Corporate Spirit is a global employee engagement survey company that provides benchmarks to help clients interpret survey results. Pirjo B. Vangsnes of Santander Consumer Bank worked with Corporate Spirit and found their global benchmarks and reporting system useful for understanding survey data from various locations. The benchmarks are based on extensive research and allow companies to compare results between regions while accounting for cultural differences. Corporate Spirit aims to do more than just measure engagement but also provide tools to help companies act on survey insights to improve engagement.

1. Corporate Spirit CS Ltd | HR Intelligence to support business success. | 2/2012
Pirjo B. Vangsnes, Nordic HR Manager, Santander Consumer Bank AS, Oslo
“Added value for global
employee engagement surveys
lies in effective use of results”
As Santander Consumer Bank was looking to further improve its employee “Systematic approach is essential in employee engagement. It is a
engagement with state-of-the-art tools and knowledge, Corporate Spirit continuous process that goes through the entire company, from
was selected as partner, largely thanks to the company’s global bench- top-down and then up again – information flows constantly, like a spiral,
marks and Cixtranet3® reporting system. According to Santander’s Nordic and relevant signals need to be discovered. Our corporate values act
HR Manager Pirjo B. Vangsnes, this is just the kind of equipment that can as cornerstones; they are the common denominator on which every-
efficiently help international organisations use data from various levels and one puts their focus in daily work. Understanding and adopting them is
locations. Pirjo B. Vangsnes is based in Oslo and manages Santander’s HR essential also when it comes to engagement.”
issues in Nordic countries, coordinating them with other regional offices.
She has been pleased with Corporate Spirit’s methods and tools, which Even within the Nordic countries, levels vary considerably in general
have been actively implemented throughout the organisation. opinions or attitudes towards certain issues. With tools such as Corporate
Spirits global benchmarks, data can be put in the right reference frame
and thus interpreted so that results are comparable amongst them-
selves. Based on the first experiences in dealing with Corporate Spirit,
Pirjo B. Vangsnes is looking forward to the next steps.
“Already at the bidding stage, Corporate Spirit presented convincing
ideas and methods about their ability to work with international organi-
sations. The annual surveys are important, as is the work that is done
between them. The results must be turned into tangible action plans
that are implemented in an efficient and appropriate manner. The
added value for any data comes from interpreting it into practical
and useful tools for our line managers, so that they can carry out their
respective roles in improving employee engagement. Cixtranet3® has
been very well received and actively used. The managers find it very
useful, which is important for efficient employee engagement.”
Santander Consumer Bank AS is owned by Santander Consumer Finance,
which is part of Grupo Santander, one of the world’s largest banks.
The division is present in 14 countries across Europe and the USA.
Santander Consumer Bank AS provides financing in the
areas of car finance, credit cards and consumer loans.
The bank has business in Norway, Sweden, Finland
and Denmark, with almost 600 employees throughout
the region and total assets of NOK 62 billion.

2. EDITORIAL Global benchmarks
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
It’s a
Beyond
Engagement
different
Our mission is to help organisations build
environments and teams where employees
achieve their best potential.
world
By engagement, we mean how positively em-
ployees think of their work, organisation and its
values, as well as their willingness to extra efforts,
when needed. Enabling continuous engagement
among employees requires flawless organisa-
out there
tional leadership and other prerequisites.
So why does engagement matter? One answer
for this can be found in the Macleod-Clarke
2009 review to the UK Government: “Employee
engagement is the most important factor
in creating outstanding organizational
performance.” Global benchmarks put cultural
The evidence indicates that successful leaders
have to be champions and line managers have to
differences into perspective
lead engagement. But the HR profession and HR
practitioners have a vital role to play. As Jackie
Orme, Chief Executive of CIPD, emphasises:
Advanced communication methods and social media may be
“A key challenge for the profession is to ensure
that employee engagement ‘gets put on the
shrinking our world, but certain cultural variation still remains.
table’ in companies and organisations. HR can’t
manufacture engagement, but we have a key
Amongst the Nordic countries, Finns still rate their superiors’
role in helping companies develop an organi-
sational culture where engagement can thrive,
performance higher than the rest. Austrians and the Swiss
ensuring that managers have the skills to make
engagement a reality.”
believe their superiors are keen on employees’ ideas, while the
The outcome of our own global engagement
Spanish and French give lower ratings. In India, people tend to
survey (39,000 respondents from 21 countries)
showed that the main drivers of engagement
rate commitment to employers higher than anywhere else.
are leadership, commitment and performance.
That is why our latest engagement model is These differences cannot be changed through benchmarks as well as knowledge to utilise
based on these. However, we argue that measur- global exchange programmes or annual them for added value.
ing engagement – even with the best tools – is meetings with office managers. In order to
not enough. In order to reach your goals, you understand the variations and particularly to Doing an international survey and comparing
also need to have the tools and means to facili- put them into perspective, certain bench- absolute percentage averages of various items
tate and motivate leaders in the organisation to marks need to be established. Comprehensive between countries will most likely lead to the
actively and systematically utilise that information. experience and understanding about human wrong conclusions, bearing cultural variation
behaviour in various cultures is obviously in mind. A comprehensive collection of exter-
You can read more about engagement in this required to create this kind of toolkit for inter- nal benchmarks helps scaling results, as well
Newsletter and on our website: national organisations. as discovering the real strengths and areas of
www.corporatespirit.eu development.
Synchronizing countries and cultures
Let’s keep in touch! Besides culture, the nature of work plays a
Corporate Spirit’s benchmark norms are based significant role in job satisfaction and engage-
Jukka Pohjola on extensive global basic research as well as a ment variations. Criticism towards excessive
Managing Director database of our current surveys, updated annu- information flooding is typical for modern
ally. In addition to 30 country- and area-specific managers. Work in general is perceived as
norms, we have designed precision norms for quite demanding. On the other hand, blue-
blue- and white-collar workers, managers and collar workers are more critical towards reward
specialists in each country. Combined with our systems and would appreciate more feedback
experience of over 25 years and almost 3,000 from their superiors. In general, top manage-
employee surveys, we are able to provide any ment’s evaluations are higher than with other
international organisation with highly reliable respondent groups.

