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Employee Engagement – Where to Focus?

After having worked with multiple organizations across multiple geographies on Employee Engagement programs, there is still an interesting debate I have with clients, colleagues, friends and HR practitioners.

The question is “Do we need to focus exclusively on workgroup-level engagement or focus on enterprise-level systems / processes first?”

Some feel that workgroup engagement is paramount, since managers hold the key to employee engagement. They cite oft-repeated quotes like “People join companies, but leave managers.” I feel that there is a lot of merit in this thought process. On the other hand, there are frameworks and approaches which emphasize on organization-level engagement with a sharp focus on fixing systems & processes of human capital management.

confusion

So, companies ask their internal experts and consultants – “Which is the best solution for us?” I am afraid the answer is not so simple as A or B or C. The issue merits careful consideration.

In organizations which achieve a high level of maturity on the Human Capital Management cotinuum, there is a supportive platform for people management at a workgroup level. There are established systems for key people processes like hiring, on-boarding, training, development, career pathing, retention, exit etc. Having tools and processes is half the task done. And the other half is all about manager education around sensitization to people management. Most “business” managers are best at what they are initially expected to do – “business”. It is not only because companies demand that as a first priority, but I feel another root cause is lack of focus on people management in management education. So, manager education is needed to help them understand the importance of employee engagement and why it matters to their business. In such a case, an engagement program focused on building workgroup engagement and refining enterprise-level enablers is more suited.

However, many organizations are simply not “there” when it comes to HR capabilities. Or leave HR policies, but there might be a lot of turmoil at the top which can act as a barrier to engagement. There are policies after policies after policies -with no connect to current context, business strategy or employee expectations. Most systems are at best “average” and “ad-hoc”. There is no clear line of sight with respect to strategic direction, accountabilities and business imperatives. In such a scenario, how can HR or the leadership expect managers to deal with the performance management process. How can managers hire the right candidates if we don’t even have a identified pool of candidates and tools to manage the information? How can managers explain career paths to people, if they are unsure about their own? How can managers retain people, if compensation is not benchmarked? How can managers ensure positive exits and build reasonable “return” probabilities, if there is no formal process for handling exits? Frontline managers are often found struggling and grappling with these issues and such a situation is definitely not conducive to build engagement at a workgroup level. In such a situation, what is needed is a robust measurement of enterprise-enablers, with a mild focus on workgroup issues. Then, issues would need to be prioritized using analytics and probing techniques to chart a way forward.

But, the next question is how does an organization determine the maturity of its processes. It is usually done by process audits, benchmarking or even an initial survey covering both workgroup engagement measures and enterprise-level measures to set baseline metrics, understand employee expectations and set the direction for future interventions. Leaders could also use simple, yet powerful tools like Appreciative Inquiry to ascertain the best solution for their organizations.

4 comments June 26, 2009

8 Tips to Manage Change in The Current Economic Climate

The current environment poses significant challenges to organizations across the globe. Employees are suffering too. Employees face a fair amount of confusion about their companies’ goals & strategy and at a micro-level, confusion about their own job roles. There are heightened concerns over job security & compensation. I could go one with such “descriptives”, but the bottom line is that this environment can potentially erode employee engagement, morale and well-being.

Confusion

These are tough times. But, there are a few things that leaders can do to make the situation relatively better. Here are 8 tips to help your employees to manage change in the current economic climate:

Clarify your plans and strategy for dealing with the economic climate: Explain “what”, “how” and most importantly “why”. Clarity on organizational goals will also help managers & employees take right decisions in the day-to-day work.
Reinforce your long/short term plans and strategy in every forum: Use every employee forum to drive clarity on your objectives and plans. Employees need to be crystal clear to be able to align their priorities with organizational objectives.
How about leveraging common Web 2.0 tools: Transparency, especially in these times, is critical and highly valued by employees. Employees themselves face a lot of uncertainty on the work and personal front and it is critical to ensure that the workforce has easy access to information it needs to deal with the situation. Companies could potentially look at dedicated websites, wikis, group blogs etc. to share information.
Weekly email updates: This is dead-simple. Fire out “all staff” emails on a weekly basis, informing employees about what’s happening, successes, information updates etc. You should be the one telling the employees the “story”, not the newspapers!
Cross-train people: This is a great opportunity for companies to prepare the next set of cross-functional leaders. Use the “optimized staff” situation to encourage people to learn other jobs and handle multiple responsibilities and in the process, groom future leaders.
Explain to employees possible impacts on compensation & benefits: No one likes this one! Tell people ASAP if their rewards would change. Even if the news is not so positive, people like to know what to expect. As far as possible, also communicate the elements of “redesign” of compensation packages.
Harness the latent energy of workgroup innovation: Encourage employees to come up with new ways of doing things. Establish an “unblocked” communication channel to help employees share these ideas. Send a clear message to the people – Ideas are valued, despite the economic environment.
Share KPI data with everyone: This is especially important if your company has changed your KPIs in the light of the changing environment and business strategy. This will help employees to understand how their roles contribute to the organizational objectives.

