By Kelsey Jarrett

And we’re back again. It’s time to talk about annual reporting.

Every year, SJF Ventures conducts a comprehensive impact survey to assess the social and environmental impacts of our portfolio companies. The survey comprises a set of standard questions about employee experience and job quality, as well as common ESG metrics. Each company also has a set of key impact indicators, tailored metrics unique to the company’s business model that it reports on annually. Our goal is to “bend the curve” by accelerating the positive benefits these companies deliver, and bending the curve begins by collecting data, benchmarking, and sharing it back with our portfolio companies.

This year, when we reviewed the 2023 data and shared it with portfolio companies, we realized that not all of our survey questions had previously led to actionable takeaways. We want our impact data to be useful, informing our own work and providing insights to our portfolio companies. In order to improve the effectiveness of our impact survey, we took the time this year to review each question and make adjustments where necessary.

For example, we had previously asked companies whether they had “job flexibility options available to employees.” We found that “job flexibility options” was not a specific enough term to yield useful data. Most companies offer some version of hybrid or remote work, but that question alone doesn’t tell us whether they have successfully navigated the complexities of remote/hybrid workforces. The aim of that question was to identify which of our portfolio companies have developed robust remote work policies, so we edited the question to ask companies with a remote work policy in place to upload the document. The new question allows us to see what’s working well and share best practices across the portfolio. 

Though it may seem obvious, asking ourselves “What would we do with this information?” for each question led to important redesigns in our annual survey.

Reporting beyond process

Our survey asks companies about the quality of their jobs, from the basics — wages, team diversity, benefits offered — to in-depth questions that examine employee turnover, on-the-job safety, and cybersecurity. This year, to reflect our evolving definition of “quality jobs,” SJF added questions on specific benefits such as childcare and continuing education, and HR initiatives such as equal pay analyses.

We don’t want to issue a survey just to report big numbers on our website. If we ask our companies to take the time to report, we want to share valuable insights back with them. To do so, we need to drill down beneath company policies to understand what is happening in practice.

For example, we already asked about parental leave offered to employees, but we wanted to understand utilization as well — the average number of weeks taken by employees on parental leave. It’s valuable to know the extent to which the workforce is taking advantage of benefits: if utilization for a specific benefit is low, the organization may look for culture issues or consider changing its benefit offerings. 

Beyond just turnover metrics, we wanted to understand the development opportunities offered to employees, which are valuable for retention but also a measure of job quality. We added a question about the number of internal promotions that took place at a portfolio company during the past year, to gauge the frequency of opportunities for employees to advance. We also added a question asking whether a portfolio company offers continuing education stipends to employees. We want to know whether portfolio companies are establishing clear career ladders for employees, and if they’re offering professional development stipends to help employees climb those ladders.

Concise and relevant

Every question we ask should have a purpose that stands to deliver value to SJF or to the portfolio.

That was the lens through which we reviewed our survey from top to bottom. For each question, we asked: what would we do with this data? Is this valuable to SJF? Is it valuable to the portfolio company? What conversations would we have with the company if it was under-performing on this metric? Can we learn from companies by asking about leading practices to be proactive rather than reactive? We also removed any questions where we knew SJF had access to the requested data elsewhere (e.g., in cap tables or board decks), to help ensure the company was not submitting duplicative data to our team. The end result is a refreshed survey we hope will continue to add value but not add burden.

The impact survey data gives us an opportunity to engage with portfolio companies when we spot areas for improvement. For example, we may connect with the leadership team of a portfolio company if we notice high employee turnover or a subpar parental leave policy. Our experience across a wide range of industries allows us to offer guidance and best practices, helping these companies catch up to industry benchmarks. 

In some cases, we added questions to directly offer to assist with improvements. For example, we added a question about whether the company has conducted a pay equity analysis. Respondents choose: “If YES, please upload the results. If NO, would you like SJF to conduct one for you?” We make the same offer for conducting employee satisfaction surveys. 

This year, we’ve also added a question asking about our portfolio companies’ experience with SJF and the support we have provided throughout the year. In an effort to continue to add value and “bend the impact curve,” it’s important that we check in with portfolio companies regularly to understand where we have been most helpful.

The goal of our impact survey is to make impact measurement actionable, then to do whatever we can to help our portfolio companies take that action. Impact measurement will always be a work in progress; our consistent efforts to refine the survey ensure that we’re always moving in the right direction.