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Strategic Programs Inc. |
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June 13, 2016 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Workforce Intelligence Solutions providing Surveys and Analytics for Employee Onboarding, Engagement and Development |
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Chief Executive Officer
Strategic Programs Inc.
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – June 13, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Coberly, what is the idea behind Strategic Programs? Mr. Coberly: The idea established by the founder, Rim Yurkus, was to improve the relationship between employees and employers to the level where employees could be happier at work, thereby making them happier at home and in their communities. The result for the employer is a more productive employee who will more effectively help the company achieve its business goals.
CEOCFO: How are you able to facilitate this? Mr. Coberly: We collect perception data from employees on behalf of their employers, at various points throughout the employee lifecycle beginning with the pre-hire process, to onboarding new hires, to current employees, and with exited employees as well. We also provide tools and expertise to help employers with leadership development, succession planning, coaching and training.
CEOCFO: What is the key to asking the right questions or asking in the right manner to get meaningful results? Mr. Coberly: There is a little science behind that. We have worked with universities to ensure our methodology is sound in terms of how we ask the questions. In the end, the key is understanding what you want to know or what you are trying to learn from the question to make sure the survey is going to give you results that you can act on.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an example? Mr. Coberly: For example, let’s say you’re asking about supervisors. A general supervisor question would be “How is your supervisor doing?” That wouldn’t be a question we would ask because it would be near impossible to get reliable results that would allow you to be confident in actions you would take to improve. Ultimately, what a company needs to understand is what a supervisor is doing well and where they have opportunities for improvement. Holds people accountable, provides helpful feedback, supports professional development, and effectively handles concerns are all examples of items we gather feedback on so we can help our clients target their efforts to improve supervision.
CEOCFO: What types of companies tend to turn to you for services? Mr. Coberly: The common thread is companies who value the contribution their employees make enough to want to understand their perceptions and improve their organization as a result. Our best clients understand the link between an engaged workforce and business outcomes that lead to success and growth. Examples like customer satisfaction and retention, service failure rate, compliance levels, and productivity levels are all directly impacted, either positively or negatively, by your workforce. The majority of our customers not only understand this link but have realized that if ignored, the problem can become very expensive through reduced capacity and lost customers. The issue is then further magnified by disengaged employees and high turnover rates. Companies that work with us want to fix some or all of these problems.
Mr. Coberly: I would say there are far more that are aware in the last ten years than there ever have been before, especially with the down turn in the economy and skilled labor shortages. What we saw was more employers starting to understand that if they gathered feedback from their employees and made changes as a result, they could better recruit and retain high performers, thereby gaining a competitive advantage in a tough environment.
CEOCFO: Do you have an ongoing relationship with some of your clients? Mr. Coberly: Most of our engagements are long term. By long term, I mean five to fifteen years. Most of what we do is ongoing data collection so that as employee perceptions change, organizations can measure the impact of initiatives and make additional adjustments as necessary. Additionally, one of our strengths is the focus we put on our customers. All of our solutions are fully customized to fit our clients’ needs and we constantly ask ourselves what we can do better or different to increase the value they receive. As a result of the ongoing nature of our services and making our customers our priority, we tend to enjoy long lasting partnerships with our clients.
CEOCFO: Strategic Programs is a global company. Is it similar across the board or are there many differences geographically in how employees interact? Mr. Coberly: Yes. I would say internationally there are different expectations that employees have of employers. It is a different relationship. Not better or worse, just different. Each culture tends to lend its own lens on what that relationship looks like and how it should look. The way it works in the United States is not necessarily the way it works in Mexico and is not necessarily the way it works in Europe or in the Asia-Pacific countries. That relationship is different, but one thing that is not different is that employers need to understand those employees’ perceptions. Regardless of how that relationship is framed by the employers and the employees, employers still need to understand what the employees think so they can continue to try to improve their part of that relationship.
Mr. Coberly: There does not tend to be a magic bullet. There is generally no single thing that needs to be done. Usually it is a very fragmented process where you might address a particular issue in one department and a completely different issue in another department. We will also deliver results at the executive level, and they focus on items across the organization that they need to improve. There was a large healthcare organization we were working with where the results of their current and former employee surveys were telling them that their benefits were not meeting their needs. They were surprised because they believed they provided very competitive benefits. What we did was work with them on a communications campaign to better explain the benefits that they provided to employees and how that looked against their competitors. They did not change their benefits offering at all, but over a period of a year, their benefits score went from one of their lowest scores to one of their highest scores. In a competitive recruiting environment, misperceptions can be costly in how they can impact morale and turnover. In this case there was a low-cost solution to what was potentially a very expensive problem.
Mr. Coberly: Data is abundant and even overwhelming in companies these days. Knowledge, however, is rare. We provide our clients with accurate data and turn it into actionable knowledge so they can more effectively and efficiently meet their goals. Our approach is customized to fit our client needs allowing them to get the value they desire with as little pain as possible. |
“We help companies realize their goals and improve organizational performance by providing workforce intelligence solutions and analytics that accurately measure employee perceptions and support sustainable change. We partner with clients to design customized surveys and processes that enable them to attract, manage, develop, and retain the right people in order to generate enduring success.”- Chris Coberly
Strategic Programs Inc.
Contact: Chris Coberly 303-389-9033 ccoberly@strategicprogramsinc.com
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Employee Survey Companies, Strategic Programs Inc., Workforce Surveys and Analytics, CEO Interviews 2016, Chris CoberlyWorkforce Intelligence Solutions providing Surveys and Analytics for Employee Onboarding, Engagement and Development, Business Services Companies, Workforce intelligence, Turnover, Retention, Coaching, Training, Customized surveys, Professional development, Leadership development, Succession planning, Onboarding, New hires, Exited employees, Strategic Programs Inc. Press Releases, News, Business Services Stock, Companies looking for venture capital, Angel Investors, private companies looking for investors, employee survey companies seeking investors, workforce survey and analytics companies needing investment capital |
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Chris
Coberly