Customer: BDO Seidman
Industry: Services
Company Background
BDO Seidman is a Chicago based accounting firm with 37 offices in the United States. One of the reasons for its success has been its ability to give regional and local offices enough autonomy and independence to capitalize on local market opportunities, as well as the ability to foster strong regional and local leadership.
Challenge
With a decentralized approach to business operations comes the added responsibility of providing a strong infrastructure of support for regional and local management teams and effective communication between national headquarters and its affiliate offices. However, the company did not have a centralized or consistent approach for gathering feedback from its nearly 2,800 employees across the US At times, BDO human resources personnel in various regional offices conducted surveys on an ad hoc basis to gather information from employees in their region; however, because there was no centralized process or structure for launching surveys, the quality of the surveys were varied and the survey results were equally unreliable for the purposes of forming national HR policies.
"What we really wanted to do was to take the pulse of the entire firm and get an accurate understanding of how employees felt about core issues that affect their experience as a BDO member,” said Sandi Guy, National Director of Human Resources, BDO Seidman, LLP. “We would then be able to confidently implement firm-wide changes and improvements that truly met the needs of the specific regions and at the same time complement the firm’s national vision and strategy."
SolutionIn 2007, BDO decided that a single survey solution was needed to conduct a firm-wide survey, which would be managed and maintained by the national HR director. Vovici's EFM Feedback solution was selected and deployed for the national survey to measure six key areas of performance by the company:
- Compensation and Benefits
- Core Values
- Career Development
- Work Effectiveness
- Leadership
- Overall Satisfaction
The company-wide survey was successfully launched and the results were analyzed quickly, however, it became necessary to change the way the data was structured and analyzed in order to help meet the new direction of the national HR team. “When we hit a challenge with the first survey project, Vovici’s Research Services team jumped right in and they did a fantastic job. They blew me away. Under a very tight deadline, they worked non-stop to get me an end product that met our needs. It was very impressive,” said Ms. Guy.
ResultsThe results of the nationwide survey showed BDO’s leadership where their strengths were as a company and also provided specific areas where they needed improvement. For example, the survey revealed that nationwide employees desired greater clarity in how compensation and promotion decisions were made. At the same time, the survey also revealed that certain regions scored higher than others when it came to communication with employees on these same matters. “Now we know how to focus our efforts so specific local offices that have greater communication needs will get the support they need when they need it,” said Ms. Guy.
Additionally, BDO has centralized all its survey activities on Vovici, giving Ms. Guy’s HR team the ability to control the quality, frequency, and scope of all surveys being conducted. More importantly, with a centralized process on EFM Feedback, Ms. Guy can compare results, spot trends, and have total trust in the reliability of the survey data.
"We may not always like what the answers are, but we have confidence in the reliability of the data because we’ve partnered with the experts," said Ms. Guy.
News
Vovici releases Community Builder module that will allow organizations to quickly and cost effectively create and manage online community panels — providing a voice to customers, employees, and other constituents. Learn More.
Join Vovici for an American Marketing Association webcast beginning May 1: Building Online Communities for Feedback – Why You Need Them and How to Use Them. Click here for details.