One of the world's largest integrated oil and gas producers, recently decided to modernise its annual workplace, environment and organisation survey. The result was a bespoke reporting portal.

If a business wants to succeed, understanding its employees is second only in importance to understanding its customers. Many companies have spent millions of pounds on complex CRM software packages in recent years; a large number are now also starting to use technology to understand the challenges and needs of their employees.
As a result of technology's ability to deliver information faster, and more efficiently than previous research methods and deliver instant analysis, Statoil, Norway's state energy company and one of the world's largest suppliers of crude oil, from exploration to retail sales has focused on building strong employee relationships in order to move its business forward.
Over the past two decades this has resulted in high levels of workforce empathy and buy-in and is now a key part of their business success.
The company has been conducting an annual paper-based 'Workplace and Environment' survey for more than 15 years to take regular temperature checks and to enable them to adapt their business strategy accordingly.
In 2001 the organisation decided that with the workforce, now numbering more than 16 000 employees, spanning 25 countries and speaking nine core languages, it was time to change the way they conducted their employee research.

Employee perceptions

Covering a range of topics from leadership, the environment and employee perceptions of the organisation, the annual survey is an essential tool for driving the business forward. It provides the company with an invaluable temperature check of employee perceptions of the business and the environment and helps it to fulfil its corporate social responsibility obligations.
The drive to automate its survey generation, data collection and reporting function, would not only enable real time access to data.
In addition, it would reduce the time spent re-keying responses into the company's existing database and maximise the value that the research delivers to the business.
Championed by the board, the success of the modernisation project was imperative. However, having worked on the implementation of the project with their previous supplier for almost a year, problems surfaced when Statoil started to import the survey data into its existing SAS formatted database. The reports which the company needed to generate in order to deliver essential business information were not forthcoming. It was then that Statoil turned to Oslo, Norway-based Future Information Research Management (FIRM) for help.

Software flexibility

Having evaluated Confirmit in 2001, Statoil knew the flexibility and capabilities the software offered. When they started the search for a new partner in Spring 2002, the fact that they had already evaluated Confirmit meant that it offered the chance for the company to meet their September implementation date.
While rapid deployment was an obvious benefit, Statoil's Project Manager, ¯ystein Aase says that it was far from the only reason they selected Confirmit. 'FIRM's internet-based software offered a level of flexibility which would enable the company to integrate data from a web-based survey engine, directly into a custom developed reporting portal, which we had failed to do with our original supplier.
"We were also aware that our solution would require a lot of custom development work to enable us to generate the complex annual survey and the wealth of reports which we needed to create."
Having used the reporting functions of an existing SAS application to evaluate the response from the paper-based surveys, Statoil realised that we needed to start with a blank canvas and create a bespoke reporting portal.
"This is something which we were only too happy to assist with," says Kjell ¯ksendal, vice-president of Marketing at FIRM. "Statoil didn't need to develop a replacement for its existing portal - the new
version had to be better in every way than its predecessor and following a one month trial period,
in which we proved the viability of using Confirmit, Statoil began work to generate their annual
workforce and environment survey using the software."
According to Statoil's Grethe St¿dle, Statoil's Change Management Support Manager, Confirmit's open architecture and technical support team has played a significant role in the overall success of the project.
"FIRM has supported us from day one, working with us to customise every aspect of our data collection, evaluation and reporting activity using the Confirmit software. We have undertaken extensive customisation of Confirmit with FIRM and utilised every element of its flexible functionality and have achieved the perfect solution for our requirements.
"Our paper-based surveys had a rating system which allowed us to rate questions by importance on a scale of 1 to 6; with responses being colour-coded red, yellow and green. Custom use of Confirmit functionality has enabled us to retain these, which has provided us continuity from our old paper survey. From a reporting perspective this is invaluable as it allows us to assess the business value that the latest survey results deliver."

Extensive customisation

Another element of the extensive customisation project required the integration of seven years of historical data from Statoil's SAS database, into the new portal to enable it to compare historical results with current trends.
This was achieved by customising the reporting functions of Confirmit, which are based on the Microsoft .NET reporting Application Programming Interface (API), to ensure that the data from both current and historical surveys had the same structure.

Confirmit's open architecture and questionnaire logic definition have, according to St¿dle, dramatically improved the relevance of every question on the survey to every employee.
"Previously every employee had to work through pages and pages of questions, answering the relevant ones and ignoring the rest. Using Confirmit's dynamic survey generation capabilities, employees answer questions based on their existing employee profile as well as responses provided in preceding years - everyone has commented on the difference it has made to the user experience and improved relevance.
"In our first year using Confirmit, we feel that this has contributed to considerable improvements in response speeds.
"While not all of our employees have internet access due to their remote location, we have seen around 85 percent of employees respond within the first few weeks.
"Previously, responses had filtered in over a three month period, and while some responses still take a while to arrive, we now have access to real time progress reports and reporting, which is a real benefit.'
For an organisation with such a diversely located workforce, access to the real-time business information via the internet, which Confirmit delivers, is a significant advantage.
"One concern of using a web-based survey application was security," admits ¯ystein Aase. "But, once again, Confirmit has delivered. It provides a totally secure ASP environment hosted by AT&T in New York for all elements of the survey process, from data collection to reporting and result delivery. This enables employees to respond in confidence and allows the company to rest-assured that our data is not being accessed by competitors."
This security has been the corner stone for FIRM's work with a number of Fortune 1000 companies.

Custom reporting portal

Having created a state-of-the-art custom reporting portal, Statoil currently employs around 70 members of staff working full time to deliver a range of business critical data for the company's seven business units.
Grethe St¿dle explains: "Statoil sees research as an invaluable business tool - and evaluates every aspect of employee responses. It helps us to derive considerable competitive advantage and ensures that we meet the expectations of our employees".
With such a focus placed on evaluation - one requisite data mart (a repository of data gathered from operational data and other sources) is built for every department, of which Statoil has 1200 - ensuring that every member of the reporting team was able to use the new portal was essential to the success of the project.
Statoil's St¿dle continues: "From the very first week of the project a team of five users were trained to use Confirmit within days and began to generate the 70 question survey in six core languages. FIRM has delivered subsequent training with all of our portal users, to ensure that the business benefits from every element of our new portals functionality."

First annual survey

While it is too early to calculate ROI after just one year, ¯ystein Aase says that, "since the delivery of the first annual survey via Confirmit in August 2002, the company has undertaken more than 100 internal and external surveys using the software and the new corporate reporting portal."
This he says leaves him in "no doubt that the long term ROI will be proven."
This sentiment is echoed by Grethe St¿dle, who sums up the success of the project as 'fantastic'. She continues: "FIRM has enabled us to achieve critical business objectives and it has supported us throughout the entire process - something which could not have been predicted just 12 months ago."

For more information, visit www.firmglobal.com or www.confirmit.com