How Guinness World Records Gave HR Their Weekends Back

Guinness World Records is in the business of the extraordinary, from the world's tallest buildings to viral TikTok moments to a global consultancy that helps brands earn headlines through the art of record-breaking. Celebrating its 70th year, the legacy brand operates across offices in London, Beijing, Tokyo, Dubai, and the Americas, with a workforce as passionate about the brand as the records it certifies.

When Stephanie Lunn joined as Global People and Culture Director in 2019, employee listening meant one annual survey. She wanted something better. With Lattice, she and her team built a continuous feedback engine that includes every layer of the organisation, from full-time employees to the organisation’s vital freelance adjudicators who verify and announce records around the world. 

From Annual Survey to Always-On Listening 

Stephanie's first move was to replace the once-a-year survey with Lattice’s Pulse surveys, run three times a year, a first for the organisation. The team chose Lattice because, as Stephanie says, they wanted “a more intuitive platform than what we had, and the ability to have multiple layers of surveys.” 

Eighteen months later, the team added stay interviews: one-to-one conversations between individual employees and the people and culture team that dive deeper into themes from the survey results.

The two tools work in tandem: 

• Lattice Engagement surveys capture themes at scale 
• Stay interviews create a safe space for people to speak freely 

Each survey informs the stay interview questions. Insights from those conversations are then presented to leadership and incorporated into future survey cycles.

Stephanie calls it "a full circle." "Without a continuous feedback loop, you're just shouting in the dark. What you have to do is give employees the opportunity to say, 'Maybe not that way, perhaps this would be better.'"

A Feedback Cascade That Actually Closes the Loop

When a survey closes, Stephanie's team uses Lattice to download results and present findings in a deliberate sequence: senior leadership first, then individual managers, then teams. 

Each audience gets the right level of detail. Every presentation includes a slide on actions and observations. Those actions appear in the next survey cycle, so employees can see that their voice led to real change. 

Thanks to Lattice's downloadable PowerPoint feature, the entire process now takes under two weeks from survey close to insights shared with teams. Before, the manual process took twice as long. 

"I was screenshotting, putting the screenshot into Paint, cropping it, and then putting it back into PowerPoint. It was easily an extra day's work. Now I can enjoy my weekend. I can enjoy my life," says Stephanie.

Capturing Every Voice, Including Freelancers'

One of Guinness World Records' most distinctive Lattice use cases is its adjudicator survey. 

Adjudicators, the uniformed officials who travel to record attempts around the world, are freelancers, not full-time staff. But they represent the brand every day. Stephanie wanted them to feel just as heard.

Since launching a biannual adjudicator survey, engagement from this group has been remarkable:

• 76% participation
• 142 comments submitted

For a freelance workforce under no obligation to respond, that level of engagement speaks volumes.

Guinness World Records now runs three distinct survey types using Lattice: employee pulse, engagement surveys for adjudicators, and onboarding. A fourth (exit surveys), is in the pipeline.

“One of the features I really like about Lattice is that it’s constantly and obviously listening to its customers and coming up with new features. It has a very active roadmap and product team. I know that if I make a suggestion, it will be heard.”

Adoption as an Early Warning System 

For Stephanie, survey participation rates aren’t just metrics, they’re leading indicators of team health. The first engagement survey of 2025 achieved a 90% participation rate, generating 264 comments. The second, run mid-year, came in at 78% with 246 comments, a dip Stephanie understands and plans around. 

"We know that when the adoption rate is low in a particular team, there's a massive red flag," she says. The people and culture team treat a drop in participation the same way: as a signal to go in and find out what's happening, not a number to smooth over in a report.

Timing is part of the strategy, too. Surveys are carefully scheduled to avoid peak workload periods, because a response filed under pressure is worth less than no response.

Real Changes, Measurable Progress

When feedback revealed concerns around communication and decision-making, leadership re-examined how information was shared across the company.

Rather than imposing a top-down solution, they involved heads of department and country leads in shaping improvements. As a result, decision-making scores have improved.

Since 2019, the cultural shift has been significant:

• Stronger manager communication
• Employees reporting greater care and connection
• A people and culture team operating strategically rather than reactively

With Lattice, they spend less time wrestling with data and more time acting on it.