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Mumbling on Organizations, Management, People and Technology

Attracting, Managing and Engaging Gen Y Employees

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Browsing through the Human Resource Executive Online site, I came across this interesting article which talks about how we can attract “Gen Y” and engage them in the workplace. Increasingly, companies and managers grapple with this whole Gen Y issue. And, the sheer economics of the demographics make them indispensable.

Read on to find out more about:

- Who are Gen Y?

- What are their expectations from the workplace?

- Why are they indispensable for your organization?

- What kind of workplaces do they like?

- And most importantly, what can you do about this issue, without turning your company upside down!

What has been your experiences in managing Gen Y employees? Key challenges? Successes?

Using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn at Work? No Problem!

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I stumbled upon this very interesting post on Gautam Ghosh’s blog, where Gautam has shared a Harvard article, citing research on the use of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc. in workplaces. The article concludes that in uber-connected organisations, employees who spend a reasonable amount of time (20%) surfing the internet for “fun” are 9% more productive than those who don’t!!

  • Access to social media improves productivity. According to Dr Brent Coker from the Department of Management and Marketing at University of Melbourne in Australia, workers who engage in “Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing” are more productive than those who don’t. “People who surf the Internet for fun at work — within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office — are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” he says. “Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos on YouTube, using social networking sites like Facebook or shopping online under the pretense that it costs millions in lost productivity, however that’s not always the case.”
  • Millennials will seek jobs that encourage the use of social media. Those born between 1977 and 1997 — the ones you need to hire to replace the retiring boomers — are networked 24/7 and expect the company to accommodate pervasive connectivity. An Accenture survey of Millennial preferences for various technologies at work found that they prefer to communicate via instant messaging, text messaging, Facebook and RSS feeds. What’s more, they are prepared to bypass corporate IT departments if these tools are blocked. One Millennial MBA, typical of those we meet, says, “I need to access my Facebook in order to do my job.” Has blocking Facebook today become the equivalent of denying an employee access to a phone at work 40 years ago or email 20 years ago?
  • Companies that provide access to social media create a more engaged workforce. Take the case of Cerner Corporation, the health IT firm. In 2009, Cerner implemented uCern, a corporate social network. In 2010, it will extend this social network to its customers and suppliers. Why? Because uCern has demonstrated significant business benefits to Cerner such as allowing employees to have increased access to experts across the globe, reducing the cycle time from discovery of new products to launch of new products, and increasing employee engagement and satisfaction in the workplace.

As we scan the workplace of the future, we see that everything we know about work — where we work, how we work, what skills we need to stay employable, what technologies we use to connect with colleagues — is changing. And these changes will only continue to accelerate as we move toward 2020, as the Millennial Generation will comprise nearly half of the workforce by 2014.

What do you think? I for sure feel that I am more productive when I get my daily dose of social media!!!

Employee Engagement Advice for Managers: Free E-Book

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The ever-growing Employee Engagement network has come up with yet another free e-book containing simple advice for managers to boost employee engagement.

Employee-Engagement-Manager-Free-Ebook

I have quite a few pieces of ‘one-sentence’ advices in the book:

- Communicating “what” is not enough – explain the “why” behind everything.

- Remember that employees are human first; seek to build what matters the most to humans – personal relationships.

- When employees come to talk to you, do not carry the “I am very busy” look.

- Two ears, one mouth – listen more than you speak!

- Tell people why their roles matter to the organization. Teach them the “vital signs” of the business.

What do you think? What is your top advice to managers to build employee engagement?

Read Up! (8th Jan)

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Welcome to 2010! And have a great one!

Just to get things started here, here are some interesting reads I found in the first few days of this year:

  • Finally, if you are still hungry for more, head to the new year’s HR Carnival, which is full of interesting blog posts on a variety of issues.

Happy Reading!

List of the Top Blog Posts of 2009

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And finally! Finally, the year is coming to an end. It has been a long, tough year for many of us. And, it’s the time for me to reflect back.

Overall, this has been a great year for this blog, as I got more and more readers and was featured on Alltop as one of the top bloggers on HR. I thought it will be a good idea to put together a list of the most interesting and popular posts for 2009.

