The Stride Foundation works with young people throughout Australia to enhance their physical, mental and social wellbeing. Their vision is “to inspire and empower young people to reach their full potential and for all young people to have the opportunity for a bright future.” Stride works towards this goal through community programs and in-school workshops that are run from the suburbs to regional, rural and remote regions throughout Australia.

Well-motivated and engaged staff that enjoy what they do is critical to an organisation like Stride. When Stride was interested in gaining insight into staff engagement, satisfaction levels and confidence in the leadership of the organisation through a staff survey, they posted an add on the goodcompany website and found volunteer Joanne Fitzgerald. “Joanne is a very experienced organisational psychologist and works with a wide range of corporates throughout Australia” say Jane Hill, Chief Executive of the Stride Foundation. Joanne has extensive experience in the implementation of staff surveys, having run her own organisational psychology consultancy, Designed Interventions, for over 15 years.

Joanne says she met with Jane and HR Manager Frances a number of times to discuss “Stride’s experience with such surveys, the current needs, and the organisational structure”. Jane says, “Joanne spent time understanding the organisation – our history and our goals and aspirations. She developed a tailored survey instrument to suit our information needs.”

Prior to staff completing the survey which was confidential and offered online, the managers and staff were briefed by Joanne. Jane explains, “Joanne held a briefing session to explain the reason behind the survey and the process by which the individual responses would remain confidential.” Following Joanne’s presentation, Jane remarks that, “staff said they had confidence to respond candidly and were pleased that they had an opportunity to give some feedback and have a say.” The survey was then uploaded and staff had 2 weeks to participate.

Joanne collated and analysed all the results and found there was a lot of really valuable data. Jane says “Joanne then spent time with me explaining the results and making suggestions on actions to be taken as a result of the survey and then spent 2 hours with the whole staff team where the results were discussed and celebrated. This was a most positive exercise. Management learnt a lot about what we are doing well and what can be improved.”

Jane goes on to say, “Throughout the process, Joanne was very generous with her time and treated us just like a paying client. She was clear on what she was there to do and had the experience to guide us in how to respond constructively to staff feedback. Stride benefited from her skill and generosity.”

Joanne also found the experience very rewarding and states “Stride is actually doing exceptionally well in its efforts to work with staff and managers to create a very positive employee experience.”

She further adds, “I commend goodcompany for its core service, but also for following up projects. Thank you for enabling this project. It was indeed worthwhile for me.”

For more information on Stride go to http://www.stride.org.au.