From Engagement to Execution: Making HR Insights Matter w/ Alex Thompson

In this episode, we sit down with Alex Thompson. A SHRM-certified HR practitioner who’s seen both sides of the HRBench experience: first as a customer, now as the company’s Implementation Manager.

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Together, they explore a challenge many HR teams face, having rich people data but struggling to turn it into trust, action, and impact inside the business. The conversation covers everything from HRIS implementation and executive reporting to engagement survey fatigue and how to better support frontline employees.

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If you’re in HR at a PE-backed company and trying to “manage up” more effectively, deliver insights that drive decisions, and connect HR to business performance — this episode is a playbook.

Managing Up with Data: Why Trust Is the Real Currency

Alex opens the episode with a foundational truth: building trust with executives starts with consistent data.

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“If your leadership doesn’t trust what you’re bringing to them… that’s a two-way street. They have to give you the trust to do the work — and you need to come with the right answers they need.”

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In a PE-backed environment, the pressure to deliver board-ready insights is high. And without consistency in your metrics, even the best-intentioned HR teams can lose credibility.

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Alex shares how, in past roles, executives often brought conflicting assumptions about metrics like turnover — shaped by different tools, reports, or voices in the org. When every stakeholder uses a different data source, “you end up with multiple answers to the same question.”

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The fix?

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“When you come back and you piece things down into one core system with one answer… they know the numbers they’re looking at are reliable.”

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HR leaders must not only present the “what,” but understand the “why.” According to Alex, “The second a senior leader asks you a question about what’s in the metric and you don’t have the answer — they lose faith in what you’re sharing.”

Engagement Surveys: From Insights to Inaction (and Back Again)

Surveys are often the primary vehicle for understanding employee sentiment — but Alex warns they can backfire when poorly timed or poorly followed up on.

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“I’ve never heard pushback against listening to employees. Where I’ve heard pushback is survey fatigue — and feedback fatigue.”

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If a team launches too many surveys without coordination, or surveys employees and never reports back, it creates disengagement.

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“Employees take these surveys and then they don’t see any impact from the org. That’s really a cultural shift. You have to get your leaders looking at the data and taking action.”

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Rather than surveying reactively or in silos, Alex recommends a quarterly pulse cadence: “It’s enough time to see changes from tactical decisions, but close enough to tie insights to specific moments.”

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Just as important is transparency — especially when interpreting ambiguous metrics like eNPS or engagement. Pairing those numbers with other hard metrics like turnover by department or tenure can help identify patterns, risks, and blind spots.

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“Once you collect those surveys, you do have a data point. And you can tie it back to your more hard-coded metrics — like turnover.”

Frontline Workers Can’t Take Surveys at Their Desk. Now What?

For organizations with large frontline or field-based teams, traditional HR communication channels — Slack, Outlook, Teams — simply don’t apply. But that doesn’t mean these employees should be left out of listening or performance processes.

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Alex has worked with companies in manufacturing, utilities, and other distributed environments, and says the biggest trap is treating frontline workers as a different class of employee.

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“They have the same benefits and are impacted by the same business decisions. You should assess them the same way you’re assessing your other employees.”

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The execution, however, looks different. Alex describes setups like:

• Kiosk stations on the production floor
• Shared iPods with preloaded access to survey apps
• Scheduled computer access at shift changes
• Optional at-home access (but never required)

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What matters most is reducing friction:

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“Even something as small as a login prompt can push someone out of the process. It has to be simple, streamlined, and available during their working hours.”

Communicating Culture: Turning Anecdotes Into Action

Mid-level HR leaders often struggle to convey culture-driven decisions in a way that resonates with finance or operations leaders. The solution, says Alex, lies in translating qualitative into quantitative — and back again.

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“If you look at your organization as a whole, it’s a being in itself. But each function or business unit has its own personality and environment.”

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That’s why he recommends breaking data down by team, location, manager, or even recruiter. He shares an example from his career:

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“We saw high turnover in one area because recruiters weren’t setting good expectations. When we looked at source recruiter data and exit timing, it became clear what was happening.”

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Paired with qualitative data — like open-ended survey responses — this kind of analysis helps uncover root causes and validate cultural priorities like onboarding, values alignment, and internal mobility.

What HR Can Learn from Quarterly Business Reviews

As the episode wraps, Alex shares a final call-to-action for HR leaders who want to be seen as strategic business partners.

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“We keep hearing about QBRs. Leadership wants to be informed about people — not just financials or strategic plans.”

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For HR leaders trying to “earn a seat at the table,” Alex recommends building a lightweight QBR deck — even if it starts as an email.

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“You’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard, ‘I didn’t know we had this information.’ There’s a lot you can bring that may feel simple to you — but it goes a long way with leadership.”

Key Takeaways

Here are a few tactical takeaways from the conversation with Alex Thompson:

• Trust is built through consistency. One system, one answer, one definition of truth.
• Surveys without follow-up create disengagement. Target them, space them, and close the loop.
• Frontline workers deserve the same listening mechanisms — just delivered differently.
• Break your data down by manager, recruiter, function, or site to find the story within the metric.
• Start your own QBR. Even if it’s just a 3-slide deck or a well-written email — leadership will thank you.