3. Global benchmarks
Various stages at work are evaluated in very various countries. Having analysed altogether “An employee survey conducted without any
different ways. Rewarding and change man- millions of responses, we’ve found some amaz- proper normative benchmark could usually
agement get clearly lower points than, for ing differences in response styles in different be regarded as quite questionable”, Juha Ala-
instance, awareness of expectations. Without countries – as well as some quite different mean- Lipasti continues. “A standard finding would
relevant benchmark material, topic areas can- ings and values attached to individual questions.” generally be that weaknesses in the employee
not be compared with one another. survey are connected with unsatisfactory re-
Knowing these cultural differences, it is diffi- muneration, poor information flow and too
“Benchmarks enable seeing things in a cult to imagine that reliable information could little feedback. This misinterpretation often
new light” be gained simply by comparing the propor- takes place because almost every culture nor-
tion of favourable responses from one country mally judges and values these types of ques-
“Our normative benchmarks are based on one to another. If in Spain, for example, half of the tions more critically than other types of ques-
of the most extensive international databases of respondents tend to respond favourably to- tions. If a survey states that 65 % of the staff
employee engagement surveys available”, says wards a single question, it may be a very good dislike the information flow, would that be
Juha Ala-Lipasti, Corporate Spirit’s Head of Inter- result in Spanish terms. However, it might be a good result or perhaps something we
national Operations. “They form a reliable frame that the same result in Denmark is quite poor should worry about? Reliable benchmarks help
of reference when evaluating survey results from compared to similar companies in Denmark. determine that.”
Benchmarks Notable added value for interpretation of results – the average level of satisfaction varies
to a great extent between different types of groups and questions.
and benefits Fewer interpretations that simply state the obvious – salaries and communication are
being criticized, worker-intensive groups are less satisfied in basically all fields of research
compared to superiors and management.
For more information about how your
organisation can benefit from global bench- Relevant comparison of results from different countries – it is absolutely necessary to avoid
marks, feel free to contact your Corporate comparing results from different countries as such. Country-specific benchmark material enables
Spirit contact person or your local office. taking cultural impacts into consideration.

4. Faces & Places Corporate Spirit has appointed the following specialists:
Aino-Maria Hansén Mika Tenhunen Soile Brushane Soili Anttonen
Research Director & Research Director Senior Consultant Senior Project Specialist
Quality Manager Espoo Espoo Turku
Turku
Eve Rokka Sanna Koivisto Hannele Valla Sami Elmroos
Senior Project Specialist Project Specialist Assistant System Designer
Espoo Turku Espoo Turku
Turning Human Resources
into Competitive Advantage
Corporate Spirit CS Ltd. provides an efficient solution for making the
most of your company’s most valuable asset: its people
In today’s competitive environment, organisations have to prepare for inevitable
changes and challenges. In doing this, they need to commit to a winning
perspective. Turning challenges into opportunities is an essential key to success.
Engaging employees is important, tomorrow even more so than today.
Corporate Spirit CS Ltd. specialises in global employee surveys and leader-
ship assessments. We use state-of-the-art methods to gather extensive,
relevant data about personnel, management and various interest groups.
However, our true added value comes from our knowledge and tools to put
that data to work for your company. Our advanced analysis and survey systems,
as well as our 25-year experience and ability to interpret data insightfully,
MEET US AT
ensure efficient, practical and productive utilisation and facilitation of results.
To read more, contact us or sign up, please visit www.corporatespirit.eu
25.–26.9.2012 HR Dagarna, Stockholm, Sweden
Corporate Spirit CS Ltd. 3.–4.10.2012 Salon RH Suisse, Geneva, Switzerland
• private independent research company established in 1986
• experience of 3,000 employee surveys, many for global 4.10.2012 HR Next Exit!, Amersfoort, Netherlands
companies with 10,000+ employees 17.10.2012 600Min Human Resources, Stockholm, Sweden
• thirty+ full-time HR survey professionals and consultants
• offices in Helsinki, Turku and London 17.–19.10.2012 Airport Leadership and Change Management
• ESOMAR member Exhibition & Forum, London, UK
• highest AAA credit ranking 2012 by Soliditet
• ISO 20252:2006 certified 6.–8.11.2012 Personalforum, Tønsberg, Norway
15.11.2012 600Min Human Resources, Munich, Germany
Editor-in-chief: Jukka Pohjola | Editor: Piia Palomäki | Layout: Mainostoimisto Dynastia | Printed by: TEMA-TEAM 11116-12 | Circulation: 7 000
Corporate Spirit CS Ltd Employee surveys
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Valkjärventie 7 A, 02130 Espoo, Finland, ☎ +358 9 452 0730 Internal co-operation surveys
©Soliditet 2012
Läntinen Pitkäkatu 33, 20100 Turku, Finland, ☎ +358 2 274 3100 Management team assessments
20 Broadwick Street, Soho, W1F 8HT, London, UK, ☎ +44 870 366 93 35 Solutions for utilising the surveys
www.corporatespirit.eu