A nonprofit organization with +200 employees experienced difficulties to connect to its field-workers. In the past five years, this nonprofit faced increased complexity as the workforce nearly doubled in size. Many of the new employees were hired and deployed in new locations. As a result, 50% were field-workers without a permanent office space. Hence, management needed a way to ensure alignment around its mission, vision and values among all employees.

Innovisor was asked to help the nonprofit with an organizational network diagnostic. This involved:

1. Identification of the right people
2. Identification of what actions their activities needed to be focused on
3. Tracking of the progress

The Approach

Innovisor made use of various types of data, including:

1. Relationship Data
This data was obtained directly from all employees by asking them about their different relationships within the nonprofit. It was used to identify the informal networks within the nonprofit, as well as what employees represented the voice of the people.

2. Employee Engagement Data
This data was collected internally by the nonprofit organization just one month before the organizational network diagnostic.  Innovisor used this data to identify specific drivers of employee engagement, through so-called ‘Key Driver Analysis’.

More information on Key Driver Analysis in Put Your Organizational Network Analysis to Good Use

3. Employee Master Data
This data was provided from the nonprofit’s HR system. It was used to aggregate the data into different groups such as tenure, department, location. This enabled analysis and reporting on the relationships within different groups as well as between them.

Insights

Innovisor identified a powerful group of 5 employees who represented the voice of the people. These 5 employees  – approximately 3% – influenced 93% of their peers in the organization.

More information on the #ThreePercentRule in The Ultimate Strategy: Network & Influencer Based Communication

The analysis of the employee engagement data revealed four key drivers of employee engagement. These areas were crucial for the nonprofit to focus on, ranging from ‘trust from the management’, ‘capability building’, ‘fair pay’, to ‘healthy workplace’. The areas identified as less significant were surprising compared to the predictions based in the organization’s gut feeling. They included areas such as ‘recruitment and onboarding’, ‘regular feedback from manager’, ‘recognition for a job well done’, and ‘competent management’.

Now, the nonprofit knew on what areas they needed to engage the group of 5 employees.

Actions
The nonprofit engaged with the group of 5 employees in the co-creation of key initiatives to ensure a common alignment with the organization’s mission, vision and values:

1. Management engaged in 1-on-1 conversations with the group of 5 employees to get further input on the four key drivers
2. Management created a sounding board consisting of the 5 employees to keep the pulse on the organizational culture as the new business strategy was implemented