.png)
How is AI Elevating Employee Listening?
A conversation with Suzanne Love Beck, Talent Experience and Engagement Leader at Deloitte
After nearly three decades with Deloitte, Suzanne knows firsthand the importance of employee listening for organizational success. Natter had the opportunity to sit down with Suzanne, albeit across continents, to get her tips on securing executive support for the Employee Voice and navigating internal tech silos, alongside her take on how AI is reshaping the listening landscape.
Here's a quick snippet from the conversation, with the full transcript below.
.png)
“Suzanne, what does the Employee Voice mean to you, and why should organizations care?"
.png)
“Employee voice is so much more than just a survey or the results of a focus group. It represents the collective perspective of our people.
To me, it’s absolutely critical for driving the overall firm strategy. It helps us understand where to invest, where to focus our energy - whether that’s around learning, well-being, or other key areas. Employee voice is central to our strategy and decision-making processes.”
"In your view, should the responsibility for capturing the Employee Voice sit exclusively with the HR function?"
“Employee voice and sentiment-gathering should ideally sit in a centralized function within an organization. It’s important to have a consistent way of collecting and analyzing this data, for example asking the same kinds of questions in a structured, strategic manner.
However, organizations must recognize their workforce is often incredibly heterogeneous. You have people working in very different contexts - some doing strategy work, others working directly with customers - so while a centralized approach is necessary, it needs to account for varied ways of collecting and interpreting employee input."
“Our recent Natter research shows executive-level disengagement with the Employee Voice to be a core concern for People Analytics leaders. From your experience, what strategies have been most effective for securing executive buy-in for employee voice initiatives?”
“The most critical factor is having a sound strategy for how you’re gathering employee voice data. It needs to be rooted in science, data, and expertise. Without this, the process becomes ad hoc and unreliable, reducing leadership confidence.
Additionally, it’s crucial to help executives understand what’s being asked and why. A clear framework for the employee experience is essential, helping leaders identify areas for investment and understand trends over time. For example, one survey result in isolation can easily be dismissed due to external factors like market conditions. Instead, showing trends provides a more robust understanding.
Finally, present solutions alongside challenges. Highlight the bright spots to help ensure conversations are balanced and actionable.”
“At Deloitte, you’re moving beyond traditional surveys to make sure all employees feel heard. How are you approaching this?”
“We’re working hard to expand our approach to employee listening. Over the past two years, we’ve developed a talent experience framework and increased the use of qualitative research to identify challenges and bright spots. Alongside reviewing external platforms like Fishbowl, Reddit and Glassdoor, we’re also looking to broader market trends to understand generational shifts and what people care about most.
Additionally, we’re exploring larger-scale open-text and focus-group mechanisms to gather feedback effectively in a growing organization.”
“You mention using more qualitative research within listening strategies. What opportunity does AI offer to analyze this qualitative data at scale and support the Employee Voice?”
“It’s transformative. Traditional Likert-scale surveys are valuable but can limit insights as people tend to cluster responses. Using AI to analyze large volumes of open-text responses has been a game-changer for us. Previously, this analysis was manual and time-consuming. Now, we can ask open-ended questions like, “What would make you feel valued?” and synthesize hundreds of thousands of responses quickly.
AI also has the potential to revolutionize how we understand and segment the workforce. Right now, a lot of manual effort goes into finding the story within data. AI can automate much of that, allowing us to focus on higher-level insights. Using AI to identify trends and patterns we might not have thought to explore, we can cut the data in new, meaningful ways. Over time, this will allow organizations to tailor strategies even more precisely to the needs of different workforce cohorts.”
"Lastly, new technology inevitably brings new tools. How do you recommend managing the risk of internal tech silos that prevent employee listening systems from integrating?"
"Tech silos are a common challenge, especially in large organizations with legacy systems developed to address different needs. Having a team that understands data architecture and can bring these systems together meaningfully is vital.
Employee listening isn’t just about survey results - it’s about integrating data from various systems to build a comprehensive understanding of employee experiences. For instance, using metadata, such as regional location or tenure, can add context to survey insights without feeling invasive. A centralized data lake can help aggregate information from disparate systems, enabling one unified story."
Thanks to Suzanne Love Beck for taking the time to Natter with us!
