UNLEASH America: Go further than just listening

Employee listening has become a top priority for organizations as they face the ‘Great Resignation’ and a war for talent.

RJ Milnor, global head of people analytics and chief people data officer at the ride-hailing giant Uber, has spoken at UNLEASH America about how Uber listens effectively.

When Milnor previously spoke to UNLEASH he noted: “What differentiates us [Uber] from many other companies is how we listen to our employees at scale. 

“We do this through our Continuous Listening program, which leverages a portfolio of different surveys and data to understand how employees are doing and what we can do to create a more magical and productive experience at work every day.”

Naturally, understanding the needs of workers can have a significant impact on business decisions.

Using feedback

Having access to the thoughts of staff enables the company to continuously improve, “we get employees’ feedback to leaders and process owners in a timely way to make the changes that our teams need.”

At UNLEASH America 2022, Milnor noted the benefits that feedback has introduced: “Just over the past year, since we’ve implemented our continuous listening approach, we found that perceptions of managers who are taking action on survey data has gone up by that 17%.”

Additionally, “Trust in Uber has gone up by 14%. That’s a significant and meaningful move in less than a 12-month period.”

Naturally, trust in an organization can improve employee engagement and ultimately help retention rates.

The impact of collecting feedback and data means that Uber has been able to manage the return to the office in an agile way that benefits employees. This was essential to the company as approximately 90% of its desk workers had transitioned to working from home at the start of the pandemic.

After hearing the thoughts of employees, Uber originally implemented a policy that required office attendance three days a week. However, continuous listening highlighted a need for more flexibility.

This meant an agile pivot, but this ability to change fluidly was enabled through listening.

On top of that, even how an Uber employee’s workload is structured can be optimized so that they are their most productive through collecting data. This was illustrated in Uber’s implementation of employee ‘focus time’ which encourages staff to look at tasks rather than endless calls.

After outlining tangible benefits in productivity and employee experience, Milnor concluded: “I would ask you to think about a few things before you go. Are you listening to your employees? Are you responding to them? And then are you acting?”

Those who are not sure about the answers to these questions will need to be concerned about the ‘Great Resignation.’

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