The theme for this year’s SIOP conference in San Diego was IMPACT and it showcased the ways that industrial/organizational psychologists influence business around the world.  We at Questar were proud to have the opportunity to showcase our employee engagement, 360 degree feedback, and exit survey solutions. Several members of Questar’s survey solutions team attended the conference to further our knowledge on the latest and greatest research in the field of industrial/organizational psychology.

In addition to exhibiting our products, Questar also engaged SIOP attendees in a promotion that gave them a chance to win either an iPad 2 or Nook.  Those interested in playing the game were given a button containing a street name in San Diego.  If participants found another attendee with a matching button, they would both win a prize!  In order make it easier for participants to find a matching button, we hosted a networking social event at Buster’s Beach Bar in Seaport Village.  The event was hugely successful and our team enjoyed the chance to network with current and aspiring industrial/organizational psychologists.  In addition, one of the most exciting aspects of this event was that two conference attendees with matching buttons located each other and made an appearance at our social event to claim their iPads!  Congratulations to Victoria Smoak and Hanna Pillion , who discovered that “Harbor Drive” was a lucky button via Twitter (participants could Tweet their street name with the tag #QuestarSIOP to see if a match was out there).

We also held a drawing for a pair of Nooks—congratulations to Simon Golden and Aimee King!

Some of the key discussions we attended include:

• “IGNITE: Imparting Survey Wisdom, Five Minutes at a Time”
• “Employee Engagement: Defining New Frontiers”
• “Contemporary Topics in Positive Organizational Climate and Culture Research”
• “360 Degree Feedback: An Essential Commodity for Leadership Development”
• “Comments on Comments: Best Practices for Open-Ended Survey Questions”
• “Post-survey Actions: New Directions for Implementing Change Efforts”
• “Staying Ahead of the Curve: Ingredients for Successful Survey Redesign”

The sessions provided great opportunities to stay abreast of best practices, learn from colleagues, and stimulate ideas for SIOP 2013 proposals. SIOP is also always a perfect opportunity to network, meet new friends, see old classmates, coworkers, and friends. We cannot wait for SIOP 2013 in Houston, Texas!

Amanda Harms | Associate Consultant

It seems there is an importance to normative data (more commonly called norms) for survey results. Clients want norms, leaders demand them, and people in general ask how you “scored” against the norm. Did your company score 3 points above, 5 points below, or 15 points higher than the industry standard?

What does it all mean? Normative comparisons are available (typically for a fee) from a consulting firm. Is it just a batch of witches’ brew sold by consulting firms to increase the profit margin? Or is it an important piece in understanding how to provide meaningful insights into the results of a survey?

Norms are indeed helpful. They can certainly provide perspective and help recipients of survey results to put those results in context. Instead of a “keeping up with the Joneses approach”, norms can be used to help in interpretation and to help understand data – for example if employee engagement is lower than expected, or to assist in understanding which dimension scores are high in relation to expectations.

At Questar, we have found that many of our clients like the addition of norms to their survey, which we provide as an optional add-on service. However like many tools, it is possible to over-rely and over-interpret based on normative data. We advocate a 3 pronged approach to interpreting survey results:

• Personal standard along with knowledge of business
• Numeric guidelines to help interpret survey results
• Relative comparisons to history and normative data
• Internal comparisons such as within company trends over time
• External comparisons such as looking at norms

Let’s look at each of those in slightly more detail.

1. Your own results come first – always analyze survey results in context. Although a survey expert can help to provide guidelines and assistance in interpreting data, ultimately the key stakeholders are those who can best determine why a score may be lower or higher in a defined business unit or department. For example, perhaps an opportunity is identified around a lack of training. Those in that unit may know that budgets were frozen, or that no one requested training last year, or that training was arranged and then fell through. Those outside the company are unlikely to know these explanations without very detailed briefing. The owners of the survey may also be in the best position to put the survey results in alignment with business objectives and outcomes. Finally, a leader may decide that they want to raise the bar, change cut scores or level the playing field based on in-depth knowledge of their company culture and performance.

