Culture & Employee Value * Join the Conversation

The announcement of our upcoming 14 May webinar, “Ask the Experts: Using Recognition, Compensation and Human Capital Management as a Catalyst for Positive Change in a Recession” (register here, more info here), sparked a lively discussion on LinkedIn on valuing employees in good times and bad, including this comment from Lisa Pehler, a Human Resources Business Partner:

“Management looks for quick fixes and then drops them like an old hat when the need has been fulfilled. Due to the current economic situation and the need for creativity to keep what workforce we have engaged, we just happen to have the ears of senior management. As HR business partners, we need to take advantage of this opportunity for the sake of employees and for the sake of building our economy. The true test (and goal) of HR practitioners is to keep this topic on the forefront into the future so these types of employee engagement activities don't become a quick fix, but remain BAU practices that continue to engage the workforce & grow the business.”

Similarly, a conversation I started on “How Are You Influencing Your Company Culture" drove interesting comments such as a this one from Hector Francisco Torres, a senior HR executive at Proquinal, S.A.

“Communication is not enough. Cultural changes are a matter of credibility and managerial buy-in. If you are able to convince senior executives to 'walk the talk', it's highly likely that you succeed in your cultural change iniciatives.”

I’m really enjoying the interaction with colleagues available in social networks such as LinkedIn. I encourage you to join in.

Cleaning Up Toxic Employees with Gratitude

Several consultancies have recently reported on the concern executives around the world have for retaining their top talent.

Deloitte reported:

“Nearly half of senior global company executives are worried about losing top talent during the recession while 30% saying they are looking to bring in more leaders. 44% of business leaders cited a decline in employee morale, rising to 60% in financial service.”

The Financial Times reported European boss’ concerns about repeating the same mistakes of past recessions by cutting too many skilled jobs, leaving them exposed when the market turned. John Griffith-Jones, head of KPMG in the UK and joint-chairman in Europe, said, ”What we did suffer from is, when the upturn came, we were desperately short of people in some areas.”

At the same time, however, leaders are faced with an increase in both the number of toxic employees and in their impact on an organization. Harvard Business Review reported:

“Among those on the receiving end of incivility in the workplace:
• 48% decreased their work effort,
• 66% said their performance declined,
• 80% lost work time worrying about the incident, and
• 78% said their commitment to the organization declined.”

No company can tolerate those kind of engagement and productivity losses at this time. So how do you clean up those toxic workers? Lead with gratitude.

“Complaining is a dead-end road; it feeds depression and hopelessness. The next time you complain, ask yourself, ‘Is this conversation adding any value?’ The fastest way out of being a complainer is gratitude that stems from acknowledging the roles that others have played in your life and career.”

What are you doing to make your corner of the workplace better – to make it a place where your top talent wants to stay? Tell me in comments.

Defining Employee Engagement * What’s Your Line of Sight?

I’ve seen countless definitions of employee engagement during the recent years, generally centered on engaged employees willingly giving additional discretionary effort. I recently read another definition I like very much from two sources:

From AsiaOne:

“Employee engagement is a combination of both commitment (that is, willing to contribute to the organisation's success) and line of sight (that is, know what to do to make the organisation successful).”

From MotivationConnect:

“Creating a line of sight across the business for all stakeholders is stopped if managers can't interpret and translate the strategy at the team and individual level. Managers then become a "cork" in the execution of strategy. To engage people in the game plan, managers need to interpret and translate new strategic actions.”

In both of the above, line of sight is used to mean an individual’s understanding of their role in the organization. We all need to know that we matter. In the workplace, we need to know that what we do contributes to the company achieving its objectives -- succeeding.

Strategic recognition is a powerful tool to create line of sight in the most positive way possible – with simple recognition of effort and a sincere thank you linked to precisely what it is you need your employees to accomplish.

What’s your line of site in your organization? What are you doing to create that line of site for your employees? Tell me in comments.

Recognition Gone Wrong * Thanks, but No Thanks

And finally, our Grand Prize Winner in the Recognition Gone Wrong contest:

“Here’s a great example about recognition gone wrong. I was working for a large, international company and hit my five-year anniversary. On the day of my anniversary, my boss just hands me this envelope. I open it up and the first thing I find is the instruction letter addressed to HIM that provided instructions on how he should have presented this “gift” to me...whoops! Okay, so he missed the boat on the thank yous. The next thing I find in the envelope is a gift catalogue. I thought, “Well, at least I can pick out a nice gift.” That notion quickly changed when I looked through the catalogue. It was filled with page after page of stuff that no one would want -- all emblazoned with the company’s logo --– ugly watches, desk tchotchkes, cheap travel bags, even jewelry that had the company’s logo on it. I was so hard pressed to find something that I showed it to my wife to see if she wanted anything. She looked through it and gave it right back to me. There was literally nothing in there for either one of us. The whole experience was a let down. This milestone moment became an empty moment. I think I would have been happier if the company just didn’t acknowledge it at all.”

I’ve heard similar stories from countless people over the years about the insult of trinkets and trash. In their recent webinar, Intuit told how employees were upset on behalf of the company as they thought Intuit was getting a bad deal on over-priced, outdated merchandise. Others have agreed corporate logo-wear was not a gift of choice and destined for the local charity shop.

But to me, that’s not the real insult in this story of wrecked recognition. It’s that the boss couldn’t even be bothered to take five minutes to personally and sincerely thank the employee for his five years of effort and contribution.

How to make this right?
* First, the manager should have made a point of acknowledging the five year anniversary directly to the employee and possibly in a team meeting or similar public arena. In today’s workplace, many employees don’t last five years. If you want to keep your top performers (who will have many more options when the recovery comes), you had better show appreciation for their time investment with your organization.
* Second, give the gift of choice. Let the person choose what matters to them. Perhaps this employee works long hours to get projects done on deadline, causing him to miss plans with friends for weeks on end. Let him choose to treat them to a fancy dinner. Or maybe his kids mean the world to him – let him choose to buy them a backyard playset and watch them play while works from the home office.

It really is as easy as that. Make it personal; make it meaningful; make it relevant.