Year in Review: Our Most-Read Blogs of 2023

What were the most pressing issues for People leaders in 2023? The answers are clearly visible in the themes of our most popular blogs of the year.

Before we enter the brave new world of work that 2024 will bring, we’re looking back on 2023 and the expert content that our community loved most.

1. 6 Common Barriers to Employee Success & How to Remove Them

• Summary: This blog explores six common obstacles to employee success: lack of recognition and reward, limited growth and development opportunities, insufficient focus on continuous improvement and innovation, poor communication, inadequate collaboration and teamwork, and a lack of employee empowerment.
  
  
• Key Takeaways: Strategies for overcoming these barriers include implementing various recognition methods, fostering a continuous learning culture, improving communication, and empowering employees.
  
  
• Why It Matters: Addressing these barriers is crucial for enhancing employee engagement and organizational success. The blog provides actionable advice for creating a more productive and satisfying work environment.

2. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): What You Need to Know

• Summary: This blog provides an in-depth understanding of Employee Net Promoter Score, a metric for measuring employee advocacy. It explains the methodology behind eNPS and details how to calculate the score. Learn what constitutes a "good" eNPS, its pros and cons, and how it can be effectively used in an employee listening strategy.

• Key Takeaways: eNPS is a simple yet powerful tool to gauge employee advocacy, with a scoring range from -100 to 100. It categorizes employees based on their likelihood to recommend the organization and provides quick insights into employee engagement.

• Why It Matters: Understanding and effectively utilizing eNPS helps organizations improve employee satisfaction and engagement, contributing to a positive work environment and informed management strategies.

3. Senior Executive Accountability & More Ways to Encourage DEIB Adoption

• Summary: This blog discusses the importance of DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) in organizations, emphasizing the need for senior executive accountability. It explores the challenges and resistance to DEIB initiatives and offers strategies for overcoming them. 

• Key Takeaways: Senior executive buy-in is crucial for DEIB success. Resistance often stems from a lack of understanding or perceived threat to existing privilege. Utilizing metrics to measure and promote DEIB initiatives is key.

• Why It Matters: Effective DEIB adoption can lead to a more inclusive, innovative, and successful organization. Leadership accountability is essential to ensure genuine commitment and progress in these initiatives.

4. The Four Key Differentiators of a Mature Employee Listening Program

• Summary: This blog discusses our 4-stage model for assessing the maturity of an organization's employee listening program, based on Perceptyx’s annual State of Employee Listening research. Learn about the details of each stage, from Episodic Listening, where listening is periodic and HR-centered, to Continuous Conversations at Scale, where listening is integrated into overall business strategy.

• Key Takeaways: Four key factors differentiate successful programs: number of listening channels, speed, agility, and integration of business data.

• Why It Matters: Understanding and advancing the maturity of an employee listening program can significantly impact an organization’s talent management impact, employee engagement metrics, and overall business success.

5. How the Best Healthcare Systems Get Employee Engagement Right

• Summary: This blog highlights how leading healthcare systems excel in employee engagement, addressing barriers like staffing challenges, well-being issues, safety concerns, listening culture inadequacies, and lack of optimism. It provides actionable strategies for overcoming these barriers, such as workflow redesign, internal staffing agencies, staff empowerment, and creating an inclusive culture for feedback and ideas.

• Key Takeaways: Effective engagement in healthcare hinges on addressing staffing, well-being, safety, listening culture, and optimism. Practical solutions like flexible scheduling and better leadership can make a major difference.

• Why It Matters: Enhancing employee engagement in healthcare is vital for patient care quality, employee satisfaction, and organizational success.

6. New Research Reveals Growing Layoff Anxiety and Ways to Combat It

• Summary: The blog shares data and insights from our report, Managing Uncertainty: How Layoff Anxiety Is Changing the Employee Experience, which looked at increasing layoff anxiety due to unstable economic conditions and how it impacts employee experience and well-being. It emphasizes the role of open communication in mitigating anxiety and explores strategies for building resilience in the workforce.
  
  
• Key Takeaways: Effective communication and resilience-building strategies are essential to address layoff anxiety, which significantly affects employee well-being and job-seeking behavior.

• Why It Matters: Understanding and addressing layoff anxiety is vital for maintaining employee engagement and productivity, especially in uncertain economic times.

7. The Ultimate Leader Checklist for 2023

• Summary: This article emphasizes the need for humanizing leadership in 2023. It underscores the importance of developing new competencies to manage hybrid work environments and a people-first culture. Key focus areas include inclusive leadership, fostering team cohesion, clear communication, self-care, understanding employee behavioral changes, maintaining a healthy workplace climate, and empathizing with team members. 

• Key Takeaways: 2023 leadership involves inclusive and empathetic practices, clear communication, understanding of behavioral changes, and a strong focus on employee engagement and well-being.

• Why It Matters: These strategies are vital for navigating the challenges of the modern workplace, ensuring effective team management, and fostering a positive organizational culture.

8. AI Is Fueling Our Obsession — and Humu Is the Key to People Evolution

• Summary: This blog discusses Perceptyx's commitment to 'people evolution' through AI and the acquisition of Humu. It covers the importance of actionable insights in people analytics, the role of AI in enhancing employee listening programs, and the integration of AI technologies like generative AI and ChatGPT in HR technology. The focus is on personalizing and prompting behavior change, using AI to provide nudges and recommendations for improving leadership and employee engagement.

• Key Takeaways: AI's role in HR is expanding, offering new ways to engage employees, influence positive behavior in the workplace, and improve organizational effectiveness.

• Why It Matters: Leveraging AI in people analytics can transform employee experiences and drive meaningful organizational changes.

9. Should You Use Negatively Worded Items on Employee Surveys?

• Summary: This blog explores whether negatively worded items should be included in employee surveys. It reviews scientific research arguing against their use, highlighting that they can introduce method biases and threaten validity. The focus is on the importance of clear, direct feedback for action planning.
  
  
• Key Takeaways: Negatively worded items may create confusion and biases, diminish the usefulness of survey data, and reduce the effectiveness of listening-derived insights for data-driven decision-making.
  
  
• Why It Matters: For trustworthy, actionable data, surveys should be straightforward and easy for employees to understand.

10. When Sharing Employee Survey Results, Consider the Power of a Story

• Summary: This blog emphasizes the importance of storytelling in presenting employee survey results. It advocates using a narrative approach to make data more compelling and relatable. Organizational listening leaders can employ innovative strategies like storyboarding and connecting moments across the employee lifecycle to present a holistic picture.
  
  
• Key Takeaways: Storytelling in data presentations transforms survey results into engaging narratives, enhancing their impact and their usefulness for strategic planning.
  
  
• Why It Matters: Effective data storytelling ensures that employee feedback is understood and valued, leading to more informed and impactful decisions.

In 2024, Get Even More Employee Listening Insights from Perceptyx

When your organization is ready to take the next critical step toward becoming a world-class listening organization, Perceptyx is ready to help. Our consultants work with your team to ensure that you’re asking the right questions via the best listening methods, then quickly convert data-driven insights from our People Insights Platform into meaningful action. 

To learn more, schedule a meeting with a member of our team. And to stay connected to future posts and our latest thought leadership, click here to subscribe to our blog.