Employee Survey Case Study: Lucas

Background:

• Lucas is a market leader in the Australian drilling and coal seam gas and pipeline industries. The company also has business interests in both non-residential building construction and civil infrastructure.
• Lucas has grown rapidly through acquisition in a very short period of time and was seeking to merge its businesses to increase customer value.
• Lucas has a workforce of approx 1,200, the majority of which are site based on remote drilling rigs and regional centres (20 in total).

Needs:

• As with any merger, the need to understand the internal culture across the organisation was identified by Lucas in its merger and integration program. The Right Group was engaged to conduct an employee survey as part of an overall rebranding and internal culture alignment initiative.
• Lucas required an employee survey which could be readily accessed by its remote drilling workforce.
• The employee survey needed to focus on internal communications, safety, brand reputation, employee engagement, leadership styles and organisational values.
• Lucas required an employee survey which could identify the existing internal culture of 5 independent business units.
• The survey needed to capture a large proportion of the Lucas workforce. This was made challenging by the inherent scepticism of its blue-collar workforce.
• The employee survey was the first of its kind conducted by the organisation.

“Our company had grown rapidly through acquisition. The Right Group helped us identify the best attributes of the merging companies to build a unifying culture that aligns our teams and sends a strong message to our clients. They worked with all levels in our organisation conducting employee research, providing guidance and input to our integration strategy to ensure everything lined up with our overall business objectives. The Right Group’s focus and commitment to our merger initiative was key to engaging and attracting the buy-in of our people.”

Jennifer Lambert, Communications Manager

Solution:

• A tailored employee survey was developed for Lucas.
• The Right Group’s project team undertook a number of site visits to familiarise itself with the organisation’s business practises and its people.
• Several workshops were conducted with the client project team to develop a project plan with achievable milestone activities.
• In-depth interviews with a cross section of management were conducted, as well as a number of employee discussion groups.
• The questionnaire instrument was constructed using The Right Group’s Cultural Excellence Framework™. Modifications were made to address the specific needs of Lucas. The questionnaire was pre-tested with a cross section of Lucas employees to ensure ease of administration and completion.
• A multi-faceted survey approach was implemented comprising of on-line and paper based surveys. Employees in remote sites were given a further option of completing the survey in their time or participating in a series of on-site ‘survey sessions’.
• An integrated survey communications campaign was implemented. This included CEO communication, survey briefing packs for all line managers and regular top-up reminders before and during the survey. All employees received a letter signed by the Lucas CEO inviting them to participate in the survey. Daily updates of response rates were made available to the client.

Outcomes

• A response rate of 67% was achieved, comparing favourably with the Australian national industrial average of 48%.
• Lucas were provided with survey reports and data tables by whole of organisation, business location, department and other pre-determined demographic variables. Industry benchmarking was also provided.
• The internal culture of the Lucas business units were analysed and mapped using the Competing Values Framework model.
• A series of reporting workshops were conducted with the Lucas Executive Team to discuss the survey findings, implications, resulting priorities and actions.
• The Right Group developed survey result packs which were distributed to all location managers for discussion with their local teams. Included in the pack was a survey action planning template for each manager to utilise.