Involved Employees

Flow into better, more enjoyable work

2008-08-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

We might be relishing this bank holiday’s extra day of leisure, but in fact the majority of people surveyed by Milhaly Csikszentmihalyi say they are more often happier and more satisfied when working. In his book Flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) he says the recipe for having flow in what you do

The phrase might not be familiar, but you are probably very familiar with flow. When you are immersed in something, so involved that you lose track of time, you fail to notice physical discomfort, maybe you even forget to eat and drink. Mountain climbers often say they experience flow when climbing, surgeons describe complex surgery as “more addictive than heroin” and musicians and top athletes are likely to regularly experience flow.

But flow is possible in the workplace too. If you and your colleagues have flow, instead of watching the clock, work days zoom by, instead of forcing yourself to do dreaded tasks, you polish them off with ease and competence? So what do we need for flow?
According to Csikszentmihalyi we need five things:

1. A task we have a chance of completing — difficult enough, but not so complex we feel beaten before we begin
2. The opportunity to concentrate on what we are doing – a time and place to work, free from distractions or discomforts
3. A task which has clear goals — we know what to do, how it will be measured
4. A task that provides immediate feedback — it is no good waiting 11 months for an annual appraisal we need feedback that is closely linked with what we are doing
5. A task that gives us control over our actions — so we dictate how, and as much of the schedule as possible.

If we have these things, then we are more likely to experience flow where we work effortlessly because the task matches our skills and resources, our self awareness disappears because we are so focussed and our sense of duration of time alters, either speeding up or slowing down depending our situation.

So if you want to create your own flow, or manage your staff’s flow, here are three suggestions:

1. Find a challenging activity that needs skill and regularly increase the skill level as capacity builds, so as to maintain interest
2. Define clear goals, and feedback mechanisms — in our work we find that this is the thing most desired by staff, the easiest to achieve and the most often overlooked. How often have you been asked to “Take a look at x,” or “See if you can do something about y.” Unless you set clear goals and define how you will measure success at the outset, you chances of achieving what you want are seriously reduced.
3. Build opportunities to concentrate — if you have an office and your staff work in open plan areas, make sure you go and work at one of their desks once in a while. With the phone, ringing, colleagues chatting and the constant flow of people traffic you would be amazed how hard it is to concentrate. Ask your staff regularly, what is distracting from their work and see if you can eliminate distractions.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Is your organisation disengaged?

2008-04-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

Measuring employee involvement is complex, but to get a snapshot of how involved your employees are, take our fast, five question survey.

Score each of these items (a,b, c etc) from 0 meaning not at all to 10 meaning completely.

1. Thinking of the last meeting I managed, attendees:
a. Arrived on time (if everyone arrived on time score 10)
b. Were well prepared and contributed constructively
c. Dedicated enough time to discussing problematic issues before reaching conclusions
d. Had a clear sense of who was going to do what by when following the meeting.
2. Thinking of the last time I did a piece really outstanding work for my organisation
a. My boss noticed my achievement and praised my contribution
b. My peers seemed impressed with my achievement and said so
c. My staff noticed my achievement and commented upon it.
3. Thinking about the last time your organisation needed to communicate something complex or sensitive
a. My organisation involved the right people in developing the messages so they were relevant to me and my team
b. My organisation, gave easy, no-blame ways of gaining views from me and my staff before firm decisions were made.
4. My organisation’s strategy:
a. Is clear to me: what I do at work contributes to this strategy?
b. How true is this for members of your team?
5. The ultimate question
a. I would recommend to friends and family that if appropriate they apply for a job at my organisation.

The total possible score for perfect employee engagement here is 120. I have yet to meet such an organisation. If you scored 90 or above you can expect to have pretty good communication and employee involvement, but take a look at the individual areas to see where your organisation might improve.
If your scores are between 50 and 89 clearly some things are working but the overall level of engagement probably needs measuring, and a specific plan for improvement put in place.
If your scores are below 50, we recommend urgent action to measure and improve employee engagement. See involvedemployees.com for more details.

Some people are gay. Get over it!

2008-04-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

How is your equalities and diversity performance? Who cares? Well if you want a workforce that is involved in their work, as a manager, you have to get involved with them. Stonewall the gay equalities organisation is running its Some people are gay. Get over it! Campaign. It is unashamedly unapologetic, after all what do gay men and lesbians have to apologies for? But given how many different groups (older people, younger people, women, people with disabilities, people from black and ethnic minorities etc.) that any modern organisation is likely to be employing, how can you respect your staff and still deliver on your organisation’s strategy? Here are some ideas.
1. Consider the language you use. “Family friendly policies” may be welcomed by many, but for single people, or people who consider they don’t have a “family,” the term may be alienating. If you are talking about child care then say so. If you mean you are flexible about leave for life events (births, deaths, caring responsibilities, partnerships, moving house etc.) then say so.
2. Think how it feels to be different. “Are you married,” may sound innocuous enough but what is a lesbian or gay man who may not feel confident enough to be out at work, supposed to answer? You could try “do you have a partner,” though again you will need to do this sensitively, what if they just got divorced or had their civil partnership dissolved? When you ask something as simple as “how was your weekend,” it can be impossible for some people to tell the truth without revealing more than they would like. Take your cue from them, and if they don’t offer additional information, leave it there.
3. Monitor and measure. Unless you monitor and measure your recruitment, staff makeup and promotion profile, how will you know if you are inadvertently discriminating against individuals or groups. You will need to do this sensitively. Asking a new recruit on her first day (or worse still, during the application process) if she is a lesbian, could see your recruitment figures plummet. We would suggest involving relevant groups in developing monitoring information to make sure your approach is appropriate.
4. Do something tangible to challenge discrimination. If 50% of your senior management team are not women, think about ways you could develop female staff into these roles. If you don’t employ staff with disabilities, talk to disability organisations about a disability awareness audit that can help you improve your services to customers and attractiveness as an employee to people with disabilities. No one expects their employer to know everything about every faith, every minority, every disability or every health issue, but your organisation does have all this expertise. Ask your staff, they are bound to want to be involved.

Does your strategy match your organisation?

2008-04-08T08:20:00.001-07:00

The majority of UK firms are now service organisations but many are operating with processes designed for product based companies. Francis X Frei [1] suggests that if service industries want to fight off their competition, they need to focus on four elements.
1. What is offered — which aspects of service do you want to deliver really well. You may say everything, but few firms can excel in every area. How can you be the cheapest company, with the highest quality service and still make money? Typically service industries need to decide what service attributes match target customers priorities. If you want to charge a premium, stay clear of customers who prioritise value for money above everything else for example.
2. How service is paid for — in service industries (staff) time is often the most expensive part of the transaction. Can you reduce the time processes take, eliminate travel, or find other ways to speed up the process? If so can you use these savings to fund enhanced services for your selected customers? One of the greatest cost savings can be in transferring work from staff to customers. This is what happens when we use a cashpoint (rather than speak to a bank employee). No customer wants to take on complicated drudge work, so when transferring work from staff to customers the most successful companies simplify and streamline processes and add additional benefits for the customer.
3. Involved employees — if you are delivering a service (rather than a product) your employees are the only people customers interact with that matters to them. Ask your frontline staff (or better still get on the front line yourself) and ask two questions. First what do staff need to be able to deliver excellent service in your strategic areas and second what motivates staff to deliver this excellent service?
4. Managed customers — if you are bringing your customers into your organisation (by for example having them carry out online transactions rather than call a call centre) how will you manage them, help them develop the necessary skills to carry out their part of your excellent service and above all make sure they want to do this work.

