer brand&rsquo; can benefit a company in many tangible and intangible ways.&nbsp;
For marketers, a quality &lsquo;consumer brand&rsquo; makes it easier to attract, engage and retain customers and build extreme loyalty. This is known as the customer lifecycle. For HR people, adopting the same approach builds extreme loyalty with employees for the &lsquo;employee lifecycle&rsquo;
&lsquo;Employee lifecycle&rsquo; is the experience that an employee has with their employer. It can start way before they ever become an employee, but is associated with their experience of how they are recruited, onboarded, managed, rewarded, communicated to and ultimately how they exit.&nbsp;
Positive experiences in these areas will lead to a better &lsquo;employee experience&rsquo; and build an engaged employee that feels valued and respected by their employer. The payback here is that they usually want to work harder to adopt the company&rsquo;s mission , vision and values in their working behaviours. Even if a highly engaged employee chooses to leave the organisation, chances are they'll still add value by acting as a &lsquo;promoter&rsquo; of that organisation; telling everyone they know about their positive employee experience! Conversely a negative experience in one or all of these areas can have the opposite effect, as was experienced by Brewdog recently.
&nbsp;
<h3>How do you create and amazing employer brand?</h3>
This is where a blog could easily become a 100 page whitepaper. There is a written methodology to this, which is very similar to the marketing methodology around customer brands. This involves;
<ol>
<li>Discovery -&nbsp;Understanding more about your employees, your management and the&nbsp;current situation</li>
<li>Creation -&nbsp;Analysis the data from your discovery process and create an employee value proposition</li>
<li>Implementation -&nbsp;Getting the employee value proposition out there and embedding it into the culture</li>
<li>Maintenance -&nbsp;Ensuring that the company lives and breathes the employer brand through careful measurement and optimisation&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
This is not a one-off exercise, this is a strategic exercise and it&rsquo;s an ongoing exercise too. In just the same way that a consumer brand can be devalued overnight, so too can an employer brand so it&rsquo;s vitally important that building an employer brand is viewed as an exercise in continual improvement.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Make a start today - The discovery!</h3>
Without a good discovery (or good research) you run the risk of making the wrong decisions or even reversing some of the good you&rsquo;ve managed to achieve. I&rsquo;ve seen first hand how the car industry invests millions of dollars into market research to ensure that they make good decisions about the future of their products. These sums are huge, but the consequences can be billion dollar losses.
Using great technology and great methodology to achieve a great discovery is helpful. Running workshops with your senior management, running focus groups with your employees and conducting employee engagement surveys are a great start. If you have a great way to collect this data, to measure improvement and importantly to understand &lsquo;what good looks like&rsquo; then you&rsquo;re taking your first steps in the right direction.&nbsp;
And as a final thought, don&rsquo;t get hung-up on the scores - these are often vanity metrics. Instead invest your energy in the qualitative feedback that comes back from your employees. That&rsquo;s where the great ideas come from that help you build a brand that your employees really buy into.
&nbsp;
We&rsquo;re here to help you make that start. Drop us a message on our contact form and we&rsquo;ll show you how.

Why should it matter so much to your business?

