Proactive Management of Company Culture Is the Cure for What Ails the Workplace

Recognize This! – “Facestabbing” in the workplace is a symptom, not the disease.


What’s your opinion of managing “Facestabbing” incidents in the workplace? When it comes to your attention that an employee has posted a negative comment of some kind about your company, superiors or colleagues, how does your company respond? How do you think it should respond?

Is there a formal policy? What is it? If not, do you think there should be a formal policy or procedure for addressing such comments progressively up to and including termination? Do you believe in a more informal approach?

Or do you see it more like my friend Bob Selden, author of the Management-Issues issues blog, who sees such Facebook commenting as “the old ‘water cooler gossiping’ or ‘heard it at the pub’ that have been part and parcel of work life forever?”

I tend to fall in the camp of how medical professionals might address Facestabbing – treat the disease, not the symptoms.

For some companies, treating the disease may be a bit like treating cancer at first, requiring excising of cancerous growths in the form of backstabbing, unproductive, and incompatible people that simply don't fit with a culture of appreciation focused on teamwork, success and a commitment to living out the company values in the daily work. As Josh Bersin pointed out:

“Companies which understand their core culture can far outperform their peers by building a set of staffing and management programs to reinforce this culture. And what this research clearly shows is that employee engagement (or employee satisfaction) is directly related to leadership and culture: the company must understand the culture it wants to create, hire for that culture, and manage around that culture.”

Once you have that culture built, the symptoms simply melt away.

Don’t forget on Monday next week I’ll be writing on my new blog – Recognize This! Content will be what you’ve come to expect here on the Globoforce blog, but with an expanded focus across the entire Talent Management spectrum. Current subscribers will move with me. If you want to subscribe to the corporate Globoforce Blog for new multi-author content on Globoforce news, events, customers and products, please subscribe here.

3 Steps to Help Employees Find the Meaning in Their Work

Recognize This! – It really is as simple as Listen, Tell, Praise.

Psychometrics Canada came out last month with a study on employee engagement. One of the findings buried in the report was more interesting to me, though:

“Those working in government (80.3%) and business (74.4%) sectors are more likely to identify engagement as a problem than are people in education (64.2%) and not-for-profit (54.2%) organizations.”

Why is this? I tend to think it’s because those who choose to work in education and non-profit organizations are naturally much more connected with the “meaningfulness” of their work. I’ve written before about employees ranking “doing something meaningful” as more important to them even than recognition and cash rewards.

The challenge becomes, then, how do you help those in government and business “find the meaning.” Psychometrics own research lends some insight:

“When asked what leaders could do more of to improve engagement, respondents endorse these actions:
• Listen to employees’ opinions (71%)
• Communicate clear expectations (68%)
• Give recognition and praise (58%)”

That’s a pretty straightforward path for managers:
1) Listen – really listen – to me.
2) Clearly tell me what it is you need me to do and why.
3) Let me know when I’ve delivered what you needed. Recognize me!

How well do your managers follow those three steps with you? Do you believe you’re listened to? Do you know what is expected of you? Are you told – in an appreciative way – when you meet those expectations?

Also, don’t forget I’m moving to my own Recognize This! blog on Monday, May 2. Subscribers will move with me. If you want to subscribe to the corporate Globoforce Blog for new multi-author content on Globoforce news, events, customers and products, please subscribe here.

Increase Productivity by 31% Just by Saying “Thank You”

Recognize This! – “If managers just increased their praise and recognition of one employee once a day for 21 business days in a row, six months later, those teams as opposed to control group had a 31% higher level of productivity.”

Please, if you do nothing else with anything you read in my blog, take 15 minutes to listen to this podcast on HBR by Shawn Achor, CEO of Aspirant and author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.

If you can’t listen in, the post below is quoted highlights from the podcast:

This is research about how you affect the bottom line. And that requires changing the formula for success. People used to think if you worked harder right now, you’ll be more successful. If you’re more successful, you’ll be happier. This is wrong for two reasons:

1) If we follow that formula, we never get to happiness, because every time we get to success, we move the goal posts of what success looks like. If happiness is always on the opposite side of success, we push happiness over the cognitive horizon.

