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How SIG shapes transformation with Pulse Feedback
with Laurence Barbey Gretsch & Yannick Vock
HR Project Managers at SIG
The organisation
Energy for Geneva
With 1,700 employees, SIG (Services industriels de Geneva) carries out many activities for the benefit of the Geneva region and its 500'000 inhabitants. The company supplies water, gas, electricity, thermal energy and supports the development of smart neighbourhoods for Geneva. Its mission therefore takes on deep meaning in the face of the challenges of the energy transition. SIG is also one of the main employers in the canton of Geneva. Its vision places people at the centre and aims to promote a culture based on trust and collaboration, more transparent, where the role of managers evolves towards that of leader and facilitator.
SIG has set itself the ambition of becoming a company that promotes cross-functionality, relying on trust, autonomy, responsibility, and collaboration. The deployment of the Pulse Feedback tool supports them by giving teams the opportunity to work on their work environment themselves. We interviewed Laurence Barbey-Gretsch and Yannick Vock, who are responsible for the employee satisfaction survey at SIG. They shared their impressions and comments on Pulse Feedback.
The challenge
Meaningful issues
To support it in this transformation and measure progress, SIG chose Pulse Feedback. This tool makes it possible to collect feedback from colleagues and employees in real time and to continuously improve—on a personal, team, and organisational level. Employees give both quantitative feedback, with a rating from 1 to 10, and qualitative feedback, with comments on what they appreciate (“What I like”) and their expectations (“What I wish for”). The 2022 and 2023 satisfaction surveys at SIG were therefore carried out with Pulse Feedback.
In one sentence: Pulse Feedback shifts the lines.
The solution
Why Pulse Feedback?
The participatory and constructive approach of the tool was a decisive factor in its implementation. Employees do not just answer the survey. They are part of the process, since they are invited to discuss the results as a team, which are accessible to everyone in real time. Everything that happens after the survey itself, “that’s what makes the strength of Pulse Feedback.”
Another positive aspect of the tool: speed. Whereas institutes take several months to draft a report, Pulse Feedback allows the team to consult the results as soon as the survey ends and thus carry out their own analysis very quickly, according to the context of their team. For SIG, “Pulse Feedback is a real management tool!”
Supporting transparency
All comments written by participants are accessible to everyone—anonymously within the organisation and openly, with the author’s name, within the team. “This was still a paradigm shift that raised questions. It required support work.” The notion of transparency was understood differently depending on the teams.
In the end, the obstacles proved minimal. On the contrary, consulting all the comments enriched the various discussions. The 2023 survey also confirmed that transparency was not an issue, with a participation rate equivalent to the first survey and even more comments.
Yannick Vock
HR Project Manager at SIG
Comments as raw material
Comments written by participants play an important role, especially since the number of questions is limited — 11 in the case of SIG. They highlight different themes that allow the right questions to be addressed within teams. They also provide an additional perspective compared to the quantitative analysis alone: “Comments are raw material for moving forward, concretely.”
They illustrate the road still to be travelled to achieve the ambition, compared to the reality experienced by employees. The external perspective of Creaholic’s transformation consultants also highlighted different themes that had not been perceived as important issues for the whole organisation. Plenty of weak signals that could become real topics in the near future.
The result
Discussing results and implementing change
The bottom-up approach and transparency provided by Pulse Feedback gave management the opportunity to undertake differentiated measures depending on the results they had obtained. Unit heads also organised feedback workshops with their teams, sometimes with the support of external facilitators: “Pulse Feedback and the debriefings set up make it possible to project what SIG expects from its management, to act as managers, coaches and facilitators.”
However, not everyone feels comfortable working with the results in this way or taking on the facilitator role. In some cases, the support of HR managers provided a pragmatic solution. Participation in workshops at the unit level was appreciated. “It fits with the bottom-up dynamic, with employees constructively expressing what doesn’t work.”
Laurence Barbey Gretsch
HR Project Manager at SIG
Transformation cannot be decreed
That said, even with Pulse Feedback, the transformation of a company is not a smooth journey. It cannot be decreed and follows its own pace, energised by Pulse Feedback: “We can already feel that it has shaken up habits. It challenges, it breaks down silos, it makes things less compartmentalised.” Change happens progressively, spreading to all units, including those that have not yet fully transitioned to the new management modes.
In this respect, in all satisfaction surveys carried out so far by SIG, the participation of field staff has traditionally been lower than that of administrative staff. The Pulse Feedback exercise did not reverse this trend. But why? We therefore conducted different interviews to test our hypotheses: “We could feel that Creaholic really wanted to understand the context, why there were obstacles, and then propose measures for more flexibility and fluidity. The Creaholic team was very involved.” The interviews made it possible to adapt the support for the following survey, resulting in a higher participation rate from field staff.
Pulse Feedback in your organisation
Your turn!
Encouraging a feedback culture and the transition towards more agile management is not reserved for start-ups. Even semi-public companies, like SIG, are successfully carrying out this transformation. The processes for setting up a survey are certainly longer, and communication is of greater importance. That said, the exercise is worth it—it is even essential to guarantee the adaptability needed to meet today’s challenges.
Team discussions make it possible to involve everyone in the transformation and to implement changes in a timely manner. They give employees the opportunity to express themselves clearly, with full transparency, and to move the situation forward, to shift the lines!