Your Employer Brand

There is a lots chatter on social media from recruiters and talent managers about the risk and challenges of mass resignations. They&rsquo;re referencing employees who have waited out the pandemic and are now looking to make a career move.&nbsp;
But there is also an equal amount of chatter about the lack of candidates in the market place and how difficult it is to find talent at the moment.&nbsp;
So which is it? We take a look at whether the &ldquo;great resignation&rdquo; is actually happening, how you can take advantage and how you can prevent it happening in your organisation.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>What is Driving the Great Resignation?</h3>
A recent&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://hr.personio.de/hubfs/EN_Downloads/202104_HRStudy_UKI.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">survey by Personio</a>&nbsp;found that 38% of respondents planned to quit their job in the next six months to a year. This shift is largely due to the pandemic making people question their priorities. Right now, more and more people are setting off to pursue their dream jobs, or are quitting working life altogether to spend more time with their families. In fact, a whopping&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/most-employees-would-grade-their-jobs-a-b-/553087/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50%</a> of employees say that they&rsquo;d sacrifice their salary for a job they enjoyed better. Times truly are a-changing!
<h4>But why now?&nbsp;</h4>
Many people have, up until this point, felt under-valued and unheard &ndash; a key reason for&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic work culture</a>&nbsp;and employee stress. And while this feeling isn&rsquo;t anything new, the pandemic has pushed many of those who were already stressed and under pressure over the edge.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Does The Great Resignation Present an Opportunity?</h3>
While &lsquo;The Great Resignation&rsquo; of 2021 may seem like a looming threat to all UK businesses, it may in fact have its own silver lining. Just as what comes up must come down, most of those who leave a workplace will eventually have to return to employment. But does that mean there&rsquo;s a pool of hot talent out there ripe for the taking? Well, yes. The only catch is that they may not want to work with you, or at least with you on a full-time, in-office basis.&nbsp;
Because many workers are now favouring remote or hybrid roles over in-person jobs, this presents companies with, depending on how you look at it, an opportunity or a predicament. On the one hand, there&rsquo;s a lot of hot talent out there willing to work on a remote or contractual basis for businesses. This allows the company in question to save on overheads and potentially employment costs. On the other hand, businesses that aren&rsquo;t willing to adapt to changing times may struggle to source the employees they need in-house, and stall as a result.&nbsp;
And it&rsquo;s not just about the office, either. Many employees have gotten so used to working from home that they realise how much they dislike their workplace in general. Office politics, bullying managers, and a lack of recognition are all factors that can play a role in an employee wanting to leave. So before you go thinking that The Great Resignation presents an opportunity, you need to make sure you&rsquo;re creating a great place to work.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Likely Are You to Lose Out?&nbsp;</h3>
This is an employer&rsquo;s biggest fear right now, and rightly so. While there&rsquo;s no way to accurately project how many of your employees will hand in their notice, there&rsquo;s one key indicator &ndash;&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-can-employee-feedback-change-your-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employee engagement.</a>&nbsp;
Because The Great Resignation all boils down to employee satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), any business with a&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/what-is-enps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low eNPS score</a> is at risk of losing a large chunk of their workforce. Employees will simply choose to work somewhere better.
&nbsp;
<h3>How Can You Take Advantage of The Great Resignation?</h3>
There are two ways you can take advantage of The Great Resignation:
<ol>
<li>Hire hot new talent</li>
<li>Give your existing workplace a much-needed shakeup and retain your current talent</li>
</ol>
In either case, it&rsquo;s imperative that your workplace lives up to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-your-future-employees-want-most" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the standards that a 2021 employee wants</a> to see. Because although &lsquo;The Great Resignation&rsquo; is an unprecedented event, there&rsquo;s likely been a complete shift in the mindset of the modern worker. This means that things probably won&rsquo;t go back to the way they were. Employees now want their workplaces to tick most of their boxes, and they won&rsquo;t be afraid to leave swiftly if otherwise!&nbsp;
Whether you choose option 1 or 2 from this list, one thing remains constant: great employee satisfaction rates are key to a thriving business in the modern age. Try as you might to hire that hot new talent floating around, if you&rsquo;re refusing to adapt to changing expectations, they&rsquo;ll be gone before you know it.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Can You Increase Employee Engagement Rates?&nbsp;</h3>
There&rsquo;s no straightforward answer to this question, because every business is different, with unique strengths and challenges that only the employees can tell you. From micro-managing leaders, to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic workplace cultures</a>&nbsp;and lack of adequate&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/duty-of-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Duty of Care</a>, the list of things that can negatively impact how it feels to work in an organisation is significant. But don&rsquo;t let that scare you away from inviting your employees to share feedback. In fact, this is the most important thing you can do to boost employee engagement, and is the first step to creating a better working environment.&nbsp;
Using an anonymous employee engagement tool such as&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Space HR</a>&nbsp;can give you extremely valuable insights into how your workers are feeling. You&rsquo;ll receive honest feedback presented in a quantifiable&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/what-is-enps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">eNPS score</a>, so that you can begin to understand exactly which areas need attention.&nbsp;
While we could talk all day about what you can do to increase employee engagement, here&rsquo;s a non-exhaustive list of the things you&nbsp;shouldn&rsquo;t&nbsp;do:&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>What NOT to Do:</h3>
DO NOT Throw More Salary at the Situation
We hear the phrase &lsquo;money can&rsquo;t buy happiness&rsquo; probably a lot more than we&rsquo;d like, but there&rsquo;s an awful lot of truth within it. If you&rsquo;re&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-stress-impacts-on-creativity-in-the-workplace" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">overworking your employee</a>, or not giving enough back, you might assume that &lsquo;overpaying&rsquo; them will balance everything out, but&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/the-impact-of-salary-on-employee-engagement" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">higher salary doesn&rsquo;t positively correlate with higher employee satisfaction rates.</a>&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s because an &lsquo;overworked&rsquo; employee is likely to be&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-stress-impacts-on-creativity-in-the-workplace" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feeling stressed</a>&nbsp;out with deadlines, undervalued for their hard work, or simply in need of a better work-life balance. That&rsquo;s what being &lsquo;overworked&rsquo; really means. Anyway, the best way to cure an overworked employee is to get to the bottom of&nbsp;why&nbsp;they&rsquo;re feeling overworked i.e. employee feedback.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
DO NOT Focus On New Things You Can Introduce, Rather Than Fixing Existing Problems
Another common conclusion that business owners jump to in order to solve low workplace engagement is to spend additional money and budget on treats and rewards. And while this sort of thing might just boost employee engagement rates in an already happy workplace, it&rsquo;s not a cure for most common causes of employee discontent.&nbsp;
Bad leadership is one of the most common issues that lead workers to resign, accounting for at least&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">70% of variance in employee engagement scores</a>. This is why it&rsquo;s imperative to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/want-to-become-a-fantastic-leader" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">train your managers to be great leaders</a>, rather than focusing on a superficial or aesthetic area of your business. Again, anonymous feedback really is the only way of accessing the insights you need to make positive changes within your management team.
&nbsp;
DO NOT Take For Granted The Team You Already Have&nbsp;
You need to be especially sure that you are doing enough to make your existing team stay. Things like having great recognition schemes in place, long term career paths and that all important focus on wellbeing will all ensure that when opportunity calls, your team don&rsquo;t answer.&nbsp;
If you aren&rsquo;t sure if you have people thinking of leaving, that&rsquo;s when an engagement survey can help once again. Low engagement in particular teams might be a good indication that you need to pay more attention and tackle issues before they turn into resignations.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Summary</h3>
The Great Resignation poses a major threat to businesses who for years have allowed issues to lay under the radar. Now they face an &lsquo;adapt or die&rsquo; situation, which will force them to change their workforce for the better by actually listening to how their employees feel.&nbsp;
Whether you&rsquo;re confident that your employees will stay, or you fear a pile-up of resignation letters on your desk, now is the time to act. Find out how your employees are feeling, make the changes you need to encourage them to stay, and attract hot new talent with your newly improved workplace.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Get in touch with us</a>&nbsp;to see how we can help you take full advantage of The Great Resignation.&nbsp;

Is It Really Happening? How Can You Protect Your Organisation?