[1] Frei, F, X. The Four Things a Service Business Must Get Right, HBR April 2008 p 70 — 80

Want to be successful like Google?

2008-04-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

The title may sound like spam email, but by any analysis Google is a company that is doing phenomenally well. We can't all be the Goliath that is Google, but we can all learn something from how they recruit, manage, motivate, measure and reward their employees. Want to know what Google knows — here it is from the April edition of the Harvard Business Review [1].
1. Strategic patience — HBR calls it strategic patience, we might call it, taking a long term view. When was the last time you looked up from the bars of your weekly, monthly or quarterly cell of deliverables to gaze at the vista of what you are aiming to achieve in the long term? Why are you letting monthly finance reporting get in your way of doing great work?
2. Test your ideas, market your ideas — using data. It’s easy(ish) to come up with good (sometimes great) ideas but how can you prove it, and make sure people know about it. Google develops hundreds of products and “simultaneously tests and markets them to the user community. In fact testing and marketing are virtually indistinguishable."[2] Not only does this give data showing which products are most likely to succeed, but it creates a special relationship with consumers: it partly developed by them. How is that for involvement?
3. Reward creativity, relax into (some) failure. If you want a highly creative workforce, some creativity will result in failed projects. As one Googler put it “Please fail very quickly — so you can try again.” For creative organisations the speed at new projects are developed means that a failed project is a step closer to the next successful one. A long, carefully planned, measured programme of development could spend 3 years working up to failure, a more agile organisation could have had 30 failures and 3 world-changing ideas in the same time.
4. Use data — Page and Brin (Google’s founders) are tech guys themselves so you would expect them to use analytical and data approaches to deciding which ideas go forward, but there is no reason why even the mathematically challenged can not run surveys, poll existing or potential clients, and test and hone different options. Instead of making your decisions on gut feel, how about finding your own data, or getting help in developing some data driven approaches.
5. Suggestions schemes — would you believe it, some of Google’s success is based on the humble suggestion scheme (does your organisation have one, if not why aren’t you starting one?) But unlike many passive suggestion schemes, Google uses an online discussion forum where staff rate ideas, and these evaluations are used as part of the data gathering process for creating new products.
6. Give them what matters — we know your staff are your most important asset, so why aren’t you giving them a little of what matters most to them. They may not need higher salaries, but might be happy with regular skills updating, or a more relaxed team meeting. Why not use some data gathering skills you are now so keen to implement and survey your staff on what they would like in return for higher levels of creativity.
[1] Iyer, B. and Davenport T., Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine, HBR April 2008 p 59 — 68
[2] ibid

“What is it with you people!”

2008-02-27T08:35:00.000-08:00

Think back to the last time someone at work was irritable with you. Maybe they uttered a phrase like the one above, or quite possibly something worse. It is obvious that having a colleague be rude to us damages our performance (however temporarily) but new research from the University of California suggests that other workers who only hear about this aggressive or rude behaviour second hand can be similarly affected. Our ability to perform creatively, memory recall and flexibility can all be affected by second-hand sniping.

According to this research being exposed to rudeness at work leaves us ruminating on the ‘injustice’ of the outburst, or thinking of how we can get our own back. This uses mental capacity, that we could otherwise put to more creative use.

So what’s the lesson here? Well if you are a grouch — count to 10 or bite your tongue if you want your teams to produce high quality, creative work. If you are exposed to a grouches’ outbursts, you can minimise the damage and stop yourself from ruminating with three quick techniques:

1. talk sense to yourself, think of your past successful experience with evidence of why you disagree with the grouch

2. realise the issue is external to you — your grouch could be in a bad mood for a hundred personal reasons, unconnected to you

3. understand this is a single occurrence — if your grouch accuses you of always being late for meetings, translate this into questioning your lateness on this one occasion: you can then decide how to respond without having to question everything about you and your work

Before you run this anti-grouch programme it is worth stepping back and checking if they do have a point. If you want to keep your employees involved and working productively cut out the grouching. Raise any concerns you have when you are calm and can focus on changing or improving performance rather than just venting your anger.

Does it pay to be nice at work?

2008-02-26T06:52:00.000-08:00

Many predictors of individual and hence organisational performance are based on the Five Factor Model (FFM or Big Five) [1]:

Conscientiousness — how persistent, self controlled, and the focus on results a person shows
Extraversion — how sociable and energetic someone is
Agreeableness — how cooperative, trusting and likeable an employee is
Emotional stability — how calm, and unflappable a staff member is
Openness to experiences – how imaginative, independent and generally curious a person is

The general thinking is that the more conscientious and agreeable person you are, the better you will be at working in teams and collaborating to get things done. But according to research carried out with 3,000 Dutch workers, being a “nice guy” or gal may leave you earning less than your more Machiavellian colleagues. The research found that people who scored low on the agreeableness scale, tended to earn more than their more cooperative colleagues and they put forward two possible reasons. First it may be that people who exploit work to their own advantage really do intrinsically earn more. Second, they suggest that more agreeable people may be less forceful in asking for higher salaries, pay rises and bonuses.
Niccolo Machiavelli said “Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.” So, is it worth treading on the heads of your colleagues, for more cash in the bank now, or are you investing in collaborating with colleagues so they will help you out (when you really need it in the future)? Either way it might be worth digging out that copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince before you go into work on Monday.

[1] Digman, J.M, Personality Structure: Emergence of the Five-Factor Model, Annual Review of Psychology, January 1990, Vol. 41, Pages 417-440
[2] Nyhus, E.K. and Pons, E The effects of personality on earnings Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 26, Issue 3, June 2005, Pages 363-384

Once a year performance

2008-02-20T01:28:00.000-08:00

Two phrases - very different results. Before the 1990's you probably ran or were exposed to performance appraisal, or performance evaluation - a once a year tick in the box, pass/fail experience. Many organisations have now moved to performance management systems. Is there a difference or has it just changed its name? We believe there has been a fundamental change, for the better, and here's why and how you can implement better performance management systems.

Performance appraisal/evaluation was generally kicked off by the HR department. Managers typically evaluated how staff performed tasks - how many Xs did you deliver in the past year. Staff received feedback after this once a year session and usually agreed with the good news and disagreed with the bad news. Process done.

What is missing from performance appraisal/evaluation is a clearly defined link with organisational objectives and departmental goals, and a partnership approach to improving performance of the individual staff member, the team they work in and the organisation as a whole - enter performance management.

So what do you need for a good performance management system?

1. clearly defined, agreed, and understood organisational and department objectives and goals - if we don't know where we are going and how to get there how can we accurately manage our progress?
2. defined personal performance that is agreed between the individual staff member and her/his manager - agreed, because unless there is a joint understanding and commitment to performance standards there is no way two sets of expectations can meet
3. performance measures that are agreed in advance - what will be measured, how will it be measured, what are the rewards and consequence of good and poor performance?
4. regular communication (open, honest, two-way) on goals and performance.