2) More importantly, your brain works in the opposite order. When your brain is positive, it outperforms your brain when it is negative, neutral or stressed.

When we’re at work, our brain is usually negative neutral or stressed, which hamstrings our brains ability to deal with all we could if our brain were positive.

You can change your brain and rewire it much more quickly than we thought was possible. If managers just increased their praise and recognition of one employee once a day for 21 business days in a row, six months later, those teams as opposed to control group, had a 31% higher level of productivity.

Think about what a 31% change in productivity would look like and what a small change in recognition practices would require.

One thing we suggest is when you open your inbox every day, write a 2 minute email praising and recognizing someone. You just activated 21 people in your environment making it easier to have a feedback loop with your people in your circle. Your brain also begins to recognize that you also have a lot more social support in your network. The greatest predictor of your success and happiness during a time of stress is your social support network. If you create social cohesion at work and home, you start finding more meaning at work, connect to more people, and your job satisfaction and life satisfaction skyrocket.

“When companies decide to invest in their employees to make sure they have a positive and engaged workforce, they’re reaping back a long term return on their investment that’s much higher than what they put in initially.”

I challenge you – take the 21 day experiment. Take 2 minutes every day for 21 days to recognize and praise one person. See how that changes your own positive perception of the workplace as well as those around you.

A Task Force for Employee Engagement?

Recognize This! – Is another “initiative” the way to go to help employees overcome lingering recession fears and re-engage in the workplace?

The press in the UK has been buzzing these last couple of weeks with news of the reinvigoration of the Employee Engagement Task Force initially launched after the publication of the Engaging for Success report, more commonly known as the MacLeod Employee Engagement Report, issued in 2009.

The goal of the task force seems to be to offer practical opportunities, guidance and methods for increasing employee engagement, including a forum for the sharing of best practices.

Timing couldn’t be better as another survey of 4,400 UK companies found 45% of employees are keeping their heads down to avoid layoff in an environment in which 1 in 4 companies are ignoring the need to engage top performers. Why does this matter? Shouldn’t companies be happy employees are “buckling down?” Not in this case. Risk averse employees are also producing less and innovating less out of a desire to “just get the job done and don’t rock the boat.”

Overcoming this fear holdover from the recession is a key goal of employee engagement initiatives to be addressed by the task force, though Les Allen made an excellent observation about this in his Business Performance blog:

“The Government will need to be mindful that raising levels of employee motivation and engagement is not simply a matter of pushing out another multi-million dollar initiative or two. Employee enthusiasm must be built into the fabric of an organization. Employee engagement can’t be just another “bolt on” or flavor of the month.”

Helping employees build that enthusiasm requires giving them a reason to be enthusiastic. How do you that? By recognizing employees frequently and on-the-spot for achievements and demonstrations of your company values that contributed to those achievements. Doing so links them more closely with their colleagues and your firm, encouraging them to repeat those success-driving behaviors.

Do you think this task force is the way to go? If you were a part of it, what would you recommend or contribute?

Free Webinar TOMORROW, April 21: Impacting Engagement in 2011

Recognize This! – It’s our responsibility – every one of us – to create a work environment in which our peers, colleagues, superiors and subordinates want to engage.

I’m co-hosting a complimentary webinar tomorrow with BlessingWhite Employee Engagement Practice Leader, Mary Ann Masarech, on the key drivers for increasing employee engagement and creating high performance cultures in 2011.

Join us tomorrow, Thursday, April 21, from 1:00-2:00 (Eastern) as we discuss findings from our own separate studies showing only 1/3 of employees are engaged in their work and another 1/3 are looking for a new job this year.

In our 60-minute webinar, Mary Ann and I will be laying out a practical approach to employee engagement that evaluates the role of leaders in creating an engaging work environment through a culture of recognition tied to corporate values. Focusing on these key drivers of engagement can help prevent this mass exodus while also increasing productivity and overall business performance.

You can register for the webinar now and send in any questions you would like us to address via comments to this post.