The Great Resignation

If you&rsquo;re an employer, you&rsquo;re like to be familiar with the concept of Duty of Care. And while it&rsquo;s pretty obvious at face value what it entails (welfare, support, and good practice), it&rsquo;s essential for companies to fully understand their responsibilities, for practical, legal and employee engagement purposes.&nbsp;
Here we explore what the Duty of Care umbrella covers, and what it might mean for your organisation.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>What Is Duty Of Care?&nbsp;</h3>
The&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);" href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/employers.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HSE&nbsp;</a>sets out an employers responsibility on duty of care:
&ldquo;It is an employer's duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and other people who might be affected by their business. Employers must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this.&nbsp;
This means making sure that workers and others are protected from anything that may cause harm, effectively controlling any risks to injury or health that could arise in the workplace."
Because the &lsquo;risks&rsquo; of employment will vary from industry to industry, this makes it difficult for some companies to know exactly where their legal responsibilities lie. But failing to understand exactly where responsibilities start and end can have serious implications for an organisation. Everything from&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic work cultures</a> to hefty negligence claims can arise from simple mistakes or failure to act responsibly, so it&rsquo;s crucial that employers are clear on their Duty of Care obligations.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Do Employers Know What Their Duty of Care is?&nbsp;</h3>
When it comes to the welfare of employees and employee engagement, legislation should be the minimum standards, not the aim. However it helps to understand the legislation as a starting point. All the standard measures in place are outlined in the&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/l24.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Health and Safety at Work Act 1992</a>. This covers things like:
<ul>
<li>Creating a clear Duty of Care policy, when a company has 5 or more employees</li>
<li>Training relevant individuals on basic health and safety issues</li>
<li>Frequently updating training and health and safety guides</li>
<li>Managing and recording misconduct</li>
<li>Displaying certification</li>
<li>Keeping training records up to date</li>
<li>Giving employees the right tools to fulfill their responsibilities</li>
</ul>
But it isn&rsquo;t just&nbsp;physical safety that employers need to look after, they also have a Duty of Care to support their workers&rsquo; mental health too.&nbsp;
Many organisations are now going well beyond the minimum duties and creating a culture based around employee wellbeing, supporting both physical and mental health. This employee-first approach can reap the rewards of high engagement and a positive work culture; reduce absence from work,&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/the-cost-of-low-employee-engagement-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">save on recruitment costs</a>, and encourage a more productive team.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How To Look After Your Team&rsquo;s Mental Health</h3>
According to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HSE</a>, as much as 40% of all work-related sickness in the UK is caused by stress. This stands witness to the equal importance of both mental and physical welfare in the workplace.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;re an employer, you know that time off leads to decreased profits and productivity. And decreased profits adds stress on other team members who pick up the extra workload to meet targets. The cycle repeats and the stress can spread across the team and even the entire organisation. To put it simply, your efforts as an employer should focus more strongly on&nbsp;preventing&nbsp;stress than curing it.&nbsp;
Here are some of our top tips for looking after your team&rsquo;s mental health &amp; moving towards a &ldquo;wellbeing&rdquo; approach:
&nbsp;
<h4>Encourage Anonymous Feedback&nbsp;</h4>
If&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-to-spot-the-warning-signs-of-stress-in-your-team-and-what-you-can-do-to-help" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">your employees are stressed</a>, it&rsquo;s likely that at the heart of the issue is a lack of support from their manager or leader. Once this cycle has begun, it can also mean that they&rsquo;re less likely to share their feelings and concerns with the same leader or manager. Eventually, left unresolved, team members may crack.&nbsp;
For this reason,&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-can-employee-feedback-change-your-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">employee feedback</a> can be a company&rsquo;s greatest resource, but only if it&rsquo;s anonymous &ndash; aka, honest &ndash; and actioned. Anonymous employee engagement surveys will give you real-time insights into the state of your workforce&rsquo;s mental health, and offer suggestions about what could be improved.
Good data and insight can be predictive of issues that are forming, or help to uncover solutions to problems that have already surfaced.&nbsp;
By collaborating with a company like&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Space HR</a>, you can distribute expert-made employee engagement surveys via Whatsapp &ndash; surveys that have been specifically tailored to your organisation. The more you know about how your employees feel, the better able you are to fulfil your Duty of Care.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Ensure Your Leaders Have Received the Correct Training</h4>
Often employees are dissatisfied or stressed at work due to a breakdown in communication with leaders. Whether they feel generally unsupported, feel bullied, discriminated against, or placed under too much pressure to meet deadlines, leadership plays a massive role in your team&rsquo;s mental health.&nbsp;
Your anonymous employee engagement surveys, will provide you with critical insights into the general perception of your management teams. You can use the feedback to identify gaps in duty of care, teach them&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/want-to-become-a-fantastic-leader" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the best practices of leadership</a>, and encourage them to&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/the-7-habits-of-highly-engaging-leaders" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lead by example</a>. Doing so will breed a positive workplace culture, and will make recruitment and regulation much easier going forward.&nbsp;
You may also want to invest in specialist support and training in this area. Managers and leaders armed with knowledge and confidence of how to support their teams and truly fulfil their duty of care, will have better outcomes than those who are under-invested in.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Treat Your Duty of Care Policy as a Basic Standard, Not the Gold Standard</h4>
Your Duty of Care policy is the bare minimum you can do to keep your company out of court, but it doesn&rsquo;t automatically build employee engagement. To truly look after your employees&rsquo; physical and mental health, you must put other measures in place to show them you care, along with checking back regularly and often to ensure that it&rsquo;s working.
&nbsp;
The tips we&rsquo;ve listed here are ways of taking care of your workers and improving workplace engagement. For more information about how Ten Space could help you create a thriving work culture to go above and beyond your Duty of Care, <a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">get in touch</a>!&nbsp;

What is it and what does it mean for organisations?

