April – June 2017
The Official Journal of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management
IHRIM.ORG
Talent Management and Employee Engagement: Seeking the Balance between HR Technology and the Human Connection
See Buyer’s Guide Page 22
Contents
Volume 8, Number 2 • April-June 2017
features
Talent Management and Employee Engagement Buyer’s Guide
Page 22
columns From the Editors
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Michael Rudnick, Lead Editor Scott Bolman, Contributing Editor
The Employee Research Evolution: From Data to Insight
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By Pete Foley, Ph.D., Mercer and Adam Pressman, Mercer Sirota
HR Technology, Talent Management, and Engagement Drawing from Old Wisdom While Embracing the New
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Business Owners Must Take Steps Now to Prevent Discrimination in the Workplace
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By Jeffrey M. Beemer, Dickinson Wright, PLLC
By Kim Nugent, Talent Management Consultant At the heart of what technology cannot substitute for, what we as HR architects cannot forget is the value of presence, human connection and the feeling of belonging. Belonging is at the heart of engagement and is the seed of good performance. In pursuing speed and efficiency with technology, however, we need to also pause and think: How does this HR technology or any technology truly impact a sense of well-being and belonging?
Why Your Employees Need to Believe in You
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The Back Story
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The Energized Employee: What Global Research Tells Us By Katherine Jones, Ph.D., Mercer
By Tracy C. McKee, Writer, Editor and Communications Consultant Though the answers may be different, your customers and employees want to know what they can expect from you. Customers want to know what value you will give them. When they see that value, they are more likely to buy. Employees want to know what value you are giving the world. When they see that value, they are more likely to believe.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
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By Gayle Norton, DeGarmo Employee Engagement has become a critical success factor and is recognized as such by the top leaders of many organizations. However, “employee” engagement actually starts before the candidate ever accepts an offer. By looking at the entire sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding process from the candidate’s (and future employee’s) point of view, leading organizations can design a solution that begins to develop engagement from the first “click.”
Practical Thinking about Employment Engagement
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By Will Runyon, Workforce Engagement and Enablement Consultant Today’s workplace is fluid and unpredictable. Gone is the stable reciprocity of mutual employer and employee loyalty and wage growth; it has been replaced with business models dictated by agility, competitive advantage, labor arbitrage, and shareholder value. Thanks in large part to new technologies, the opportunity for meaningful work, learning, collaborating, and realizing satisfying careers and personal lives is greater than ever before.
If You Listen, They Will Speak. Active employee listening for organizational success
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By Sheri L. Feinzig Ph.D. and Louise Raisbeck, IBM Smarter Workforce Institute The first fundamental question before embarking on any kind of employee listening program is to be sure you are ready to respond to employee voice. If you are ready to act as well as listen, then your listening strategy needs to be aligned with your objectives. Employees (past, present and future) want to be heard, and if you’re not listening, you might be missing out on valuable feedback that could improve your operations and even directly affect your financial performance.
Workforce Solutions Review (ISSN 2154-6975) is published quarterly for the International Association for Human Resource Information Management by Futura Publishing LLC, 12809 Shady Mountain Road, Leander, TX 78641. Subscription rates can be found at www.ihrimpublications. com. Please send address corrections to Workforce Solutions Review at the address above. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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Volume 8, Number 2 • April-June 2017
Workforce Solutions Review is a publication of the International Association for Human Resource Information Management, whose mission is to be the leading professional association for knowledge, education and solutions supporting human capital management. Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editors, the IHRIM board of directors or the membership.
SCOTT BOLMAN, HR Transformation & HR Excellence Practice, Deloitte, bolmanscott@yahoo.com
© 2017 All rights reserved
ELENA M. ORDÓÑEZ DEL CAMPO, Senior VP Globalization Services, SAP AG, Frankfurt, Germany elena.ordonez@sap.com
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
YVETTE CAMERON, Global Vice President Strategy, SuccessFactors, Littleton, CO Yvette.cameron@successfactors.com LEW CONNER, Executive Director, Higher Education User Group, Gilbert, AZ USA lconner@heug.org
Managing Editor
GARY DURBIN, Chief Technology Officer, SynchSource, Oakland, CA USA hacker@synchsource.com
BRUNO QUERENET, Head of HR Technology/HR Operations, Genentech, Bruno.querenet@gmail.com
Dr. CHARLES H. FAY, Professor, School of Management & Labor Relations, Rutgers University, Highland Park, NJ USA cfay@smlr.rutgers.edu
Co-Managing Editor
DR. URSULA CHRISTINA FELLBERG, Owner & Managing Director, UCF-StrategieBeraterin, Munich, Germany ucfell@mac.com
MICHAEL RUDNICK, Managing Partner, Prescient Digital Media, Michael.rudnick@gmail.com
Associate Editors ROY ALTMAN, HRIS Manager - HR Analytics & Application Architecture at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY roy@peopleserv.com SHAWN FITZGERALD, Managing Director, Total Rewards and HR Technology, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Chicago, IL, USA shawn.fitzgerald@bcbsa.com DAVID GABRIEL, ED.D., Global Reach Leadership, Berkeley, CA USA, davidgabriel@gmail.com JEFF HIGGINS, CEO, Human Capital Management Institute, Marina Del Rey, CA USA jeff.higgins@hcminst.com ERIC LESSER, KPMG, Eric.l.lesser@gmail.com MICHAEL H. MARTIN, Partner, Aon Hewitt Consulting, Organization & HR Effectiveness, New York, NY michael.martin.6@aonhewitt.com DARSHANA NARAYANAN, Head of Research, pymetrics, New York, NY USA darshana@pymetrics.com
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD CECILE ALPER-LEROUX, VP Product Strategy and Development, Ultimate Software, Weston, FL cecile_leroux@ultimatesoftware.com MARK BENNETT, Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, CA USA mark.bennett@oracle.com ERIK BERGGREN, VP, Customer Results & Global Research, Success Factors, San Mateo, CA USA eberggren@successfactors.com
ALSEN HSEIN, President,Take5 People Limited, Shanghai, PRC Alsen@take5people.com
MARK SMITH, CEO, Chief Research Officer, and Founder of Ventana Research, San Ramon, CA USA mark.smith@ventanaresearch.com DAVE ULRICH, Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI USA dou@umich.edu DR. MARY YOUNG, Principal Researcher, Human Capital, The Conference Board, New York, NY USA mary.young@conference-board.org
IHRIM BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers and Executive Committee JIM PETTIT, HRIP, SHRM-SCP, Chair MICK COLLINS, Vice Chair GARY MORLOCK, HRIP, CFO, Finance Committee Chair JOYCE BROWN, Secretary
CARL C. HOFFMANN, Director, Human Capital Management & Performance LLC, Chapel Hill, NC USA cc_hoffmann@yahoo.com
SHAFIQ LOKHANDWALA, Executive Director
JIM HOLINCHECK, Vice President, Services Strategy & Marketing, Workday, Inc. james.holincheck@workday.com
CATHERINE HONEY, Director of Member Services & HRIM Foundation Director
CATHERINE ANN HONEY, VP, Customer Services, Radius Worldwide catherine.honey@comcast.net
MARYANN MCILRAITH, Director of Communities
DR. KATHERINE JONES, Partner and Director of Research, Mercer, San Mateo, CA USA Katherine.Jones@mercer.com SYNCO JONKEREN, VP, HCM Applications Product Development & Management, EMEA, The Netherlands synco.jonkeren@oracle.com MICHAEL J. KAVANAGH, Professor Emeritus of Management, State University of Albany (SUNY), Albany, NY USA mickey.kavanagh@gmail.com BOB KAUNERT, Principal, Towers Watson, Philadelphia, PA USA robert.kaunert@towerswatson.com BILL KUTIK, Technology Columnist, Human Resource Executive, Westport, CT USA bkutik@earthlink.net DAVID LUDLOW, Global VP, HCM Solutions, SAP, Palo Alto, CA David.ludlow@sap.com RHONDA P. MARCUCCI, CPA, Consultant for GruppoMarcucci, Chicago, IL USA rhonda@gruppomarcucci-usa.com LEXY MARTIN, Independent Consultant/Researcher, Meadow Vista, CA Lexy.martin1@gmail.com BRIAN RETZLAFF, Head of IT for HR, Legal & Communications, ING US Insurance Americas, Atlanta, GA USA brian.retzlaff@us.ing.com
JOSH BERSIN, Principal and Founder, Bersin by Deloitte, Oakland, CA USA jbersin@bersin.com
LISA ROWAN, Program Director, HR, Learning & Talent Strategies, IDC, Framingham, MA USA lrowan@idc.com
NAOMI LEE BLOOM, Managing Partner, Bloom & Wallace, Fort Myers, FL USA naomibloom@mindspring.com
LISA STERLING, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer, Ceridian, Lincoln, NE USA, lisa.sterling@ceridian.com
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DR. DANIEL SULLIVAN, Professor of International Business, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware USA sullivad@lerner.udel.edu
April-June 2017 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org
Board Members
STUART RUDNER, Director of Meeting & Events DOUG SAMPSON, Director of Marketing & Communications SHARON THOMPSON, HRIM Foundation Director
PUBLISHING INFORMATION TOM FAULKNER, Publisher, Futura Publishing LLC, Austin, TX USA, tomf@futurapublishing.com PATTY HUBER, Advertising Manager, Austin, TX USA phuber2@austin.rr.com
from the editors Michael Rudnick, Lead Editor Michael Rudnick is managing partner at Prescient Digital, a leading digital consultancy that plans, designs, and implements world-class enterprise digital experiences for employees. He has spent more than 25 years helping HR create and deliver consumer-grade digital experiences that are aligned to business and HR strategy. He’s results-oriented with a proven track record of creating, growing and leading large professional services practices, enterprise software, and product strategy. Before Prescient, Rudnick was VP at Logical Design Solutions, global portal practice leader at Willis Towers Watson, and was the founder of Cognitive Communications, the first intranet consulting firm created at the time the browser was first invented. He is an internationally recognized author and speaker, often quoted in industry publications. He can be reached at michael.rudnick@ prescientdigital.com. Scott Bolman, Contributing Editor Scott Bolman has been partnering with Human Resources (HR) and Information Technology (IT) leaders for more than 25 years. He currently serves in the HR Transformation and HR Operations Excellence practice at Deloitte and is based in Chicago. Prior to joining joining Deloitte, Bolman served with several organizations including Sierra-Cedar, Walgreens, Mercer, Towers Watson, and Accenture’s HR Outsourcing business. He has served for six years on IHRIM Workforce Solutions Review magazine editorial committee and two years as its managing editor. He can be reached at scott.bolman@yahoo.com.
