It is interesting to think about the fact that Marketing departments don’t really control how employees understand the brand or display the brand values or deliver the customer value proposition. And yet, company brand and reputation are typically drivers of talent attraction. Similarly, the HR departments don’t exercise much control over company brand, customer perceptions etc. And yet, employees are the key factor in delivering the customer value proposition.

More than anywhere else, I think this is particularly relevant in service sector industries like say financial services, hospitality, healthcare, professional services, retail etc. In these industries, every employee is a representative of the company brand. And every employee creates or destroys brand value at each customer interaction point. Companies need to think about how they can get HR and Marketing teams to work together to design and deliver an integrated value proposition to their employees and customers. Have you come across companies who are doing this effectively?

• Employees not being “enabled” by the local work environment and struggling to get things done. Hence, productivity suffers and employees feel frustrated.
• Employees not feeling “energized” and hence, burning out as a result of stress.

Here is a nice video from World At Work, where Max Caldwell from Towers Watson (disclaimer: my employer) talks about taking Employee Engagement to the next level and what some of the best companies are doing about it. Enjoy!

Within the enterprise, gamification – the process of adding gaming elements to a non-gaming activity to encourage action and participation – has gone from being a faux pas to an accepted growing trend. Currently, many software vendors are experimenting by adding gaming elements to their software. I decided to do some experimenting of my own, focusing on help desk software.

The support team environment is a rigorous and demanding one where there is high turnover due to support agents getting burned out. But what if you added gaming elements to help desk software in such a way that helped boost employee retention by providing agents with a greater sense of accomplishment? If they felt like they were “winning,” perhaps agents would be more motivated in their daily activities.

Going off this premise, I focused on a few of the main activities support agents engage in each day (ticket resolutions, customer relations, training) and added some gaming element to it. I made some sketches of what the UI’s of a “gamified” help desk system might look like. Check them out below.

1. Accomplishment metrics

Three of the most important metrics to support agents are number of ticket resolutions, number of “quick” ticket resolutions and positive customer feedback. In this UI, you can see that those three metrics are tracked visibly across the top of the agent’s dashboard. The numbers increase as the day goes on, allowing the agent to see their progress and accomplishments in real time. Additionally, these metrics are variable, depending on the organization. For example, a “quick” resolution could be one that happens in 30 minutes or less.

2. Leaderboards

Based on those metrics, you could create leaderboards, allowing agents to see how they are measuring up again their peers. You will notice the added “Score” column. Again, this is a variable metric, depending on how your organization weights the three individual metrics.

You could do the same with a team leaderboard, comparing parallel support teams within your organization.

3. Training:

One of the biggest issues support team managers have is onboarding new agents in a timely manner. By gamifying the training process, you could ensure a quick onboarding process, while making it fun for the new agent.

The article talks about how companies could strengthen their Employee Engagement programs by broadening their focus to Enablement and Energizing of the workforce as well. It also shares insights about what truly differentiates Leadership Practices and People Experiences in high-performing high-engagement organisations.

Unfortunately, the magazine doesn’t have an online edition. So, here is a scanned copy and better still, here is a much more readable PDF.

Enjoy! And do share you comments.

I stumbled upon an old article by Professor Gary Hamel, where he talks about “The Hole in the Soul of Business.” In his compelling style, he asks us to re-think the language of business. Here are some excerpts:

Here’s an experiment for you. Pull together your company’s latest annual report, its mission statement, and your CEOs last few blog posts. Read through these documents and note the key phrases. Make a list of oft-repeated words. Now do a little content analysis. What are the goals and ideas that get a lot of airtime in your company? It’s probably notions like superiority, advantage, leadership, differentiation, value, focus, discipline, accountability, and efficiency. Nothing wrong with this, but do these goals quicken your pulse? Do they speak to your heart? Are they “good” in any cosmic sense?

Now think about Michelangelo, Galileo, Jefferson, Gandhi, William Wilberforce. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa. What were the ideals that inspired these individuals to acts of greatness? Was it anything on your list of commercial values? Probably not. Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor.

I talk to a lot of CEOs, and every one professes a commitment to building a “high performance” organization—but is this really possible if the core values of the corporation are venal rather than venerable? I think not. And that’s why humanizing the language and practice of management is a business imperative (as well as a moral duty).