Duty of Care

In 2020, a whopping&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/one-in-five-brits-quit-their-job-due-to-toxic-culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one in five</a> British workers quit their job due to &lsquo;toxic workplace culture&rsquo;.
But what exactly qualifies as &lsquo;toxic culture&rsquo;, and how does an unhealthy working environment develop?
&nbsp;
<h3>What is a Toxic Culture?&nbsp;</h3>
According to Greg Barnett of&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.predictiveindex.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Predictive Index</a>, a workplace culture is &ldquo;typically considered toxic when trust, psychological safety, and employee morale degrade to unhealthy levels.&rdquo;
Affecting productivity, mental health and employee engagement, toxic cultures are incredibly dangerous for both companies and employees, with symptoms spreading through a workforce quickly if not treated.
Examples of a toxic culture could include a workplace where employees are chronically stressed, overworked, or feeling bullied by their boss. And in most of these cases, the problem boils down to a lack of communication and trust between those in the&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/organisational-structures---where-do-you-fit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">workplace hierarchy</a>.&nbsp;
Due to this sense of distance between employees and their leaders, staff turnover in toxic workplaces tends to be exceptionally high. This is because those who feel disregarded, abused, or exploited by their managers, often would rather leave a company than file a complaint, mostly due to a lack of trust that their issues will be resolved.
It&rsquo;s not hard to see how a toxic culture can have a huge negative impact on the performance of a business. It&rsquo;s estimated that a &lsquo;poor company culture&rsquo; costs UK companies an eye-watering&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/resources/culture-economy-report-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&pound;20.2 billion</a>&nbsp;every single year.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How Does a Toxic Culture Develop?</h3>
Sadly, there are many ways in which a toxic culture can develop in a workplace. And while the &lsquo;root cause&rsquo; of the problem may vary from case to case, it&rsquo;s generally a lack of communication that exacerbates and conceals the problems.&nbsp;
When companies don&rsquo;t take the time to gather employee feedback; negative, or even abusive behaviour is allowed to go unnoticed and unaddressed. It can spread like a cancer throughout an organisation.
It&rsquo;s important for companies to send out&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/how-can-employee-feedback-change-your-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">anonymous employee engagement surveys</a>. Surveys can give early warning signs and red flags, of where problems are beginning to emerge. Low engagement teams, or concerning written feedback can provide opportunities for businesses to jump in early where the culture is becoming toxic, or employee engagement has dropped.&nbsp;
Where a toxic environment has already formed, simple measures like this enable a company to identify and rectify the signs of a toxic work environment. There are some huge red flags to watch out for, for when a toxic culture has already set in:&nbsp;
Here are a number of common red-flags of a toxic workplace:
<ol>
<li>Abusive managers who shout at or speak condescendingly towards employees&nbsp;</li>
<li>A general feeling of &lsquo;policies and/or profits over people&rsquo;, where workers feel disregarded or exploited</li>
<li>Micromanagers who continually intervene in others&rsquo; work</li>
<li>Extremely negative and unsupportive performance appraisals</li>
<li>Any form of discrimination and lack of diversity</li>
<li>A failure to recognise and reward employee achievements</li>
<li>Harassment&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
This isn&rsquo;t an exhaustive list, but if you recognise any of the above signs in your workplace or business, it&rsquo;s time to:
a.) leave (if you&rsquo;re an employee)
b.) do something about it (if you&rsquo;re an employer!)
&nbsp;
<h3>How to Gather Evidence of a Toxic Workplace Culture</h3>
You may be thinking it&rsquo;s difficult to quantifiably gauge the health of a workplace culture. After all, we&rsquo;re talking about people&rsquo;s feelings &ndash; and feelings are subjective, right?
To understand how it feels to work in your business, it can help to gather quantitative data about your company's culture. Here are just a few ideas of how you can approach this:&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Carry out regular employee engagement surveys</h4>
Employee engagement surveys can offer a wealth of measurable data, such as eNPS score and information through real-time feedback from current employees. They&rsquo;re most effective when carried out regularly. Quarterly surveys mean you are checking in with your team on a regular basis, whilst leaving enough time to action feedback and build trust in the process. Ten Space offers an innovative and anonymous method of surveying through Whatsapp, which delivers an engaging way to survey your team.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Check your company&rsquo;s reviews on&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Glassdoor</a>&nbsp;</h4>
<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Glassdoor</a>&nbsp;is an extremely useful (and free) platform through which employees, current and former, can leave honest reviews about their work experiences, and rate a company out of 5. Whilst engagement surveys results are likely to be shared within the business only, Glassdoor is a more public way of sharing feedback.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Keep an eye on your staff turnover and absenteeism</h4>
Employee turnover and absence rates are a dead giveaway of a toxic workplace culture. According to Monster, the average employee turnover rate in the UK is currently&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.monster.co.uk/advertise-a-job/hr-resources/workforce-management-and-planning/staff-retention/what-is-the-ideal-employee-turnover-rate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">15%</a>&nbsp;a year. And while not all staff turnover is bad, you might want to keep a closer eye on your culture if your turnover rate is much higher than this.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>How to Prevent a Toxic Culture From Developing In Your Workplace</h3>
While there&rsquo;s no &lsquo;perfect&rsquo; way to shape your culture, there are a number of vital ingredients you&rsquo;ll need to cultivate a healthy working environment.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Listen to your employees</h4>
The first thing you need to consider is employee feedback. Right now your employees could be holding the answers to most, if not all of your problems. They&rsquo;re the driving force behind your entire company, and if&nbsp;they&rsquo;re not happy, how can you expect your customers and clients to be?&nbsp;
Take advantage of the insights employee engagement surveys can offer, and target the root causes of a toxic culture before one can develop. You can check out&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Space HR&rsquo;s powerful, stylish and easy to use platform</a>&nbsp;to get all the insights you need to keep your employees happy.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Foster great leadership</h4>
As toxic cultures often stem from miscommunication and bad leadership, it&rsquo;s crucial to instil great leadership skills in your managerial teams. Of course, great leadership comes in many different forms, so knowing&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/blogs/want-to-become-a-fantastic-leader" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">what makes a bad leader</a>&nbsp;is key to preventing toxic behaviour from festering.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Develop trust&nbsp;</h4>
Trust is a key element in any healthy organisation. Trust is built from operating transparently; doing what you say you are going to do; and doing the right thing, always. A lack of trust in an organisation can quickly slow it down and impact on performance.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h4>Employees first&nbsp;</h4>
Finally and most importantly, always put your employees at the heart of your business. Without them, you have no brand, no clients, no service to deliver. Putting your employees at the heart of every business decision you make is the key to ensuring that your culture remains healthy and thriving.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
We&rsquo;re committed to creating healthier workplaces through innovative technology and employee engagement surveys. For more information on how our platform can help your business thrive, visit our website, or&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://www.spacehr.co.uk/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">get in touch</a>!&nbsp;

What It Is and How You Can Prevent It In Your Workplace?

