VoE Analysis (VoCAl)

Voice of the Employee (VoE) Analysis is based on Voice of the Customer (VoC) methodology was first developed by Yoji Akao at the University of Tokyo. A member of the famed Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), Dr. Akao was a student of Edwards Deming during Japan’s quality revolution. He wanted to solve the problem of identifying consumer preferences in industry, determining what features were truly important to customers and which were not.

Dr. Akao realized that traditional (enumerative) research, including customer loyalty and engagement surveys, got the answers wrong and the priorities all mixed up, resulting in product disasters such as the Edsel.

Dr. Akao knew there was a better way. Working with companies and suppliers in Japan, he adapted analytic research methods to the task of customer research. The result was VoC.

Converge uses Voice of the Customer Analysis (VoCAl) techniques to gather and analyze employee data, creating VoE.

Like VoC, VoE recognizes the critical distinction between traditional customer research based on traditional enumerative polling methods and true voice of the customer research that is based on analytic methods.

The distinction is critical because enumeration research is suitable only for pushing messages on to people. Analytic methods, in contrast, identify what really matters to people ensuring the voice of the employee drives improvement in the employee/employer relationship. Not surprisingly, VoE is quickly becoming the gold standard in employee research-literally. VoE Survey is one of the few employee research methods earning The Quality Council of Alberta Gold Standard in Employee Research.

Unfortunately, the popularity of VoC means that traditional methods often have the VoE label slapped on them and sold as the real thing. Beware. Here are some key things to look out for;

  • tests of statistical significance, especially when used as indicators of importance, are a sure sign of traditional polling type research. Analytic methods, such as VoCAl, will use material significance to identify importance.
  • automated text analysis alone, is another sure sign of fake VoC. Qualitative analysis, without supporting quantitative components, miss the whole point of identifying value,
  • customer service metrics, embedding expectations into performance measures, such as; 90% of our customers will be served in under 10 minutes or 95% of our customers will report being engaged. These are only examples of evidence manipulation and corruption.

Real VoE will always include a discussion of:

Quality Deployment Tables, VoE analysis was originally designed to complete the Demanded Quality Table component of the Quality Deployment Chart and this chart, is the basis by which the voice of the customer drives improvement.

The Kano Model of Quality Characteristics, because this is the only model providing a realistic, three-dimensional representation of customer value. Traditional research assumes that everything measured is linear–that there is no difference to an airline passenger between having a good meal and not crashing the plane.