Again, there’s nothing wrong with utilitarian values like profit, advantage and efficiency, but they lack nobility. Reflect for a moment on the avarice and irresponsibility that produced the recent banking crisis, and wreaked havoc at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and a host of other scandal-plagued companies. If corporate leaders and their acolytes are not slaves to some meritorious social purpose, they run the risk of being enslaved by their own ignoble appetites. An uplifting sense of purpose is more than an impetus for individual accomplishment, it is also a necessary insurance policy against expediency and impropriety.

Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?

There was a time when Disney was in the joy business. Animators, theme park employees and executives were united in their quest to wring gasps of wonderment and delight from children across the globe. Today, Apple is in the beauty business. It uses its prodigious software and design talents to produce products and services that are aesthetic stand-outs. There are many within Google who believe their company is in the wisdom business, who talk about raising the world’s IQ, democratizing knowledge and empowering people with information. Sadly, though, this kind of dedication to big-hearted goals and high-minded ideals is all too rare in business. Nevertheless, I believe that long-lasting success, both personal and corporate, stems from an allegiance to the sublime and the majestic.

Now, more than ever, companies and leaders need to build a greater sense of purpose to create great workplaces and produce sustainable results. After all, “meaning” is the new money. Oh! Let me stop writing now before I, inadvertently, start using my own frequently-used-terms!

So, how are you changing the language you use at work? What questions & answers are you rephrasing?

In terms of ensuring that employees are business literate and have a good view of organizational performance, there seems to be little variation across the geographical regions. Even so, Asia-Pacific sits at the bottom of the pack on these important issues related to providing clarity and building a sense of connection.

The second issue I spotted was related to Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Given the nature of the talent race in Asia, I think it’s quite a hot issues these days. And interestingly, a higher percentage of Asia-Pacific companies report that they have a clearly defined EVP. However, when it comes to having a segmented EVP approach (e.g. for high performers, high potentials etc.), these companies fare a bit badly. Also, the bigger question is how effectively is the EVP winning mind-share in the talent market.

And as social media powers the new world of communications, there is a fair distance that companies in Asia-Pacific have to go. Only about 30% of the organizations report that they have a documented social media policy in place, the corresponding number for the USA is 77%! Moreover, only a handful of Asia-Pacific companies report that they have the right tools to measure the effectiveness of social media. So, first there is an adoption issue and then, if measurement is not effective, then establishing a clear business case for social media will be a challenge for companies. As for me, I am more interested in finding out how Asia Pacific companies are leveraging these channels for building an open, transparent and collaborative workplace.

All graphs and data credits to Towers Watson

Tom Peters talked a lot about bias for action in his book “In Search of Excellence”. He also shared some slides on this on his website. I just loved the quote on the second slide:

“We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.” ~ Herb Kelleher

 So, stop staring indefinitely at the employee survey results. Make things happen.

I would like to propose a some key analytical skills for the HR professionals of tomorrow:

• Research / Hypothesis Design: HR needs to understand how it can design experiments to validate hypotheses or come up with alternative explanations to organizational phenomena. At the same time, knowledge about effective sample design techniques can come in handy as well. It can help HR design research studies which can be administered to statistically representative samples, instead of the entire workforce. This could help generalize findings and help save on precious time & efforts.
• Correlations & Regressions: I cannot count how many times I have seen these two key techniques completely misinterpreted or used senselessly. Most importantly, we need to distinguish between the two. Correlation is, simply, two variables moving in the same direction. For instance, employee engagement and financial performance might be positively correlated implying that both generally, move in the same direction. However, we cannot say that one causes the other for sure. On the other hand, regressions help us to form models to explain causality i.e. variables moving in the same direction because one causes the other to happen. For instance, among an employee engagement survey of 50 questions, you can use this to analyze what factors have the largest influence on engagement levels.
• Financial Analysis Techniques: Now, this is a potentially long list, but there are a few key things that help in working out the business case for key initiatives / decisions. Firstly, there has to be a fine appreciation of costs – fixed costs, recurring costs, and variable costs. Secondly, skills around conducting cost-benefits or break-even analysis would be extremely helpful. And speaking of that, if HR professionals can master concepts around “the time value of money”, they can really start demonstrating the rigour of their analyses.