Toxic Culture

Brewdog. The artisan beer that grew into a global brewery and bar chain. The success story of scale and investment. The &lsquo;Punk&rsquo; brand that defied tradition with a &lsquo;growth at all costs&rsquo; mentality.
But what will June 10th 2021 mean for Brewdog? Yesterday&rsquo;s open letter from 50 staff about the &lsquo;culture of fear&rsquo; in the business has cast huge doubt over the brand, the culture and the leadership.
But if you were diligent enough to cut through the social media hype you could see the warning signs were there for a long time at Brewdog. Articles such as&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/24/the-aggressive-outrageous-infuriating-and-ingenious-rise-of-brewdog" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this</a> from 2016, which describes their entire brand as marketing spin.
Or maybe the 3.1 out of 5 score on Glassdoor - with only a 50% approval rating of the CEO. An eye catching&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/BrewDog-Reviews-E1014146.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">review&nbsp;</a>headed "soulless, self righteous liars".&nbsp;
From the outside looking in, I can see how they might have got here. You start up a cool brand, position yourself as &lsquo;disruptors&rsquo; in the marketplace and wage war on those that challenge your vision and creative thinking.
You're loving the attention, it's working! Great, let's do some attention catching stunts. Sorry employees if this makes you feel uncomfortable, we're the cool kids, you just mustn't be cool enough. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s not us, it&rsquo;s you&rsquo;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Then a rumour spins that legal letters were sent out to those who challenged their actions. You fight dirty. &lsquo;Either back us, or you're out&rsquo;.
Your revenue is still growing, so let's recruit some more people. They join and get the gist pretty quickly &lsquo;it's FIFO round here&rsquo; (Fit in, or F off). Any feedback you give will be ignored now, it&rsquo;s gone too far. Sadly, this will also be the case for new ideas, creativity and innovation - if the cool kids didn&rsquo;t think of it, it&rsquo;s unlikely to be a winner.&nbsp;
I suspect the internal feedback will have been there. The signs that things weren't right. Maybe at one time, it was there to see in the employee engagement surveys. But maybe nothing happened with any of the feedback anyone gave. So people stopped bothering. The feedback dried up, maybe the response rates dropped too.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The evolution is complete. You're a fully paid up fear culture. You've surrounded yourself with people who like to say yes, or who are too scared to say no. The great thing now is, they&rsquo;ll do the gate keeping on the feedback for you. Those closest to you will be too worried about their jobs to say anything. So as a leader, you now don&rsquo;t even need to worry about the feedback, you have probably stopped hearing it - but it isn&rsquo;t because you&rsquo;ve created an awesome culture. It&rsquo;s quite the opposite.&nbsp;
Before you know it, your talent pool has dried up and you&rsquo;re moaning about skills shortages. You&rsquo;re wondering why no one in your business has any good ideas other than you. Wondering why your inbox is full of people asking for your approval on things.&nbsp;
If you let it get really bad, some ex-employees will take the time to collaborate and make a website on just how bad things are. You&rsquo;ll make the&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57428258" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">news</a> and be the talk of social media.&nbsp;
Maybe now your IPO isn&rsquo;t looking quite as rosey. Your subscriptions, monthly recurring revenue in the bag, have dropped and people have started to question the quality of your products. Maybe it all starts to unravel&hellip;.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>So what next?</h3>
What is unravelling right now for Brewdog is more than a PR disaster. Your people are a critical part of your brand and when they turn on you, it clearly demonstrates that your vision and values don&rsquo;t run as deeply through your business as you might have thought.&nbsp;
Building an amazing company culture is incredibly difficult, but it is completely achievable. If you do the work, put the correct processes in place early and take it seriously.&nbsp;
Here&rsquo;s a few things to think about;
1. Care about your people more than your brand -&nbsp;Products don&rsquo;t just magically appear. Behind every product is a team of real people with real ideas, real passion and real situations. They made your brand. They are your army of brand ambassadors and they can make or break it. It pays to care about your team more than your branding.&nbsp;
2. Get ready to listen -&nbsp;If you need to engage a coach, or a counsellor - someone who can help you see some clarity - do it. You have a lot of personal work to do first before you can go and change a whole culture.&nbsp;
3. Actively listen - What is your engagement survey telling you? What is your exit interview telling you? What feedback have the team given you directly that you&rsquo;ve ignored? You need to dig deep on this stuff. You need to get personal. You need to be courageous in asking for this feedback.&nbsp;
4. Be prepared for this to take time - if you&rsquo;ve asked for feedback and shown you&rsquo;ve listened, maybe next time you ask, the feedback will be a bit braver, go a bit deeper. Now we&rsquo;re really getting to the heart of things - we&rsquo;re really getting to the heart of what is impacting on the engagement of your team and what&rsquo;s really going on.&nbsp;
5. Consider who in your immediate circle, you haven&rsquo;t disagreed with for a while. We all disagree and share different opinions as part of growing and being creative. If there are people you haven&rsquo;t done this with in a while, these might be your &ldquo;yes&rdquo; people.&nbsp;
6. Trust your team - in fear cultures, trust vanishes. Be bold, extend the trust back out. Ask your immediate team for feedback, show them you trust them to be honest and that there will be no repercussions for their honesty.&nbsp;
7. Make commitments and then go and get them done - if you are truly listening, then there will be things you now want to change. Make commitments to the wider team, tell them what you intend to fix. Don&rsquo;t make another stunt out of it. Then go and get it done.&nbsp;
This next point is REALLY important - if you make commitments and then don&rsquo;t deliver, this is going to get SO much worse for you.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Transformation can be achieved. You can turn it around, but you have to listen.&nbsp;</h3>
If you haven&rsquo;t already got an anonymous employee engagement survey in place, get one quickly. In advance, make the commitment that you are going to take action, no matter what the feedback is and how uncomfortable.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
If you want help to turn around your culture, check that you&rsquo;re not leading with fear or just want to avoid getting anywhere close to it - Ten Space can help. <a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;" href="http://www.tenspace.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.tenspace.co.uk</a>.&nbsp;