What other elements of engagement would you like us to address?

Signs Employees Are Ready to Walk and What You Can Do to Retain Them

Recognize This! – Employees are regaining control of their value in the workplace.

Where does employee retention fall in your priorities for 2011 list? Too many are still complacent, believing the poor job market will keep workers in place. But hiring is steadily ticking up and unemployment steadily falling.

How at risk are you? According to MetLife’s Ninth Annual Study of Employee Benefit Trends:
• 1 in 3 employees are a flight risk
• Employee loyalty at a three year low, dropping 11 percentage points (after a steady decline)
• Employee satisfaction is also dropping at a rate of 8 percentage points over the last three years

Since employers also admit being less focused on employee satisfaction and work-life balance at the same time they’re report dramatic productivity gains is it any wonder employees are less loyal to the companies trying to wring blood from a stone?

Forbes reported a much worse scenario of 74% of workers would consider leaving if offered another job. What will you do when those top performers do choose to leave for a better environment? Towers Watson tells us 52% of US employers say it’s difficult to attract “critical skill” employees and 25% say it’s hard to retain top performers.

Signs employees are ready to walk:

1) You no longer value employees. Have you stopped recognizing and appreciating your employees for the good work they do? Our Employee Mood Tracker found 78% say being recognized for their efforts motivated them in their job. Simply saying “thanks!” has a powerful effect. Towers Watson research found “reward policy and practice is the number one driver of intent to stay.”

2) You haven’t communicated change. Yes, change is inevitable. And usually employees will be on board with it — if you tell them what you need them to do, not just the esoteric “change.”

3) You’re ignoring employee well being and engagement, even as the economic environment improves. What does this mean? When I feel valued – when I believe my contributions are helpful to my team members, my customers, my company – I perform at my peak. But only 10% of employees feel like they’re vital company assets. Employee engagement is another key indicator of intent to stay. If people are engaged with their work and the culture of your company (their working environment), they will not easily leave.

Where does your company lie in this picture? Ready to make good on the “employment promise” to do right by employees or still living in the recession mindset of “employees are just grateful to have a job?”

Top 5 Critical HR Priorities: #3 Engaging Employees

Recognize This! – Don’t trust “fixed grin” employee engagement scores as an accurate representation of how employees really feel.

In this third in a series of posts about the Top 5 Critical HR Priorities for 2011 from the Corporate Leadership Council HR global agenda poll, Priority 1 and Priority 2 drive Priority 3.

Priority 3 for HR in 2011: Engaging Employees

I can’t seem to read my email in any given day without seeing another employee engagement research report, each riddled with stats. Here’s just a sampling from the last couple of months:

* 45% said improving employee engagement is a top challenge, and 70% expect that challenge to intensify. (UNUM)
* Employees’ levels of engagement are much lower than they were pre-recession, with levels of commitment to the organisation dropping by 17 percentage points since 2006. (Mercer)
* More than half of CEOs are not engaged in engagement, 22% do not understand it, 19% don’t see the business benefits, and 15% are aware of the concept but not ROI from it. (HR Magazine)
* 69% of Canadian companies consider low employee engagement a major issue in their organization. (Poll)

Or what about these stats telling the reverse story:
* 2010 stats show an increase in overall engagement of 8% from 2008 levels and 12% from 2009 (DecisionWise)
* Employee engagement levels remained steady in 2008 and 2009 (Gallup)
* Some HR leaders faced an unexpected challenge when employee engagement scores came in for 2010: Engagement data wasn’t low enough! (TLNT)

What’s going on here? With the latter set of stats, it’s clear employees are putting on a “fixed grin” and surveys certainly don’t tell the entire engagement story.

What can be done about it? The Canadian research points out that the employees aren’t necessarily lacking in motivation, but managers (direct and senior leaders) aren’t creating conditions that engage employees. In that poll, 58% said managers at all levels need to give more praise and employee recognition. CIPD agrees with research citing feedback, praise and recognition as one of the most mentioned management competencies for supporting employee engagement.