Moving to a performance management system fundamentally changes the game. Instead of fighting with managers for achievement points, now the job of both staff members and managers is to jointly understand performance criteria; jointly understand how each party can contribute to achieving goals that are important to both the staff member and the organisation; and to communicate every working day to update current expectations and achievements. Are you actively managing performance or just hoping it will happen?

"Involved employees don't steal"

2008-02-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

The latest PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Economic Crime Survey shows a near 40% rise in fraud. Reporting organisation are suffering an average loss of £1.2 million, according to the report, and it is primarily disengaged staff who are getting away with the goods.

Fraud is probably one of the most dramatic of what researchers call counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) but it is costing UK organisations millions of pounds.

According to the PWC survey, one out of every two companies worldwide reported losses through economic crime from 2005 – 2007 and 88 % of reporting organisations said it had damaged their brand and affected staff motivation. Worryingly UK organisations consistently underestimate the level of fraud – only 17% believe that they will be victims but 48% actually are.

But the picture of disengaged staff defrauding their organisations goes beyond just financial fraud. A second tier of CWB shows itself through harassment complaints or bouts of verbal abuse at work. When organisations count the cost of other destructive behaviour staff — such as taking unauthorised absences, having excessive breaks, or just delivering poor quality work — the costs are even higher. By the time staff are deliberately damaging company property, their lack of satisfaction is so low, they can see their own stealing as justified.

What can you do to prevent fraud and other CWB? Well a good employee involvement and communications programme gives you a chance to regularly test how staff are feeling and where their greatest discontent lies. If, from this, you see a pattern of dissatisfaction you will need to take visible action to fix issues raised by staff and discuss longer term employee involvement programmes directly with them. If things have already reached identified fraud or theft, then current recommendations for responding are:

delivering rapid, focussed and appropriate punishment

offering opportunities to work colleagues who do not get involved in CWB even when provoked

providing communications skills training for people who typically fly off the handle at the slightest provocation

using humour and empathy to create a happier mood in the organisation

More on the Global economic crime report

More on Counterproductive work behaviour

In-competencies

2008-02-13T09:41:00.000-08:00

Most job interviews are now carried out using a competency model. The idea is that by having candidates discuss situations similar to ones they will encounter in their new job, and interviewer will see the mix of knowledge, skills, abilities and other personality characteristics (KSAOs) a candidate can offer.

One of the complaints about this type of interview is that it misses some of the depth or colour of candidates. Interviewers claim they don't get to ask needed questions and candidates say they don't get to explain themselves. We think this could be solved with some good traditional values.

What we would now call old fashioned CVs and interviews touched on what you liked to do, what hobbies you had as a teenager, your passion for potholing or knitting or Dr Who. Psychologists (the people who design your competency interview questions) would call this vocational interests and there is a surprisingly strong link between them and what makes us happy and involved at work. If a candidate tells you she was in the Guides and set up her own football team, you can bet she will flounder in a work environment where she spends days alone without human interaction. Similarly if your candidate says he loved "taking things apart" as a child and built his own computer when aged 11, he stands a better chance in technical areas than a sales based call centre.

Of course you should not employ someone based on their hobby, but if you can match what they love doing and their work [1], they are likely to be happier, more involved in their organisation, and more likely to stay in that role for years. This saves you the trouble and cost of going through another recruitment process.

So next time you are interviewing, don't be an in-competent... ask them about their passions.

[1] For more on working to you strengths and passions see our post Your best working day or to see how close you are to your ideal job role try a test based on John Holland's vocational choice theory.

“You make me sick”

2008-02-12T08:06:00.001-08:00

If you are reading this crammed into an open-plan office designed for half the number of current occupants, you are probably too hot, too cold, squinting from glare on your screen or you have been … where was I, oh yes … you have been interrupted up to 60 times today. And this is a modern office, designed for optimum performance?

A study by Leaman and Bordass [1], has identified five Killer Variables in designing offices for top productivity:

comfort and personal control

responsiveness to need

ventilation type

workgroup layout and design

design intent.

Given that most of us are unable to redesign our buildings, realistically what can we do about these Killer Variables?

Maximise opportunities to involve staff in designing office layout. Even if you are just buying new chairs, or rearranging seating, involving staff in the decisions (giving them control) can improve how they feel working in the office.

Building services are often overlooked in a measure of how staff involvement affects productivity and customer service. But the responsiveness (speed quality and feedback) of building managers to issues raised by staff was found to be the key factor in how satisfied staff are with their working environment. So cultivate your building manager before problems happen.

As far as ventilation goes most people would settle for more control and poorer ventilation, for example preferring windows they can open or close over what may be more accurate air conditioning. Not everyone can sit by a window, and not every office can have opening windows, but you may want to think carefully about what controls you can put in the hands of staff for any ventilation you do have.

When designing workgroups, again the key is involving people in how to layout their workspace and typically breaking larger groups down into groups of up to 8 seems to boost staff satisfaction and increase productivity.

As far as design intent this is your big opportunity if you are moving office or fundamentally reconfiguring layout, and is based on the idea that involving the people who will use the building in the original architect design and builder's delivery will significantly narrow the gap between how the building was planned to work and what happens in real life.

Involve users of the building at all stages of the design and implementation and you can expect happier, more productive, more involved employees.

Tips

Keep work groups small (groups of up to four typically show the most productivity, those over eight the lowest)

Minimise unwanted distractions, like getting the door fixed so it doesn’t squeak or slam, not positioning the coffee machine near where people need to concentrate

Don’t interfere with information flows; can people who need to see each other easily, can staff easily read the information boards and screens they need to do their job; can staff meet informally and discuss issues without getting in the way or distracting others?

[1] Reported by: Fleming, D, Facilities management: a behavioural approach 2004 Facilities Journal; Volume: 22 Issue: 1/2 Page: 35 - 43

Do not run a staff survey

2008-02-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

Unless you are prepared to involve your staff in taking action and delivering solutions to the issues raised. If you don't believe me, there is a long list of other survey specialists lining up to agree:

“… some survey practitioners would argue strongly (e.g., Church and Waclawski, 1998; Hinrichs, 1996; Kraut and Saari, 1999) that there is a critical sixth step – taking action – which is in fact a requirement for an effective organisational survey process. This sixth element concerns the extent to which changes in the organization are made as a direct result of the data obtained. Given that there are fixed costs associated with survey research in organizations and that employee expectations regarding outcomes are raised by conducting the effort in the first place, it is both ethically responsible and imminently practical to use the data obtained. At the very least inaction must be explained.” [my emphasis]

Rogelberg, Steven G. Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Malden, Mass.; Oxford : Blackwell, 2002. P143

O*NET - what knowledge, skills, abilities and interests are vital to your work?

2008-02-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

Every job demands a different mix of knowledge, skills, abilities and interests, but classifying them objectively can be difficult. If you are developing or reviewing job descriptions; providing career information or counselling; choosing a new job for yourself; or considering changing career, O*NET (which is free to use) could be a useful tool.

What deal do you make with your organisation?

2008-02-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

Some people call it a psychological contract, and in his new book, Wellin uses the idea of a personal deal but if you manage staff or have your own boss, ignoring this fragile agreement could cost you dearly.

A psychological contract is an agreement of the informal things between an employee and his/her organisation. It sits outside the formal written contract of employment and relates to how staff expect to be treated and managed and how an employer expects work to be delivered. Maybe we could just call it trust.