The composition of the workforce has and is changing drastically. How do organizations use technology and flexible staffing models to keep pace as their organizations evolve? The workforce world has flattened and worker demographics have changed. This issue of Workforce Solutions Review will give you the tools needed to address this complex issue. We begin with an article by talent management consultant Kim Nugent, “HR Technology, Talent Management, and Engagement – Drawing from Old Wisdom While Embracing the New.” Kim tells us that at the heart of what technology cannot substitute for and what we as HR architects cannot forget is the value of presence, human connection and the feeling of belonging. As HR designers, we need to embrace and incorporate many different mindsets and skillsets to reimagine human connections in the workplace in both old/ familiar and new/unfamiliar ways. Next, we have a feature by communications consultant Tracy C. McKee, “Why Your Employees Need to Believe in You.” Tracy says if you are a company looking to engage the best talent in your industry, there is one thing you need to know: Your best performers, and all those talented people you would like knocking on your door, are watching you. What you say, what you do, and the difference you make in the lives of others all matters now, much more than it used to. Gayle Norton of DeGarmo presents, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” exploring the position that employee engagement starts before the person ever becomes an employee. It begins with the talent acquisition process. By looking at the entire sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding process from the candidate’s (and future employee’s) point of view, leading organizations can design a technology solution that begins to develop engagement from the first “click.” In our next article, “Practical Thinking about Employment Engagement,” workforce engagement consultant Will Runyon asks “Are employees all that different from customers?” He says yes they are, but both want something out of the deal. While a company’s unique selling proposition, or “brand promise,” speaks to customers, employees have to know how to fulfill it. His view is that companies need to offer employees a sweeping and compelling “employee value proposition,” and ask the question, “Why would the people we need want to join, do their best work here, and stay? Next, Sheri L. Feinzig Ph.D. and Louise Raisbeck, from the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute, bring us the article “If You Listen, They Will Speak.” The rise of social media coupled with the desire to build more engaged and productive workforces has brought active employee listening to the fore. They describe the research they conducted with employees, organizations, and vendors offering relevant technologies. The article summarizes the results of that research and provides recommendations for organizations looking to use employee voice to improve business performance. In their article, “The Employee Research Evolution: From Data to Insight,” Pete Foley, and Adam Pressman, of Mercer Sirota tell us that everything from evidence-based management, demographic/societal change, new listening techniques, to technology is rapidly re-shaping the field of employee research. Trends in employee research come and go, but many of these new developments are likely here to stay. New technologies allow for an increased flow of data and provide platforms for easier, more sophisticated, and real-time data integration. In attorney Jeffery Beemer’s article, “Business Owners Must Take Steps Now to Prevent Discrimination in the Workplace,” he reports that recent news about prominent companies facing accusations of racial discrimination, gender bias, and sexual harassment from their employees have made workplace discrimination a trending topic. According to the U.S. EEOC, employees filed over 90,000 charges of discrimination against employers in 2016. Beemer says that the keys to discrimination prevention include continuing to educate your employees on what constitutes unlawful behavior and having effective policies in place to promptly correct this conduct if it occurs. We close with The Back Story column by Katherine Jones of Mercer titled “The Energized Employee: What Global Research Tells Us.” Dr. Jones states that energized employees can be found in all industries, geographies, company sizes, and age ranges – and it is the energized employee that executives seek to retain in their organizations. With competitive rewards, recognition of their abilities and skills, and an identifiable career path within the company, these employees of today are far more likely to be retained as the workforce of tomorrow. We thank our authors for their editorial contributions and we hope you, our valued readers, will find information herein to help you develop, or enhance, your talent management and employee engagement strategy. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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Kim Nugent, Talent Management Consultant
HR Technology, Talent Management, and Engagement Drawing from Old Wisdom While Embracing the New
At the heart of what technology cannot substitute for, what we as HR architects cannot forget is the value of presence, human connection and the feeling of belonging.
Recently, I had my first appointment with my new internist. Part of the visit resulted in my physician entering a lot of medical history into a computer. He apologized for his periodic lack of eye contact and indicated that would change shortly. My doctor either intuitively knew the value of human connection, or was trained on how to maintain the patient-doctor relationship while using new technology. The parallels between how medical and HR technology can have both positive and unintended consequences are many. At places like the Cleveland Clinic, they have trained physicians on how to stay emphatically curious,1 a response to forces compressing the time of patient-doctor interactions. They understand how the quality of this human interaction is critical to the relationship and healing. A parallel in the broader business world is the relationship between manager and employee. For example, today’s performance management flavor is exploring the elimination of ratings, an emphasis on more ongoing coaching (which was always needed) , as well as using technology that facilitates more collaborative communication and feedback, reflecting the growing networked versus hierarchical ways people work. In the workplace, as in the physician’s office, the same human need exists: Do our interactions show that we are emphatically curious and truly interested in one another?
The Value of Presence Today’s explosion of technology can make even HR platforms invested in only a few years ago seem obsolete. Technology and its flood of “fire-hose” properties – speed, efficiency, connection, information, insights – seem to face a natural, internal human resistance to slow down and connect in back-to-basics ways (consider the explosion of “mindfulness” in the workplace). For example, today’s farm-to-table movement
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recognizes the health and community benefits of slowing down, sitting with others at a long table, and consuming local food, which are models from long ago. Similar needs exist among our workforces. As HR designers, we need to embrace and incorporate many different mindsets and skillsets to reimagine human connections in the workplace in both old/familiar and new/ unfamiliar ways. Being truly present to any person who comes in front of you; engaging in dialogue where you listen attentively; demonstrating true interest in the person and what they have to say (versus thinking of what you will say, do or even where you need to be next) sends signals that the person in front of you is valued and that he or she belongs here. Belonging is at the heart of engagement and is the seed of good performance. In pursuing speed and efficiency with technology, however, we need to also pause and think: How does this HR technology or any technology truly impact a sense of well-being and belonging? Conveying a sense of belonging and being valued is the starting point for trust, the foundation for productive relationships. These invisible human interactions can have far-reaching positive impact on personal health, engagement, performance, or business outcomes. Technology can never be a sole substitute for connected, present, eyeball-to-eyeball, or voiceto-voice interaction that impacts hearts and minds. People need to feel listened to, cared for, respected, and valued versus a quick transaction or something expendable. At the heart of certain technology decisions, is the consideration: “Just because we can, should we? What are the hidden, unintended consequences to the human spirit for meaningful work and purpose?” As HR employs big data analytics or implements a new piece of technology, it needs to understand how this impacts our relationship
with others. It can’t assume that technology on its own is a silver-bullet talent management or an engagement fix. Just because you have scientific insights or a piece of technology doesn’t mean you will engage and inspire the hearts and minds of your employees.
HR’s Role as Employee Ambassador The HR function has been the historic ambassador of the employee experience in an organization. Today’s speed and pressure around economic growth and optimizing the supply and demand of workforce skills is increasingly intense. According to the World Economic Forum, “It’s estimated that some 65 percent of children entering primary schools today will likely work in roles that don’t currently exist.”2 Experts on this wave of HR technology are not only charged with both purchasing and implementation decisions. All HR professionals need to be increasingly curious, apply more holistic thinking, and work with many others inside and outside of HR regarding how technology will impact the very nature of work. The remainder of this article explores some insights from the front on: 1) how talent management and engagement-related programs are being impacted by technology; and 2) a list of considerations for guiding decision-making in a world of rapid technology (including HR technology) development and disruption.
How Technology is Impacting the Employee Life Cycle Technology’s disruption of all aspects of HR is rapidly expanding – from administrative processes to performance management and learning. Following is a spotlight on talent acquisition; data analytics, as applied to the longer-term employee experience; and rewards and the question of why work?
The Beginning, Talent Acquisition Just like our fascination with romantic movies that disproportionately focus on the beginning of a relationship, employers have historically invested the most in optimizing the talent acquisition piece of talent management. We are committed to finding the needle in the haystack; the person who is the perfect fit or complement for our needs – the “you had me at hello” moment. Like romantic movies, after somebody gets hired, life involves facing the inevitable and
unpredictable parts of being in relationships with a bunch of other humans after the 90-day or oneyear honeymoon phase at the employer is over. So what’s possible in the talent acquisition space? According to Angela Hills from Cielo (a global, strategic Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) partner): “The most forward thinking is looking at ways to reduce the need for people to screen and recruit talent. If one can source talent with technology tools, assess with machine learning capabilities, and use robotic process automation to save humans from doing the more mundane data capture and transfer work in the process, imagine what the future could look like for recruiting? Many of these innovations are real and will find their way into mainstream.” Angela further elaborates, “The more technology-enabled our processes become, the more critical it is for each touch point, whether with a person or with technology, to be outstanding. Exceptional candidate experiences will be both high tech (for efficiencies yes, but also for the “cool” factor for candidates) and high touch. When done right, high touch can include technology, and high tech can drive the right in-person interactions quickly and efficiently to create the best possible candidate experience while improving efficiency and quality consistency for the organization.”
Why People Stay and Give Their Best? Data Analytics and the Power of Story So what happens after the candidate’s hired and the honeymoon phase between employee and employer ends? Multiple methods exist for determining why employees stay or leave, as well as give their best. These include traditional employee engagement surveys, pulse surveys, listening tours, as well as big data analysis. Whatever techniques chosen, the most important question with employee experience research is how an organization will lead, including communicate and act on any results. Forty percent of a budget/ effort can be about the research, but 60 percent (if not more) is really about change, communication, and leadership. According to Ellen Maag, who conducts leadership assessment and development at Heidrick and Struggles, “Never before has there been such a scientific-approach to crack the code and optimize decisions about talent vs. reliance on anecdotes.” For example, the cost of tools and technology for leadership assessment has decreased. As a result, they can be administered www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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virtually to larger audiences, allowing companies to pinpoint decisions on high potential and high performing talent. According to Ellen, “What’s often missing and receiving less attention is the leadership assessment participant’s experience and what talent can do with the data received to navigate personal growth and change.” In addition, all employees leave a footprint in your HRIS systems and other data systems (e.g., age, address, salary increases, bonus decisions, benefits elections, job titles, career level/salary grade history, reporting relationships, bosses, departments/divisions, email/social networks, etc.). Data scientists can leverage HRIS data coupled with employee survey, labor market, social network data, as well as business performance data, to derive predictive insights about employee behavior. This can include insights about impact of commute times to where to locate a new building to unconscious cognitive biases in play in talent decisions. The HR leader’s opportunity in this space is to be open and receptive, have courage and lead by bridging the powerful perceptions or individual stories about culture, engagement, and performance together with the insights gleaned from the data. Remember that humans are feeling creatures first and thinking creatures second. We aren’t always rational; even when we have the data to challenge our beliefs, assumptions, and personal experiences. As a result, you can’t underestimate the importance and validity of people’s stories, as well as how stories and interactions capture the hearts and minds of employees. Acting on people data takes time, is often intangible work and very different than just delivering a report with numbers to make the best decision. Also, investments in data analytics can fall prey to being underutilized like an online training program from an elite university, or a dusty piece of exercise equipment. One can be bright-eyed about the hoped-for transformation and improved performance, but the internal systems to drive change are highly nuanced and personal. You need experts to partner with you who know how to drive change, not just use the technology to collect the data and analyze it. The disruptive power of people analytics that are applied are significant, and businesses need to stay informed about what’s possible and what their competitors are doing. If you are new to data analytics, there are many outlets to learn more. Two quick suggestions: 1) Google, most known for its own data research on
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employee behavior and management, is sharing its work like a university with others through re: Work, with the tagline, “Let’s make work better.”3 David Green, currently Global Director of People Analytics at IBM and great aggregator of research in the field, is another person to follow on LinkedIn.4
HR Analytics and Technology
If exploring people data analytic capabilities for your own organization, consider these questions to ensure your investment doesn’t collect dust: • What do we want to learn? Are top leaders committed and interested in using this type of data? •
What privacy and ethical issues do we need to keep in mind as we embark on this? For example, there are opportunities today to tap into employees’ work emails to understand mood and engagement based on patterns in language used. Emails among clusters of people can identify different networks and perhaps isolate different types of high performers central to them.
