At Manchester Digital, we like to interview our members to find out a bit more about what they do and their work in the Greater Manchester digital and technology sphere. This week we're speaking with Kieran Innes, CEO & Co-Founder of Stribe.
Please introduce yourself…
Stribe is award-winning employee engagement and survey software built to create happier, healthier teams by giving employees a stronger voice at work.
We work alongside HR teams to create high-level organisational goals, gather insights that truly matter, and create meaningful change to improve wellbeing and culture – all through impactful employee surveying.
What was the inspiration behind starting Stribe and developing an employee survey platform? What major gap or opportunity did you identify in the market?
It’s an interesting story! Stribe was born from Tootoot, which is our safeguarding and pupil voice app that we launched in 2015.
To give a bit of context – Tootoot was built with one simple purpose, and that was to help students in the UK speak-up about challenges they were experiencing at school. With the app, pupils can report anything from bullying to mental health concerns in a confidential way, and staff are empowered to take action quickly and effectively.
Fast-forward to today, Tootoot is trusted by over 15,000 teachers all across the UK and recommended by the Department for Education.
After the success we saw with Tootoot and the incredible impact it was having on students and their happiness at school – we saw that the key to successful, happy teams in schools was employee voice, but there weren’t any tools that truly reached everyone in dispersed or deskless teams. Our vision is to help workers in the same way we’ve helped children be happier and healthier in the environments where they spend most of their time. And that’s how Stribe was created!
In the UK today, employee satisfaction and engagement are unfortunately extremely low – with only 23% of us actively engaged at work. It’s no longer enough to just pay people well; organisations must be prioritising wellbeing, communication, and nurturing a culture that makes people feel like they actually want to show up to work.
This means giving your teams communication channels to safely share their thoughts, and applying meaningful change with the feedback your team gives you. And that’s exactly what we help you do with Stribe.
How does Stribe's survey software differentiate itself from other employee feedback tools out there? What key features or capabilities give you an edge?
We’re all about bringing teams together – no matter whether they’re in the same building or on different continents.
Currently, we are the only employee survey platform in the UK to use emails, unique links, QR codes, and iOS and Android apps to distribute your surveys. What this means is our customers are truly able to give each of their employees a voice. And inclusion of all voices means better representation across the board.
Our other key difference is that we put employee anonymity at the centre of everything we do – and we’re fully transparent about how everything works to ensure employees are completely confident using Stribe.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of ambiguity and mistrust around whether employee surveys are truly anonymous. So we have put in the work to make sure our customers and their teams are comfortable knowing Stribe systems are truly anonymous.
Employee engagement and sentiment data are very valuable, but organisations often struggle with low survey participation rates. How does Stribe help drive higher response rates?
Stribe customers receive an average response rate of 82% - which we’re very proud of considering all the types of different industries and organisations sizes we work with.
We do a number of things to achieve this, but it can be broken down into three key things: communication, timing, and taking action.
Firstly, we help our customers communicate effectively with their teams to ensure they understand the who, what, when, why and how of each survey. When people understand the purpose behind something, they’re more likely to get involved.
Secondly, timing! We’ve gathered plenty of data over the years about when to send surveys to get the most responses, and how to get teams to set aside time to complete surveys. This data helps us to advise customers how to nail survey timing.
Finally, taking action. This is arguably the most important step of the employee survey process – so we really work with our customers to help them identify meaningful actions to implement from feedback. Making workplace changes as a result of what employees say in surveys is the most effective way to improve future response rates, because it proves to your team you’re taking them seriously.
What role does data/analytics play in Stribe's platform? How do you help companies analyse and action the employee feedback they receive?
Stribe’s survey reporting toolkit is really integral to how we empower companies to understand and act on employee feedback effectively, and we’re constantly in conversation with our customers about what insights matter most to them – so we can keep optimising the platform.
Our approach isn't just about presenting a bunch a data though – we help our customers to gain real understanding by getting into the nitty gritty, so they can make informed and impactful decisions. Through easy-to-digest analytics, we’re able to give our customers clear visibility into employee feelings and thoughts, helping them identify strengths and challenges.
One of Stribe’s most popular features in the reporting toolkit is ‘You Said, We Did’ – which essentially allows organisations to share results and data with their teams after a survey has ended, while also letting them know what actions will be taken in future off-the-back of that data. The tool is special because it allows admins of Stribe to simultaneously share, acknowledge, and address employee feedback – which we know helps to build trust by showing a commitment to continuous improvement.
What new trends or innovations are you most excited about in the employee experience and feedback space? Where is Stribe investing for the future?
We’re really excited about the rise of the blended workforce – and how that will change the future of work. Blended workforces are made up of full-time workers, part time workers, and contractors all working together seamlessly and flexibly – from afar, on the field, in the office or elsewhere!
Organisations are truly shifting and becoming more dispersed right in front of our eyes, but what this means is leaders will need to adopt strategies, tools and technologies that support this new way of working and their people.
Engaging dispersed and blended teams is no easy feat – but it’s something the team at Stribe have always advocated for, and we’re focusing on keeping access to our technology as flexible as possible to help highly dispersed teams not only keep up with the transformations, but help their teams thrive through them.
It’s a time of radical change, and we’re thrilled to be building a solution that not only supports the challenges that come with it, but celebrates the movement.