In his review Wellin shows how individuals and organisations can develop these important deals, how easily they are damaged or broken and the catastrophic effect injury can be.

Some see the psychological contract as a forerunner of what we call employee involvement. Whatever you call it have you asked your staff what they expect from you and have you discussed with them what your expectations are?

A culture of one

2008-02-10T05:14:00.000-08:00

If you needed reminding that your workforce is multifaceted just take a look at your staff profile. A typical UK firm today has 45% female employees, 14% of all employees are aged under 25, 27% are aged 50 or over, something under 8% are from black and other ethnic communities and 6% are lesbian or gay and of whom 46% are too concerned to come out at work. This piece is not about the myriad social and cultural toes you can tread on without realising it in a modern organisation, but rather to encourage you to treat your staff as cultures of one [1].

[1] Employment figures taken from Office for National Statistics data end 2007. Figures for the size of the lesbian and gay population in the UK are taken from a DTI meta-study – more here

It used to be simple — but limiting. We grew up, got a job, and laboured in the same place through our working life. Now through Facebook we are connected with like minded people from around the planet who share our interests; through EU expansion, Europeans are more mobile for employment than at any time in history and the rest of the world is getting on a plane and migrating to where the work is too. Given these rapid changes in the way we work, what have you done to make sure your leadership, management and HR practices have moved with the populations?

If you want to recruit, manage and retain the best workforce for your organisation, you need to adapt to meet their needs. What do they want? Who knows — but I suggest you ask them. Do you regularly and meaningfully ask current staff, people who apply for your jobs or employees who leave what the really want out of work? Do you ask them when, how and where they want to work? Do you find out what benefits and recognition they expect? If you don’t ask these questions and respond well and treat each employee as a culture of one, you can bet that an employer around the corner (or around the world) is doing exactly that, and I know where I’d rather work.

This piece is inspired by Hofstede's work.

Youf kulcha @ Wrk

2008-02-09T03:58:00.000-08:00

Far from being illiterate, innumerate and unskilled, many of today's younger workers — have higher levels of education — possess highly developed technology skills — are more able to operate in networked groups — and are more likely to see the world from a global perspective, than workers from their parents generation. And what's more, according to the Flynn effect, the next generation is likely to be more 'intelligent' than us.

This and findings of a study by Loughlin and Barling [1] who argue that we are missing opportunities to involve and keep involved, younger workers in two ways:

First we fail to understand the level that their first employment (which may well be menial, part-time, low-paid work, while they are still studying) shapes their view of work and what is important in their lives.

Second we are not offering them chances to use their existing skills or to develop new ones. Both of these factors rate highly as involvement factors with younger workers so if you want to attract and retain younger workers

give them something interesting to do today

give them something challenging to do tomorrow

remember their first work experiences are shaping how they behave today and act accordingly.

[1] Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2001), 74 543-558

Not just any work

2008-02-08T11:33:00.001-08:00

OK, so we (hopefully) agree that the majority of us want to work, but what kind of work do we aspire to? According to Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon, we are all craving high quality work that means something to us and has value in society. Will we be great accountants, adding value to our clients and helping their long-term plans, or just do enough to keep the regulators from the door. Will we treat customers with respect or will the drive to cut costs, cut corners and cut delivery to the bone, lead us to non-good work?

Find out more about The GoodWork Project

People work for more than money - surprised?

2008-02-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

If you are wondering if employee involvement really is important, take a look at work by the National Research Council. The NRC asked employees (over a period of 25 years) "If you were to get enough money to live as comfortably as you would like for the rest of your life, would you continue to work or would your stop working?" Guess how many people said they would carry on working: 70%.

Clearly people work for a range of reasons beyond paying the bills, so if work is so important to our colleagues that they would do it even if they didn't have to, don't we owe it to them to make it interesting, engaging and involving?

The Changing Nature of Work: Implications for Occupational Analysis (1999)

Fighting for a blue

2008-02-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

How do you get a team of people who are world leaders in their sphere, and fierce individualist at heart to collaborate? According to Mark de Rond, Reader in strategy and organisation at Judge Business School in Cambridge the key is “sociability” or “likeability.”

Rond spent months of early, cold, wet mornings working closely with the pinnacle of goal-focussed high achievers, rowers vying for a blue: a place in the 8-person race boat. He found that for expert teams, the key to success is mutual support where “our individual performance is a function of the social environment of which we are a part,” rather than just our innate star quality.

What does this mean for business away from the water? Rond recommends that when building and managing teams sometimes there are good business reasons to sacrifice a small amount of an individual’s competence for more sociability within the team as a whole. In plain language that means that you may be worse off having just a team of stellar performers without adding in someone who may be less of an expert in the field, but who can act as the social link, binding the group and smoothing over the friction so many of these experts groups experience. How do you design your teams?

How do you get involved in teams?

2008-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

“We stay in our companies because we love working as a member of a team, and we leave them because we hate working in that team.” These are the findings of Lynda Gratton, Professor of management at London Business School. So how do you recruit and manage teams to fully involve staff and have them produce their best results? According to Gratton you need three things:

1. teams that are prepared to cooperate
2. teams with diverse make up (age, gender, background etc)

and most importantly

3. a mission or a question that is very exciting to the whole team.

Gratton recommends against running social, get-to-know each other sessions when introducing new teams. That way team members will just have time to find they don't like each other and don't get along. Better to give them a demanding and exciting task straight away so they are focussed on achieving the goal

Hear Gratton discuss her findings from research with 150 top business teams from companies like Goldman Sachs and Google on In Business: Team Spirit ∞

Employee involvement - the movie

2008-02-07T13:21:00.000-08:00

What's the point of employee involvement? You could read any of these postings, but if you prefer, you can watch the movie ∞

If you are in Canada - more here
If you are anywhere else - more here

What are you prepared to do to get the most from your staff?

2008-02-03T02:18:00.000-08:00

If I invented a device that guaranteed to significantly improve your whole organisation’s employee involvement and service delivery at next to no cost (or your money back) would you be willing to try it? If I offered you a management technique that could send your client/customer satisfaction levels through the roof at no cost (or your money back) would you buy it? OK, here it is then — free of charge.

Get your staff moving. Exercise has so many beneficial implications for health you won’t need me to remind you of those. But did you know people think better, manage stress better, take better decisions and can process high level complex information at much higher rates with just a few minutes exercise a couple of times a week. “The cognitive benefits of exercise have been demonstrated in older people, the middle-aged, and even overweight Japanese fourth graders.” If it's good enough for them …

The Board Meeting of the Future - Harvard Business Review Feb 2008 V86 #2

“What is it with you people and 8.30 AM?*”

2008-01-30T04:37:00.000-08:00

For Generation Y (people born after 1980) the concept of being paid for a number of hours per day or per week is an anathema. They want to work anywhere any time and you will see better employee involvement and results if you give them scope to do this. Gen Y are often able to deliver work faster than older colleagues because of increased technological dexterity. So if they can deliver the same or better output in a shorter time, is it right to ask them to sit at their desks when they could be doing something more interesting? How can you win with Gen Y?

• Explain specifically what results and standards you expect
• Measure performance on results, not the time spent
• Stop mistaking physical presence for commitment or dedication to the job
• Involve Gen Y in designing your future telephony, technology and workspaces, you may need more team spaces, drop in desks and mobile technology than old style large grey boxes in a fixed location.