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What are the hopes and natural fears in embarking on this? Not only in terms of employee trust and transparency, but how business leaders and HR professionals (where data analysis and statistics may not be in their bailiwick) will embrace or be threatened personally by the capability, insights, and resulting calls to action/change?
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Should we build this capability in the HR function or buy this research capability? What are shortand long-term costs, value? What’s the career path for these types of professionals if we build this internally? Or are they even HR professionals as much as people skilled in data analytics who might sit in a function outside of HR?
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What’s our investment in mining narrative stories, as well as embracing change management techniques so results and insights are leveraged and measurable and positive change unfolds in our culture?
If shopping for new HRIS or talent-related software systems or apps, one should also pay attention to the analytics models offered.
Rewards and The Philosophical Question: Why We Work? I’ve seen data analytic studies that yield both powerful intuitive and counterintuitive insights. I am especially intrigued when organizations explore the lever of money and the power of salary increases to impact engagement or specifically
retention. In one case-specific study, an organization learned that instead of using money, they would positively impact retention if high performers were not in the same job for more than three years, and respected managers didn’t quit. Pulling the lever of money is often the easy go-to solution for talent management and engagement-related issues. Getting good managers to stay or letting a high performer move from your team can be trickier desired behaviors to tackle. A McKinsey study with executives during the 2008 financial meltdown indicated how upper management still believes that money motivates despite much research challenging this across the board. One hypothesis as to why, “…most likely it’s because the skills needed to motivate take time on the behalf of managers.”5 It can take more effort to tap into an individual’s unique, intrinsic motivators as to why they work and give their best. According to Barry Schwartz, author of Paradox of Choice and Why We Work?, “When we lose confidence that people have the will to do the right thing, and we turn to incentives, we find that we get what we pay for…There is really no substitute for the integrity that inspires people to do good work because they want to do good work. And the more we rely on incentives as substitutes for integrity, the more we will need to rely on them as substitutes for integrity. We may tell ourselves that all we’re doing with our incentives is taking advantage of what we know about human nature… But in fact, what we’re doing is changing human nature. And we’re not merely changing it; we’re impoverishing it.”6 It is funny how human interactions that are seen as taking time can make us uncomfortable, or create conflict that we want to avoid. But time and time again, they are the bedrock of employee engagement. It’s about the basics. For example, Google wanted to discover the key ingredients to successful teamwork. What did they learn from the data? The value of being nice: “The best teams respect one another’s emotions and are mindful that all members should contribute to the conversation equally. It has less to do with who is in a team and more with how a team’s members interact with one another.” 7
Considerations Going Forward What’s certain is the speed and disruption of technology broadly. What’s required, as HR technologists consider the impact of their solutions on talent management and engagement: 1. Don’t be content to remain solely in your expert silo, but work collaboratively and
with curiosity among those with different expertise, skillsets, and mindsets inside and outside of your organization. 2. Generate and explore expansive questions such as: a. What are the positive and unintended consequences of this specific technology solution? b. How will we maintain the spark of human relationships, connection, and meaning from work? c. Is technology the answer? Or is something else going to create better outcomes? d. How can we harness the power of technology to transform the world for the better? e. What’s our ethical responsibility to facilitate lifelong learning as the pace of technological advancements quickens? How can we help those whose skills become quickly obsolete? 3. Pay attention to unconscious biases, even those built into the algorithms of data models that try to pinpoint insights about workforce behavior and optimize business outcomes. 4. Work at your HR technology governance and curate. The abundance of HR technology available today, including what data can be collected and disseminated for decision-making, is massive and growing. But sometimes it can distract and distance us from the basics about human relationships and meaningful work. Work to streamline options to integrate the needs of all parties. In areas like training, curate content offered to your end user. 5. Remember that sometimes “low/no” tech is the better option. A client told me recently how they stripped their general manager training of all PowerPoints and technology, and orchestrated a 2-to 3-day, face-to-face session of seasoned and new leaders exchanging and listening to stories. This leadership training session is currently one of the most highly rated and valued sessions in their leadership curriculum. 6. Just because you purchase the technology, doesn’t mean it will be used or add value. I like the 60/40 or 80/20 rule of thumb. Set aside at least 60 percent of your budget (people and dollars) to devote to how you are going to implement and leverage any HR technology solution. How do people need to change and adapt? How will the solution change the culture and employee experience for the better?
Endnotes
1 “How Physicians Can Enrich the Doctor-patient Relationship,” Knowledge@ Wharton, December 1, 2016. 2 “How technology will change the future of work,” World Economic Forum, February 4, 2016. 3 https://rework.withgoogle. com/ 4 David Green, People Analytics leader | Award Winning Writer | Speaker | LinkedIn HR Power Profile |@david_green_uk, https:// www.linkedin.com/in/ davidrgreen/. 5“Motivating people: Getting beyond money,” McKinsey Quarterly, November 2009. 6“Psychologist Barry Schwartz on What Motivates Us to Work, Why Incentives Fail, and How Our Ideas about Human Nature Shape Who We Become,” Brainpickings (https://www. brainpickings.org). 7”After years of intensive analysis, Google discovers the key to good teamwork is being nice,” Quartz, February 27, 2016.
About the Author
Kim Nugent is a talent management consultant with 25 years consulting experience. She honed her skills in the large, global HR consulting firm environment and now works independently. She brings together data, stories, diverse teams, as well as leaders and employees, to drive improvements to talent management programs and culture. She is passionate about moving from PowerPoint decks to facilitating real change and implementation of ideas. She resides in Chicago and can be followed on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/ in/kimanugent.
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Tracy C. McKee
Why Your Employees Need to Believe in You
Many of today’s most seasoned business leaders came of age when energetic employee rallies were the tool of choice for firing up the workforce.
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If you are a company looking to engage the best talent in your industry, here is one thing you need to know: Your best performers, and all those talented people you would like knocking on your door, are watching you. What you say, what you do, and the difference you make in the lives of others all matters now, much more than it used to. If you can’t hang on to your best people, you can blame your competitors, social media, or disenchanted employees, or you can take action by telling your most powerful stories inside. This option becomes even more compelling when your industry is in turmoil. The driving force could be the regulatory environment, disruptive technology, or a non-traditional competitor gaining traction with your core customer base. Complex change may sound like opportunity in the C-suite, but to employees it often sounds like trouble. This is where effective employee engagement becomes so essential. Many of today’s most seasoned business leaders came of age when energetic employee rallies were the tool of choice for firing up the workforce. When everyone worked in the same building, such events may have been effective at generating some excitement about a new set of corporate goals or the company’s new mission. Fast-forward to today: your workforce is not only much less homogenous and geographically concentrated, it is also much more empowered. Engaging this population requires finding the intersection between what your employees care about and what you, as a company, care about. In Gallup’s 2017 report on the State of the American Workplace, researchers said, “Most workers, many of whom are millennials, approach a role and a company with a highly defined set of expectations. They want their work to have meaning and purpose. They want to use their talents and strengths to do what they do best every day. They want to learn and be developed. They want their job to fit their life.”
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Baby Boomers want many of the same things. However, as a generation, we have been less likely to leave a company as soon as it becomes clear its corporate goals and our personal goals are not aligned. The sentiment has shifted, however. According to the Gallup research, more than half of the American workforce is on the hunt for a new job; meanwhile, Gallup reports that only one-third of employees are engaged in their work and workplace. Engagement begins with the appeal of the job itself, but it doesn’t end there. Beyond the critical steps of giving employees clear and rewarding roles to perform, regular and insightful feedback, and support for new ideas and risk-taking, employers need to give employees a reason to believe in their brand.
Brand Ambassadors versus Brand Believers Companies have long embraced the idea of turning their employees into advocates for their products and services. The hope is that when someone you know and trust speaks favorably about the company they work for, you will be more inclined to feel the same way. Even better, if you are that company’s kind of customer, you will buy their products. The original employee-as-brand-ambassador formula is very compelling: If they care, they will share. However, as part of the reputation economy, an entire industry has grown up around paid brand ambassadors, people who are compensated to promote your brand. Social media has fueled this trend – Facebook and Twitter are the brand ambassador’s superhighway. Naturally, skepticism is the biggest threat to the implied authenticity of brand advocacy. This is where brand believers can help. You can’t force your employees to believe in your brand. However, you can expose them to what makes your brand compelling to your cus-
tomers. Think of it as presenting your company’s external value proposition to your employees. Your customers demand transparency (about what you offer) and relevancy (to their needs) in exchange for their decision to buy from you. The only difference is your employees are making a purchasing decision about your purpose. In other words, your existing and potential customers and your existing and potential employees can be influenced positively or negatively according to the alignment of: • What you do, • What you say, and • What you are. Research from the Reputation Institute demonstrates just how powerful the connection is between purpose and brand strength. In a 2016 Reputation Insight report, researchers noted that “organizations that fully activate their purpose – and leverage it as a rudder and rallying cry for decision-making based on what they ‘Do-Say-Are,’ are more likely to garner higher levels of brand strength, and subsequently, earn a much better reputation.” For a tangible example, consider who is most effective at fostering loyal customers in your industry. Chances are quite good that their “DoSay-Are” attributes line up. Now, look at your own company. Hopefully, you also have strong alignment between what you do, what you say, and what you are to your customers. If so, this is an excellent place to start the work to build brand believers inside your organization.
