The Listening Cycle · episode 1
The survey is not the work
Composite scenario. Unofficial analysis for illustration. Not a named firm.
The organisation
A 400-person UK professional-services partnership — audit, tax, advisory — with offices in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Hybrid. Partnership board. They ran a 58-item engagement census eleven months ago in SurveyMonkey. Partners received a pack. Nothing visible happened. Utilisation is the unofficial strategy. Belonging is what people mention in exit interviews.
The constraint
They will not survive another census that does not close the loop. The People team of three cannot action more than four firm-level commitments this year. Busy season is January to March. The works council equivalent is a staff consultative committee that expects to see the instrument before it goes out.
Three decisions
1. Do not run the census this cycle
Trust debt is the constraint, not budget. A second 58-item census would teach the firm that listening is theatre. The cycle is stay conversations, a partner-level listening round, and one short pulse — and only if last year’s four promises have named owners by October.
2. Utilisation is not a listening theme. It is the business model
Asking ‘I have an acceptable workload’ on a five-point Likert in May, after busy season, produces a number nobody can act on. Workload is heard in stay conversations with chargeable staff in April, owned by the relevant service-line head, and re-asked only where an owner exists.
3. Keep SurveyMonkey. Stop pretending it is the programme
The collector already exists. What does not exist is a cycle: who is listening, what we will not ask, and what the board will see. The Qualtrics instance is for client experience. Do not merge the two.
The cycle
| Channel | When | Who fields |
|---|---|---|
| Stay conversations People partner + service-line heads | April–May, chargeable staff, sample of 40 | Offline — structured notes, not a survey |
| Partner listening round Managing partner | June, all equity and salaried partners | Facilitated discussion, 90 minutes, two sites |
| Workload pulse Head of People | One shot, late April, only if October close-the-loop is done | SurveyMonkey — they already have it |
| New-starter check-in Resourcing | Day 30, rolling | Short Pindrop questionnaire, email link |
| Exit conversation People partner | As they leave | Offline — already happening, previously uncoded |
- Sep — Sign the cycle. Staff consultative committee sees the instrument for the pulse (if it runs). Name owners for last year’s four promises.
- Oct — Close-the-loop note to the firm: you said / we did. If this does not go out, the April pulse is cancelled.
- Nov–Dec — Quiet. Do not listen over busy-season planning.
- Jan–Mar — Busy season. No pulses. Exit conversations continue.
- Apr — Stay conversations. Workload pulse only if October closed the loop.
- May — Synthesise stay notes. Dual-read utilisation vs belonging for the June partner round.
- Jun — Partner listening round. Board pack in the firm’s PowerPoint master, not SurveyMonkey’s export.
- Jul — Actions: four firm-level, GAS dates in November. Workshop harvest, not a kanban dumped on managers.
- Aug — Review the cycle. Decide whether the next cycle earns a census.
What we will not ask
- Another 58-item engagement census.
- eNPS on a 7-point Likert (it is not eNPS).
- Workload items in March.
- Anything the People team of three cannot act on.
- Client-experience items in the employee collector.
90-minute workshop
15 min · What happened last time
The four promises from last year’s pack, on one slide. Named owner, or blank. The room is not allowed to design a new survey until this is honest.
25 min · What we will not ask
Facilitator writes the banned list first. Census, fake eNPS, March workload. Partners add what they will not hear in a board pack.
30 min · The cycle on one wall
Five channels, fielding owner on each (SurveyMonkey, Pindrop, or a conversation). Action capacity: four firm-level commitments. If a sixth channel appears, a first one dies.
20 min · The meeting this has to survive
Who is in the June partner room. What the pack is allowed to say. Whose PowerPoint master. Sign the cycle or stop.