Why should you care? One survey of hospital staff found that facilities with higher employee engagement also had much higher handwashing compliance. So what? Think about it in a hospital environment. More handwashing means less transference of germs between patients, which means potentially fewer incidences of hospital-acquired patient illness and even death. That’s a good reason to focus on increasing engagement to me!

Prior posts on 2011 Top HR Priorities
Priority 1: Improving Senior Leader Capabilities at Managing the Workforce
Priority 2: Improving Manager Capabilities at Managing Their Direct Reports

Top 5 Critical HR Priorities: #1 Improving Senior Leader Capabilities

Recognize This! – Senior leaders need to improve respect for employees, trustworthiness, and caring to better manage the workforce.

The Corporate Executive Board recently shared with us the Top 5 Critical HR Priorities for 2011 from their Corporate Leadership Council HR global agenda poll. Each day this week, I’ll address one priority.

Priority 1 for HR in 2011: Improving Senior Leader Capabilities at Managing the Workforce

Senior leaders constantly juggle innumerable priorities, each often requiring a different capability. Which should HR focus on to help senior leaders improve? I suggest senior leaders can’t hope to manage effectively unless they have the respect and trust of their teams. Their employees must also know the senior leader cares about them as people, not just “human capital.”

RESPECT
Paul Marciano, author of Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work, recently offered seven “critical” ways managers show respect for employees. His way was employee recognition: “Thanking employees and acknowledging their contributions on a daily basis.”

I don't know if Paul listed these in order of importance, but there is no denying that acknowledgment of ourselves, our work, and the value of our contributions goes a long way to telling us we are respected in the workplace. Paul’s last item was trust: “Demonstrating faith and belief in their employees’ skills, abilities, and decisions,” which leads in the next capability senior leaders need to manage the workforce.

TRUST
BlessingWhite’s CEO points out that without trust in leadership, employees question where they fit in the company. Towers Watson’s 2010 Global Workforce Study found “the most desired leadership characteristic is to be trustworthy, but only 47% of respondents agree that their leaders are, in fact, trustworthy.”

Why is this? Les Allan suggests on his Business Performance blog: “It can be more difficult to ascribe honorable motives to a ‘faceless’ leader.” To become more present to employees and “add a face,” senior leaders must show they care.

CARE
In his book The Thank You Economy, “King of Social Media” Gary Vaynerchuck, said:

“I care more about my employees than I do my customers, and I care more about my customers than I do breathing.”

Do you care more about your employees than you do breathing? Do your employees trust you? Do you have respect for them? If not, I can guarantee they do not respect you, trust you, or care about you and your success.

Why Focusing on Shareholder Value Is Wrong

Recognize This: Shareholder value will never guarantee customer satisfaction or an increase in their purchasing behavior.

Is your company a slave to the quarterly analyst call? Are you focused, before all else, on increasing shareholder value as the best marker of company success?

Even Jack Welch has denounced this as a dumb idea. More voices continue to chime in, most recently Roger Martin, dean of the Roman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Canada, as quoted in TLNT:

“Concentrating primarily on creating shareholder wealth is ultimately a loser’s game.  The reason: the only sure way to increase shareholder value is to raise the market’s expectations about the organization’s future results. Unfortunately, executives simply can’t do that indefinitely.… Talented executives can grow market share and sales, increase margins, and use capital more efficiently, but no matter how good they are, they can’t increase shareholder value if expectations get out of line with reality.”

Instead, Towers Watson (authors of the article) suggest:

“Instead of training her gaze directly on shareholder returns, a high performing executive leader should pay attention to the performance of employees and the linkage of employee performance with customer satisfaction and purchase behavior.”

If employees are focused on making customers happy such that they buy more, shareholder value is sure to increase. But there’s no guarantee with the reverse equation of shareholder value first, employees and customers a far-behind also-ran.

In fact, Gallup research found causation between employee engagement and financial success. Guess what? Working for a financially successful company does not necessarily make employees more engaged. But engaged employees do drive financial success.

