From Insight to Action: How Gorilla Glue Harnesses Employee Feedback to Make Data-Driven Decisions
Objective
Employee listening and connection, data-driven decision making
Solutions
Workplace Survey, Insights, DEI Insights, Pulse, Employer Branding
Results
Culture growth, employee connection, recruitment and retention efforts
A leader in the consumer goods industry, The Gorilla Glue Company stands on four pillars: brand strength, community, customers, and its people. A proud recipient of the Top Workplaces USA award and others, The Gorilla Glue Company relies on employee feedback insights for data-driven decision making and employer branding.
Ashley Terrell
Director, HR Business Partner and The Gorilla Glue Company
“Top Workplaces improves our ability to recruit talent because the employer recognition validates and reinforces our culture and credibility. We want to make sure our people have the right insights, and we’re listening to their concerns. Energage gives us a platform to see what our people are saying in a very factual, non-emotional way. We like to lead with data, giving us more facts and figures to attract talent.”
Ashley Terrell
Director, HR Business Partner at The Gorilla Glue Company
Employer recognition attracts talent and excites employees
Employees get excited about Top Workplaces. They are eager to participate in the survey, share feedback, and take pride in our wins. Gorilla’s participation has spun into many great culture improvements. The awards celebrations have morphed into ‘Gorilla Week’, where we celebrate the organization and its culture, discuss our company values, and offer opportunities for congeniality and connection.
Many of our job seeker leads come from word of mouth. Top Workplaces improves our ability to recruit talent because the employer recognition validates and reinforces our credibility. Employees say, ‘Come to Gorilla – it’s a great place to work, and if you don’t believe me, we have the Top Workplaces awards to prove it.’
Survey insights identify employee engagement issues and opportunities for growth
Energage Insights allows us to see the real story rather than just looking at the aggregate. We can identify common themes, determine what to ask next, and fix the issues that matter most to our employees. Getting granular with the data enables us to be specific with our remediation efforts. For example, we can filter the data between plant and office employees. This view shows us that the employees we hired less than six months ago had some of the lowest engagement scores among plant employees. Energage Insights led us to figure out why.
Awareness is half the battle. It’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you stand now. Insights offers a lot of information, and the DE&I Insights have been extremely helpful for us to get data and re-map our plans. For example, it enabled us to implement an unconscious bias workshop last year. It turned into a Barriers Project, where we’re reassessing all our policies and procedures with more bias awareness.
Gorilla Glue leaders use employee feedback to spark change and celebrate strengths
For us, listening and understanding employee feedback is key to building recommendations we can review with stakeholders. This enables them to make data-driven decisions based on employee feedback and then share with the organization the changes they made based on that information.
The Workplace Survey enables our leaders to keep a pulse on what’s really happening within our culture. They can see what to celebrate and pinpoint larger issues bubbling up. We read all the employee comments, and then use Insights to pinpoint and share overall themes such as DE&I and belonging.
For example, the survey helped us to bring back “Orange Table Lunches,” where C-suite members sit down and break bread with employees throughout the company. Until we found this in the survey feedback, we had no idea employees were missing it. Insights helped us to connect the dots. Now, our employees have more time to share what’s on their minds, including opportunities for improvement.
Employee feedback enables Gorilla Glue to stay ahead of the competition, recruit, and retain top talent
We recently launched a global employee value proposition program on our website, and we use the Employer Branding tools to amplify our strengths. Gorilla Glue is in the 99th percentile for the Workplace Survey question about fair pay. We wanted to shout that from the rooftops, and Employer Branding helps us do that.
We find immense value in keeping a pulse on our people. We use Energage Pulse Surveys to ask our employees about specific initiatives, such as company benefits. This feedback helps us to improve our offerings quickly, and that helps us to recruit and retain high performers. It also provides us with valuable insights about the market and our competitors, which is key to improving our company’s compensation and benefits packages.
