Mad Fish Digital’s purpose is to create an elevated experience for our team, our clients and the greater community. The placement of our team at the very start of this list is quite intentional. The work we do is only as good as our team. Our team can only be excellent if they work in a place where they can feel supported as individuals. Thus, with this in mind, we set out to create a structure that allowed our team to give input into the work environment they drive, bike and walk to each day.

In this piece, we share how we measure our employee engagement at Mad Fish Digital. We use OfficeVibe as our measuring tool. OfficeVibe helps us be accountable to our values, cultivate a positive workplace culture, and better support our team of digital experts.

Why OfficeVibe

A while ago, we realized that we needed a better way to open up communication for all staff members. Just saying, ‘we are always here to listen.’  didn’t always resonate. It was a lot to assume that everyone had the same comfort level around walking into our VPs office to share a concern, challenge, or idea.

However, we wanted to hear those folks. To do that, we needed a way for information to be shared in an unbiased, inclusive and productive manner. Research led us to OfficeVibe as our best tool to give staff a way to communicate small and large needs with us in an unbiased way.

What We Measure

OfficeVibe sends out random questions to team members bi-weekly asking them how they are feeling on various topics related to their work-life at Mad Fish Digital. The questions fall into several categories including:

    • Relationship with Peers
    • Relationship with Managers
    • Recognition
    • Wellness
    • Feedback
    • Satisfaction
    • Happiness
  • Alignment

At the end of each survey, there is always an opportunity to add feedback or ask a question. The executive team then responds to the anonymous feedback they receive. This is a great tool for unbiased feedback. Also offers us a chance to take action on things we weren’t aware of.  

What We Learned

After our initial four months of using OfficeVibe, we stepped back and took a look at the data it provided. While we had great marks (humble brag – we have been fortunate to be in the 80-95% of benchmarked companies for all categories), there were a few areas where we could improve. For instance, our ratings around recognition and feedback trended lower than the others. These categories focus on questions around how happy employees are with the frequency of feedback and recognition they receive from their peers and managers.

It turns out that when you have a company built on providing measurable results, and hire great people to help do that, those individuals also like to know that they are hitting their goals and metrics in a very real and measurable way. We were falling short and needed to make some changes.

What We Did

So, what did we do to help our employees get the feedback and recognition they needed? Several things actually:

    • Refined our company structure to include Team Leads so staff had clarity on who they could go to for help
    • Created job scorecards for every position at Mad Fish outlining performance expectations and job function competency expectations
    • Updated our annual performance review process to include both peer and values-based performance measurements
    • Added specific details and timeframes on how performance is measured to our on-boarding process
  • Added #celebratethewin to our Slack channel – a place where team members can share wins and thank team members for their help

Did it work?

Office ofAs we have put these things in place, we have seen measurable improvement to be proud of. As a result, our feedback score went from a low of 7.2 to a now consistent 8.3 (87th percentile of other companies).  Similarly, recognition went from a 7.7 to 8.3 (83rd percentile). We were excited to see these improvements and are now tackling other areas where we can notch up a point or two.

OfficeVibe is just one way to measure our impact as a company. You can check out some of the other ways we are reporting on our impact here.