The Power of Storytelling Every organization has a story to tell, but not every story is worth telling. Advertising agencies at the top of their game excel at making this distinction. With so much competition for attention, your story has to be relevant and compelling. How do you make sure your employees feel some kind of connection to the big story? Include them. Being part of the story is far more interesting. Over the past few years, I was part of a corporate communications team that built an external website dedicated to telling the company’s stories through articles featuring our own employees as experts in their field (health care). Our team of former journalists interviewed our experts and used external research, along with credible third parties, to educate and inform the public about key issues, new regulations, and
managing their own health care costs. In the first year, the site had surpassed a million visitors and earned two awards for public relations. Equally important, though, was the value of using the content we created to educate and inspire the company’s own workforce. We regularly posted the external stories to the company’s intranet to expose employees to new innovation, thought leadership, and key issues our people were talking about externally. On average, our own employees made up 20 to 25 percent of monthly visitors to the external site. This approach served several purposes. First, employees were treated like an audience that might be interested in what our best thinkers had to say. Our own experts received internal recognition outside their own departments and, on occasion, made connections with other thought leaders they would not have crossed paths with otherwise. The stories also provided a steady diet of what the company was doing, saying, and taking a stand on outside of the company. Frequently, employees would comment on these stories with interest and pride. Like many companies, we said we wanted to put the customer at the center of everything we did. By bringing the customer stories inside, we also made the customer the center of what we said. Since we first launched that corporate newsroom in 2014, more companies are adopting the journalistic storytelling approach to reach their external audiences. Not as many are taking the approach inside, but you don’t need a full-scale publishing platform to apply the concept. If you don’t already work closely with your colleagues in Communications or Marketing, try reaching out to them with this idea. These professionals live and breathe storytelling, particularly because the public has little tolerance for empty claims. And, since external messages tend to have to clear more hurdles than internal communications, most stories that are suitable for customers should be an easy adaptation for an internal audience. Though the answers may be different, your customers and employees want to know what they can expect from you. Customers want to know what value you will give them. When they see that value, they are more likely to buy. Employees want to know what value you are giving the world. When they see that value, they are more likely to believe.
Engaging this population requires finding the intersection between what your employees care about and what you, as a company, care about . . .
Everyone loves a story, particularly when they are part of it. About the Author
Tracy C. McKee is a writer, editor, and communication consultant in Connecticut. After spending 30 years leading corporate communication functions, she now specializes in communication strategy, executive communications, brand journalism and start-up communication functions. She started her career as a newspaper journalist. She can be reached at tmckee2004@gmail.com.
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Gayle Norton, DeGarmo
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Employee Engagement is clearly one of the most discussed and studied topics of the last few years. As the pace of technology and innovation continues to increase and the demographics of the workforce shift from baby boomers to millennials, engagement has become a critical sustaining factor for employers. In fact, it’s difficult to find an organization where employee engagement is not something being discussed in the C-Suite and even within the board of directors. Interestingly, the term employee engagement makes an underlying assumption that the person you are trying to engage is already an employee. However, this article explores the position that employee engagement starts before the person ever becomes an employee. It begins with the talent acquisition process.
Candidate Experience and Impact on Engagement
According to the Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Executive Brief: The Business Impact of Candidate Experience, candidates who have had a positive candidate experience will definitely increase their employer relationships.1 On the other hand, those who reported a negative recruiting experience will take their alliances, purchases, and relationships elsewhere. But what determines whether the candidate has a positive or negative experience? As with most things relating to the workforce, the answer is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the candidate. In order to engage candidates (future employees), it is critical to look at what is important to them. While there is still some tolerance for poor online recruiting experiences, most active applicants can quickly become frustrated with these experiences once they have been through a more positive experience. Millennials in particular are sensitive to the online experience. According to the Global Human Capital
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Trends 2016 report by Deloitte2, millennials now make up more than half the workforce. It can be argued that the rest of workforce will only become more sensitive to online experiences as well. In today’s ultra-competitive recruitment market, employers must develop recruiting and onboarding experiences that will address the increasing importance of a sophisticated and easy-to-use online experience. These experiences should easily translate (from the candidate’s point of view) to onboarding and other HR processes. Employers need to provide their talent with clear development plans, opportunities for promotion, and the tools to drive their own career progression. Today’s top talent places a high premium on flexibility, creativity, and purpose at work. If this is what is expected, how can organizations deliver?
Recruitment Optimization – Is Your Strategy Up-to-Date?
The first step is to conduct a Recruitment Optimization Assessment (ROA) for talent acquisition improvement opportunities. An evaluation of the overall function, recruitment optimization looks at talent acquisition as a whole to identify gaps and minimize risks. A few of the questions to ask are: Is your talent strategy aligned with your business strategy? Have your processes been recently updated and do your technologies support your processes? What about your employment brand? Do you have assessments in place to provide predictive analytics? Data? When does onboarding begin? Do I have a roadmap to my future state? While it may seem daunting, this optimization will provide the foundation to move your business forward. A project of this type is comprehensive and understandably time consuming so if you don’t have the internal bandwidth to take this on, bring in a consultant who specializes in this area.
Recruiting has changed dramatically in the past few years – the way recruiting was done a few years ago will not work in today’s market. It is difficult to attract the top talent you need if your recruitment strategy and practices are not up-to-date. The attraction, recruitment, hiring, and onboarding stages each affect the employee’s perception of the organization and, in the long-term, their engagement as well. Organizations should look through the lens of their candidates while conducting this assessment. A great source of information is the experience of recent hires. Make sure that you tap into these employees and get answers to critical questions: What did they find appealing about the process? What could have been better? How did their experience with your organization compare to other organizations? Ensure that you dig into process and technology. In addition, you should reach out to top candidates who chose to go to another organization. Ask for a debriefing on their experience with your organization. In most cases, these candidates are very forthcoming with their opinions. Remember, finding a quality candidate in a candidate-driven market is more challenging – and it takes longer. Therefore, it’s in an employer’s best interest to proactively optimize recruiting practices and focus on retention to have a positive impact on engagement – engaged employees produce better business outcomes than other employees. In this time of talent shortages, engagement isn’t a nice to have anymore, it is a requirement to meet and exceed business goals. Once you have good data, take a look at your processes. Are there opportunities to streamline? Traditional process redesign methodology can help in this effort, as well as researching leading practices in the marketplace. The next area to analyze is your technology. What type of user experience do you want your candidates to have at your site? Do you need a full replacement or will a “face-lift” do the job? A key resource in the redesign of your processes and technology is the hiring manager. As you think through your future state processes and technology, engage your hiring managers and build in their perspectives. They can turn into your “change champions” when you are ready to roll out your new process.
Assessments During the Selection Process
One area that needs special attention in the
selection process is candidate assessments. According to findings from the Talent Board’s Candidate Experience Research Report,3 78% of the Candidate Experience Award winners are using assessments to improve new hire performance. In fact, a recent Aberdeen4 study shows that businesses that use pre-hire assessments are not only 36% more likely to be satisfied with their new hires, they were also 36% more likely to see improved employee performance and 22% more likely to see an improved revenue per FTE. Assessments serve a number of purposes, including providing relevant objective data about candidate skillsets and competencies and insights into motivational and cultural fit resulting in a reduction in turnover and ultimately impacting performance, engagement, and retention. However, from the point of view of the candidate (and in terms of future engagement) the key to assessments is ensuring that they will fit with the culture within the organization and ensure their success. Most recruiting professionals and hiring managers base much of their hiring decision on subjective data such as résumés, LinkedIn profiles, face-to-face interviews, and phone conversations. In some cases, references are checked as well. But research shows there are many limitations and biases associated with these screening tools. Becoming more scientific and utilizing assessments such as DeGarmo or Profiles International in the selection process will provide insights needed to build the best prepared and engaged workforce possible. Leading organizations are now using technology to help make better hiring decisions by assessing the following: • Cultural compatibility / fit, • Individual motivators and derailers that may impact retention, and • Insights into key strengths and growth opportunities that impact performance.
Make sure that you tap into these employees and get answers to critical questions: What did they find appealing about the process? What could have been better? How did their experience with your organization compare to other organizations?
The outcomes that these assessments provide are:5 • Increased engagement, • Improved retention rate, • Reduced time from hire to desired level of productivity, • Increased hiring manager satisfaction, and • Decreased turnover.
The Next Step: Structured Onboarding Once the offer has been made and accepted, a critical process of engagement begins. Onboarding is the process of hiring, integrating,
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and socializing a new employee into a company and its culture. This is a strategic process and one that heavily influences engagement and retention. The critical nature of effective onboarding has become increasingly important to organizations looking to retain a competitive advantage in an increasingly mobile and globalized workforce. A poor first impression leaves the candidate wondering, “Am I making the right decision?” An integral part of the recruiting process, getting it right enhances employee engagement, retention, and productivity. According to an Aberdeen Onboarding study,6 90% of companies believe their new hires decide to stay or leave a company within the first year of employment. However, it can be argued that new hires actually make this decision within six months on the job. Key recommendations in this area include: • Streamline and automate the process – implement onboarding technology to streamline and automate the tactical aspects and enhance onboarding overall; • Begin onboarding before the first day – don’t confuse onboarding with first day orientation. Onboarding should begin at the offer stage and build the right mix of relationships and experiences early to facilitate performance, engagement, and retention;
•
•
Involve managers and team members – utilize training mentorships and buddy systems to facilitate assimilation and engagement; and, Focus on using recognition early and often – recognize excellence in your employees. Some of the most important factors in driving employee engagement are feedback and recognition given by either managers or peers.
Ultimately, the onboarding process should flow seamlessly from the recruiting process. Nothing is more unsettling to a new hire than to find out that their excellent recruiting experience is not what they can expect now that they are a part of the team.
Conclusion
Employee Engagement has become a critical success factor and is recognized as such by the top leaders of many organizations. However, “employee” engagement actually starts before the candidate ever accepts an offer. By looking at the entire sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding process from the candidate’s (and future employee’s) point of view, leading organizations can design a solution that begins to develop engagement from the first “click.”
Endnotes 1
2016 Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Executive Brief: The Business Impact of Candidate Experience, 2016, www.thetalentboard.org.
2
Global Human Capital Trends 2016: The new organization: Different by design, Deloitte University Press, 2016, www. deloitte.com.
3
2016 Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Report, 2016, www.thetalentboard.org.
4
Pre-hire assessments: The first test to understanding the candidate, Aberdeen Group, February 2017, www.aberdeen.com.
5
See www.degarmo.com/Statistics and Pre-Hire Assessments: An asset for HR in the age of the Candidate, Aberdeen Group, May 2015, www.aberdeen.com
6
Onboarding 2013: A New Look at New Hires, Aberdeen Group, 2013, www.aberdeen.com.
About the Author
Gayle Norton is the director of Talent Strategy at DeGarmo, a talent assessment and consulting firm. As a transformational talent solutions consultant, she helps companies move from outdated or inefficient organizational models, processes, and technologies to effective recruiting and retention capabilities that support business objectives. She leads the firm’s talent strategy consulting practice and focuses her efforts on helping companies build and optimize the infrastructure and strategy to attract and retain the people they need to drive their business forward. She can be reached at gnorton@degarmo.com or linkedin.com/in/gaylenorton.
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Will Runyon
Practical Thinking about Employment Engagement In the 1940s, Rosser Reeves, a smart Madison Avenue executive, coined the term Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP is a short, memorable phrase, a positioning statement or reason, to lead customers to choose one product or service over another. They’re easy to remember because they’re convincing: • • • • •
M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hands. When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. Get Met. It Pays. Where’s the beef? Miller Lite – Tastes Great, Less Filling.
