Online ReporterEmployee Relations
Dr Request Machimbira
TO whom are you singing?
A musician pours out their soul not for the mirror, but for the crowd. The greatest ones do not assume. They watch faces in the dark. They feel when the energy drops.
They change the set list mid-show because the audience told them to, without saying a word. That is how art becomes impact.
Yet in too many boardrooms today, executives are on stage with a guitar, playing to an empty room.
They are setting strategy, rolling out policies, launching “culture initiatives”, all without ever checking if anyone is listening. They are running a solo race, timing themselves, clapping for themselves, and calling it progress.
Let us be honest. That is not leadership. That is a soliloquy. And a soliloquy, however brilliant, will never build an organisation.
You cannot set the agenda for employee experience without asking for experience from the people living it.
To do so is to refuse the thermometer and still claim you know the patient’s temperature. You might guess. You might hope. But hope is not a strategy, and the cost of guessing wrong is always paid in people.
Disengagement rarely arrives with a memo. It arrives slowly in resignation letters, sick days and other absenteeism, in corners cut, in customers who can feel that the person serving them has already checked out.
Even Jesus Christ understood this. Before teaching, before correcting, before leading, He asked His disciples: “But who do people say that I am?”
The answers were uncomfortable. Elijah, Moses, one of the prophets. He needed to hear the perception before He could shape it.
So I ask you: When last did we ask, “Who do employees say that we are as an organisation?” If we did, we might have heard, “Innovators.” We might also have heard, “Bullies”, “Terrorists”, “Yes-men”, “MaRasta”, “MaGaffa” — the street names people use when leaders are clever but not connected. You need to know this. You cannot heal what you refuse to diagnose.
This is why an independent, external employee satisfaction survey is not a perk. It is a discipline.
An internal survey run by the human resources (HR) department and approved by management will always be filtered. People will not tell their manager the truth about him/her.
When the leadership gets offended by the truth, the report disappears.
As an HR manager, I once ran an internal survey.
The management committee took it personally. The results were buried. People who spoke up were targeted. Trust died.
An external survey changes that equation. It creates psychological safety because staff can speak without fear. It creates credibility because the board and staff both know the data was not touched. And it creates action because when the board owns the results, they cannot be quietly shelved.
Employee satisfaction surveys are not an HR event. They are an audit.
We audit finances. We audit risk. We audit compliance. Why would we not audit the single biggest asset on our balance sheet — human capital?
Surveys must be board-commissioned and board-reportable.
The HR subcommittee should mandate them, approve the scope and receive the findings before management does.
When the board demands the data, three things happen instantly. Management stops editing the questions.
The budget gets approved and action plans stop being optional. Without this, the survey will always drift into a PR exercise — a photo, a quote, and no change.
Independence matters in execution too. The moment management alone designs the instrument, the hard questions vanish.
“Do you trust your leader?” becomes “Are you happy with the tea room?” That is not measurement. That is avoidance dressed as research.
This is why the board must approve the policy and standard operating procedure (SOP) for employee engagement surveys. It must lock in the non-negotiables: how we sample, who we include, how we analyse and how we report.
Without policy, surveys happen when it is convenient. Policy brings discipline, and discipline brings truth. Truth demands inclusion.
It is easy to send an online link and call it done. But what about the cooks who start at 4am? The security guards on night shift? The general hands at the depot with one shared phone?
If your survey only reaches people with laptops and WiFi, then you are not hearing “the employee voice”. You are hearing “the employee voice with data bundles”.
The HR subcommittee must ask: Did we reach everyone? What is our participation index by grade and location? Why is it low here? Did we send enumerators? Paper forms? Tablets? After-hours access?
Amplifying the voice means the quietest person in the organisation carries the same weight as the loudest voice in the executive.
We must trace the employee experience from the day they are recruited to the day they leave. People do not start and exit on the same day. Their story unfolds.
So our questions must follow the four pillars of human capital. In acquisition: Was the process fair? Did we keep our promises?
In integration and maintenance: Do I have what I need? Is my manager human? Is my well-being real or just a poster? In performance and development: Do I grow here? Is feedback honest? Are promotions earned? In exit: If I go, will I leave with dignity? Did you learn anything from me?
When questions are mapped this way, patterns jump out. This is what it looks like when done right.
It starts with a board mandate. The HR subcommittee commissions the work and sets the strategic questions. Then comes independent design.
Dr Request Machimbira is the executive director of Proficiency Consulting Group and the International Wellness Institute. For feedback, email request @proficiencyinternational.com or phone +263772693404.
An external firm builds the tool using board-approved parameters. No question is killed for comfort. Next is inclusive deployment. Online for some, enumerators for others. And a message from the CEO that says, “This will change us.”
Then safe data and honest analysis. Results go straight to the firm, segmented by region, grade, gender and other variables.
Finally, action and follow-through. Every theme gets an owner and a deadline. A dashboard tracks it. Pulse checks measure it. Next year’s survey asks: Did we keep our word?
This is how you move from soliloquy to symphony, from one voice talking to many voices creating.
Dr Request Machimbira is the executive director of Proficiency Consulting Group and International Wellness Institute. He is a leading, multi-award-winning human resources expert, strategy facilitator, board trainer, team-building coach, wellness consultant, independent labour arbitrator, board chairperson and published author. He writes in his personal capacity. For feedback, email request @proficiencyinternational.com or phone +263772693404.
