People and culture
Surface talks to your people one to one, by voice or text, while it reads what your systems hold about the same weeks: starters and leavers, absence, rotas. You see where people’s accounts and the data agree, where they part, and what to change first.
Fig. 06, The frieze: A long carved procession along the upper wall of a temple above a calm sea, the figures softened by weather.
What you’re up against
Engagement fell at two sites. The comments are too vague to act on, so the team guesses, then defends the guess.
People notice when nothing came of the last one, and the next survey gets fewer and shorter answers.
Onboarding, exits, absence, the months after a restructure. Each has its own report, and none of them says what to change on Monday.
Beneath the process
Ask how a new starter’s first month goes and you hear the version drawn here. Move the lens along it to see the same weeks as the systems recorded them.
01Laptop and system access
02Buddy assigned
03Day 30 review
Illustrative. Starters, dates and figures are invented.
One investigation
Follow one investigation from a sentence in an interview to a decision. The people, sites and figures are invented. The method is how Surface works.
01 What people said
“We find out our shifts on WhatsApp the night before. You can’t plan anything.”
02 What the systems recorded
| Sites | Median notice | Late changes |
|---|---|---|
| Site 4 | 2 days | 3 times the rest |
| Site 7 | 2 days | 3 times the rest |
| The other seven | 12 to 16 days | Baseline |
2 days of notice at the two sites whose scores fell
The two sites with the lowest scores are the two whose rotas arrive last. Leavers there ran at twice the rate of the other seven.
Six months of rota publishing times by site, from an export of the scheduling system. Notice is the time between a rota being published and its first shift.
A gap in notice shows where to look. It does not establish the cause on its own.
03 A second account
“Head office moves our labour target every week, and I rebuild the rota every time.”
“Head office moves our labour target every week, and I rebuild the rota every time.”
A second account points at the labour target. Check the target history before treating it as the explanation.
04 The procedure
The policy says
At sites 4 and 7
The policy assumes a target that holds for two weeks
The policy asks every site to publish rotas fourteen days ahead. It does not say what a site should do when its labour target changes inside that window.
Open question: who sets the targets for sites 4 and 7, and on what schedule?
05 The finding
Finding for reviewSites 4 and 7 sit next to a stadium and are the only two whose targets are revised weekly, against the fixture list. Their rotas follow the target, so they arrive two days ahead.
Ruled outThe managers. Both sites changed manager this year, and so did three sites whose scores held.
06 The decision
Set those two sites’ labour targets from the published fixtures three weeks ahead, and publish their rotas ten days ahead.
An illustrative investigation. People, sites and figures are invented.
Who we talk to, what we read
Surface talks to
Surface reads
In the pilot, Surface reads exports of the systems you already keep. What it can show depends on what they hold and how far back. We check that in the first call.
What you come away with
Each finding sets what people said beside what the systems recorded and what the procedure says, names the explanation it ruled out, and points to a decision with an owner.
Ruled outThe managers. Both sites changed manager this year, and so did three sites whose scores held.
Before we begin
The page for people being interviewed sets out what they are told.
Each person chooses: by name, by role only, or not quoted at all. If they don’t choose, they are quoted by role only.
Your company sees findings and the quotes people allowed, never a transcript. A small number of Surface staff can open a transcript to support the service.
No. Keep the survey. Surface follows it up with the people and the data behind the scores.
Exports of what you already keep: survey results by team, starters and leavers, absence and rotas. In the pilot, we work through the exports with you.
The offer
We agree one question about one process with you, interview up to ten of your people by voice or text, read the records that go with it, and take you through a brief that shows the evidence for every finding.
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