Are employees all that different from customers? Yes, they are, but both want something out of the deal. While a company’s USP, or “brand promise,” speaks to customers, employees have to know how to fulfill it. And, whether buying or working, we want to give as well as get. Today’s workplace is fluid and unpredictable. Gone is the stable reciprocity of mutual employer and employee loyalty and wage growth; it has been replaced with business models dictated by agility, competitive advantage, labor arbitrage, and shareholder value. Also nearly extinct is the “workaholism” of the baby boomer generation. Today’s younger cohorts demand, and get, something closer to real work/life balance. But, most importantly, thanks in large part to new technologies, the opportunity for meaningful work, learning, collaborating, and realizing satisfying careers and personal lives is greater than ever before. Former Campbell Soup CEO, Doug Conant, said, “To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.” Steve Jobs galvanized Apple’s workforce to create one of the world’s most valued brands and companies, with the unofficial mission to make “insanely great products.” From concept, design, and manufacture, to performance, user experience and brand affinity, products like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iMac re-
defined the personal relationships we have today with technology. And, they won decisively in the marketplace.
Only 33 Percent of American Employees are Engaged But, all’s not well in many workplaces. According to Gallup’s just-released State of the American Workplace, its third such trend report since 2010, only 18 percent of employees agree that high performance leads to career growth, 21 percent agree they’re managed and motivated to do outstanding work, and just 33 percent of employees say they are engaged in their work.1
What is employee engagement? It’s a voluntary choice, a decision, an act by individual employees. It is not a company slogan, program or campaign, though you’ll still need them and more to persuade employees to engage. Why is engagement so important? Multiple studies show that engaged employees are more purposeful, collaborative, happier, and productive. Engaged employees go the extra mile. Companies with engaged employees are more profitable, with higher earnings per share, and they experience lower theft, accidents, and turnover. Simply put, your workforce is likely your biggest www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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source of unrealized potential. So, what’s going wrong? Why are so many employees disengaged, and looking for new jobs? Is it the money? Yes and no. Employees need to be compensated fairly and competitively. Only then can employers take the issue of pay off the table and focus on the deeper things that drive employees to commit and perform at their highest levels: purpose, belief that they contribute to something meaningful, autonomy, mastery, and feeling valued and appreciated. In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink tests and examines the impact of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.2 His findings might surprise you. Company leaders must be clear about what their companies stand for and why. Great products and services grow from strong brands and leadership whose missions and strategies are focused, communicated, and understood, and then thoroughly implemented and adopted. Gallup says that you must “inspire your internal customer to serve your external customer.” Yet, American employees give leaders low marks.
Inspiring Employees to Serve Customers
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s Gold Standards3 include a prescriptive and relatable motto: We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. In turn, this motto drives the company’s “three steps of service” and the “service values” that nurture and strengthen the company’s culture, and realize its “employee promise:” •
•
•
At The Ritz-Carlton, our Ladies and Gentlemen are the most important resource in our service commitment to our guests. By applying the principles of trust, honesty, respect, integrity and commitment, we nurture and maximize talent to the benefit of each individual and the company. The Ritz-Carlton fosters a work environment where diversity is valued, quality of life is enhanced, individual aspirations are fulfilled, and The Ritz-Carlton Mystique is strengthened.
Are Ritz-Carlton’s Gold Standards and employee training and engagement working? Glassdoor reviews by employees say yes, with the hotelier earning four out of five stars, 79 percent saying they’d recommend employment to a friend, and 91 percent approving of its CEO.4
Why We Love the Apple Store
Think about your last visit to an Apple store. How were you greeted? Were the Apple employees engaged and knowledgeable? Were they friendly and happy? Was your problem resolved? Did you walk out with a positive customer experience? We might balk at calling them all geniuses, but they’re very good at their jobs, have fun doing them, and work well as a team. Not surprisingly,
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Apple employees’ reviews on Glassdoor are very high, giving the company four out of five stars, with 79 percent saying they’d recommend employment to a friend, and 94 percent approving its CEO. In fact, Tim Cook was in the top 10 of highest-rated CEOs last year.5 These are the good – if not the best – stories on the employee-engagement front. So, what is the real problem, and how is it to be fixed?
Leaders are Disengaged Too
Engagement, it turns out, isn’t a problem only among the rank-and-file. Gallup also reports that only 45 percent of executives and 29 percent of managers are engaged at work. This low level often reflects the disconnect between generational cohorts with regard to values and expectations. Many senior leaders today, particularly baby boomers, believe engagement stems solely from pay. They think employees are coin-operated, because that’s how they came up the ranks. For them, engagement – if the term even occurred to them – meant working hard, keeping your head down, performing well, and, in consequence, earning promotions and raises. But this model – if ever it really prevailed – has largely disappeared.
into what’s working and what isn’t, and where to improve or change. Wagner says, “An EVP is the complete offering a company makes to prospective employees in hopes they will join, and to current employees in return for staying, for giving their best efforts, and in hopes they will speak well of the organization once they’ve moved on. By taking a full sweep of a person’s connection to the company, an EVP is a better strategic approach than many initiatives that are targeted on just a few aspects of working at the organization.” Employ both a workplace and a workforce mindset. Tailor approaches and experiences to workforce demographics and psychographics. Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen Z think and behave differently. Gallup’s data reveals clear demographic and psychographic shifts.
From USPs to EVPs
In the present era, where do you start to improve your company’s employee engagement? It’s not by reading your employee satisfaction surveys, though they can help later. Start topdown, not bottom-up – get involvement and buyin at the top. Rodd Wagner, engagement expert at BI Worldwide and author of Widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees As If They’re Real People, says companies need to offer employees a sweeping and compelling employee value proposition (EVP).6 Wagner says, “EVPs start with that almost existential question: Why would the people we need want to join, do their best work here, and stay?” Others call this the “employee deal.” These kinds of probing questions and employee journey mapping can illuminate the continuum of relationships and experiences the people you need will have, starting with recruitment and onboarding, training, management, coaching and mentoring, development, advancement, compensation and rewards, health and well-being, etc. Then, coupled with employee survey data, including exit interviews, leaders can gain real insights
With your EVP tested and in place, get your CEO and senior leaders not only to lead the charge, but also lead by example – not once, but over time. Nothing shouts “HR employeeengagement campaign” more than training and engagement programs that your senior leaders don’t know about or do not actively sponsor. Direct senior management involvement signals importance and permission. It’s also where second- and first-line managers take their cue. Good managers know and understand their employees best. They modulate their management style to what makes both individuals and teams tick. The best are trusted coaches.
It’s About Customer Value
Focus on what your customers’ value. Tie job roles, development, coaching, feedback, compensation, advancement, rewards, and recognition to your company’s mission, strategy and values. Then, showcase and distinguish – in an inspiring www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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way, rather than one likely to create jealousy or envy – the employees who best embody and live these values. Authentic corporate storytelling, with real people, faces, and voices, will teach and inspire your workforce. When employees identify with and emulate the best of their peers, they know where to go and how to get there. And, have some fun with your storytelling; humor – when carefully and genuinely deployed – is often a great teacher.
Get Outside Help, and Measure
Don’t try to change your culture using only your own best thinking. Get outside help; contract the experts. Too often, companies develop and deploy homegrown employee-engagement strategies and programs. It’s a good start, but it’s not, by itself, good enough. There is too much room for confirmation bias – seeing what we want or expect to see, as opposed to what is – and narrow or same-old thinking. External points of view, industry experience, and track records are required. Set program goals and expectations carefully and clearly, and give it time. Then, measure and report out transparently.
Build in metrics that make sense for your business. Know what you’re trying to improve; be specific. And, share the results, top to bottom. Sometimes the glaring light of transparency will jumpstart laggards or create healthy internal competition across businesses or geographies. Too often, companies fudge or don’t report their results, eroding trust and undermining engagement further. Be sure to keep your eyes on what your employees, current, past, and prospective, are saying online. Your reputation is always just a few clicks away on job sites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
Brains, Like Hearts, Go Where They’re Appreciated
Robert McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and president of Ford Motor Company, once said, “Brains, like hearts, go where they’re appreciated.” When deserved, say, “Thank you, great job” to your employees; when asking them to do something, say “please.” Being polite, grateful, and appreciative means you’re human. A sincere and well-timed “thank you” can do wonders. Say it often.
Endnotes
Gallup, State of the American Workplace 2017, http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx
1
2
Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-AboutMotivates/dp/1594484805
3
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Gold Standards, http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/about/gold-standards
4
Glassdoor, Ritz-Carlton, https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Ritz-Carlton-Reviews-E3433.htm
5
Glassdoor, Apple, https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Apple-Reviews-E1138.htm
6
Rodd Wagner, BI Worldwide, http://workhappier.com/
About the Author
Will Runyon is a workforce engagement and enablement consultant, currently working in the defense industry. He was at IBM for 20 years, where he held a number of executive roles in corporate and marketing communications. Before that, he worked with public relations agencies for 15 years, representing leading information technology, consumer electronics, automotive, and chemical companies. He can be reached at wbrconsultants@gmail.com.
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Sheri L. Feinzig Ph.D. and Louise Raisbeck
If You Listen, They Will Speak. Active employee listening for organizational success The rise of social media coupled with the desire to build more engaged and productive workforces has brought active employee listening to the fore. No longer is it enough to encourage employees to speak up; organizations need to more actively solicit, analyse, and engage in conversations with past, present, and even, future employees. Active employee listening provides organizations with valuable insights – from spotting warning signs to garnering innovative ideas. Organizations can then turn those insights into action to improve organizational knowledge, productivity and performance, and to deepen employee engagement. To better understand how organizations are listening to their employees and how willing employees are to share their opinions, we conducted research with employees, organizations and vendors offering relevant technologies. This article summarizes the results of that research and provides recommendations for organizations looking to use employee voice to improve business performance.
What’s driving interest in employee listening?
In discussions with organizations, we have identified three imperatives pushing organizations to adopt employee listening and three enablers that have made it easier for organizations to listen to their employees.
Imperatives Organizations are compelled to engage today’s employees more actively through listening programs for several reasons:
• To embrace the new consumer mindset Consumer brands seek out feedback on almost every aspect of the customer experience – from co-designing product features to providing quick-response customer support. Today, consumers want more than an opportunity to vent. They also want answers. Why were their favorite flavors discontinued, why was their train delayed, and when will the potholes on their streets be filled? Understandably, people want similar conversations in the workplace. Established third-party sites such as Glassdoor, as well as recent entrants such as Memo, give employees the opportunity to rate their work experiences and share opinions about their employers. Internal social platforms within organizations also provide forums to raise issues that might previously have been left at the water cooler. Whether expressing brilliant ideas, legitimate observations or frustrations, employees expect that their voices will be heard and addressed with the same frequency, depth, and speed they receive as customers outside of work. • To move beyond engagement to insight Engagement has replaced satisfaction as a watchword for organizations looking to retain talent. Rigorous research studies have made clear linkages between employee engagement and organizational performance.1 Furthermore, IBM research has shown a correlation between greater investment in employee engagement and significantly higher levels of customer satisfaction, shareholder earnings, and return on assets.2 However, many organizations now want to move beyond pure employee engagement www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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to understand the more holistic employee experience. This requires listening in ways that complement an annual employee opinion survey. It means a broader comprehension of how employees experience work and in what conditions they perform at their best. It also involves a dynamic understanding of the complex relationship between employees, managers, and the larger organization. • To reveal the unsaid and unseen Much like consumers commenting on their experiences with products and services, employees can provide important insights into opportunities for improvement within their organizations. They meet with customers and business partners, encounter competitors, and may be first to spot new entrants to the market. Organizations are missing out on valuable information if they overlook what was previously unseen or unsaid. Companies are already using a range of approaches to tap into the knowledge and experience of their employees.3 They are also looking to integrate these data with other, more passive mining of data sources – from social network postings to metadata about page views on their intranets – to help identify emerging trends and employee concerns.