One way to accomplish this is by including “customer satisfaction” as a reason for recognition in your strategic recognition and rewards program. Doing so reinforces for all employees the value the company places in focusing on the customer, and gives employees an opportunity to acknowledge each others’ efforts in making customers happy.

What does your company focus on at its key marker of success? Shareholder value? Customer satisfaction? Employee retention?


Also, don't forget to join me for the complimentary IHR Rewards & Recognition virtual conference tomorrow and Thursday, March 30-31, especially for my two sessions:

• March 30, 12:30 (Eastern) - Presenting with Betsy Walker from Quintiles, a Globoforce customer, on The New R&R: Increasing Retention Using the Power of Recognition
• March 31, 11:00 (Eastern) - Presenting The Future of Rewards and Recognition

Pruning Your Culture Tree

Recognize This: A little careful pruning and nurturing goes a long way in managing your company culture.

I'm thrilled to appear on the cover of the March/April 2011 issue of Engagement Strategies Magazine. In the Q&A-style article, "Authenticity, Tree-Pruning and the 'Wisdom of Crowds'," I explain the critical link between employee recognition, employee engagement and managing your company culture.

A couple of excerpts:

ESM: What you see as the link between recognition and engagement? Is a “culture of recognition” really necessary to create an engaging work environment?
Irvine: The link, as I see it, is that recognition is the fastest way to employee engagement. There are many different contributory factors, but I would contend that recognition is one of the fastest and most efficient in the overall armory of tools that people have available to boost employee engagement.

Click through to read the case study example I share of why this is true.

I also comment on the importance of proactively managing your culture:

Companies have to ask themselves: “Are we managing our culture, or is our culture managing us?” There’s a lot of debate out there as to whether culture is manageable or not. But I would say culture is a bit like a bonsai tree. It can be steadfast and strong, but it requires deliberate nurturing in order for it to grow in a particular way. If you aren’t careful about your tree, if you cut it the wrong way or neglect it; you can create a rather ugly looking tree – or culture.

Do you agree? Is culture something that can be directly managed, or only endured? Is recognition the fastest way to engagement?

Limiting Employee Recognition Only Limits Potential Improvement

Recognize This: Putting limits on employee recognition only limits potential impact on employee engagement, productivity, performance and retention.

Adding to my thoughts on appreciation tips that have been tweeted to #appreciationtip (and keep those tips coming) is this one:

"As you sip your morning coffee, remember it's never too early to thank your employees."

I like this tip not for the obvious inference of "recognize early and often," but for the more subtle message of "even new hires can do extraordinary things."

A recognition policy I've never understood is "New hires must be on board 90-days (or some other arbitrary length of time) before they can participate in the appreciation or recognition program."

Why? Are they not likely to do something extraordinary during those months? Personally, I can think of countless examples of a new hire, with their fresh eyes and clear perspective, seeing a challenge or opportunity long-timers had struggled with and arriving at a simple, elegant solution. Should they not be recognized and appreciated for that, just because "they haven't been here long enough?"

What do you think? Are there any good reasons for a 90-day (or similar) moratorium on recognition for new hires?

Your Appreciation Tips: Regular Chats = Employee Appreciation

Recognize This: Regular chats with employees are a form of appreciation.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been asking you to tweet your tips for employee appreciation to #appreciationtip. Doing so enters you to win an eBook copy of Winning with a Culture of Recognition or a Kindle preloaded with the eBook.

I've received some good tips. Keep them coming!

This tip came in from @Nancy_Carbone: Have regular casual talks w/employees. Chance 2 lrn abt pros, cons & achievements. It's motivating & shouldn't be annual.

Nancy is correct, indeed. When the primary interaction on goals, achievements, feedback and areas for improvement is an annual performance review, it's no wonder employees become disconnected from their managers and disengaged with their work.

Making time in your day and extending the effort to have regular, casual conversations with your employees is itself a powerful form of employee recognition and appreciation.

Is improving employee engagement on your to-do list? If you're a closed-door, heads-down kind of manager, opening yourself up to your employees frequently and regularly could be a powerful first step in improving relationships and, ultimately, engagement.