*Harvard Business Review 02 2008

You only think you know

2008-01-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

What do your staff value most from their job? You probably think you know, but unless you give them confidential, no-come-back-guaranteed opportunities to update their thinking with follow-up results they can feel, you may be wasting your time.

Staff attitude surveys need to be regular. If you run one once a year (or more likely once every two years) you will get a snapshot of overall trends and feelings. But these one-off surveys can be so skewed by other temporary factors, I’d say save your money and don’t bother.

Staff who give feedback need confidence that there will be no come-back for them. If they criticise a colleague, a manager, or a process at work - and then face difficulties or embarrassment because they were honest - well, don’t expect to hear much of value in the future.

Finally staff who commit to giving their thoughts and opinions need acknowledgement that their views have been heard and acted upon. You might not be able to implement what they suggest, or fix what they claim is broken, but unless you explain this to them, they are unlikely to be volunteering their thinking to you in the future. More here

Your best working day

2008-01-21T03:42:00.000-08:00

What was your best working day in the last three months? If you answer this and look in detail at why this was such a good day, you have probably identified exactly the kind of working day (and hence career) best suits you. For each of us personally this could help us move into work we find more fulfilling and coincidentally easier and less stressful but as a manager it means you can really be in charge of teams that excel. Take time to find out what each of your team member’s strengths are and then allocate work and roles accordingly (rather than by job titles) and you will be amazed at the results. Marcus Buckingham is a leader in this field. More here

New report - public sector staff less involved

2008-01-16T05:15:00.000-08:00

If you are working in the public sector, your staff are likely to be less involved and engaged in their work than staff in other sectors, says a new report out today. How can you keep staff involved if your budgets are constrained — more here

Is your surveillance stressing your staff?

2008-01-16T02:37:00.000-08:00

A new report from the Economic and Social Research Council suggests that recent advances in technology that changes how we organise, monitor and reward work, may be creating increased stress for staff. How can you use these technologies to measure, reward, and maintain staff engagement: involve them in developing the measures and reporting the output. More here

It is flexibility not pay that counts

2008-01-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

A recent review of the top 50 employers in Canada, again reflects European trends with pay being significant but not the final word in employee involvement. According the study of over 100,000 employees it is flexibility that counts most. Perhaps it is counter-intuitive but staff who have other interests outside work are generally happier and more productive than those typical workaholics with no outside passions. So the tip is employ passionate staff with a range of interests and be flexible enough for staff to play as well as work for you. More here.

Kick out the managers

2008-01-14T05:06:00.000-08:00

What do you do when your organisation comes absolute last in a Best Places to Work government index? Whatever your solution, it had better be fast and radical if you want to keep your customers or funding. That’s exactly what Steven Preston of US Small Business Association did. Steve used an involving approach, committed to staff training (i.e. spent money not just talked about it), visited the network’s many sites, and held meetings where he kicked out the mangers and gave staff a chance to speak freely and directly to him. When staff involvement plummets do you make it easy to hear contentious staff views or do hide in your office? More here.

Resolve for your resolutions

2008-01-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

1. Share a positive resolution

It is easier to stick to positive decisions when you write down the actions and share these plans with colleagues. So inviting colleagues to join you for a 20 minute lunchtime walk a couple of times a week is more likely to see you exercising, than secretly criticising yourself for staying at your desk every lunchtime.

2. Reciprocate now

If you want help from your colleagues to stick to your resolutions to do better quality, more enjoyable work, “reciprocate” before you need their help. By doing something meaningful for your colleagues now they will feel almost obliged to help you later in the year when you really need it.

3. What will you lose?

Most people worry about loss more than gain so write down what you will lose by not sticking to your resolutions as well as what you plan to gain by sticking with them. You can use this when persuading colleagues to follow your plans throughout the year: include what they personally will miss if they don’t work with you as well as the benefits they will get if they do.

4. Evidence and experience

We tend to trust evidence, expertise, and experts more than just our own inclinations. Consulting an expert (even online research) can boost your commitment to your resolutions and help you persuade colleagues so build up that fact base about why you are resolving to achieve something.

5. Spread the positive word

We are more likely to believe, trust and act upon information we see as “common practice” or normal. If you want a group of people to join in your resolution recruit a trusted colleague first and then start broadening your net, explaining who is already involved as a way to bring them on board. Of course you can use this approach for getting colleagues involved in projects throughout the year.

6. Get involved

The majority of us are influenced by people we like and admire and if these people share similar interests, pay us compliments and cooperate with us we are far more likely to work in their interests. So as we said in point 2, get involved with your colleagues from your own and other teams now, and later in the year they will be glad to collaborate with you.

Good luck with your resolutions!

So simple it hurts - but it works

2007-12-17T06:01:00.000-08:00

If you crave a more involved workforce here is an idea so simple it will hurt that you are not already doing it. It works because your staff get to own the ideas they generate.

1. Ask one of your staff members to generate one new idea for improving customer service
2. Support your employee to implement the idea
3. Take customer feedback
4. Review the effect of this customer feedback on your employee

Now that you have done this with one employee, roll out this programme. By the end of 2008 you could have thousands of improved customer processes and outstanding levels of employee involvement. More here

Get involved: do what you like and what you are good at

2007-12-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

Are you a people person, a morning person or a big-picture person? Whatever type of person you are, if you are not working to your strengths you could be in for an unsatisfying time at work and ultimately a life more ordinary.

Much workplace development has focused on finding people’s weaknesses and running development to improve performance. Another view says since you are likely to have teams working with you, dividing roles and responsibilities according to team member strengths gives everyone the chance to do a great job all the time.

What strategy do you need to work to your teams’ capabilities? Find out what your teams' strengths are, identify what will support or hinder them using their strengths (like office set up, or working times for example) and help employees learn in a way that suits them: are they an analyser a doer or a watcher? More here

It’s that appraisal time of year – how are you doing?

2007-12-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

Few activities in the workplace cause more drama than appraisals. People who barely scrape by for the rest of the year suddenly become top performers and oddly enough some top performers give themselves cringingly modest self appraisals. How can you get self appraisals right: here are five tips from Joan Lloyd of @Work.

1. Use objective evidence of your achievements and successes (I sold a million widgets is more convincing and measurable than my customers think I’m great)
2. Do use customer, colleague and client feedback. Make use of all those thank you emails you received throughout the year or even run your own mini survey to elicit some
3. If you are a numbers kind of person, don’t forget to add some text to explain your achievements, they may not be as clear to you boss as they are to you
4. If you did not deliver a target, say so honestly, taking appropriate responsibility and detailing what you have learned from this
5. When the form asks for the training or development you want try to be specific and to highlight the benefits this development would bring to your employer as well as to you personally.

More here

In your pyjamas till lunchtime

2007-12-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

What is the response when someone in your organisation says they are “working from home” or becomes a permanent teleworker? Beyond the snipes about being in your pyjamas till lunchtime (just lunchtime!) if you are managing staff who work some or all of the time from their home, you will have an employee involvement issue on your hands. If you are managing by results (what the employee delivers and achieves) you can probably tell how much they are producing, but do you know how involved they are, now that they are isolated from office gossip and from occasionally bumping into you so you can check.