The Dangers Of Ignoring Feedback

Are leaders born, or are they made? While we could spend all day posing arguments for both sides, it&rsquo;s probably more worthwhile to focus on what actually&nbsp;makes a good leader.
And, for this article, take a look at the behaviours that are associated with bad leadership. For it makes much more sense to rid yourself of those negative traits before trying to adopt some shiny new ones, right?&nbsp;
Here are some of the most important things NOT to do, if you want to be seen as an admirable, approachable and inspirational leader.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Don&rsquo;t Be Overly Self-Indulgent</h3>
While this may seem like an obvious one, it can be easily forgotten when it comes to promoting yourself as a business. If you&rsquo;re the business owner, don&rsquo;t take all the credit for the things your team has worked hard for.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;re telling the world (aka LinkedIn) of a recent achievement, tag your team and say thank you. Simple gestures like this will not only boost your team&rsquo;s morale - they set the tone for the supportive work culture you want to create.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Don&rsquo;t Act As a Superior - Act Like a Colleague</h3>
A little humility goes a long way when it comes to leadership. If you feel the need to dominate your team as a superior, you&rsquo;ll likely get subpar results. Interrupting people, talking down ideas and showboating are signs of a &lsquo;boss mindset&rsquo; taken too far, and can leave your team feeling intimidated. This in turn will kill their creativity, deter them from speaking out about important issues, and wipe out any loyalty they may have had for you.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Don&rsquo;t Assume You&rsquo;re Always Right</h3>
&ldquo;True leaders are the first to admit that they don&rsquo;t know everything and that they need help&rdquo; - Bill Byrd.&nbsp;
These are words to live by for every leader - not just in business, but in sport and life in general.&nbsp;
Always be open to feedback from your team. Welcome disagreement and company criticism with open arms - you have no idea how vital those opinions could be to the health of your business down the line.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Don&rsquo;t Be a People Hoarder</h3>
This is one of the toughest pills to swallow for a leader. All too often, the &lsquo;higher-ups&rsquo; in a company will prevent their best talent from progressing their career for fear of losing them. This leads to anger and frustration, which is likely to hurt the company a lot more than if the employee had been shown support.&nbsp;
Instead of feeling betrayed, forsaken or bitter about your worker leaving, tell them how much their presence has meant to you. You have no idea how that same person could repay you for your respectfulness in the future.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>Don&rsquo;t Be Afraid</h3>
At the risk of sounding clich&eacute;, we&rsquo;ve put &lsquo;don&rsquo;t be afraid&rsquo; on this list because of its irrefutable importance. At the end of the day, leadership is all about taking risks, venturing where others haven&rsquo;t, and giving others the courage to go there with you.&nbsp;
There is no certainty in the world of business - or life, for that matter - and true leadership requires a degree of responsibility that most people don&rsquo;t want to deal with. Courage is perhaps the most admirable and identifiable trait of all great leaders, and it&rsquo;s the thing that history&rsquo;s most prominent leaders are remembered for.&nbsp;
So lead by example, inspire your team with your unwavering belief in them and yourself, and become the fantastic leader you&rsquo;ve always wanted to be.
&nbsp;
For more leadership tips and advice on how to create a positive and supportive work environment, visit our&nbsp;<a style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(16, 60, 192);" href="https://spacehr.co.uk/blogs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blog.</a>

Want To Become a Fantastic Leader?

If you've ever questioned the value of gathering employee feedback via a survey, it might be because you aren't making best use of the data and feedback. Used well, this insight can inform, improve and grow your business.
Here we look at some of the smart ways you can use the insight in your business, to drive improvement and growth. By the end of the read, we hope to have converted you to a raving survey fan! And if you already have feedback and you're doing nothing with it, we hope we inspire you to re-examine it and how it can help improve your business.
&nbsp;
<h3>1. Taking Action</h3>
Gathering employee feedback, then doing nothing with it can be really damaging. You have effectively ignored the feedback and wasted your team's time, which can negatively impact the trust you have with your team. The smartest thing you can do with the feedback is take action!
If you've got lots of feedback and areas to tackle from your latest survey then you might need to prioritise. Look out for key themes, repeat concerns and also some quick wins. Let your team know the top 3 to 5 things you intend to work on and then go and get them done.
&nbsp;
<h3>2. Supporting a Business Case&nbsp;</h3>
Don't overlook your employee engagement insight as evidence for your business case. If there are themes in your feedback they can be powerful to validate and support your arguments.&nbsp;
Let&rsquo;s consider that you were thinking of introducing a new piece of software to your business. Have you had direct feedback that there is a problem to solve in the first place? Or that this would make their working lives easier? Asking these questions first can help mitigate some costly mistakes further down the road.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>3. Company Communications</h3>
Planning a company update? Again take a look at the feedback you&rsquo;ve obtained. Is there anything in your survey feedback that your team would like to hear about?&nbsp;
Have a look where your lowest scores were, or any areas that were mentioned in written feedback. These are the areas that are important to your team and you can shape really impactful communication sessions around exactly what they want to hear. Similarly talk about success and the strengths of your team. A shot of positivity goes a long way.
&nbsp;
<h3>4. Process improvement</h3>
Broken and inefficient processes can have a noticeable impact on employee engagement. Often we see employees sharing ideas and improvements via our engagement surveys, which shouldn't be overlooked. If your customer service team is telling you via their feedback that they are frustrated, there are wins to be had by addressing their concerns, using the feedback they've already given you.&nbsp;
There&rsquo;s a clear link between employee feedback scores and customer satisfaction scores. If your employees are happy and performing exceptionally, then your customers will be happy too. The answers to unlocking both are likely to be in your survey feedback.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>5. Investing in skills</h3>
Often there are good indications in a survey, about training needs for leaders. Use the data and the feedback to look at what the team is telling you about it&rsquo;s leadership. Are there key themes where you can place your investment in their skills?&nbsp;
Return on investment when it comes to learning and development spend is important, so it makes sense to use feedback you already have to identify the biggest gaps and get the most from your training budget.
&nbsp;
<h3>6. Recruitment</h3>
One of the things we often talk about with our customers is the "story" behind a survey. What are your team telling you about what it's like to work in the business? What are your strengths and what does the team really enjoy about working there?&nbsp;
This is fantastic information to share during a recruitment process. "Our team has recently told us this&hellip; lots of our team really enjoy this... we're currently focusing on this.... as it's an area we'd like to get better at" . If you want to give candidates a good flavour of what it's like to work in your business, this is great information to repurpose.
&nbsp;
<h3>7. Improving Your Induction Process</h3>
Being a new starter in a business can be nerve-racking. No matter how positive the person is, they will be constantly assessing their new employer through the entire process. The good things will be expected, the bad will be remembered!&nbsp;&nbsp;
Here you&rsquo;re looking for feedback such as gaps in information, gaps in knowledge and cracks in process. If you can address these early in an employee&rsquo;s journey with you, then you can prevent them from becoming bigger issues further down the line.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<h3>8. Leavers&nbsp;</h3>
Last but not least, are you marrying up the data you get from your engagement surveys, with the insight you get from your exit interviews? Are there common themes? Are there any areas for improvement that might be impacting on employee engagement and causing people to leave?&nbsp;
If so, you might need to prioritise these actions or else it can become a much bigger problem in your business. Don't overlook the insight that bringing these two areas of feedback together can bring.
&nbsp;
The Ten Space platform uses WhatsApp to quickly and easily gain feedback and insight. We've got a great way to capture written feedback from your teams too, so it isn't just data - your team can tell you directly what's on their mind. We can help you create a great employee engagement process that builds constant value in your team . For more information contact alec@tenspace.co.uk

