The Balanced Scorecard where Employee Morale is prominent:

How’s employee morale today?

Is the Balanced Scorecard helping?

We caught up with Scott!

(1st and 2nd part here)

When I called Scott from Europe I first apologized for the early morning it must be for him in the US:

“No worries, I’ve been in for 1 ½ hour”, the COO says and laughs.

Turns out the Minnesota-based cleaning company is in the middle of a busy office move.

“Last week has been tough and it shows in our employee morale results”, he says.

The new office has more space for people and trucks. “We have a lot of settling in to do”, Scott continues.

“It’s nice to have the Celpax in moments like this when you can feel the energy changing. Then you have a system and data that verify this on the balanced scorecard. That certainly helps.”

The Celpax device with the red and green button quickly became part of the language at Zerorez.

“Last night we had a barbeque and people again were telling me what makes them press green or red.“

“This morning I had a long email from a technician explaining why he had pressed red lately.”

“Yesterday I happened to be standing near to where our Celpax hangs. Some guys were getting ready to leave and one jokingly said Scott, I pressed the green cause you’re standing there!“

“I obviously hadn’t been looking and I replied I don’t care what you press… If it makes you feel better – just press red, that’s fine!”

“Having the device means employees don’t feel they’re whining when giving feedback, it’s just easier to say you had a red button day.“

“And it’s nice to have that red button to press. Just press it! Tomorrow is another day”, says Scott.

Scott first started with one Celpax device. As the company had two exit points this meant they weren’t capturing all of the employee’s sentiments as they left for the day.

When he installed his second Celpax box, the COO also stepped up his communications as he wasn’t happy with their participation levels.

“I pretty much send out an email every week now, or at least every second week. That has really improved our participation.“

“I’ve also seen trainers telling their trainees, hey, don’t forget to press”.

When returning to the topic of the office move I mentioned that we see many companies where the employee mood drops a lot while moving to a new location.

How is their balanced scorecard doing?

“Yeah, it’s been a pretty messy move”, says Scott.

“Yesterday I printed out little slips that say What did you press today? Tell us why.“

He left them next to the Celpax and three people had already filled them out shortly after.

The plan is to keep the slips there for the next weeks.

“I wouldn’t recommend doing this regularly because I think the conversations with your employees around these things are so important.“

“I’m only doing it because things are particularly crazy right now”, he stresses.

Scott wants to make sure they catch any themes out there:

“With conversations, there are employees that are more comfortable talking about these things, so we hear them more.“

“Some tell me what makes them press red, others won’t. You get more info when it’s anonymous“.

One note was from someone that pressed green, saying “all customers were friendly and I had a good sales day.”

Others brought up things like not having enough supplies in their trucks, meaning they can’t provide the best customer service possible.

 

Scott feels their business has its set of frustrations:

“I am very interested in seeing how much of these have to do with the employee mood.”

“What are our employees most upset about? I’m trying to figure it out based on their feedback. Now I need their help to prioritize”, he adds with an enthusiastic tone.

“There are road works near our new office so it takes longer to arrive, suddenly the phones were down for an hour which is rough if you’re in a call center.”

“And we still have to figure out how to manage the sound as we have concrete floors. Then lunchtime arrives and there are not enough places for people to sit down…”

“I’m thinking about getting a focus group together and asking everyone what would you most like to see changed around here? What should we address first?”

“Then we can get a prioritized list and start acting”.

“Having the Celpax has been tremendously helpful for me”, the COO continues.

“I was always fearful that people would say this is crap but they don’t! I didn’t want them to think it was fluffy or corny.”

“Later my concern was that we’re pressing and pressing but what are we doing about the red?”

“I’m impatient with myself; I’d like to improve more.”

“It’s great to grow as fast as we are, but it makes it harder to work on the bigger picture things.”

Scott’s current focus is to find ways to faster respond to the challenges that come up.

I then ask Scott the big question:

How’s employee morale today compared to a year ago?

He first laughs a bit:

“If we had spoken ten days ago I would have said hey, our employee mood is much better than a year ago! But like I said, last week was really red as we were moving head office.”

When I ask why he thinks their employee morale is up since last year, he mentions a few things:

“Business was doing better than usual. So we had plenty of hours for our technicians and call center staff.”

“We actually don’t have enough employees right now, which may be one of the root causes of some other issues… causing people to press red.”

“We also made some management changes.“

“We have some new managers in place that are holding employees more accountable. Good people appreciate that.”

When the leadership team reviews the weekly balanced scorecard for their locations, the Employee Mood KPI is one of the items they analyze:

“Sometimes we have heated discussions about the best plan of action!”

“Retention has been a real problem the last 4 weeks and you feel that the morale is down a bit.”

“One action we’ve taken is that we now try to hire for cultural fit“, Scott says in a thoughtful tone.

Scott is convinced that it has become easier to have discussions at leadership meetings:

“I can say here’s the deal: With this move, we’re not as green as we were.”

“Last week we had more red pulses than in the last 3 months. It’s real! We are literally hearing it and seeing it on the Celpax device.”

“Before someone might have been able to say it’s probably just a couple of people who… But I can show that no! It’s not!”

“With this system, it’s clear that our employee morale is down, and we can pinpoint where. I so much appreciate that. It’s simple and easy and exactly what I was looking for”, the COO concludes.

“Now that we have an official Employee Mood KPI, it’s on our leadership scorecard.”

“So we can’t run away from the number!”

Hej! I’m Rebecca, an accidental analytics enthusiast, co-owner at Celpax, and convinced that a great workplace is everyone’s job. Say aloha on twitter and we’ll talk balanced scorecard examples?