To keep up with your remote-working staff try three things. First arrange for them to spend occasional days in the office, not just coming in for specific meetings. That way you remind them and everyone else they are a key part of the team and not just a resource. Second once a week give them a call and do not ask them to do anything. Just ask how they are, and have a water cooler chat albeit over the phone. Third measure their engagement. If you have a group (even a handful) of remote-working employees it is worth running a remote workers monthly survey to check on engagement trends. More here

Pamela Anderson says ...

2007-12-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

“Focusing on our people is woven in to our DNA and is core to our overall success.” I suspect it was not Pamela Anderson, the star of Bay Watch, who said this (though I can not be sure), but another Pamela Anderson, senior vice president of People Management of First Reliance Bank. Our Pamela goes on to talk about how the bank has moved from once-a-year performance appraisals – and this is the crucial point – to make feedback and development an on-going process.

If you have ever participated in a regulated, HR-scheduled, performance review you will know that at best it can do no damage and at worst can be a soul destroying exercise that has most staff and managers ready to walk.

Here’s the challenge. Invite your staff to join you in plotting measurement and feedback mechanisms that you can use all year round so they actually measure performance and encourage permanent high performance. You will need to measure hard data (like sales and customer responses) but you also need to add in staff measures like attendance, attitude and output. More here

“This is your manager speaking”

2007-12-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Have you ever sworn at or been rude to a customer service agent or CSA. I blush as I admit I have. Yet I suspect I would last about 3 minutes on the front line as a CSA and maybe you are the same. These people are literally the voice and the ears of our organisations and yet they are likely to be the lowest paid, with the least meaningful support and career development opportunities. So how can you involve the heroes of the 21st century: three things, recruitment, resources and rewards.

Are you recruiting people with CSA experience rather than people who could charm you into anything? Just because they can work your phone system does not make them a good CSA and you may be better off hiring people with the right outlook for your organisation and offering them technical training.

Are you giving your front line people (these are the people who speak to your customers every hour of their working day) the right resources to do an effective job? They need good telephony, but also need information resources, and structured breaks away from us, the whining public.

Finally how are you rewarding them for a day of solving the most important issues in your organisation (your customers’ issues) and dealing with the most difficult people affecting your organisation (your customers)? What to know how to get this right? You could start by giving your CSA a call “Thank you for responding within the agreed service level timings, this is Your Manager speaking, how can I help you today.”

If you don’t measure it …

2007-12-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

If you don’t measure it, it won’t get done. This is not strictly true: it will probably be done but badly. Involvement communications rarely get measured and we think they should be and now the 2007/2008 Communication Return On Investment study shows there are pounds, dollars, euros or yen to be earned from doing so. The Watson Wyatt study claims to have “Six Communication 'Secrets' of Top-Performing Employers.” I don’t see it that way, but their fundamental point is valid: measure your employee communications or expect them not to deliver what you want.

If your communications team tells you that communications can’t be measured they may be “misinformed.” Divide your staff into groups and give them different types of communication – measure their different reactions and business performance. Or you could carry out the same measure before and after a communications initiative, or compare geographic areas. When you find out that it is actually Dave or Davina, sitting by the chocolate machine who is the font of all organisational communications not the glossy newsletter nor the CEO blog, you might want to change your involvement strategy.

Blink and they are gone

2007-12-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

If you are tired of spending months on recruiting staff, putting them through expensive induction and training programmes only to see them leave as soon as they have started adding value to your organisation, you may need to look at your EAP or Employee Attachment Phenomenon. Phoney as the title may sound, the concept is sound. Anyone who has come across Gladwell’s book Blink knows that when you meet someone for the first time, or read the first few lines of a this newswire, you will have come to a set of conclusions from around two seconds’ intuition. Psychologists claim we need this to be able to survive – you don’t want to hang around rationally processing the threat of a tiger in the jungle, you want to react instinctively.

Now that we tend to work in offices not jungles we still run the same processes. So your new staff will have made up their minds about you, your teams, and your organisation in their first few seconds. So you need to get the introduction right. There is just no excuse for a new employee turning up on their first day, having no one to greet them, no desk or allocated work space and equipment, no agenda for the first few days, and no one to show them where the coffee (or herbal tea) and the toilets are. If you are lucky, over time, you may able to change their initial assessment, but much better to get it right in the first place.

So what steps can you take? First, run a mini-survey of your current staff – you can do this in under 3 minutes. Ask them why they joined your organisation, what were their first impressions. Second, get your staff to work up an induction programme which includes the informal stuff. Finally measure your improvement. Ask each new employee to fill in a mini-survey on their first day and repeat this at the end of their first week, fortnight, and month. Your staff will have the best ideas for how to induct and keep new staff. Your new staff will have even better ideas. Want help with developing mini-surveys? More here

Are your managers killing communication?

2007-12-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Good communications are at the heart of employee involvement. If you can’t communicate quickly with your staff and hear their and customer views, how can you be a responsive employer?
As soon as the workforce grows beyond getting everyone in one room at once, you will probably rely on management cascades –your managers interpreting strategy and passing it on. The problem with this - as anyone who has played Chinese whispers will know - is that messages get distorted, particularly when managers may have different agendas from their teams. So what is the answer? One method being tried is action teams, where selected team members take on the role of communicating with their peers. Communications can be more open, more honest and reliable, with less reason for adding distortion. Rolls Royce tried this as part of their Winning Workplace employee involvement scheme and got 85% approval from the staff and financial returns too. Ready to admit your managers may not be the best communications channel? More here

Redundancy!

2007-12-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

Being on either end of a redundancy process is at least disconcerting. For people losing their job role, the financial and emotional impacts are obvious. In the turmoil you might not spare a thought for the managers giving you the bad news, but they may feel just as uncomfortable and be just as insecure about their own future as you are. Complaining about your role disappearing or getting upset or angry is unlikely to change the outcome so what can you do to improve your position?

Here’s the bright idea: instead of facing up to each other like redundancy is a tug of war, why not both get on the same side of the rope. Have you candidly discussed with your teams options for cutting costs or bringing in money? If you think your post is at risk, have you offered to be involved in the process working out what you and your colleagues need (training, time off to look for work, career guidance etc). That way if the worst does happen, you will be in a stronger position and may have gained some new negotiation and problem solving skills along the way. More here

Supple enough for flexible working?