Virtual Book Club * Learn How to Bust More Employee Appreciation Myths

I greatly enjoyed our Mythbusters: The Employee Appreciation Edition webinar with David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network, and Zane Safrit, author of Recognize Your Employees – 52 Weeks, 52 Ways.

The overall theme of the discussion during the webinar came down to the need for employers to pay attention to employee needs. David made the point about “caring made tangible” – the first priority is to notice and truly see what is going on with people around us.

Webinar participants shared their own myths as well, such as: “Certain cultures don’t appreciate recognition.” My bust to that myth is as simple as: “The only qualifying factor for the need for recognition is to be a member of the human race.” Our clients have proven the fallacy of this myth, which I’ve written about in “Overcoming Stereotypes,” my contribution to Chris Ferdinandi’s Do Amazing Things.

The idea of “tangible caring” is at the heart of employee appreciation and engagement. It’s far too easy to overlook the need to engage employees, but vast research on the positive financial and personal boost from recognition proves how critical making the effort is today and in the years ahead. Just one statistic we mentioned in the webinar is that 78% of employees say recognition motivates them in their job.

This boost in motivation is as simple as: “I notice you and your good work. Thank you for it.” What’s our excuse to not give that recognition – every day, to the vast majority of employees?

If you weren’t able to join us, watch the webinar now, then tweet your own tips for employee appreciation and recognition using hash-tag #appreciationtip. If you do, you’ll be entered to be entered to win a copy of the Winning with a Culture of Recognition eBook or Amazon Kindle pre-loaded with the eBook.

Be sure to get your copy of Winning with a Culture of Recognition and then join us for our upcoming Virtual Book Club discussion. We’re planning the virtual book club for early next month. I’ll be sharing more details on how you can participate in the book club as we get closer. I look forward to diving into the book and your thoughts together.

Help Employees Align & Connect to Increase Employee Engagement * Lessons from BlessingWhite

Recognize This: People need a sense of connection and contribution to truly engage in your organization.

I was honored to host a webinar through Human Capital Institute (HCI) with BlessingWhite’s employee engagement practice leader, Mary Ann Masarech, yesterday. She gave color to the findings of their 2011 Employee Engagement Report.

Key take-aways from the webinar:

·         In every region of the world, more employees planned to leave in the next 12 months, with the percentage saying “no way would I remain” doubling (from 2008 to 2010). Globally, only 30% are fully engaged. 17% are disengaged. Australia/New Zealand and India have the highest engagement numbers; China has the lowest.

·         Employee engagement occurs when employees are making the maximum contribution while enjoying the maximum level of satisfaction. Engaged employees are using their talents to make a difference in the bottom-line.

·         Older employees and those higher up the ranks are more engaged. Mary Ann believes this to be because those in the upper ranks or who have been around longer feel they have more control over their work experience and greater insight into company strategy than those who are younger and at lower levels.

·         Employees closest to customer contact are most engaged. – Sales, HR/Training and Marketing. Least engaged are IT, R&D and Finance.

What does this tell me? People need a sense of connection and contribution – insight into the company strategy, connection to the customers who see the end result of efforts, and the knowledge that their efforts matter.

Mary Ann said in the webinar:

“I’ve heard Derek speak about recognizing and rewarding people for what you actually want them to do to drive your strategy. We found that the disengaged and the hamsters/honeymooners [those who are working hard, but not necessarily contributing well] were most in need of alignment. They need greater clarity about what they need to do, when and how to make the company successful. They are disconnected. You need to make sure all of your business process focus on that clarity piece.”

Register for one of the recast sessions on HCI to learn more about: 

1)      What you should not do to increase engagement

2)      What does work to increase engagement

3)      The responsibilities of executives, managers and individuals for engagement 

Webinar TOMORROW with Blessing White on 2011 Employee Engagement Report Results

Don't forget to join the webinar I'm doing tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern Time with Blessing White, discussing findings from their 2011 Employee Engagement Report.

Hosted by the Human Capital Institute (HCI), Mary Ann Masarech, head of BlessingWhite's Employee Engagement practice, will be discussing with me surprising findings of this recent report I highlighted in an earlier blog post.

