Keep your good people. Bring out their best.

We interview people across your team to understand what makes them want to stay, what helps them do their best work, and what would make work better. Then we turn what we hear into specific recommendations and an action plan for leadership.

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Groundwork

Employee Listening Review

What We Heard

What people value

The strengths employees want leadership to protect and continue.

What people need

The recurring needs, requests, and differences that surfaced in interviews.

Recommended actions

Specific priorities, ownership, and follow-through for leadership.

What your people need can get lost in the day-to-day.

You want your people to succeed. But clients, deadlines, and daily demands compete for your attention. Important conversations get delayed. Some people hesitate to speak candidly. And sometimes people share ideas or concerns, but nothing changes.

Groundwork helps leadership hear what matters most to your people and act on it.

The cost of finding out too late

42%

Of surveyed employees who left voluntarily said their employer could have done something to keep them.

45%

Of surveyed voluntary leavers said no leader initiated a conversation about their satisfaction, performance, or future in the three months before they left.

40–200%

Estimated replacement costs, depending on the role: 40% for frontline employees, 80% for technical professionals, and 200% for leaders and managers.

Source: Gallup, 2024.

Why Groundwork?

Make a good workplace even better.

Find out which changes would make the biggest difference to your people, rather than guessing what they want.

Give your people more reasons to stay.

Understand what they value today and what they need to see a future with your organization.

Turn feedback into real improvements.

Turn the insights into specific commitments, clear ownership, and follow-through.

“Couldn’t we just ask our people ourselves?”

You can. Groundwork adds a dedicated outside listener, deeper follow-up questions, and analysis that shows leadership what employees are saying, where patterns emerge, and which changes are worth acting on.

Some employees may not feel safe speaking openly with their manager. Others may have spoken up before without seeing anything change.

Through confidential, one-to-one interviews, we give your people room to explain what they need, why it matters, and what they would like to see change. Then we compare what leaders and employees tell us and help your leadership team identify the improvements worth making.

One question at the heart of our work

“If you had a magic wand and could make this an incredible place to work, where you could do your best work and genuinely want to stay, what would you change?”

We also ask what is already working. The goal is to understand what work is really like for your people.

The Employee Listening Review

We interview your leaders and employees.

We begin with leadership’s view of what is working and what could improve.

Across eight private, 30-minute interviews, we hear from leaders and employees about what they value, what gets in the way, and the changes they would like to see.

We analyze the feedback and recommend priorities.

We compare what leaders and employees tell us, identify recurring themes, and look at where their experiences align or differ.

You receive an executive brief with the findings, prioritized recommendations, and the evidence behind them.

We build an action plan with your leaders.

In a 90-minute leadership working session, we agree on specific actions, ownership, timing, and what leadership will communicate back to employees.

You leave with a written action plan, followed by a 30-day check-in to review progress and adjust where needed.

What a recommendation could look like

Illustrative example, not a client finding.

An employee might say

“I want to grow here, but I don’t know what the next step looks like.”

We investigate

Are expectations unclear, is guidance inconsistent, or are opportunities limited?

A possible recommendation

Clarify realistic progression options and agree on who will hold the development conversations.

About Groundwork

Groundwork is an employee-listening and advisory firm founded by Danny Goldberg.

Danny has conducted hundreds of interviews with executives, managers, and frontline employees across industries, and previously built and led a global business.

He leads every Listening Review personally, from the interviews through the leadership working session and follow-up.

FAQ

We already have HR and an employee survey. How does this help?

Groundwork works alongside your people team. We can use feedback you already have and go deeper through private conversations.

The review adds outside analysis, prioritized recommendations, and dedicated time for leadership to decide how to respond.

Who do you interview?

Together, we select eight leaders and team members whose roles and experiences are relevant to the team being reviewed.

The conversations let us explore their experiences in depth and compare what we hear. The findings reflect those interviews, not a measure of every employee’s views.

How long does it take?

Allow approximately four weeks from kickoff to the written findings and leadership session, depending on interview scheduling. We check back 30 days after the session to review progress.

How do you handle confidentiality?

Before interviews begin, we explain how information will be used and any limits to confidentiality.

Leadership receives combined findings rather than comments attributed to individuals, and raw transcripts are not included in the report.

What does our team need to do?

Help coordinate the interviews and allow 30 minutes for each participant.

Leadership joins the kickoff, working session, and follow-up.

Your organization puts the agreed changes into practice. Groundwork helps you choose the actions and review progress.

Ready to hear what matters most to your people?

Tell us about your team and what you would like to understand or improve. We’ll talk through your goals, whether a Listening Review is the right fit, and what the scope, timing, and investment would look like.