A European airline company needed more than scattered comments from colleagues and a mix of positive and negative impressions. Without knowing how widely each point was shared, it was hard to understand what truly reflected the employee experience — and even harder to decide what to do next. We helped turn 2,700+ employee voices into a clear, actionable picture of uniform adoption, and a roadmap to get it right.
The challenge
Feelings about the new uniforms were mixed but difficult to assess and even harder to act on
The airline company had just introduced new uniforms across its cabin crew, cockpit crew, and ground staff. Beyond a simple wardrobe update, the change also marked a shift away from the airline’s long-established colours and visual identity — something many employees had grown attached to over years of wearing the previous uniforms.
Almost immediately, feedback started coming in from colleagues across the organisation. Some reactions were enthusiastic, others strongly critical (compliants, reluctance, pushback). But most of it remained anecdotal: individual comments, informal conversations, isolated complaints.
Leadership could sense friction building, but lacked a clear understanding of how representative the feedback actually was.
- Which concerns reflected a broader employee sentiment?
- Which were isolated reactions?
- And most importantly: what actions would genuinely improve adoption and employee experience, rather than simply reacting to the loudest voices?
Without reliable data, any response risked being either an overreaction or too little, too late.
"We needed to objectively quantify the problem — not manage perceptions, but truly understand what employees were experiencing and why."
The ask was clear: design a research approach that could cut through the noise, measure overall adoption and sentiment, and identify concrete improvement paths — fast.
Our approach
Smart methodology at scale
We designed a targeted survey across three distinct employee groups — cabin crew, cockpit crew, and ground staff — each with different uniform items, operational realities, and day-to-day experiences.
To move beyond anecdotal feedback, the survey combined quantitative scaling questions with open-ended feedback. The scaling questions gave the airline company an immediate and measurable view of overall sentiment and adoption across teams and uniform items. But numbers alone could not explain why employees felt the way they did.
That is why we complemented the survey with open text fields, allowing employees to explain the reasoning behind their scores in their own words — from comfort and fit issues to emotional attachment to the previous look and feel.
The challenge was no longer collecting feedback, but making thousands of detailed comments genuinely usable within a short timeframe. We used AI, Large Language Models (LLM) to process and structure the qualitative data at scale. Manual review was only required for 3% and 1% of comments respectively — freeing the team to focus on interpreting insights and defining actions rather than processing data.
What we delivered
Four types of insight that drive real decisions
Overall satisfaction & pride
A clear measurement of how employees feel about the new uniform — beyond anecdotes. Adoption scores, pride indices, and sentiment benchmarks that give leadership an honest baseline of overall acceptance across the organisation.
Likes & dislikes per item
Granular breakdowns by uniform item — from comfort and fit to aesthetics and practicality. The uniform department and leadership could see not only which items were causing friction, but also what the actual issue was and why it mattered in daily use. No more guessing which items were problematic, or what needed to be improved.
Ambassador & detractor profiles
Who loves the new uniform — and who doesn't? Profiling by crew type (cockpit, cabin, ground), route (short or long haul), seniority, and other variables revealed where adoption was strongest and where resistance was concentrated. It also helped identify in which contexts, tasks, and moments certain items became problematic for specific employee groups – making targeted communication and change management possible.
Actionable recommendations
A dynamic report delivered to the uniform department — enabling prioritised recommendations per crew type (cockpit, cabin, ground) and per uniform item. Built to be used, not archived.
The impact
From questions to a clear path forward
The uniform department received a dynamic, interactive insights dashboard — not a static PDF. Decision-makers could filter by crew type, uniform item (trouser, shirt, skirt, jacket …), satisfaction segment, and other relevant variables to immediately see where attention was needed most.
For each segment and item, the dashboard also surfaced the most important remarks and recurring patterns, making it clear not only where issues appeared, but also what employees were actually experiencing and why it mattered.
The research transformed a company-wide point of tension into a structured improvement agenda: specific items to revise, specific groups to engage, and clear language for internal communication.