2007-12-05T13:14:00.001-08:00

The Prime Minister has just announced that the Government is extending the right to request flexible working to parents of older children. This already applies to parents with a child under 6, a disabled child under 18 and, more recently, to carers of adults. Now Imelda Walsh, J Sainsbury’s HR Director has been asked to come with the cut-off age for eligibility related to older children. Recommendations are due early 2008.
We already know that flexible workers are typically happier and more motivated and productive workers, but how will you manage your business if everyone has the right to flexible working? Whoever said that 9 -5 was the best option for office hours? Do we need the same working pattern all year round?
If you want to recruit and retain your key staff you may be the one who needs to become supple about flexible working. Want information on your flexible employment rights and responsibilities? More here

Your loudest supporters

2007-12-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

But your own staff can also be your noisiest detractors as American Airlines’ CEO Gerard Arpey found this week. Pilots told him that cost-cutting “has resulted in an under-staffed airline that can't dependably serve its passengers.”
Here’s the radical idea. Instead of running a programme of standard employee conferences why not find out the views of employees through quality research then involve them in the solution. Employees complained that management receives compensation “which leads the industry” while their pay and benefits are cut.
What Arpey could have said is: we have to continue to pay management leading rates because otherwise they will defect to other airlines. This is not the case with pilots who have fewer options. Given that background what would you (the employees) do about saving money and maintaining delivery? Would their responses have been better for the business and better received? I personally think so. What’s your radical response to employee involvement? More here

Free engagement

2007-12-02T15:08:00.000-08:00

These are the top reasons why employees say they are planning to leave their organisations within the coming 12 months, and fixing them does not cost a penny. Surprisingly pay ranks much lower than having career opportunities and providing recognition for work done well. So put your check book away and say thank you for their good work and find ways for your staff to climb your corporate ladder. In order of most important for disengagement:

1. I have no career advancement opportunities
2. I am not rewarded or recognised for my work
3. I am bored with my job
4. I can get better pay elsewhere
5. Management communicates badly with me
6. Other
7. The culture at work is not supportive or friendly
8. There is a poor work/life balance
9. There are unreasonable pressure and demands at work
10. I have a poor relationship with my manager
More here

Are your rewards motivating?

2007-11-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

We might all want motivated staff teams and we may even put comprehensive reward schemes in place but it is so easy to get it wrong. The Rank Group found this to their cost when employees ended up paying for ‘rewards’ they didn’t know they had taken. We have seen some amazingly clumsy reward systems. Employees who come up with bright ideas that save companies thousands of pounds, get a £15 high street voucher; young streetwise employees are given ‘rewards’ suitable for their maiden aunts and this can leave staff with the feeling that their additional efforts are being trivialised.

How can you get a reward system right? If you can match the reward with the effort expended and make the system clear and fair up front and you will be heading in the right direction. Why not include rewards in your employee survey activity, asking staff what they would value and to rank the items. Then you can then let them chose for themselves matching their achievements to graded rewards. As ever, the only way to get this right is to involve the people you are trying to motivate. More here

Best mates at work make financial sense

2007-11-26T07:10:00.001-08:00

Having a best friend at work means staff are “seven times more likely to be engaged in their job” according to Tom Raith’s new book Vital Friends. So does it makes sense for business to encourage friendships in the workplace? When things are fine it’s a great idea, but the moment someone is promoted over their friend, or has to pull up a friend on performance grounds life could get a whole lot trickier for managers and HR teams. More here

When times get tough, morale must plummet?

2007-11-26T06:38:00.000-08:00

Not necessarily — if you are having to freeze recruitment, cut budgets or even make roles redundant, it is still possible to keep staff involved. They key is including everyone in the process. Many employers are frantic to keep the prospect of cuts a secret until the sword of Damocles swings and a swath of employees are spirited away. But this can leave staff feeling powerless and insecure: is it me next?
What would happen if you tried an honest approach, explaining the financial issues and involving everyone in the solution? People will fight to keep jobs, but if your staff can find feasible ways of keeping jobs and cutting expenditure wouldn’t that be better? And if they can’t — well they have been involved in the change rather than having it done to them, and that gives them more control and more satisfaction. More here

Onboarding — a new sport?

2007-11-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

No onboarding is not a new sport it is a way of introducing staff to your organisation, getting them to the minimum expected level of productivity in as short a time as possible. Isn’t that what an induction programme is about? Well Dr John Sullivan Professor of Management in San Francisco says onboarding is much broader than an induction programme. Read his checklist for getting higher productivity, sooner from the new staff you hire. More here

Would you publish online?

2007-11-21T02:29:00.000-08:00

Fiona Smith looks at the risks being taken by Generation Y (anyone born after 1980) in revealing their innermost thoughts online through social networking sites like Facebook. Whilst you may snigger at the teenage angst of one of your colleagues, there are serious implications for organisations. When financial and insurance companies published their employee involvement data online it was brave: now they may be shaming you into following suit. More here

Save money, build customer and staff respect

2007-11-21T02:12:00.000-08:00

It used to be “the economy stupid” but now it is the environment. Firms are taking tough stances on environmental costs and they are beginning to understand that it all starts with their own staff. This article suggests seven keys to make sure your staff buy into your environmental policies, and they start at the top:
1. Getting buy-in from senior management
2. Appointing environmental champions (if you are not appointed champion does that make you a loser?)
3. Setting up environmental project teams
4. Good communications
5. Putting environmental issues in the induction programme
6. Running suggestion schemes
7. Recognising individual achievements
More here

If they are communicating with and for you — they are involved

2007-11-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

If you have a large organisation like the 2,500 staff who make up JFK Medical Centre, how do you find out what they are all thinking and stop occasional gripes becoming strike-causing issues? According this report a mix of informal communication (anyone can email the chief executive and get a response) combined with more formal employee advisory groups gets issues on the table and involves staff in communicating about change with their peers. More here

Telecoms – who delivers quality customer service?

2007-11-20T20:40:00.001-08:00

It is a vicious circle, poor customer service comes from poor staff involvement which generates further poor customer service. And in an industry that’s trained to be responsive to customer needs — telecoms — it is actually telecoms staff who are suffering the most. More here

A suggestion so simple why aren’t’ you doing it?

2007-11-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

Who are the right people to identify problems in your organisation and propose solutions? Of course it is your staff. They work with these issues every day and think about how they can be solved. So why don’t you have a structured suggestion scheme with appropriate rewards and recognition? No I don’t know why you don't either. See a great example from the University of Kentucky. More here

Run a staff survey and you could make things worse!

2007-11-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

If you want a summary of what a good staff survey can do for you - bringing involvement to employees of all ages - take a look at Val van Brocklin’s article. But running staff surveys, not following up and not involving everyone in a plan to deal with the issues raised is a recipe for a dissatisfied workforce. More here.

How to keep your older employees - and the knowledge they hold

2007-11-20T13:09:00.000-08:00

Your workforce is getting older. With declining birth rates and people living longer and healthier lives, keeping older workers in your organisation will soon be a critical issue.
At Macquarie University, Nick Vrisakis’s research found that “younger workers valued career opportunities, rewards and recognition” but older workers are looking for reduced stress which they saw as more important than salary and status.
What does this mean for you as an employer? Well target your involvement programmes, and ask individual staff what they most want rather than assuming you already know. More here.

Why do women struggle with corporate politics?

2007-11-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

Michelle Brailsford is, I’m guessing, a woman. She says women fail in playing the game of corporate politics because they find it “unseemly and unnecessary.” Brailsford offers 10 rules of engagement. Do you want to play? More here

Double salary to get involved?