Enablers As these imperatives drive organizations to pay closer attention to what employees are saying, technology is enabling organizations to better capture, analyze and respond to employee ideas, comments, and concerns: • New data collection capabilities Organizations can now gather and interpret free-form text and other types of unstructured data from internal and external sources. Traditional survey tools are now easier and quicker to administer and are accessible via mobile devices. Wearable devices, such as “sociometers,” can passively capture information about employee interactions – location, length of interaction, vital signals, and even conversation volume – all without direct user involvement. • More powerful analytic capabilities Data can be analyzed with greater speed and accuracy than before. Sophisticated systems such as cognitive solutions can identify issues such as employee mood and sentiment, and then integrate these findings with more
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traditional sources of human capital data, such as performance metrics and retention statistics. • Better ways to communicate insights Improved visualization tools enable organizations to deliver easily interpretable, realtime results from their listening efforts. For example, mini-polling survey tools can provide respondents with graphs instantly showing how their responses compare to others.
Listening from the Employee Perspective These enablers and imperatives demonstrate why and how to build listening capabilities, but we also need something to hear. An important consideration of any listening program is whether employees will participate. In a recent IBM WorkTrends4 survey, respondents were asked to imagine they were employees of a company implementing a new initiative to listen to employee opinions and feedback. Some combination of four listening approaches (census surveys, sample surveys, mini-polls, and social analytics) were randomly assigned to the survey respondents. Open-ended questions yielded feedback on the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, while employee responses were quantitatively measured on three dimensions: • Voice – Willingness to make recommendations and communicate opinions, • Support – Belief that their organizations care about and value them, and • Action – Confidence that positive change would result from employee feedback.
The results of the survey provide insights into employee willingness to share their feedback, as well as what they see as the advantages and disadvantages of different listening methods: • Employees are willing to share Overall, a clear majority of employees are willing to share, feel supported, and believe positive action will result from listening (see Figure 1). Eighty-three percent of those surveyed want to share information, regardless of how the organization listens. Employees expressed somewhat less enthusiasm around the use of internal social analytics alone as a listening tool, although the effect is small and can be compensated for by adding a census survey or mini-poll to the listening program.
input (see Figure 2). It may be argued that this increased cynicism is a function of the longer work experience of baby boomers.
Figure 1. Most employees are willing to speak up, feel supported and believe action will result.
Seventy-six percent of respondents agreed they would feel supported by their organization if listened to in these ways. While a clear majority of respondents were positive about all three dimensions, they were least optimistic about the organization taking action, with 72 percent of all respondents expressing confidence that positive change would result. The open-ended questions in the survey provided insights into the employee perceived advantages and disadvantages of the various listening methods: Advantages included employees having the opportunity to express their opinions and ideas. Employees also see advantages for their organizations in gaining insights, making improvements and increasing productivity. Advantages of census surveys, sample surveys and mini-polls fall along a continuum from a wider range and variety of feedback to more regular and immediate feedback. Internal social analytics stand alone, with more employees seeing honest, open, and real feedback as an advantage of this listening method. Disadvantages fell into three broad categories: cynicism, conflict, and excessive use of resources. Resource use is more likely to be seen as a disadvantage of census surveys, sample surveys and mini-polls, whereas conflict is more likely to be seen as a disadvantage of internal social analytics, particularly the perceived risk of violating the privacy of employees.
Figure 2. All generations are willing to voice. Boomers are less confident that action will result.
Workplace location also matters. Remote workers are just as willing to voice as in-house employees and are more willing to voice when internal social analytics are used.
Listening from the Organizational Perspective
In addition to census surveys, sample surveys, mini-polls, and internal social analytics, our organizational and vendor interviews unearthed other important sources of employee voice. All of the sources can be organized in three tiers of listening approaches, each including both structured and unstructured data sources: Tried-andtrue, Mining for insight, and The next frontier (see Figure 3).
Subtle demographic variations affect listening Some subtle differences exist in how employees across different demographic groups perceive listening programs. Overall, we found generations to be more alike than different. Millennials are just as willing to express voice as Gen Xers and baby boomers. Yet, baby boomers are less confident that management will act based on their
Figure 3. Sources of employee voice can be categorized in three tiers.
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Tried-and-true Tried-and-true data sources include traditional methods of employee listening, such as focus groups, census surveys, and sample surveys. Census and sample surveys primarily gather structured data, but may also allow employees to add suggestions and comments. Focus groups are at the opposite end of the spectrum: the data gathered are almost wholly based on unstructured conversation among a group of employees, although the questions guiding the conversation are usually structured.
Mining for insight Approaches in this tier use data that exist within organizations, but have rarely been used as a source for employee listening. Types of data range from highly structured, such as intranet usage statistics, to highly unstructured, such as employee contact center data. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to these employee data sources. For example, exit interviews may provide insights into employee attrition trends, but are unlikely to be representative of a whole organization. Alternatively, intranet usage might reveal trends in topics of concern to a broader employee base, at a particular point in time.
The next frontier This top tier on Figure 3 includes emergent sources of data for employee listening, such as mini-polls, jams, internal collaboration platforms, wearable devices and external social data. Once again, there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to each method. For example, wearables enable organizations to capture data without employee effort or lost work time, but they present privacy, security, and accessibility concerns that need to be addressed. For more on the advantages and disadvantages of different listening methods, see the IBM report, Amplifying Employee Voice: How organizations can better connect to the pulse of the workforce.
Recommendations: Designing an Employee Listening Program
Despite the varied advantages and disadvantages of different listening methods, there are some common recommendations for designing an effective employee listening program:
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1. Inspire audience participation Explaining the objectives and expected program benefits to employees can inspire participation. The FORT framework could be used as a starting point.5 FORT identifies four critical practices to encourage employee participation: • Listen to feedback on the analytics goals from people who will be affected, • Where possible, make sharing of data optional, • Give some recognition to those who agree to share their data for workforce analytics, and • Be transparent about everything that is done. 2. Match your objectives with data sources As we have seen, different listening methods serve different purposes. Emerging employee listening tools and data sources now allow for more nuanced objectives, such as problem solving or collaborating to create new products and services. While some methods are better for topic exploration, others are more suited to confirming information. In all cases, the objective of the listening program will determine how many participants to involve and which data sources are most appropriate. This, in turn, will determine platform considerations around scalability, availability of data and hosting approaches. For example, for some objectives you may need to have responses from as many employees as possible, whereas for others a sample or targeted subset will suffice. 3. Build a listening coalition across the enterprise Listening programs are most successful when supported by resources from multiple functions. Building a coalition of stakeholders to design, implement and share information throughout the organization will ensure you have access to valuable expertise across the enterprise. Stakeholders may include: legal for guidance on privacy and data management issues, marketing to share information about customer listening tools, and line managers who can encourage employees to voice their opinions and help implement any
resulting recommendations. 4. Pay attention to privacy Organizations need to consider what level of anonymity or privacy they require based on the goals of the listening program, country legislation, and the culture of the organization. Levels of privacy range from “full anonymity”when the company does not know who the respondent is, to “identified” when the respondent is known publicly. While full anonymity can elicit more truthful responses, it does not allow for individual follow-up. On the other hand, “identified” participants may lack candor. Once again, the goals of the listening program and the attitudes of employees should guide method selection bearing in mind privacy implications. 5. Make actions speak louder than words Study participants were unanimous in identifying the need for action as the most important element of a listening program. Clearly, it would not be practical or even desirable to act upon every recommendation made by every employee. But respondents were clear that organizations need to dem-
onstrate that insights from their listening programs are acted upon, and that the collected input could be used to influence future decision making. Without this level of responsiveness, employees will be less likely to participate, viewing employee listening as a drain on their time rather than a potential benefit.
Moving Forward
The first fundamental question before embarking on any kind of employee listening program is to be sure you are ready to respond to employee voice. As the final recommendation above suggested, listening without acting will quickly lose the support of your employees. If you are ready to act as well as listen, then your listening strategy needs to be aligned with your objectives. Select your listening tools from the range available in support of your objectives, and be aware of the different privacy implications of your listening methods. Finally, move forward with confidence. Employees (past, present and future) want to be heard, and if you’re not listening, you might be missing out on valuable feedback that could improve your operations and even directly affect your financial performance.
Endnotes
Rayton, B., T. Dodge and G. D’Analeze. “The Evidence: Employee Engagement Task Force ‘Nailing the evidence’ workgroup.” 2012. Accessed at: http://engageforsuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-Evidence.pdf
1
2
IBM Software Technical White Paper. “Beyond engagement: The definitive guide to employee surveys and organizational performance.” February 2014. http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=SA&subtype=WH&htmlfid=LOW14 043USEN
3
For an earlier discussion of this topic, see Lesser, Eric, David Ransom, Rawn Shah and Bob Pulver. “Collective Intelligence: Capitalizing on the Crowd.” IBM Institute for Business Value Executive Report. January 2012. http://www.ibm.com/services/ us/gbs/thoughtleadership/ibv-collective-intelligence.html
4
A nalyses presented in this article are based on a sample of over 24,000 workers from the IBM WorkTrends survey, administered by the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute in 2015 to workers in 23 countries, in a cross-section of industries, thousands of different organizations and all major job families.
5
Guenole, N. and Ferrar. J. “Active employee participation in workforce analytics: A critical ingredient for success.” 2014. IBM Smarter Workforce Institute. Accessed at: http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=SA&subtype=WH&html fid=LOW14280USEN
About the Authors
Sheri Feinzig Ph.D. is the director of IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute, and has more than 20 years of experience in human resources research, organizational change management and business transformation. Dr. Feinzig has applied her analytical and methodological expertise to many research-based projects on topics such as employee retention, employee engagement, job design, and organizational culture. She is also co-author of The Power of People book on workforce analytics. She can be reached at sfeinzig@us.ibm.com. As Marketing Lead, Louise Raisbeck is responsible for marketing communications in the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute. She has worked in the field of workforce research for more than 10 years and is responsible for turning research insights into engaging, thought-provoking and practical white papers, reports, blogs and media materials. Louise is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and a former director of a top 10 PR consultancy in the UK. She can be reached at l.raisbeck@ibm.com. www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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2017 Talent Management/Work Force Planning Buyers Guide The 2017 Talent Management/Work Force Planning Buyers Guide will serve as a valuable reference tool. For your convenience, the guide has two sections: a Categorical Listing and an Alphabetical listing. In the Categorical Listing, companies are listed under the product and service categories of their choice. For information on a specific company and its products and/or service, please refer to the Alphabetical Company Listing. While a listing in this guide does not constitute an endorsement by IHRIM, it does indicate that these companies are interested in serving the needs of HRIS professionals. We hope this Buyer’s Guide will assist you in your 2017 purchasing decisions.