8 Smart reasons to use Employee Feedback to make big changes in your business.

How can employee feedback change your business?

Following a successful HR career, Victoria saw the opportunity to build a pragmatic product for HR teams to fall in love with. Her mission to ‘create incredible workplaces through highly engaged teams’, is underpinned by the technology and service delivered by the Ten Space team. 

CEO / Founder

Ten Space is a team of experts in employee engagement, experience and technology. Our powerful survey platform and service helps HR teams build winning businesses.

<div>Right from the start our goal was always very clear. We wanted to help businesses be the best versions of themselves.So we combined technology, support and resources for HR professionals and business leaders to gain incredible insight.We’ve built a product that’s really easy to build into your current framework and delivers feedback from day one.</div>

Our platform is designed to help you understand the real problems in your business - fast!

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<h5 class="heading mt-4 aos-init" data-aos="fade-down" data-aos-delay="40"> Take employee feedback to the next level</h5>If you're already gathering employee feedback but want to do more, we can show you how.

<div>The Ten Space survey platform does the hard work for your HR team, reducing months of data collection and analysis into minutes.</div>

<div>No matter how big your team is, where they are based, or how they work, our survey platform sends feedback surveys to gather responses back quickly for super-quick analysis.</div>

<div>An effortless employee feedback service that lets your HR team focus on what they do best - building your engagement strategy.</div>

Search our Knowledge for answers to the things you need to know.                

Build question sets unique to your business to get to the heart of the problem.

Set surveys to deliver when you want, to whoever you want, where you want.

Your business is comprised of lots of different teams that work in different ways.

Our platform is customisable to fit the needs of every part of your organisation.

Backed by artificial intelligence, our real-time dashboards give you the data you need to make informed decisions and take action more quickly.

Simple, clear, easy to understand dashboards for faster desicion making.

Understand your data by tagging and segmenting to identify the areas of concern in your organisation.

Don't wait until the end of the survey, view your results as they are coming in to get ahead.

Understand the hidden meanings and trends in responses.

Agile businesses need a flexible and inclusive approach.Ten Space gathers employee feedback via Whatsapp, SMS &amp; Email surveys so your people can respond on their terms.This leads to higher participation and a more inclusive experience, capturing the data from all your people, easily.

The Ten Space survey platform allows HR professionals to easily design, gather and analyse high-quality feedback from across their organisation.

Listen to HR Director's Cut - insight into your dilemmas, conundrums and questions

Engage your team to deliver the future of your business today. From only £3 per employee per month. Whether you're starting your employee engagement journey or taking your people strategy to the next level, we can help.

Capture and utilise diversity data to enhance your culture. Capture diversity data in an efficient and safe way. Explore diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in your organisation. Ten Space supports your DEIB strategy. We can help you capture diversity data from your team in an efficent way to enhance your people data.

Elevate engagement. Retain talent. Supercharge performance. An engaged workforce helps businesses achieve so much more. The Ten Space survey platform captures the insights you need to understand employee engagement &amp; culture across your organisation. Take action &amp; drive change.

Create exceptional employee experiences. Optimise engagement. Supercharge your EVP. Let us take you on a journey.... Explore the experiences of your employees. Ten Space can help you to explore the journeys your employees take as they join your organisation, all the way through to when they leave.

Accelerate the performance of your teams to drive business performance. Explore what is driving, or holding back, your teams from delivering high-performance. We can help you explore high-performance in your organisation. Using our performance-focused surveys, we can help you uncover what is holding a team back from achieving their full potential.

Our monthly subscription fee includes our intuitive survey platform and wrap around service.

Ten Space fully supports your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) strategy in the workplace. We offer comprehensive solutions to help you efficiently capture diversity data from your team, thereby enriching your people data. Additionally, our platform enables you to explore the topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within your workplace culture, providing valuable data and insights to inform and enhance your DEIB strategy.

Ten Space equips companies with the necessary resources, tools, knowledge and information to create the ultimate diverse and inclusive workforce. Our platform offers analytics and insights that enable organisations to develop and implement effective DEIB programs. From setting goals on equality to attracting diverse candidates during the hiring process, we provide solutions that address gender, race, ethnicity, and other dimensions of diversity.

Leveraging our data capture platform, we ensure that the process of collecting DEIB data is efficient, safe, and secure. Our platform is designed to capture data in a clean and organised manner, ready for your analysis and utilisation.

With our DEIB focused surveys, we enable you to capture the essential data and gain insights that support your DEIB strategy. We can explore general engagement across different demographics, or we can specifically focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as central themes, allowing you to delve deeper into this critical area of culture.

As a trusted third-party platform that captures feedback anonymously, we provide a safe space for your employees to share their experiences and provide valuable feedback. This anonymity fosters an environment of authenticity and trust, enabling you to build an accurate and comprehensive picture of the insights you need to drive your DEIB initiatives.