  • Are performance appraisals any good? Find out.
  • Should your employee engagement program focus on workgroups or enterprise level factors? My 2 cents.
  • Still. Still, hard-nosed executives don’t buy into the concept of employee engagement. Here are some data to make your point.
  • “We are not ready for something like engagement” – is the statement you hear several executives making, especially when they are not so confident of internal HR processes. But, it does not matter. You need to focus on employee engagement.
  • If you are a people manager, please try to remain accessible by following these simple tips. It means a lot to your people.
  • Have you thought about crossing the concepts of employee engagement and employee well-being? Who knows, your engagement strategy may be unsustainable!

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and I will endeavour to create meaningful content going forward into 2010. You can subscribe to this blog by grabbing the feed or even by getting fresh posts delivered to your email instantly. It’s dead simple!

Finally, you could always connect with me across different social media websites (like Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) by going to this page.

Happy holidays! And have a great 2010!

Get Rid of Under-Achievement Through Real Autonomy

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Below you see a free e-book. Contributors include some of the smartest people of our age. All of the stuff in here is extremely interesting, but specifically, I would like to point you to page 25, where Dan Pink talks about autonomy. He begins with a hard-hitter “Management isn’t natural” and says that it can die, lose its relevance and usefulness. He says that if you want to move away from mediocrity and want stellar performance from your employees, you need to provide them autonomy in 4 areas:

Task – What they do

Time – When they do it

Technique – How they do it

Team – Whom they do it with

Take note. These are important things. They sound simple, but are quite a departure from the “usual” way businesses are run.

Designing Customer Experiences

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These days I have been working with a client to help design their executive education center for their leadership cadre. They want to provide trainees a world-class learning experience, not only in terms of quality of education, but also hospitality. They don’t even call them “trainees”, but call them “customers”. So, it’s like they want to create the Ritz Carlton of executive education.

I am yet to fully immerse myself in the project, but am working with a simple construct in my mind. Many times, when companies are looking at customer experience programs, they end up automating processes & setting policies which definitely ease internal operations, but may not directly translate into positive experiences for customers. That’s internal focus. My simple thought is that the process has to be reversed, with focusing first on what the customer experience should look like, how would positive interactions / touch-points look like and then think about what systems / processes are needed to get to the desired state.

So, a fancy CRM will not do the trick for you, if it has not been designed & implemented with the customer in mind.

Written by Abhishek

December 11, 2009 at 10:33 pm

What Drives Employee Engagement?

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I came across a blog post titled “Employee Engagement: What Exactly is it?” The post points to a study by The Conference Board which studied different research reports published by various consulting firms. Interesting thing is that they look at the top drivers of engagement and I have always maintained that there is a lot of value in attempting to identify the key drivers of engagement. The post concludes that these research studies generally agreed on the following drivers:

Trust and integrity – how well managers communicate and ‘walk the talk’.

Nature of the job –Is it mentally stimulating day-to-day?

Line of sight between employee performance and company performance – Does the employee understand how their work contributes to the company’s performance?

Career Growth opportunities –Are there future opportunities for growth?

Pride about the company – How much self-esteem does the employee feel by being associated with their company?

Coworkers/team members – significantly influence one’s level of engagement

Employee development – Is the company making an effort to develop the employee’s skills?

Relationship with one’s manager – Does the employee value his or her relationship with his or her manager?

The post acknowledges that there are lots of variances in the data, but concludes that across all variables “the relationship with one’s manager” is the strongest driver. I completely agree with the fact that the quality of direct supervisors plays a crucial role in shaping engagement. However, there are times when organizations need to focus differently. What happens when broad workplace systems / processes / policies are not in place? A manager can still soothe his people, but not for long. Discontent will brew fast with the organizational functioning. And, managers may be helpless.

Whether organizational functioning or workgroup experiences shape engagement really depends on the unique situation of the organization in question. I would rather not be so quick in putting all the onus on managers.

On another note, the Towers Perrin’s Global Workforce Study of over 90000 employees identified the following key drivers of talent attraction, retention and engagement. Interestingly, the drivers are different, indicating different solutions for different issues.

Read Up! (25th November)

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It’s almost the end of November and I just can’t wait to hit the holiday season. But, before that, there are issues to work on, chapters to close and of course, Read Up!

So, here are a few things that I found to be very interesting:

Finally, I once again had a conversation on employee satisfaction vs. employee engagement. I could go on and on about it. But, out of impulse, I ran a Google Trends on these two terms. the graph below shows the search volume index for these two terms. At the bottom, you also see a mini chart on the “news reference” for these two terms.

What’s happening here?