Product Categories
Compensation
Decusoft Enterprise Information Resources Inc.
Paid Advertising
Consulting/Analytics
Enterprise Information Resources Inc.
Performance Management
CRG emPerform Enterprise Information Resources Inc.
Alphabetical Company Listing* *Systems and applications referred to in this section are trademarked, registered, or in progress. These names should not be used generically.
CRG emPerform
6 Antares Dr. Phase 1 Suite 200 Ottawa, ON K2E 8A9 877.711.0367 613.232.4295 info@employee-performance.com www.employee-performance.com CRG emPerform makes it easy to automate & streamline vital performance management efforts and engage your company’s talent in easy, effective, and ongoing feedback & development. emPerform’s intuitive software includes an entire suite of flexible functionality to help save time and transform traditional once-a-year performance management into a year-round conversation. Did we mention everything is included for the best valued guaranteed? Online appraisals, goal management, 360° reviews, surveys, succession, and compensation planning. Get it all plus dedicated setup and guidance at every stage. Achieve performance management success with emPerform. Contact us to get started. See our ad on the back cover.
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DECUSOFT
70 Hilltop Rd. Suite 1003 Ramsey, NJ 07446 Michele Weiss 201.258.3395 201.785.0774 michele.weiss@decusoft.com www.decusoft.com You have an HCM software suite but you are managing compensation outside the system. Now what? You need COMPOSE, a specialized compensation management software solution that handles any level of variable compensation complexity, reduces your total cost of compensation administration and integrates with existing HR solutions. Not so suite but oh so right. See our ad on the inside front cover.
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Enterprise Information Resources Inc.
271 Waverley Oaks Rd. Suite 207 Waltham, MA 02452 Gin O’Leary 855.589.9451 617.924.4802 www.eir-inc.com info@eir-inc.com EIR is a certified SAP SuccessFactors build and services partner. We are a team of compensation and talent management solutions experts specializing in Perform & Reward bundle implementations and configuration optimization. Our transformational services help clients maximize the value of their SAP SuccessFactors investment. See our ad on the inside back cover.
Employee Research Evolution Pete Foley, Ph.D., Mercer and Adam Pressman, Mercer Sirota
The Employee Research Evolution: From Data to Insight Once again, employee research seems at a crossroads. The business of employee research is thriving, but also changing – rapidly. To be sure, the industry has undergone significant change since its inception. Employee surveys were first deployed regularly in the 1920s, largely in industrial work environments.1 Following a wave of survey activity in the armed forces during WWII to measure troop morale,2 organizations later began adopting employee research as a tool for monitoring and improving “industrial relations” – and avoiding unionization. Fast forwarding to the second half of the 20th century, employee research witnessed the advent of normative data that allowed companies to benchmark against peers, an explosion of electronic surveys via the internet, and more advanced reporting and analysis. The employee engagement trend, which began in the mid-1990s, gave rise to the use of employee surveys as a regular management tool. Today, the field is undergoing another wave of rapid change. So, what are some of the main forces of change? • Evidence-based research: One of the biggest complaints with the “big annual survey” has been around the sheer volume of data they generate, while often providing little insight into how engagement (or other measures), is actually influencing employee behavior and, ultimately, business performance. While statistical techniques, such as regression, have been used to understand the “key drivers of engagement” for a long time, today, more sophisticated predictive modeling that connects the employees’ unique history (as captured through archival HRIS and other data sources) with both measures of employee affect (e.g., engagement, intent to quit) and future behavior (e.g., absenteeism, productivity, actual voluntary turnover) are becoming more prevalent. These more sophisticated approaches seek to measure the direct causal connections between the employees’ past experiences
within the organization (e.g., pay and promotion history, supervisory changes, participation in different total rewards programs), the employees’ emotional connectedness to the organization and, ultimately, their willingness to invest in discretionary effort and to stay with the company. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning and natural language processing are also being deployed to analyze employee sentiment in real-time and predict a turnover event before it takes place. While the application of AI is still in its relative infancy, it will no doubt have a profound influence on employee research. • Employee value proposition (EVP) research: While EVP research has been around for a long time, techniques such as conjoint analysis (which have traditionally been more widely used in market research) have experienced a strong surge in recent years. Unlike “traditional” surveys, conjoint surveys seek to establish the relative value that employees place on different elements of the “employment deal” and measure what changes would result in the greatest improvement in the overall EVP. These types of surveys ask respondents to state their preferences for different EVP elements using more sophisticated algorithms. The analysis then establishes each element’s relative value versus every other element in the conjoint set. The rise in this type of research is likely being fueled by somewhat of a “perfect storm” of recent events, including: • Demographic change – With boomers retiring en masse beginning in 2008, Millennials now constitute the largest workforce segment. • Shifting of risk from employer to employee – This would include everything from greater cost-sharing in health care to the replacement of pensions with defined contribution plans.
Endnotes 1
S. Jacoby, “Employee Attitude Surveys in Historical Perspective,” Industrial Relations Journal, 1988.
2
See S.L.A. Marshall’s Men Against Fire, 1947.
3
. Kahn, “Psychological W Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work,” Academy of Management Journal, 1990.
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• Societal change – There is uncertainty around the future of health care.
About the Authors Pete Foley is a senior principal with Mercer and is one of the global thought leaders within Mercer Sirota. Throughout his career, he has worked with clients around the globe to improve their bottom-line performance through more effective management of their talent. Prior to joining Mercer, Foley worked for a leading global research firm as director of their Southeastern U.S. and Latin American practices. He has more than 25 years of experience in workforce analytics and in the design and implementation of employee research platforms – particularly for multinational organizations operating in diverse cultural settings. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Michigan and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Psychology from the University of Georgia. He can be reached at Pete.Foley@mercer.com. Adam Pressman is a senior principal and U.S. Business Segment Leader for Mercer Sirota. He has more than 20 years of experience in employee research, leadership, and organizational assessment, working with a diverse and global client base to drive results through maximizing the performance of their people. Prior to his five years at Sirota, Pressman was a principal in the leadership consulting practice of Heidrick & Struggles, as well as the regional managing partner for Asia Pacific at The Gallup Organization, based in Sydney, Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from The University of Washington and an MBA from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. He can be reached at Adam.Pressman@mercer.com.
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Organizations are relying on conjoint analysis – in conjunction with predictive modeling techniques – to measure the impact of their total rewards investments and to help reshape their EVPs to ensure they are attractive and compelling. • Employee life cycle (ELC) research: Although certainly not completely new, organizations are increasingly interested in research that spans the entire employment relationship, from onboarding to exit surveys, and even to “alumni” surveys of former employees. In line with a more evidencebased approach, the conceptual model here is that employees come to their places of employment with different talents and needs, and, over their career, they are exposed to different events and experiences that shape their connectedness to the organization. ELC research ultimately seeks to identify the critical attitudinal drivers of engagement and performance over an employee’s entire tenure with the organization. • Continuous listening: While organizations have been augmenting their annual or bi-annual census surveys with pulse surveys for some time, the trend toward “always on” surveying is more recent. To be clear, by “always on” we are referring to the opportunity to provide feedback on an on-going basis, either through frequent, structured surveys or through free form input. Although the jury is still out and no clear model of deployment has yet emerged, continuous listening is definitely growing in popularity. These surveys often have rotating content (e.g., to assess specific programs or interventions as they are launched), are shorter in length, and can target specific sub-populations within the organization. Similar to ELC research, they can be very effective for helping organizations understand the employee experience at different points in their career and longitudinally, throughout a period of time. Here, again, the influence of AI techniques such as natural language processing – which can decipher meaning out of unstructured feedback, or “on the fly” analytics, which can analyze and find insights in data real time – will likely play a significant role in shaping these offerings going forward. As noted above, the movement to measure
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employee engagement dates back to the 1990s. One question moving forward is “what’s next . . . what’s beyond engagement?” Back in the 1970s, 1980s and even into the early 1990s, surveys were focused on measuring “employee satisfaction.” Over time, researchers learned that satisfaction was a necessary but insufficient state, and that the most effective surveys went beyond the “me” issues (e.g., my pay, my career) to measure the “we” issues that focused on how the organization and its constituent teams could operate more effectively as a unit. Today, the concept of employee engagement itself – first coined by William Kahn3 - may be on the brink of another evolution. As stated previously, organizations are increasingly focused on re-vamping their employee value propositions and this has led organizations to focus on overall employee wellness and creating an environment where employees are not only engaged, but thriving. In sum, everything from evidence-based management, demographic/societal change, new listening techniques, to technology are rapidly re-shaping the field of employee research. Trends in employee research come and go, but many of these new developments are likely here to stay. In this age of data, researchers will continue to find new and better ways of measuring the things that are hard to measure. New technologies allow for an increased flow of data and provide platforms for easier, more sophisticated and real-time data integration. That being said, it is important to ensure your organization is ready to embrace these new approaches in employee research. Ask yourself these fundamental questions as you develop your employee research strategy: 1. Is our employee research approach aligned with our strategic objectives? What will these data help us accomplish as it relates to our performance? 2. Are our leaders prepared to utilize additional and more sophisticated forms of employee data? Have we provided proper training, support, and communicated the appropriate expectations? 3. How are we connecting employee opinion data with actual employee behaviors? Are we collecting the right forms of data and have we aligned those data for the purposes of linking feedback to outcomes? These evolutions in our field make it an exciting time to be an employee researcher. More and more business leaders are seeking the answers that can come from advanced analytics. One can only imagine what the next 20 years will bring.
Jeffrey M. Beemer, Dickinson Wright, PLLC
Business Owners Must Take Steps Now to Prevent Discrimination in the Workplace Recent news about prominent companies facing accusations of racial discrimination, gender bias, and sexual harassment from their employees have made workplace discrimination a trending topic. Unfortunately, while high-profile cases grab the headlines, they represent only a small number of the many cases of discrimination prohibited by the laws enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Improper conduct in the workplace is all too common and can lead to devastating consequences for both employers and employees. According to the EEOC, employees filed over 90,000 charges of discrimination against employers in 2016. Of those, approximately one-third included an allegation of workplace harassment. And, the actual cases behind these numbers reveal that many people – including teenagers, people with intellectual disabilities, and others – still experience hostile working conditions, notwithstanding wellestablished laws prohibiting this conduct. The keys to prevention include continuing to educate your employees on what constitutes unlawful behavior and having effective policies in place to promptly correct this conduct if it occurs.