2 comments May 18, 2009

Shai Agassi: A Bold Plan for Mass Adoption of Electric Cars

Shai Agassi, earlier a senior executive with SAP, is the founder-CEO of Better Place. In this TED talk, he blows us away with his thoughts about how we could make countries “oil-free” by 2020. He shares his passionate vision for an electric cars and a network infrastructure to enable the migration to and operation of emission-free vehicles.

Let me stop here and let’s hear from the man himself.

Add comment April 14, 2009

New Website from McKinsey

Consulting firm McKinsey has launched a new website called “What Matters”. The site builds on the knowledge derived from some of the best thinkers in the world. They asked though leaders to focus on 10 big issues and take a long view on these. Some of these issues include Geopolitics, Internet, Biotechnology, Energy, Climate Change, Innovation etc. Authors include Andy Grove, Rick Wagoner, John Thackara, Clay Shirky, Eric Schmidt, Gary Hamel among others.

Check it out!

2 comments March 31, 2009

Talent 2.0

Let me begin with a cliche “Talent Management needs to move to the next level.” Now, what exactly is this next level? By the way, what is the current level?

Let’s say that the systems, processes and practices we have today are “Talent 1.0″. We have the antiquated recruitment systems, tired performance management tools, compensation administration, succession planning etc. all automated by heavily transactional and cumbersome software. While we have the tools and technology, the implementation is rather average. Line managers are reluctant to use these tools because these are complicated, offer little insights about talent and often appear very “admin” kind of activity. These tools are looked upon more from a “compliance” perspective rather than “business critical.”

Let’s call the next level – Talent 2.0. And I reckon a lot needs to change for us to move to this next level. A lot. So, this is how, I think, Talent 2.0 will look like:

Firstly, we need to understand that people managers are the primary interface to talent. Inherently, many managers are not so clear about how talent management works. Simply automating the talent management processes using heavy-duty enterprise software cannot yield the desired results. HR and business will integrate much better to develop a shared understanding of the talent issues.

Next, we need simple, yet powerful tools to stay connected to people. We plainly cannot rely on the enterprise software in its current form. Web applications like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. and blogs will need to play a bigger role in communicating effectively with employees and mining rich real-time insights about employee behaviour.

Finally, the way we build our talent pipeline would need to change. CV’s and interviews are not enough – how much can you judge a person from a piece of paper and a 45 minute interaction. People would look at hiring talent from within their social networks. There is rampant interactions and sharing of ideas within social networks and employers would know people better when they recruit from these networks.

These are just some top-of-the-mind thoughts. How do you think Talent 2.0 will look like?

2 comments March 24, 2009

Let’s Do The Green Thing – Earth Hour Calling!

You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the river bank. It’s quiet; it’s peaceful. And all of a sudden, it’s a gear shift inside you. And it’s like taking a deep breath and going… ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about this’.

I recently saw An Inconvenient Truth. I must say I should have watched it earlier. I know most of the stuff Al Gore talked about, but it was the way he presented all the data (some snippets here) that made me sit up and take notice. An absolute eye-opener. He showed the world well-researched scientific evidence about how serious a problem Global Warming is through his excellent presentation. If you haven’t watched the documentary yet, please do so NOW.

I know for sure now that all of us have a role to play in addressing this problem. The age-old adage “Every drop counts” seems more true than ever before. We need to make our own tiny contribution to the solution. As I feel more and more passionately about this issue and make my own tiny daily contribution to address the problem, I stumbled upon Earth Hour.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, with 2.2 million people switching off their lights for one hour to direct the attention of global leaders and policymakers towards the problem of global warming and planet sustainability. In 2008, its popularity grew, with over 50 million people participating in the movement. This year, the aspiration is to get as many as 1 billion people switching off their lights as a part of a global vote. The Earth Hour website says:

Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

As we move towards the Earth Hour (28th March, 2009 8:30 – 9:30pm), I urge all of you to pledge your support to this important movement. Sign up on their website. Spread the word through your social networks, email signatures and blogs. Talk to people. Educate. Participate.

