Beyond Focus Groups: Segal Benz Delivers Authentic Employee Insights with Remesh

‍Challenge

Segal Benz is a leading consulting practice that provides all the services and subject matter expertise needed to envision, plan, create, and deploy effective communications in any medium. With deep expertise in all aspects of HR and employee benefits program design, administration, and communications, Segal Benz knows it is vital to understand what’s important to employees, what motivates them, what their goals are, and where they get stuck. The consulting team regularly conducts employee focus groups on behalf of its clients to design data-driven communication strategies. 

The challenge with these focus groups is that they can be a logistical burden to set up, are time-consuming, expensive, only include a handful of people, and often one loud employee takes over the conversation. Also, it’s challenging for people to give honest responses when they’re in a room full of colleagues. Segal Benz was in search of an effective way to access meaningful, authentic employee insights — faster — based on a diverse pool of employees that would allow them to deliver on their promise of providing trustworthy advice.

Solution

Segal Benz started using Remesh, an AI insights platform that lets them have engaging conversations with thousands of people and delivers real-time insights. Remesh keeps things anonymous, so employees feel safe sharing their true thoughts without worrying about what others might think. Even though it’s anonymous, employees still interact with one another through voting exercises. “It’s a superior experience for the participants,” said Jennifer Benz, SVP at Segal Benz, and a leading voice in employee benefits communication. “We want people to give full, complete, unedited feedback. That’s impossible when sitting in a group of your colleagues.”

“We hear over and over again that participants like the interactivity and the anonymity of Remesh, which helps them feel safe,” added Catharine Hamrick, VP Senior Consultant.

Remesh helped Segal Benz get better, more honest feedback for their clients. Remesh also collects and sorts data in real-time so that Segal Benz can quickly understand what employees are saying and immediately give clients useful, data-driven, and strategic planning advice. Clients put trust in the results, and especially enjoy watching the results come in live through the stakeholder “back room” experience. Once the conversation is over, Segal Benz has the ability to slice and dice the data — breaking down results by age or job type — allowing the expert consultants to spot patterns and tailor their suggestions. Whether Segal Benz is designing strategies for HR communications, benefits communications, or careers and compensation, consultants can use the super-rich data to ensure their strategies reflect the needs and wants of the client’s employees.

Hamrick says that Segal Benz has had an overwhelmingly positive response from its clients, particularly those in higher education. It can be difficult to obtain honest feedback from both faculty and staff due to status and fear. Remesh evens the playing field by enabling faculty and staff members to answer anonymously and engage with each other’s responses. It’s a win for everyone.

“To have a tool that has so much interaction but removes that fear of saying the wrong thing is really, really powerful,” Benz said.

Results

Since using Remesh, Segal Benz has dialed up its ability to gather employee feedback for its clients. The organization has reached a larger and more diverse group of employees than ever before. This has given Segal Benz’s clients a clearer picture of their employees’ thoughts, helping them make informed business decisions. Getting data in real-time has also allowed Segal Benz to have more meaningful and timely talks with clients, building trust and making them stronger and more invested with their partners. Clients are excited and energized by the insights they get from Remesh studies because the feedback is helpful and easy to act on. “Our clients are more excited about the work than they ever have been,” Benz said.

Being able to collect tremendous amounts of insight very quickly not only helps Segal Benz provide smarter and more realistic recommendations but also gives their clients solid data to help them achieve their goals. The data helps Segal Benz improve communications and engagement, and their clients have had success securing the resources they need to improve their programs and communications because they have tangible data to support their planning decisions.

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Looking Ahead

In the future, Segal Benz is planning to expand its use of Remesh. Currently, Remesh is mostly being used to evaluate clients’ total rewards packages, but Segal Benz is introducing the platform earlier in the process in the plan design phase. This approach garners valuable input from employees before benefit plans are selected. 

Segal Benz and Remesh are driving innovation together, combining the art of communication with the science of technology to deliver better outcomes. Segal Benz helps set industry standards and drives adoption of new strategies and tactics, which leads to award-winning results for its clients. “Remesh is a great partner and is constantly innovating to make it easier for us, our clients, and our clients’ employees,” Hamrick said.