What Is the Meaning of a Focus Group?

What Is the Meaning of a Focus Group?
by Ruth Mayhew, Demand Media

Focus groups are small-group meetings that give employees an opportunity to interact with a manager, human resources staff member or workplace expert about workplace conditions, company leadership and other employment matters. Employers choose focus groups because they eliminate the need for costly employee opinion surveys, demonstrating personal and individualized attention to employee concerns.
Purpose

Focus groups are not intended to become gripe sessions for employees, yet they sometimes evolve into complaint forums for employees to sound off, particularly when there has never before been an employer-sponsored program for voicing opinions. Whether the purpose of a focus group is to effect positive changes or get employees to open up about changes that would make their work lives more enjoyable, the meaning of focus groups – their basic principles, components and functions – are the same.
Structure and Time

Focus groups are relatively small. On average, they consist of four to seven participants. Any more than that makes it difficult for the facilitator to control the discussion. Small groups encourage an open exchange, especially when participants are reluctant to talk about certain topics without support and validation from coworkers.

Because focus groups are conducted with small numbers of employees, they take time to complete. Conducting dozens of focus groups for an employee base of, say, 200 could take a week or more. Add to the actual discussion time the task of analyzing feedback, and the entire process can consume two weeks of staff time to produce a comprehensive summary. This is far more time than it would take to administer and analyze responses from a computer-based employee opinion survey. Nevertheless, the information gleaned from focus group participants is usually more useful.

Related Reading: Focus Group Technique
Similarly Situated Participants

Focus groups generally comprise participants who have similar – if not identical – views about typically controversial or sensitive issues, such as opinions concerning ineffective working relationships or overall job dissatisfaction. Participants may represent a cross-section of employees. However, groups made up of employees from similar jobs or occupation levels may have similar attitudes about certain topics, which makes it simpler to detect common themes within feedback. A group composed of four management-level employees and two to three front-line employees may not yield the type of candid feedback a facilitator receives from a group of seven front-line employees.
Yes to Anonymity, No to Confidentiality

Focus group meetings are conducted face to face to elicit the most truthful and candid responses to facilitators’ questions, making anonymity a must. It is impossible to guarantee confidentiality. Anonymity means the facilitator will not disclose the identity of a specific employee’s responses. The individual providing specific information may be kept secret, yet the information collectively shared by the group does not remain secret. Thus, a focus group meeting to discuss employee dissatisfaction with company wages would produce a summary about employees’ sentiment; individual employees' specific complaints about personal circumstances or dissatisfaction with pay never become part of the focus group summary. The facilitator must provide participants with assurances that their names and identities will not be used to determine which employees provided specific responses.
Trusted Facilitator

Along with confidentiality and anonymity, trust is an important factor in facilitating focus groups. Employees who have implicit trust in the focus group facilitator – in large organizations, usually the employee-relations specialist – feel comfortable sharing opinions that may seem disloyal or, at the least, critical. Employee relations staff members who already have employees’ trust and confidence are capable of facilitating fruitful discussion sessions.

On the other hand, when an outside facilitator leads the focus group discussion, the information employees share could swing one of two ways. Employees inherently distrustful of outsiders may simply refuse to participate or they might provide false or misleading information. A more desirable scenario is that focus group participants create a tell-all setting that indicates their comfort level with a facilitator who in no way is connected to the organization and, therefore, doesn’t know the identities or roles of focus group participants.
References (4)
Resources (3)
About the Author

Ruth Mayhew began writing in 1985. Her work appears in "The Multi-Generational Workforce in the Health Care Industry" and "Human Resources Managers Appraisal Schemes." Mayhew earned senior professional human resources certification from the Human Resources Certification Institute and holds a Master of Arts in sociology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.