What is the teamecho GREATness Check?

With the teamecho GREATness Check you can analyze and optimize your teamecho use in your company based on five dimensions.

We have developed the GREATness Check for our customers on the basis of numerous interviews with long-term customers as well as the expertise of our research team in the fields of work and organizational psychology. The GREATness Check serves as an analysis tool with which you can continuously optimize the use of TeamEcho in your company.

GREAT stands for five dimensions that are excellent for the systematic analysis of your teamecho use. Find out what exactly is behind the GREATness: 

1. G - Goal: The goal that you pursue with TeamEcho
2. R - Resources: Time and competence for TeamEcho
3. E - Engagement: Your actions with TeamEcho
4. A - Advocates: Your enthusiasm for TeamEcho
5. T - TeamEcho settings

G - Goal: The goal that you pursue with TeamEcho

The most important question at the beginning: What are the goals you want to achieve with TeamEcho? Are there specific challenges or strategic goals related to employees or managers that you want to work on or achieve with the help of teamecho?

An effective distinction of goals is the following:

• General goals
  Maintain or increase employee satisfaction, maintain or increase employer attractiveness, ...
• Activity-related goals
  Improve leadership culture, improve work organization between teams, ...
• Person-related goals
  Keeping in mind the experience of older employees or part-time employees, ...
• Location-related goals
  Improve potential development at a location, ...
• Area-specific goals
  Increase motivation and well-being in the marketing department ...
• Address content-related challenges
  Current change process, health, ...

For some best practices on how customers use TeamEcho in relation to their goals and challenges, see our Case Studies (only available in German at the moment).

R - Resources: Time and competence for teamecho

For successful use of teamecho, two resources are also crucial: some time and feedback expertise. Leaders, in particular, need sufficient time to regularly address feedback from their team members.

But don't worry: the more regularly team leaders pay attention to team member feedback, the fewer time resources are needed. Practice makes perfect - and regular exchange prevents "feedback congestion".

In addition, there should also be enough space in meetings to discuss the results. A second important resource is feedback competence: on the part of team members to give feedback and on the part of managers to respond to this feedback.

To get an overview of these resources, the following questions will help you:

Resources at the organizational level

• Do we (also) measure our leaders by long-term results?
• Do our managers have sufficient control and room for maneuver to be able to change the situation in the team if necessary?
• Do we promote a positive feedback climate from the upper management level?

Resources of team members

• Do employees see it as their job to give feedback?
• Can we give accurate feedback?

Resources of the managers

• Can you ensure that time is available in teams to discuss results in teamecho?

• Do leaders see it as part of their job to ensure good working conditions in the team?

• Are your leaders good at handling feedback?

• Have your leaders received formal training on their leadership roles?

E - Engagement: Your actions with TeamEcho

Engagement means that team members and leaders regularly work with teamecho. With a high level of engagement, you can set a positive tone and create a positive upward spiral: team members respond and comment regularly, leaders respond and learn from it, which in turn motivates team members to respond and comment regularly again.

Best practice has shown that it can be very rewarding to establish a teamecho steering group. This steering group meets at regular intervals to work through topics in TeamEcho across teams and departments. Here we recommend integrating members from several levels.

To get an overview of the commitment, the following questions will help you:

Team member engagement

• How often do team members respond to surveys (response rate)?
• How often do team members write comments?

Engagement of managers

• How often do leaders read results and comments?
• How often do leaders discuss results and comments?
• How frequently do leaders respond to comments?

Engagement of HR development

• How frequently do leaders respond to comments?
• How often are company-wide deductions made from results and comments?
• How frequently is TeamEcho used to inform decisions?

Management engagement

• How often does management engage with results and comments?
• How often does management make company-wide deductions from the results and comments?
• How often did management use TeamEcho to make enterprise-level decisions?

A - Advocates: Your enthusiasm for teamecho

Advocates are people in the company who are strongly convinced of TeamEcho and inspire their colleagues to use it. They serve as internal multipliers who convince others of the benefits of the tool. To this end, you should ask yourself:

• Are there one or more people who are strongly enthusiastic about TeamEcho?
• Are these people willing to answer their colleagues' questions about TeamEcho?

Ideally, Advocates should consist of both team leaders and team members, and these individuals should also have standing within the company. Good communication skills and enjoyment of exchanges are also an advantage for good success. These prerequisites usually make them heard in the company and in the respective 'peer group'. 

T - teamecho settings

Last, but certainly not least, is the question: Are the teamecho settings in alignment with your organization's goals, resources, and commitment?

Below you'll learn how individual settings relate to the G-R-E-A-T dimensions and how to find out if the settings are a good fit for you.

Team and department structure

Team structure is primarily influenced by your goals. In terms of team structure, therefore, the following question should be most relevant:

• Does the existing team structure provide me with the necessary information to assess whether I have achieved my goals?

Question sets

Whether you use the right question sets depends on your goals but also on your resources. On the one hand, the question sets should cover the right relevant questions in terms of content. On the other hand, the right number of question sets is also important. Here you should ask yourself the questions:

• Do the question sets I use give me all the answers I need to achieve and measure my goals?
• Is the number of question sets in line with the available resources for teamecho?

While too few question sets risk missing valuable feedback on important issues, too many question sets could overwhelm your leaders.

Survey interval

The optimal survey interval depends on your usual communication speed but also on the engagement around TeamEcho in your organization. If these two dimensions are high, you can ask questions more frequently. On the other hand, if they are low, you can choose longer survey intervals.

• Do team members and leaders have sufficient resources to answer questions at the given interval?
• Are team members sufficiently engaged and motivated to answer questions at this frequency?
• Do leaders have sufficient resources to respond to questions at the given interval?
• Are leaders sufficiently engaged and motivated to respond to input from their team members at this frequency?