We cannot remain a by-stander. We cannot continue to think “how does it matter!” We cannot continue to feel that “how can my efforts make a difference!” Wake up!! Remember, YOU ARE THE DIFFERENCE.

4 comments March 10, 2009

An Interesting Employee Health Plan

I am no insurance whiz-kid, but, no doubt, it is a fascinating area. I find the field of actuarial science very interesting because of the way it borrows from multiple disciplines like mathematics, finance and economics. And, in many cases, some great application of behavioral economics too.

I was discussing a company’s employee benefits package with a group of people the other day. Specifically, I found their health insurance program very intriguing and couldn’t help chuckling about it.

health-wellness

This company is based in Singapore and has a self-administered health insurance plan i.e. the company doesn’t buy group insurance for the employees from the market, but instead provides health benefits to employees from it’s own funds. In Singapore, the medical system typically works in the following way:

You have a health problem. You can go to a local clinic where a General Physician (GP) will try to diagnose the problem, conduct tests and suggest appropriate medication.
If the GP’s treatment solves the problem, you are fine.
In case the GP feels that you need to seek specialized medical advice & treatment, they would refer you to a Specialist doctor in one of the hospitals and then the patient has to take it forward from there.
Needless to say, specialized medical care is more expensive than GP services.

The insurance plan of the organization I was talking about, reimburses 80% of the total medical expenses, if you go to the GP. And, it reimburses 70% of the total medical expenses, if you need to see the Specialists after the GP consultation. So, effectively, if you have bigger health problems, there is a lower percentage of reimbursement. One could look at this benefit structure as the company’s way to manage risks i.e. not making itself liable for higher payouts for medical bills of employees with relatively more complicated health problems. But, to me, there is a more subtle message in here. I also sense that this is a small, gentle incentive for employees to pay attention to their health and stay healthy. It is almost akin to having a small penalty if you have slightly complicated health problems.

The economics of incentives continue to fascinate me!

Add comment February 27, 2009

The Case for HR Department Blogs

Many companies aorund the world have taken to blogging. Not only we have individual business bloggers, but also one can see a lot of company blogs, team blogs and so on. (Here is one post I wrote about business blogs in India.)

Companies are actively promoting blogs because they serve as an excellent medium for sharing content, knowledge and information. Such blogs not only encourage individuals to create “content”, but also serve as an important self-development tool for the bloggers.

I have been thinking about the idea of “HR Blogs” in organizations.

My discussions with hundreds of employees and tons of employee survey data has led me to believe that employees generally feel the need for more communication from the HR department on policies, practices, guidelines etc. And, I felt that a company HR blog could be one of the media which can be used to communicate and disseminate such information. Such a platform would make the information sitting in dusty files easily accesible to employees on-demand. The blog would also help in reinforcing communication. Some sample purposed which the HR department could use the blog for could be:

Disseminate general information about programs and policies.
Share updates on upcoming training programs.
Inform employees about performance appraisls. Educate managers on best practices for conducting appraisals.
Share other best practices on people management like selection, on-boarding, goal-setting, recognition, alignment to corporate objectives, progress reviews etc.
Disseminate information about HR business partners for other divisions / departments.
Outline the role of line HR and describe how they can help.
Share information on new policies.
Use simple polls to conduct dipstick surveys.
Creating “interview” posts with employees by inviting them to share great ideas, practices and feedback.

Such a HR blog could help in getting employee opinions on many of the HR-related issues and would guide policy-making. Moreover, this will be a much more accessible and searchable repository of information.

Do you think HR blogs would make sense? How could we leverage these?

1 comment February 26, 2009

Get Rid of Performance Appraisals!

SystematicHR blog points to an extremely insightful article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal (http://tinyurl.com/5j6vrt) a few months back. The author, Samuel A. Culbert , prepares a sound case for getting rid of the process of performance reviews as practiced currently in most companies.

I have myself been a critique of performance review processes because they often lead to futile outcomes and fuel employee dissatisfaction further. I have often found myself questioning the role of these reviews in boosting individual, group and company performance, but found it a little difficult to structure some of my thoughts.

appraisal

Samuel says that:

The mind-sets held by the two participants in a performance review work at cross-purposes. The boss wants to discuss where performance needs to be improved, while the subordinate is focused on such small issues as compensation, job progression and career advancement. The boss is thinking about missed opportunities, skill limitations and relationships that could use enhancing, while the subordinate wants to put a best foot forward believing he or she is negotiating pay. All of this puts the participants at odds, talking past each other. At best, the discussion accomplishes nothing. More likely, it creates tensions that carry over to their everyday relationships.

