On June 28th, WSA™ announced our new partnership with SHRM, and I’d like to share why we are so excited about the value this brings our customers and the HR community.
To preface the partnership, I firmly believe that human resources has never played a more critical role in business than it does right now. It’s also never been as challenging to be an HR leader as it is today. As I reflect over the past 20 years, I can’t remember a time when there were so many different HR related challenges coming at us all at once. The people entering our workforce today have grown up online, always having virtually unlimited access to information. Instead of being shaped by the culture and concerns of the people in their immediate vicinity, today’s workforce is exposed to, and focused on, global issues that affect all people in every corner of the world. HR practitioners are wrestling with difficult challenges such as racial injustice, pay inequity, workplace safety, and talent shortages to name a few. This is where our partnership with SHRM® comes in.
The greatest value WSA brings is data.
At WSA, we consume the feedback of millions of employees collected from thousands of survey projects administered across every major industry and country around the world. We are fortunate to work with many of the largest companies in the world. Our role is to offer our clients best practices, assist with data collection, and most importantly – help them improve the experience of their employees. Our data science and benchmarking team, led by Dr. Bob Weldon (affectionately known as Dr. Norm), consolidates this data which includes employee feedback on essentially every important HR related topic impacting employee engagement, retention, belonging, and performance. We then run statistical analysis to identify trends and learn what is most important. Essentially, we are a window into people’s experience at work.
As part of our new partnership, we are sharing all the data with SHRM. Our research has identified the most important topics to measure in an employee survey. We call it our “Core 33 Survey” because it includes the 33 most impactful items in our vast database. It includes measures of employee engagement, manager effectiveness, equip factors, trust in senior leadership, belief in the future of the company, communication, recognition, belonging, and growth and development. In other words, the foundational psychological motivators of employees wanting to work harder, stay longer, and care more about their company. Clients of SHRM, who purchase the SHRM engagement survey powered by WSA, will have access to WSA’s Core 33 items and other survey content, as well as benchmarks by industry and/or country. SHRM clients will have access to, what we know to be, the best available data on influencing employee performance today.
Our value is multiplied by SHRM. By making our research and content available to SHRM, we can, in exchange, consume more data from more employees to further advance our continuous research.
The greatest value SHRM brings is rock solid developmental content.
SHRM is the premier association for human resource professionals. SHRM has more than 300,000 members in 165 countries around the world working for thousands of organizations. SHRM’s brand is knowledge – HR practitioners all over the world tap into SHRM’s massive library of professional developmental content. Think of WSA’s partnership with SHRM this way: Our survey helps senior leaders and front-line managers pinpoint the top priorities of focus. SHRM’s content helps leaders develop and improve their priorities. We have worked together to map our survey content to SHRM developmental content. Now, whether you are a SHRM client administering the SHRM engagement survey, powered by WSA, or a WSA client administering your survey directly through us – you will have access to these great resources as part of the action planning process.
It is also important to note that both WSA and SHRM utilize and exclusively partner with Qualtrics® to deliver our programs. Over the years, our team has had access to virtually every major employee survey technology capable of handling large complex global survey programs. I can tell you categorically that Qualtrics is the very best employee experience technology on the market today. But that is a topic for another time.
The added value of WSA + SHRM is enhanced collaboration.
There are some other cool aspects to our partnership with SHRM. Mainly, if you are a client of WSA, you are now eligible to receive discounted membership pricing from SHRM. This is something WSA is very excited to be able to bring to our customers, as SHRM is highly selective in extending these types of programs. Conversely, if you are a client of SHRM, you will now have access to WSA’s team of consultants for support with item design, survey analysis, and post survey executive consultation.
The outcome we seek is positive change for the communities we serve.
For all of us at WSA, and I think the HR community in general, the work we do is a lifelong passion. Somehow, we were lucky enough to find careers doing work that is fun and challenging but most importantly, impactful. People spend most of their waking lives working, and we get to ensure their experience at work is as rewarding as ours. We believe that when people are more fulfilled at work, it inevitably spills over into a more fulfilled personal life as well. In our own small way, this is how we get to help make the world a better place. And we are so honored to be able to partner with SHRM in pursuit of our calling.
