A New Workplace Strategy: Testing & Feedback – Case Study – Northwestern Mutual
Testing a New Workplace Strategy & Gathering Employee Feedback: A case study on workplace evolution in the insurance industry
How Northwestern Mutual evaluated the effectiveness of their new workplace strategy ahead of a massive corporate real estate project
For companies embarking on a major real estate project, it is a good idea to test out a proposed workplace strategy before formally rolling it out to the greater population. This concept is commonly referred to as a pilot or a test-and-learn space.
The benefit of piloting a workplace strategy is that an organization can learn from employees what is working well and what changes may be required to enable the workforce to better adjust to new ways of working.
Sometimes the necessary changes may be environmental, touching on workplace design or amenities. Other times, it may be revealed that additional workplace change management support could help employees better adjust to working differently.
In constructing the new Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons, the Milwaukee-based insurance giant partnered with Stegmeier Consulting Group (SCG) to learn more about what its employees wanted from the future of their workplace, ensuring cultural alignment with the organization’s New Era Behaviors initiative.
Gathering feedback from employees through surveys and focus groups
A customized survey was designed by SCG and administered to 5,100 employees to gain insights on the current work environment and to assess workforce change readiness for new ways of working.
SCG led focus groups to gather feedback from employees who were working in a ‘Living Lab,’ a section of a currently occupied building that had been made into a model of what Northwestern Mutual hoped to implement in the tower. Focus groups were also conducted to gather feedback from employees working in various pilot work environments.
Stegmeier’s consultants facilitated a Discovery & Applications™ Workshop, an executive-level working session. SCG presented its research findings on employees’ ability to embrace workplace change, weakest links in driving workplace change, key differences between failed and successful workplace strategy implementations, and best practices of exemplary organizations. The consultants presented the findings of all data-gathering activities conducted for Northwestern Mutual, and introduced “The Way We Work” (the Enterprise Stack Planning Team’s proposed workplace strategy recommendations). SCG conducted anonymous polling, identifying the executives’ areas of concern. The consultants led an interactive dialogue, which resulted in gaining consensus from the senior leaders to move forward with the new workplace strategy.
Consulting expertise to help your company develop and evaluate a new workplace strategy
Introducing any type of new workplace change can be met with resistance, but one that is dramatically different from what your employees are used to?
Without thoughtful planning and evaluation of your new workplace strategy, your organization is just hoping things will work out moving forward.
If you’re interested in strategic planning and change implementation to align your workforce and workplace strategies, take the first step by reaching out to Stegmeier Consulting Group through the form below.