Then there are second-order problems. A subordinate who objects to a characterization of faults runs the risk of adding another to the boss’s list: “defensiveness and resistance to critique.” And the boss who gets her mind turned around by a subordinate’s convincing argument runs the risk of having a bigger boss think she failed to hold the line on what had been decided and budgeted.

I too have often felt that performance appraisals have been reduced to tool for determining pay / bonus only, rather than being used effectively for its core purpose – performance management. And, Samuel feels that even pay-determination is not effectively done by appraisals.

Another bogus element is the idea that pay is a function of performance, and that the words being spoken in a performance review will affect pay. But usually they don’t. I believe pay is primarily determined by market forces, with most jobs placed in a pay range prior to an employee’s hiring.

Raises are then determined by the boss, and the boss’s boss, largely as a result of the marketplace or the budget. The performance review is simply the place where the boss comes up with a story to justify the predetermined pay.

Bang on!

Another element that I often think about is the issue of subjectivity vs. objectivity in appraisal process. Objectivity is possible when you have clear metrics for each role, which is not the case with many roles. And a manager’s feedback is coloured by his own world-view, perceptions, attitude, biases and agendas. Another interesting point is that performance appraisals could even act as a barrier to teamwork.

…leads to inauthentic behavior, daily deception and a ubiquitous need for subordinates to spin all facts and viewpoints in directions they believe the boss will find pleasing. It defeats any chance that the boss will hear what subordinates actually think.

To me, it appears that it is time for re-imagining the entire process of performance reviews. How do you think we could go about it?

Add comment February 18, 2009

Gmail Tasks – Should It Be Tied to Google Calendar?

UPDATE: Here it is! Google is listening and they have now tied up Tasks with Calendar.

By now, many of us know that Gmail Tasks is now available on the iPhone and G1. An interesting competitive analysis was done of the most commonly used “to-do” tool – Paper.

Paper has a number of popular features:

Easy editing. Cross out with pen and write something new.

Works offline. You can read paper even when your PC is not connected to the internet.

Mobile. Fold paper and stick in pocket.

Instant boot up. Just pull paper out of pocket — don’t have to wait for it to load.

However, paper does have some limitations:

Limited availability. You don’t always have a pad of paper with you to write new things.

Not ubiquitous. If you leave a piece of paper in one pair of jeans, you can’t access it from the other jeans you’re currently wearing.

Difficult to organize. Eventually turns into a giant mess on your desk.

I am a big fan of mobile productivity and couldn’t agree more with this. And, the most compelling reason is that the phone makes all your data (emails, to-do’s, calendar, notes) portable and available on demand, on the go.

However, I would love to see more inter-operability between Tasks and Google’s other productivity apps, in particular Google Calendar. Tying up Tasks with Calendar will make for a more comprehensive productivity application, with ability to easily add emails as tasks and even get reminders through SMS. That should give users a more complete scheduling and GTD (Getting Things Done) application. The icing on the cake would be if Google voice-enables Tasks, giving users the ability to add Tasks and Reminders using voice. Just like ReQall (which is my current favorite reminder app).

UPDATE: Google Blogoscoped is reporting that a user has spotted the “Tasks” feature in his Google Calendar. Looks like someone is listening!

2 comments February 4, 2009

Don’t Forget to Incentivize!

The Strait Times carries a piece of news today titled “$100 m boost for service”. It says:

A $100 million push to bring Singapore service to the next level has been launched.

The money will go towards funding training and other programmes for staff and supervisors in the retail, food and beverage, health and transport sectors.

It will also be used to pay for research on service, and to monitor customer satisfaction levels.

Also part of the plan: Promoting, publicising and recognising good service.

While this is a well-intended initiative, I hope there is sufficient focus on “incentivization” of good service. As I noted in my earlier post on the “built-in” service charges in Singapore restaurants, the practice doesn’t adequately encourage great customer service, because the “incentive” is guranteed. So, in my humble opinion, a more balanced approach which focuses both on behavioral changes and up-skilling, alongwith dangling a ‘carrot’ would be more useful.

1 comment February 3, 2009