2. When interpreting survey results we encourage people to look for meaningful differences (i.e., more than 5 percentage points) as this can help keep people focused on practical differences. There are many different ways to tabulate and present survey results. Some may look at averages/means, medians, simple frequencies, Top 2 Box (i.e., combining Agree with Strongly Agree), sophisticated modeling (to include regression and Structural Equation Modeling), and combinations of all of the above. The Top 2 Box approach can also be displayed as the “favorable” responses. For example, if 45% select “Agree” to an item, and another 22% indicate “Strongly Agree” to an item, the score would be “67% Favorable.”

We will use this to illustrate the “5 percentage points” numeric guideline. For example, if the company’s score for overall engagement is 70%, and one division has a score of 67%, this is not necessarily cause for alarm. Questar also provides numeric guidelines based on best practices and each client’s dataset to help gauge what is a relative strength and what is a relative opportunity.  For example, the items may be considered strengths at 70% favorable, and opportunities may be those items scoring under 50% favorable.

3. We typically recommend that people who receive survey results look at history first (the scores available from previous survey administrations), before comparing themselves to norms. If several years of data are available this allows an even better insight into trends.  Another form of relative comparison is to compare a division/department to the overall company.

And finally we have norms, which allow you to compare your results to a vendor’s book of business or an estimate of the population. There are several ways in which norm data can be collected, but at Questar we provide norms from a random sample of employed adults in similar industries. These allow for a current snapshot of the state of engagement in the country based on predetermined parameters such as specific industry(s). Stay tuned for a more detailed breakdown of norms in “Part II: Norms, huh… What are they good for? Absolutely something.” Here we will provide insight into the different types of norms, providing information on the various pros and cons to the different collection methods.

Paul Thoresen  |  Account Management & Consulting Services

Questar attended the Nottingham Trent University Placement Fair this past week.  I represented our company along with current placement students Sophie Spalding and Adam Billingham.  It was a great first time experience and we had the chance to meet many first and second year students that are already trying to secure a placement for their gap year in 2012.

Nottingham Trent University believes strongly in students undertaking a work placement during their time of study and I understand and support their way of thinking.  Entering the workforce with a year of practical experience is invaluable.  While working, students can apply the theories they are learning in the classroom and then take back what they learned to make their final year at the university their best year yet.  As a company supporting this program there are also some great benefits to us.  We have the chance to assess individuals that could potentially help us in the future.  It allows a lot of flexibility in our staffing.  The students are extremely motivated and committed to learning while on the job.  There are also public relations benefits and opportunities as well.

In addition to meeting students looking for placements I also met students that had completed their placements and were now in the final year at NTU.  Many of these students were stewards at the Fair helping out the attending companies and placement seekers.  Comparing the personalities and confidence levels of pre-placement students to post-placement students was fascinating.  The students coming up to the booth were mostly shy, unsure, and seemed a bit intimidated.  The student stewards were confident and composed.

I also enjoyed watching how Sophie and Adam grew a bit as the day went on.  Early on I did a lot of the talking, but later they really stepped up and started to take the lead with many of the conversations.  They did a great job explaining their role with Questar and promoting the company.  It was nice to hear them talk positively about their placement with us.  They seemed really proud to tell other students that they had “real jobs” and were working with one of the largest Questar clients.

Overall Questar’s appearance at Nottingham Trent University’s Placement Fair was a great success. I look forward to furthering my contact with some of the students we felt best matched the needs of our company.  In addition, look for Questar to be back on the NTU campus again next year!

Steven Mars  |  Vice President

As Apple is holding its annual Worldwide Developers Conference this week, it seemed fitting to post a blog on how tablets are changing the way we shop- a revolution that Apple helped to start.

A few months back I wrote a blog about how smart phones are changing the way we shop. With the tablet market (iPad, iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, H.P. Slate etc.) exploding, it is poised to do much the same. Many of today’s largest retailers are now making–or have already made–web sites/apps specifically for tablet users. (more…)