What constitutes discrimination? Federal laws protect applicants and employees from discrimination and harassment based on the following classifications: • Age – It is unlawful to treat applicants and employees less favorably or harass them because of their age, specifically people who are age 40 or older. The law applies to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoffs, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. • Disability – The law prohibits discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, including hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions and privileges of employment. • Equal pay/compensation – The Equal Pay Act requires that men and women be given
equal pay for equal work in the same workplace. • Genetic information – The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) makes it illegal to discriminate against an applicant or employee based on the person’s genetic information, which includes the person’s family medical history. • National origin – Employers cannot treat an applicant or employee unfairly because they are from another country or part of the world. This protection applies to an individual’s ethnic or cultural characteristics, such as attire or diet, or linguistic characteristics, such as a foreign accent or limited English proficiency. • Pregnancy – It is illegal to treat an applicant or employee unfavorably because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth. • Race/color – The law prohibits treating an applicant or employee unfavorably based on a person’s race and characteristics associated with race, such as facial features or hair. The law also prohibits treating applicants or employees differently because of skin color. • Religion – Employers may not treat an applicant or employee unfavorably based on religious beliefs (including atheism or lack of religious belief), religious practices, or the person’s dress. • Retaliation – An employer may not fire, demote, harass or otherwise “retaliate” against an individual for filing a complaint of discrimination, filing an EEOC Charge, or participating in an investigation of discrimination or harassment, whether the investigation is conducted internally or by the EEOC. • Sex – It is unlawful to discriminate against an applicant or employee based on the person’s sex. Sexual harassment is a form of unlawful discrimination. Sexual harassment may consist of unwanted sexual attention or sexual coercion, such as pressure for sexual favors, touching or caressing, or sexually teasing remarks. It also includes non-sexual conduct such as gender-based www.ihrim.org • Workforce Solutions Review • April-June 2017
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epithets, sexist comments (telling anti-female jokes) and remarks that are unrelated to sex but still motivated by the targeted employee’s sex. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that unlawful sex discrimination also applies to unlawful sex stereotyping, which includes discrimination against a person based on his or her nonconformance with social or cultural expectations as to how men and women should present in the workplace. The EEOC has taken the position that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation, although no federal appellate court has held that the prohibition against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes a person’s sexual orientation.
How can you protect your business and employees? Companies who are hit with discrimination and harassment lawsuits stand to lose a significant amount of time and money if they are not adequately prepared. In fact, a recent study shows that these About the Author claims cost employers an average of US$125,000 in Jeffrey M. Beemer is a mem- defense and settlement costs. ber attorney in the Nashville It’s crucial for businesses to have policies and office of Dickinson Wright, systems in place to avoid discrimination in the PLLC. He regularly represents workplace and the costs associated with EEOC employers in employment charges and lawsuits. It is especially timely to adopt law matters, including a policy or update your company’s existing policy in policy drafting and internal investigations. Reach him at light of the EEOC’s Proposed Enforcement Guidjbeemer@ ance on Unlawful Harassment. Preventing workdickinsonwright.com. place harassment has been one of the EEOC’s top enforcement priorities for the last several years. Here are some steps that organizations can take now to protect themselves and their employees: • Create an effective, straightforward anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy – Employees must understand their rights and the rights of their co-workers to work in an environment free of discrimination and harassment. Employers must review and update those policies periodically and make sure that employees receive and have no difficulty understanding them. An effective policy should include the following: ◦ An expressed statement that harassment based on any protected characteristic is illegal, ◦ Examples of harassment, ◦ Details regarding the employer’s complaint system – including how to report, ◦ Language that encourages employees to report any harassment, ◦ A statement that the employer will conduct a prompt and thorough investigation into the allegations and assurance that it will take appropriate corrective action if necessary, and
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◦ A statement that retaliation is prohibited against those who file complaints and/or participate in investigations. • Train employees regularly on company policies and anti-discrimination laws – A well-written employee handbook can create clear expectations for employee conduct and engagement and serve as a safeguard for the company when employees do not meet those expectations. But, a company’s policy only becomes effective when supervisors understand their responsibilities under the policy to recognize and respond to harassment. Creating a policy and holding a single training session is not enough. It is important to conduct education sessions regularly with all staff that are tailored to your organization, and to keep employee handbooks updated as laws change. The EEOC’s Enforcement Guidance also recommends implementing new forms of training, such as “workplace civility training that does not focus on eliminating unwelcome or offensive behavior based on characteristics protected under employment non-discrimination laws, but rather on promoting respect and civility in the workplace generally; and/ or bystander intervention training to create a sense of collective responsibility on the part of workers and empower them to be engaged in preventing harassment.” •
Conduct prompt, thorough internal investigations – Respond to all complaints of discrimination and harassment promptly through an established investigation procedure. Failure to take prompt corrective action could be the difference between a successful outcome and a costly lawsuit.
•
Conduct your investigation using a clearly defined process – Not only must employees know their rights in the workplace, there must be a complaint system in place that is well-defined and applies to all individuals equally, including the alleged harasser. Details of the complaint system should be included in the policy. For example, a third party may be hired to conduct investigations, or an internal designated manager or department, such as Human Resources, might work best for your organization.
It’s imperative to engage on a regular basis with employees, train all employees to recognize and respond to actions and behaviors that are considered illegal, and be prepared with clear processes and actions based on a zero-tolerance harassment and discrimination policy.
The Back Story Katherine Jones, Ph.D., Mercer
The Energized Employee: What Global Research Tells Us Engagement is a key to employee retention. Citing it as their second foremost concern in Mercer’s 2017 Global Talent Trends research,1 executives see engagement as a means of combatting the increase in competition for talent in the coming year, and see retention as the area of talent investment that will be most impactful on business performance over the next several years. Mercer’s research shows that executives predict a higher rate of competition for talent in the coming year than their HR colleagues, and that they are emphasizing, to their HR partners, the value of identifying the drivers of engagement within their organization and factors causing employees to leave or stay.
Why Energized? How an employee faces his or her workday is an intangible factor; is she “engaged” with the task at hand? Is he “happy at work?” In a recent Mercer study of 5,446 employees around the globe, we chose the word “energized” to describe the employee who is engaged at work. The good news for 2017: most of the global workforce fit into this category. en·er·gize verb past tense: energized; 1. g ive vitality and enthusiasm to: “people were energized by his ideas;” enliven, liven up, animate, vitalize, invigorate, perk up, excite, electrify, stimulate, stir up, fire up, rouse, motivate, move, drive, spur on, encourage, galvanize2 The vast majority of employees in the 15 countries surveyed consider themselves to be energized in their roles at work. On a scale of 1 to 10, the largest group of respondents (45%) rate themselves as 7 to 8 out of 10. Of that 45%, a majority reported that they feel energized on a “normal” day at work. Energized employees prove to be very different than those that are not: 83% of them feel they can bring their authentic selves to work “always” or
“most of the time” – in other words, they can “be themselves in their jobs.” The ability to reveal one’s true self at work is an important development, as it’s linked to better relationships with others; while hiding one’s true self is linked with lower levels of job satisfaction.3 There appears to be another strong relationship here: 81% of those who feel they can create their own career success at work also feel authentic in their workplaces “always or most of the time” (compared to the overall global result of 68%). These individuals’ comfort is partially rooted in the belief that they can bring their unique skills and interests to their jobs, likely speaking to the value of job fit. Energized employees are probably in positions where they perceive their skills are used, their value is recognized, and their contributions are appreciated. This presents an interesting conundrum. Energized employees feel they can create their own success at work, and those who come to work engaged in their job feel more control over their career future. On the other hand, it may be that individuals who feel in control of their career and see a future in their workplaces are energized by that fact, granting them more enthusiasm for the jobs they are currently working in. Energized employees appear to be a creation of their work environment; they thrive in organizations that promote collaborative working and actively support innovation. More so than their non-energized colleagues, energized employees reported that their workplace: • Supports collaboration (76%), • Focuses on their health and wellness (69%), • Fosters an inclusive culture (68%), • Provides coaching and development (69%), • Actively supports innovation (73%), and • Makes it easy for them to innovate at work (57%). Across all measures, energized employees were three to five times more likely to give their organiza-
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tion an excellent (A+) overall rating compared to de-energized employees.
The Energized Employee and Retention Although there are obvious incentives for executives to energize their workforces, doing so does not create a firewall against turnover; 34% of energized and satisfied employees are still likely to leave their current company. However, more than half of energized employees (59%) reported feeling satisfied with their companies and had no plans to look for other jobs – compared to only 22% of the nonenergized – but executives also may be alarmed to hear that 35% of non-energized employees that report dissatisfaction at work have no intention of looking for work elsewhere. The majority of those otherwise satisfied employees will leave because they do not see a long-term career path with their current organization, while others may see better offers available outside of their company.4 As a result, organizations need to focus on their internal talent pool. Business managers should make a point to successfully articulate career paths and help employees navigate those paths within the organization, and HR professionals should review the competitiveness of their salary and job positioning compared to outside competitors. Another hallmark of energized employees is the sense that their companies are concerned with their health and wellness, and understand their unique skillsets. Sixty-three percent of such employees felt their company rewarded different types of contributions – beyond just financial and activity metrics – and this kind of nonfinancial reward or recognition appears to be a key motivator in energizing employees. Although only a quarter of all employees said that their organization does not reward a range of
different types of contribution, 41% of non-energized employees reported a lack of such rewards. The perception of flexibility in how and where employees work also correlates with the energy of workers. Employees see their employer’s adoption of flexible practices as a measure of trust that they can do their jobs without being in front of a manager. Two-thirds of energized employees have been offered flexible work options, compared to 80% of de-energized employees. Furthermore, almost 60% of energized employees report that it is acceptable to work from any location as long as the work is done, compared to 60% of de-energized employees who report that this is not supported within their organizations.
Conclusion Energized employees can be found in all industries, geographies, company sizes, and age ranges. An energized employee has the perception that their organizations provide them with coaching and development to foster their growth on the job. Like all employees, they sought competitive salaries and a clear career path, but, unlike their peers, they feel that their work environments provide them with the flexibility to innovate, recognize their successes at work, and encourage internal mobility (63%). They also feel that their companies have the ability to make decisions rapidly (69%), creating shortened tiers of control that facilitate timely action. It is the energized employee that executives seek to retain in their organizations. With competitive rewards, recognition of their abilities and skills, and an identifiable career path within the company, these employees of today are far more likely to be retained as the workforce of tomorrow.
Endnotes 1 A free copy of this report is available on Mercer.com, and for members, at the Mercer Select Intelligence website. 2 h ttp://www.seadict.com/en/en/energize 3 Madera JM1, King EB, Hebl MR, “Bringing social identity to work: the influence of manifestation and suppression on perceived discrimination, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, April, 2012. 4 For more information on the importance of a framework for employee career paths and how to create it, download this free report, “Career Frameworks: The Strategic Centerpiece of Integrated Talent Management,” here: https://www.mercer.com/ about-mercer/lines-of-business/talent/careers-solution.html
About the Author Dr. Katherine Jones is a partner and director of Research at Mercer in Talent Information Solutions. With both academic and technology industry experience, she has been a high-tech market analyst for 18 years. Her doctoral degree is from Cornell University. She can be reached at Katherine.Jones@mercer.com or @katherine_jones.
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April-June 2017 • Workforce Solutions Review • www.ihrim.org
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