We’ll share with you the post-recession factors impacting employee engagement and how focused initiatives, such as strategic recognition, can impact the organization at different levels to build a comprehensive employee engagement initiative.

Join us for this free, one-hour webinar, as we:

• Define engagement in a way that is actionable.
• Assess current engagement levels by seniority, generations and industry.
• Evaluate the role that leaders play in driving engagement.
• Develop solutions to leverage your leaders and yourself.
• Outline the key drivers of individual employee engagement.
• Understand the implications of engagement for your organization and how to best create an environment in which employees want to engage.


Register now!

Employee Well Being and Recognition

Recognize This: “Well-being is the next employee engagement.”


Five years ago when Eric Mosley, my CEO, and I began talking about employee engagement as a critical outcome of employee recognition and an even more critical component of company success, we had to spend a good deal of time explaining the concept as the majority of HR pros and influencers had never heard of it.

Now we’re seeing a new trend on the horizon, one not yet receiving much air time or understanding – employee well-being.

I don’t mean “wellness.” Well-being is a much broader term, defined by Gallup as: “all the things that are important to how we think about and experience our lives.” Gallup continues:

“Our teams were able to establish the relationship between wellbeing and everything from healthcare costs to productivity levels. It’s now possible to show how an employee with higher wellbeing costs less to insure, boosts performance, and creates engagement.”

Tony Schwartz, author of The Way We Work Isn’t Working, agreed in a blog post on Harvard Business Review:

“So what most influences employee engagement? … The degree to which employers actively invest in meeting the multidimensional needs of their employees.

“The second core need all of us share is to feel emotionally secure — meaning valued, recognized, and appreciated. Less than 40 percent of employees worldwide feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well-being. Only one out of ten employees feel they're treated as vital corporate assets. …The vast majority of employers fail to recognize a simple and immutable truth: how people feel at any given moment profoundly influences how they perform.”

That’s certainly true for me. When I feel valued – when I believe my contributions are helpful to my team members, my customers, my company – I perform at my peak. I’m running on a pure sense of that what I do really matters within the big picture.

Is the same true for you? Would you say your manager is interested in your well-being? When you do feel like “you’re a vital corporate asset,” does your performance improve?

Webinar March 2 with Blessing White on 2011 Employee Engagement Report Results

I'm quite excited about a webinar I'm doing with Blessing White next week, discussing findings from their 2011 Employee Engagement Report.

Hosted by the Human Capital Institute (HCI), Mary Ann Masarech, head of BlessingWhite's Employee Engagement practice, will be discussing with me surprising findings of this recent report I highlighted in an earlier blog post.

We’ll share with you the post-recession factors impacting employee engagement and how focused initiatives, such as strategic recognition, can impact the organization at different levels to build a comprehensive employee engagement initiative.

Join us for this free, one-hour webinar, as we:

• Define engagement in a way that is actionable.
• Assess current engagement levels by seniority, generations and industry.
• Evaluate the role that leaders play in driving engagement.
• Develop solutions to leverage your leaders and yourself.
• Outline the key drivers of individual employee engagement.
• Understand the implications of engagement for your organization and how to best create an environment in which employees want to engage.

What else would be useful for you to know out of this webinar?

Overcoming Confusion, Fear and Complacency to Engage Employees

Recognize This: Intent without action is more than worthless – it could actually contribute to additional disengagement.

Wrapping up our week-long look at the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study on employee engagement attitudes in the board room, the greatest challenge is the same is in many initiatives – taking action.

“Strong opinions might not translate into visible action. A sizeable discrepancy exists between what companies say about the perils of disengagement and how far they will actually go to confront the problem.”

The lack of action is likely due to three reasons:

1) Confusion – too much advice from too many sources on what to tackle first, making it easier to choose to do nothing.

2) Fear – concern that the “wrong” action might be taken, making engagement worse.

3) Complacency –it’s easier to stick your head in the sand and hope it all goes away. After all, it’s not really that bad, right?

