Key Benefits of using Qualitative Research Tools for Employee Experience Research
There is often a misconception that qualitative and quantitative research methodologies should sit in their own silos. That is the idea that quant is quant, and if you are primarily a numbers driven team then the only research you can apply is, well, quantitative. And yes, the same goes for qualitative methodologies.
Indeemo User Diary Study Tool
This, of course, is a traditional mode of thinking. For example, in North America, researchers are often seen as those that typically adopt quantitative research methods. European research on the other hand, is more prone to be driven by qualitative techniques. And lastly, there is the hybrid, mixed-methods approach. From an academic perspective, mixed-methods research is often viewed as time consuming and costly. However, commercially speaking, more and more insights teams, market research teams, and experience design teams see the need and value of complementary approaches.
This is where Employee Experience (EX) comes into play. EX has really picked up pace in recent years, and is one of the most flexible areas of organisations that sees the value in leveraging both qualitative and quantitative methods to drive change and positive employee experiences. We work with many HR and Employee Experience management teams that are increasingly looking to bridge the gap between quantitative data and qualitative insights into various stages of the employee life cycle.
The benefits of qualitative research tools for employee experience research
When we aim to measure employee engagement and satisfaction, it is easy to forget that there is more to uncover from the quantitative data. When we see downward or upward trends, we need to ask why? Adopting a qualitative research strategy with the right toolkit to operationalise this strategy will ultimately help EX and HR teams figure out the ‘why’ in these trends. We also like to refer to this as uncovering unknowns, a common result of a qualitative research tool for employee experience.
Whilst qualitative research can often be designed in a structured format, it is agile and gives greater flexibility for uncovering unknowns. With respect to EX research, your qualitative research tool can help you uncover unknowns such as, positive touch points across employee working days, or pain points when adjusting to a new hybrid model of working. This is a result of two things.
First, an exploratory approach to understanding employee experience. This is the flexible side of qualitative research. It allows HR and EX management to dive into the lives of employees, without a direct focus on direct questions with the requirement of binary answers. Second, leveraging the use of multimedia through the qualitative research tool will uncover unknowns with both video and photographic data. Simply, allow employees to record their experiences at a number of areas of interest to you and your team. Allow them to document their behaviours with processes and systems for example. Ultimately, the results will more than likely provide us with emerging insights that can underpin quantitative data.
Research employee experiences in context
Even more, it is context and contextual insights that derive from exploring employee experiences, and empowering them with the use of video, photo and text in the qualitative research tool. Contextual inquiries continue to grow in the employee experience research space. This style of research simply allows us to dig deeper to understand the environment our employees work in - both physical and cultural.
Indeemo User Diary Tool
Do voice of employee research remotely
Understanding pain points of employee experience is central to the success of employee satisfaction, retention, and even recruitment. When we adopt a qualitative approach to EX, we find that we begin to peel back the layers of previously known insights. Often, these are insights that have come from our quantitative measures of past research - Note: whilst traditional approaches to EX research involve quantitative methods, EX management are increasingly adopting a hybrid/mixed methods approach that captures further insights.
Significant value coming from qualitative insights often relates to deeper knowledge of how employees feel, what their opinions are - and this allows management to implement changes that are driven directly from the voice of employees. The employee experience is not guided from what your team tells you, underpinned by qualitative data.
Centralise all research data on your employee experience dashboard
On the one hand, the insights that derive from a qualitative research tool are viewed as the core benefit. However, EX teams often underestimate the diversity of the data that informs these insights. It is only when employee experience research is conducted through the use of the qualitative research tool, that we truly begin to see the power of the technology that delivers the richest results.
A combination of diverse media data types such as, video, photo, text and mobile screen recording, provide various perspectives of employee experience. In addition, the data is organised and stored meaningfully, so that your team can revert back to the repository over time. We view this as a pool of insights that do not not only add value for singular projects, but should be leveraged to inform future EX research projects.
Let us support your employee experience research
We’ve supported hundreds of employee experience research projects covering everything from mapping the employee onboarding journey to understanding the day in the life experience of remote workers to diary studies of communication tools used by employees in their everyday jobs.
If you’d like to discuss a specific employee experience research project or are just curious to learn more, get in touch now.
Recent Articles
