You cannot fix a workplace you cannot see clearly.
Information degrades as it moves up an organization. Not because anyone is hiding anything. It gets softened at each level it passes through, and by the time a problem reaches ownership it has become an operational note.
Concerns tend to concentrate at the supervisor level, which is precisely where they are hardest to see from the top. A supervisor may be the source of the concern, may not know it exists, or may know and let it sit. Each of those calls for a different response, and none of them is visible from an org chart.
We go and get the unfiltered version.
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Confidential
Employees speak openly because their responses are protected.
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Actionable
Findings arrive with specific, proportional recommendations.
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Experienced
Close to four decades of employee relations practice.
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Independent
Our consultants are not in your org chart and not on your payroll.
Every survey is conducted in person.
No links. No logins. No online questionnaires. Our consultants come to your locations and sit down with your people.
An online survey collects answers to questions someone already thought to ask. A conversation surfaces the thing nobody knew to ask about.
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Small group meetings
Employees meet with a consultant in small groups, organized by department or shift, away from their supervisors. Sessions run as a round table conversation rather than an interview.
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Open discussion
A short set of questions opens each session, covering what employees value, what they would change, working conditions, tools and equipment, and safety. Most of what matters comes from what employees raise on their own, and from the coworkers who confirm it.
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Written questionnaires
Participants complete a morale questionnaire and a manager review during the discussion, while they are already thinking about these subjects. The forms remain with the consultant at all times and are destroyed after transcription.
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One to five days on site
Depending on the size of the organization and the number of locations.
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Report and findings presentation
A written report goes to ownership, followed by a working session to go through the findings.
Who reads the report.
Employee comments are recorded in their own words. We do not summarize sentiment and we do not soften language, because the words carry weight and executives need to hear how their people actually feel.
That is also why the report does not circulate. A document full of unedited employee language is exactly what a supervisor would read looking for a voice they recognize.
- Employees Speak in small confidential groups and complete written forms that never leave the room.
- The Alliance consultant Transcribes the comments verbatim, shreds the forms, and writes the report.
- Ownership and executive management Receive the findings unedited, with nothing removed on the way up.
Who does not receive it
- Human resources
- General managers
- Directors and department managers
- Supervisors
We recommend that executives meet with their managers directly to work through what needs to change, without sharing or forwarding the report itself. The manager hears it from the person they answer to, which carries more weight than any document.
When employers call us.
The reasons vary, but they tend to fall into a handful of situations.
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Turnover that does not add up
Good people are leaving and the stated reasons do not explain the pattern. Exit interviews arrive too late and rarely get you the real answer.
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One location behaving unlike the others
Same pay plan, same policies, different results. A survey separates what is local from what runs through the whole company.
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New ownership or new leadership
A clear baseline read on what was inherited, before decisions get made on someone else's account of it.
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Rising complaints
Something is generating friction and nobody can say where it originates.
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Regular practice
Many clients survey annually. The second survey is the one that tells you whether last year's changes registered with anyone.
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While you can still act
Concerns surfaced today can be addressed tomorrow. The same concerns, found after a formal proceeding has begun, often cannot be, because changes made under those circumstances carry consequences they would not have carried a month earlier.
In English and in Spanish.
In a discussion group the goal is candor, and people are candid in their own language.
Many of our consultants are bilingual and bicultural. Surveys are conducted in the language employees are most comfortable speaking. A survey run only in English in a workforce that is not will give you a partial picture and a false sense of confidence about it.
Different voices. A fuller picture.
Employers we have served since 1986.
John Deere. Weyerhaeuser. Sherwin Williams. Waste Management. Republic Services. XPO Logistics. Toyota. Hilton Hotels & Resorts. Caesars Entertainment. Anschutz Entertainment Group. The Brinks Company. Boar's Head. Dean Foods. Domino's Pizza. Smart & Final. Advance Auto Parts. Dana Corporation. The Timken Corporation. Volvo Construction Equipment. Ashley Furniture Industries. PODS. Mossy Automotive Group.
See the full listWhat we can promise.
Our consultants tell employees plainly that they cannot promise every concern gets resolved. What they can promise is that executive management will hear those concerns unfiltered, without anything being gatekept along the way.
We say the same to clients. A survey does not fix a workplace. It tells you accurately what is happening in one, which is the part you cannot do from an office and the part everything else depends on.
Find out what is actually happening.