Enhancing Approachability of Managers

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Many a times, employees express that their supervisors are not so approachable and that they feel hesitant to go & talk to them on matters – critical or trivial. Employees may feel a sense of distance or alienation because of a number of reasons. And this effectively closes down an important channel of communication – a channel that is important to keep one’s ears close to the ground, to generate breakthroughs and ideas.

Here are some of simple things that managers could do to enhance their approachability:

  • The First Minute: When an employee approaches you, make sure that you are forthcoming in the first 1 minute of every such interaction. Make sure that your people are made comfortable, so that they can accomplish what they came to you for.
  • Listen: As simple as it gets – two ears, one mouth – so listen more than you speak! Don’t interrupt. Ask clarifying questions. Para-phrase what was said to signal your interest and understanding.
  • Share: People don’t relate to a mystery. People don’t relate to robots. And, people don’t relate to machines. Reveal your personal side to your employees and see how they open up!
  • Personalize: Try to forge common ground and connections by connecting with your employees at a personal level. How difficult is to put a few birthday reminders on your calendar? How difficult is to carry a conversation about a sport or hobby that a person enjoys? Find things to talk about that are not strictly related to work.
  • Watch Your Non-Verbals: It’s importance cannot be over-emphasized. And, sadly, so many of us fall in this trap. Don’t have that “I’m busy” look when someone approaches you. Speak at the right pace. Relax. Nod when the other person is talking. Maintain eye contact. And, please don’t fiddle.
  • Ask: Use the power of questions to your advantage. In meetings & interactions, don’t just focus on informational statements or conclusions – ask “what if” “what do you think” “what else can we do” etc. Encouraging feedback from employees will make them feel more comfortable in approaching you.

Approachability can potentially have a rub-off effect on a number of positive outcomes, including motivation and engagement. What else do you think we can do to make managers more approachable?

Written by Abhishek

November 19, 2009 at 2:40 pm

Free Employee Engagement Book

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David Zinger has done it again with his Employee Engagement Network. He has been asking his network members – a bunch of people focused on employee engagement – to give a one-sentence advice on employee engagement. David has compiled 200 of these advices in a neat file for everyone to read and learn.

Head to this post to download the PDF. As David would say, it’s free and freeing!

Employee-Engagement-E-Book-223x300

I have two pieces of advice in the document:

  • Treat your employees as you would like them to treat your customers.
  • And, the other advice is not even a sentence, it’s a single, simple word – ACT!!

And the big take-out for me is that social media is powerful, engaging and demonstrates The Long Tail phenomenon so very well.

Happy Reading!

Building Accountability for Employee Engagement

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Many a times, I find that HR folks rush too fast to make employee engagement metrics a part of KPIs or balanced scorecards. The idea is that there should be a “carrot” to ensure that managers take accountability for their people, otherwise they won’t spend time on open dialogue with their teams and co-create action plans for improvement in engagement levels. I was recently asked if the carrot and stick approach could be abandoned in favour of inculcation of engagement as a part of life in the organisation. Well, I think it is a difficult proposition for companies which are starting their engagement journeys. Inculcation of the engagement principles is a long journey of education for managers.

I had a chance to work with a company in the Middle East sometime back. Here is what they did over a 4-5 year period when it comes to building accountability for action planning:

  • Since managers were not sensitive regarding employee engagement and had very transactional relationships with employees, the company set engagement targets linked with bonus payments. However, the engagement target was not merely an increase in scores year on year. This is not a great measure as it can lead to fudging of scores. So, this company looked at a few things: 4% weightage for increase in scores year on year, 4% weightage for exceeding industry benchmark, 4% weightage for exceeding national benchmark, 4% weightage for submitting action plans to HR dept. and 4% weightage for submitting a mid-year update on the action plan.
  • Side by side, they wanted to gradually make engagement a part of their core principles, a part of their corporate lingo on a daily basis. The best bet was to get the leaders to drive this. The first task that was done was to prepare a solid business case demonstrating the business impact of engagement on measures like profitability, revenues, attrition etc. Once the leadership team was on-board, the leadership team decided that they will start any meeting, forum, town-hall, event etc. with the topic of engagement, before touching on business issues. This was because engagement is a business issue. Over a period of years, employees, even at the lower levels of the hierarchy, now have a basic idea about engagement and speak the language. And, the company is even mulling de-linking engagement targets from manager KPIs!

How is your organisation ensuring that the employee engagement initiative doesn’t lose steam? How are managers being made accountable? How is HR and the leadership team facilitating the change process?