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We all know 2020 was a turbulent period for most of us, a time of unknowing and unsettlement in the worldwide Covid 19 pandemic. This was when the world of work changed forever. Check out the employee happiness insight and data from our Employee Voice survey during lockdown 2020, for people either on furlough or working.
Latest Data & Themes from Employee Voice 24/7 on employee happiness during Covid-19 lockdown.
We’ve been offering our Employee Voice service on a complimentary basis for a month now. So, what does the data show about how employees are feeling during lockdown?
We’re asking employees “How are you feeling today?”. They simply score 1-10 (from pretty terrible to terrific), and then tell us why. Whether they’re working, or on furlough, employees can answer anonymously, whenever and with as much detail as they wish.
Unsurprisingly, the average employee happiness score is well down to 5.8 from our normal average of 7.6 (and has been on a downward trend since 23rd March lockdown period began). Looking at the scores in more detail, the picture is more nuanced with 4 in 10 employees (40.4%) giving a favourable score (of 7 or above) and 6 in ten (59.6%) scoring 1-6.
The pandemic has increased the desire amongst employees to share the detail on how they are feeling. 8 in 10 employees (80.8%) have left comments, more than double the normal average.
Breaking down the sentiment of the comments gives us more insight into what people are really experiencing in their day-to-day lives. 4 in 10 comments (43.2%) contain positive or neutral sentiment (40.1%) and less than 2 in 10 (16.7%) contain negative sentiment.
In addition, the average magnitude of sentiment is far higher than normal, driven by the amount of emotional language being used by employees to detail their feelings.
By analysing and visualising this rich data in dashboards, we’re able to help employers understand how to drive their internal communications.
1. Work is the dominant positive in many people’s lives at the moment. They’re grateful:
to remain employed
for the support their employer is providing them
that they can contribute towards their organisation’s ongoing future.
2. There’s a recognition from many that lockdown is contributing towards a better work-life balance as:
they get to spend more time with their family
less time commuting
can pursue personal interests and exercise more
3. In the last week we’ve seen a very strong theme emerge around the positive impact of the sunny weather on the UK’s experienced on people’s mood.
1. Unsurprisingly work is also a strong negative theme particularly for those:
struggling to adapt to working remotely
on furlough
missing colleagues and the work environment
key workers still going into their workplace during lockdown
2. There’s a clear need for employers to communicate how they can support the wellbeing of their people, with a high incidence of comments mentioning
anxiety
stress
uncertainty
3. Finally, we’ve also seen family emerge as a negative theme, with comments highlighting:
the difficulties of home-schooling/caring responsibilities whilst working
those missing seeing their families
worrying for the health of their families
During the first lockdown we had over +100 companies sign up for complimentary use of our Employee Voice survey.
Employees were able to feedback in real-time about how they were feeling due to the pandemic making it easier for leadership, HR and People teams to pinpoint emerging themes within the business and react accordingly.
Find out more on what areas you could include in your employee happiness surveys.
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