Let me make it simple for you. Employee engagement boils down to this: does the employee understand their role in the organization, realize the importance of that role to company success, and desire to contribute their all achieve that success?

Strategic employee recognition is a powerful tool for engaging employees because it communicates clearly, frequently, specifically and in a timely way to all employees, individually: what they are doing that is being done well, what is valued and appreciated by the organization, in a way that encourages the employee to want to repeat it.

And our customers have proven time and again that doing so can increase employee engagement by double digits in just 12 months. It really is that easy. Say “thank you” – specifically, meaningfully and often – and people will be more engaged with you, their team and the company as a whole.

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement
Part 2: The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement to Be Seen
Part 3: Many Managers Won’t Act on Engagement Unless Empowered by the C-Suite
Part 4: Who’s the Bigger Problem: GenY or Long-Serving Staff?

Who’s the Bigger Problem: GenY or Long-Serving Staff?

Recognize This: All employees – regardless of generation or length of service – need reasons to engage with your company and strategic objectives.

Which demographic poses the greatest challenge to raising engagement levels in your organization: GenY (new) employees or “lifers” (those who have been with the organization for many years)?

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study we’ve been looking at all week, the C-suite seems to have drunk the Kool-aid on GenY, believing them hardest to engage. But other senior staff believe long-serving staff are the greater challenge:

“Long-serving staff pose the greatest engagement challenge. Respondents believe overwhelmingly that it is hardest to raise the engagement levels of ‘experienced and long-serving staff’. Again, however, C-suite executives reach a different conclusion from those below them. Only 27% of CEOs believe that this group presents the greatest challenge in raising engagement levels, as opposed to 57% of senior vice-presidents, heads of departments or business units. The C-suite is more likely than others to say that the under-25s represent the most problematic group of employees, in line with the current management orthodoxy surrounding Generation Y.”

As I’ve said before, GenY styles and expectations are really no different than those who preceded them – a desire to know that the work they are doing is correct, useful and meeting the requirements. Like all “new” employees, they’re often trying to “prove” themselves and their value to the organization.

For some long-serving staff, however, it can be easy to fall into a rut, even if that rut is a productive one. Once complacency settles in, how engaged are you really with your work, the customer or the company’s goals?

Of course these are broad brush strokes. I’m being overly simplistic, I know. I’m curious, though. Who do you side with? Is the C-Suite right that GenY are harder to engage? Or are the vice presidents and business heads correct that long-serving staff are more challenging?

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement
Part 2: The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement to Be Seen
Part 3: Many Managers Won’t Act on Engagement Unless Empowered by the C-Suite

Many Managers Won’t Act on Engagement Unless Empowered by the C-Suite

Recognize This: People quit bosses, not companies.

That oft-quoted truism was proven once again in the Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup 2010 study on employee engagement we’ve been looking at this week. Another key conclusion:

“Middle managers are not deemed responsible for employee engagement. The low proportion (13%) of C-suite executives who believe that line managers and middle managers are ‘chiefly responsible’ for staff engagement is unlikely to boost the people-management skills of such managers. If they are not considered responsible no matter how good or bad they are, why should they try? The potential negative repercussions could be significant, since around two in five of those not in the C-suite believe the ‘motivational ability of one’s line manager’ (the most selected survey option) to be a considerable contributor to employee motivation.”

Yes, executives are responsible for setting the vision and goals for employee engagement, but managers are responsible for executing that vision. As I wrote about last month, “managers act as coaches to facilitate their team members’ engagement journeys.”

Until executives are willing to admit that managers – and their daily actions that have repercussions on their staff engagement levels – are the linchpin in engagement (and they certainly don’t seem to now), many managers won’t feel compelled to step up.

That’s why we encourage defined KPIs for managers for employee recognition activity – a proven means of increasing employee engagement by double digits.

How do you ensure managers understand their responsibilities for the engagement of those who work for them?

Links to all posts on Economist Intelligence Unit/HayGroup study:
Part 1: C-Suite Blind to Reality of Employee Engagement
Part 2: The Board Must Care about Employee Engagement for Improvement to Be Seen