2007-11-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

You probably have heard of international celebrations like Dhiwali (9 November this year) celebrated by Hindus and Jains as the Festival of Lights. Birmingham City Council lists 66 such celebrations and I suspect that may not be a complete list. So how do you run a business in a multicultural society, delivering results for clients and still respect your staff’s varied cultures? One firm takes the view that creating a “Diwali-like environment at the office itself with all the lights, gifts, sweets and even some firecrackers,” will do the trick. Thumbs up for going the extra mile and bringing the celebrations into the office, but will you be paying your staff double for the day? More here

They want your love, not your money (or swanky offices)

2007-11-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has grown with an ‘informal’ company finally moving from cramped, inappropriate office space to swanky state of the art offices will probably identify with Gahesh Chella’s views on employee involvement.
He says that senior managers often think that an upwardly mobile move will automatically gain employee involvement when in fact it often does the opposite. The accidental and informal interactions (read chatting with you boss like a real person) that used to happen are changed and oddly enough simple things like getting a light bulb changed (which anyone used to do just standing on any old chair) now needs a risk assessment, a team of outside lighting consultants and a crane.
By all means improve the office, but keep showing the love. More here

Involving employees increases trust in the public sector

2007-11-06T05:32:00.000-08:00

There is a proven link between Staff Satisfaction — Client Satisfaction — Bottom Line Profit in the private sector according to Ralph Heintzman and Brian Marson but what about Engaged Employees — Citizens—Service Satisfaction — Trust and Confidence in Institutions in the public sector? Heintzman and Marson believe improved employee involvement, increases public satisfaction and trust. And what do we need to get our staff involved?

1. Support for the goals and mandate of the organization
2. Effective leadership and management
3. Supportive colleagues and work unit
4. Tools, authority and independence to do the job?

Does this sound familiar? So why are we not making it our top priority? More here

Forcing your staff to ‘believe’?

2007-11-06T00:57:00.000-08:00

You probably have the message by now. Employee involvement is good for you, your staff and your organisation. As Nicholas Ind of the Independent says “When employees love what they do, they expend extra effort, give up their spare time, take responsibility for the company and promote it to people they meet.”
So how can you get your staff to love their work? How about treating them like real people (do you even know what they are passionate about); treating them like equals; and treating them to some fun or entertainment in their working careers. More here

Why are we disengaged now?

2007-11-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

‘Of course we’ve been really good at disengaging our employees these lastyears. We’ve spent millions in consulting fees to find ways to cut ouremployees’ pensions and health benefits (now there’s disengagement for you) and then we say we want you to be part of our brand. We’ve fired thousandsof people after mergers and sell-offs and our websites proclaim that one ofour goals is to be an employer of choice. We’ve cut personal and professionaldevelopment programmes to the bone and then we expect our employees tobe up-to-speed and enthusiastic.’

Johnson, M. The New Rules of Engagement 2004 CIPD Enterprises cited here

“Managers are lousy and don’t care about their staff”: discuss.

2007-11-04T22:42:00.001-08:00

James ‘Jim’ K. Clifton, CEO and Chairman of Gallup the polling organisation, kicks today’s managers into touch. He suggests that through Gallup’s research he has identified 5 factors of employee involvement and places the blame squarely with managers and chief executives for disinterested staff.

First he points out that chief executives do not care about their people no matter what they say: they care about results.

Second he suggest people identify more with their work role today than in the past because other social aspects of life falling in importance. This means that if find your job is rubbish, you probably feel the same about your life too.

Third high productivity (like generally in the USA) does not come from high levels of staff involvement, but despite very low levels of involvement. Imagine how high productivity could be if everyone were engaged not just the top twenty or so percent?

Fourth, a staff member’s manager is probably the most important factor in job satisfaction and employee involvement.

Fifth, despite the professionalisation of management we have “lousy managers” who focus so much on cost cutting they have forgotten about caring for the customer and delivering revenues.

Feisty stuff from Mr Clifton. More here

How can you get your staff to volunteer 57% more effort for free?

2007-11-04T00:52:00.001-07:00

According to Leigh Buchanan of the Harvard Business Review it takes just three things to get a 57% increase in discretionary effort or “willingness to exceed duty’s call”. Not surprisingly this kind of extra involvement brings financial and customer benefits to the organisations that can invoke it. So what do you need to do to gain this kind of involvement?

1. Show each staff member just how important they are to the organisation’s success
2. Offer multiple opportunities for staff to contribute and reward their contributions
3. Be a good and credible organisation that they can believe in.

So now you have the answers, what’s stopping your team from getting involved? More here

If Bill Clinton came, would your staff be ‘involved’?

2007-11-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

When your employees raise nearly £35 million for good causes, it may be easier to have Bill over for your staff event — but you don’t have to be Microsoft to build employee involvement and community involvement into the same package. Microsoft runs an annual programme matching funds to staff donations for good causes that the employees chose themselves. Of course it is good PR for Microsoft but involving staff in raising the money, and deciding how it is allocated gets them top marks for employee involvement. More here.

Forget the money, it’s the meaningful work that counts

2007-11-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

“Employee engagement has a direct effect on productivity, so it’s important for managers to understand the factors that help build engagement,” says occupational psychologist Mr David Sharpley. His research suggests that the way managers manage and the commitment the organisations showed to staff development far outweigh simple salary issues when it comes to having involved employees. More here

Combine employee and community involvement

2007-11-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

Got a bright idea? Earn ethical donations to your organisation’s community chest, then have a say in which charities get the benefit. A neat way to combine employee involvement and community involvement. More here

Most involved staff are top performers

2007-10-31T03:21:00.001-07:00

But what gets employees involved in their organisation and what keeps them that way? More research showing that involved employees are most likely to be top earners for the company in commercial companies and top performers for customers and clients in other organisations. Beware getting your benefits package wrong — one size will not fit all. More here

Does outsourcing in the public sector kill employee involvement?

2007-10-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Two case studies in utilities and health services suggest that employers need to be hyper-vigilant over during outsourcing to prevent "chronically low" levels of employee involvement. More here

You are paying your staff to stay at home for eight and half days per year

2007-10-30T09:05:00.001-07:00

Absences are up on average by 0.2% to 3.7% suggests the CIPD and they list the most effective ways to manage absences:

· “Return-to-work interviews

· Targeting individuals with poor attendance records

· Training line managers in absence management

· Making sure that line managers are committed to managing absence

· Ensuring that absences are recorded and monitored effectively”

But what about discovering the causes of absence? Involved employees take fewer sick days are and more productive when they are at work — should be we focusing on record keeping and minimising the harm of absences or tackling the reasons why people stay away from dull work, poor management and politicking? More here

Are you manager enough to engage your staff?

2007-10-30T08:51:00.001-07:00

No surprise - more research confirms that staff who see their direct manager as effective are more satisfied with their job. By effective staff cite respect; fairness; good two-way communication (i.e. being able to listen as well as say); detailing clear expectations; and giving feedback. Do your team think you are an effective manager for them? More here.

If you want to improve customer experience don’t just focus on customers

2007-10-30T03:11:00.000-07:00

When North West Airlines ran a turnaround programme, they fully involved employees. NWA developed over 60 employee involvement teams to get direct in put from colleagues on the best ways to improve customer service. Does 153% improvement in profits speak for itself? More here.

38% of employees are 'disengaged'

2007-10-30T02:44:00.001-07:00

A new Global Workforce Study published in October shows significant numbers of employees ‘disengaged’ from their work. Only 21% of participants report that they are fully involved and know the right things to do to add value to their organisation: 38% are just doing the ‘minimum necessary’ to get by or are confused as to how they can best contribute to their organisation

It's official - employee involvement brings financial and customer benefits to the public sector

2007-10-30T02:42:00.000-07:00

A recent report published by the Scottish Executive looked at the specific benefits of employee involvement in the public sector. This comprehensive report shows that combining effective leadership, management and two-way communication with employee involvement programmes can bring real financial and customer benefits to public sector organisations. Download the full report here.