We understand that your DEIB strategy is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event. That's why we help you regularly capture feedback and insights, allowing you to track your progress over time. By monitoring and analysing this data, you can demonstrate the impact and return on investment of your DEIB efforts, ensuring continuous improvement and advancement.

How it works

An engaged workforce helps companies achieve so much more. The Ten Space platform captures the valuable insights you need to foster a positive culture and improve employee engagement in your organisation. With this deeper understanding, people managers and leaders can take action and drive meaningful change that enhances workplace performance and addresses critical issues.

Ten Space empowers organisations to unlock the full potential of their employee engagement strategy. By utilising our platform, people managers and leaders can leverage their knowledge, experience and approach to drive positive change throughout the workplace. Effective communication, addressing challenges and fostering a supportive culture are integral aspects of our platform, enabling you to build a thriving organisation that values its employees. With Ten Space, you have the necessary insights and data to prove the impact of your employee engagement strategy and continuously improve the employee experience.

At the core of the platform lies the Ten Space engagement model, which serves as the secret sauce for gathering incredible insights and creating exceptional employee experiences. Through our platform, we support you in evolving your surveys over time ensuring that you consistently capture relevant feedback and trends that fuel your people strategy and increases productivity. 

We believe in providing a seamless and enjoyable experience for every individual within your organisation, regardless of their location or work arrangements. Our platform utilises a variety of communication channels such as email, WhatsApp and SMS to create a great employee experience while facilitating feedback sharing. This means that no matter where your employees are or how they work, there is always an easy way for them to contribute and for you to gain insights on employee engagement.

With our user-friendly dashboard, we have simplified the process of understanding insights, data, trends and feedback. As your surveys are happening, the dashboard displays real-time information, allowing you and your managers to access valuable insights at any time. This allows you to spend less time collating data and analysing, enabling you to take action more quickly. Our dedicated team will provide post-survey support, assisting you with action planning and reporting to ensure that your surveys translate into tangible results.

Capturing employee feedback frequently is no longer a daunting task with Ten Space. Our platform offers the tools and expertise to help you design the right feedback process that aligns with your organisation's unique needs, leadership and teams. By establishing this regular employee voice, you gain the insights necessary to drive your employee engagement strategy, align goals, create accountability and foster a purpose-driven workplace environment. Ten Space equips you with resources that will help you understand the importance of employee engagement.

Let us take you on a journey.... If you're serious about employee engagement, you need to be obsessed about employee experience! Explore the journeys & experiences of your employees. Capture data and insights that will help you improve employee experience and engagement and take productivity to the next level.

The Ten Space survey platform allows leaders to seamlessly follow their employees' journeys within the organisation, gaining invaluable insights into their professional growth and development. The platform provides a unique ability to monitor employee sentiment through live data streams from surveys, enabling leaders to make informed decisions to enhance workplace satisfaction.

We work with you to map your employee journeys, so that we can explore the experience of your employees in more detail than ever before. With our tools, we'll design a series of surveys to capture regular data and insights of your employee’s journeys to give you incredible visibility and clarity. We help you take a proactive approach to the effective management of employee experience. 

We create journeys that align to all your key projects or strategy in your HR team. Giving you a performance dashboard with all the scores and analytics you need to demonstrate your team's impact. By tracking the engagement trends of key initiatives, we can help you show return on investment more easily and further enhance employee engagement strategies. 

We'll automatically step your teams through the processes we've created. Regularly capturing their feedback. So you don't need to worry about who is giving feedback and when, you can just keep an eye on your dashboard as your data comes in.

We'll hold regular reviews and insights sessions with you, so you feel fully supported. We'll help you to get the most out of the insights you've captured and support you in taking the next steps to further enhance employee satisfaction. 

Ten Space assists you in exploring high-performance within your organisation. Leveraging our performance-focused surveys, we enable you to achieve your goals and unlock the full potential of your teams. Our platform helps you identify the unique qualities that make a team exceptional, empowering you to replicate and build upon their success. Analysing performance culture team by team in organisations where performance matters.

Ten Space equips you with everything you need to drive team performance and achieve success. By leveraging our platform, you can assess and enhance the culture, communication, management, individual commitment, projects and processes that contribute to team effectiveness. Through comprehensive performance evaluation metrics and insights, you gain a deeper understanding of your teams and can make informed decisions to drive improvement and productivity.

Utilising our performance-based question sets we’ll help you understand how to assess performance in organisation. We guide you by asking the right questions to extract the necessary insights on performance evaluation for teams. Whether your team operates in creative, technical, administrative, or sales-focused areas, we tailor the process to fit your team's specific requirements.

We assist you in segmenting your team data, enabling you to gain in-depth performance insights and understand the trends that impact team effectiveness. Our intuitive dashboard helps you quickly identify key insights from your results, allowing you to focus on actionable steps and next moves.

Harnessing the power of Ten Space as a trusted third-party anonymous platform, we provide a safe space for employees to share any challenges, barriers, or catalysts that affect their performance. This way, we foster a climate of openness, encouraging individuals to provide candid feedback that can uncover valuable insights.

We can help you integrate communication and training needs analysis into your surveys, allowing you to gather ideas and solutions directly from your team members. By capturing this information, you gain a clear understanding of work expectations and where your team would like you to focus your efforts to improve performance culture. There are no limitations or holding back when it comes to taking action.

Capture and utilise diversity data to enhance your culture.

Elevate engagement. Retain talent. Supercharge performance.

Create exceptional employee experiences. Optimise engagement. Supercharge your EVP.

Capture and utilise diversity data in an efficient and safe way to enhance your culture.  

Capture the insights you need to understand employee engagement &amp; culture across your organisation.

Create exceptional employee experiences. Optimise engagement. Supercharge your EVP.

Accelerate the performance of your teams to drive business performance

Accelerate the performance of your teams to drive business performance.

Educational content - book now or watch on-demand

Employee Engagement Insights

Employee Experience Management & Retention

Team Performance Evaluation

Diversity & Inclusion Platform

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