HR Space

A five-step approach to managing long-term sickness absence

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:17:00 GMT

Do you have an employee on long-term sickness absence in your organisation? Have you ever struggled to implement an employee's return to work when the medical advice is that he or she is fit to return? Getting the sickness-absence basics right could Read More......(read more)

Do employee opinion surveys drive employee engagement?

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:52:22 GMT

In April 2013 I wrote a post, "Employee engagement surveys are dead, long live social media?" on this blog about a survey by Silverman Research for the CIPD which suggested that social media could fulfill some of the objectives of employee opinion Read More......(read more)

3 Ways Employee Engagement Surveys Fail

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:08:00 GMT

Recognise This! – Don’t bother to survey employees on their engagement unless you’re willing to invest time and money to resolve difficult, deep, cultural challenges their answers may bring to light.

Sometimes, we need to air our HR dirty laundry. Let’s bring into the light of day how surveys are traditionally conducted and then acted upon. Indeed, let’s stop torturing our employees with bad surveys – especially bad employee engagement surveys.

Frankly, the survey itself is rarely the problem. The questions are usually quite good in terms of defining the information you and the organisation want to learn about employee attitudes, satisfaction and engagement. Let’s look at the three most common failures of employee surveys as typically implemented today:

1) Post Survey Actions/Reactions Only Serve to Further Disengage

If you’re going to ask employees to take the time to answer your survey, then you better show them you listened by takingappropriate action. Take, for example, this story from Lead Change Group of an employee disgruntled by a poorly executed survey :

“They did ask some good questions and we shared how to make things better, but they ignored all those issues, and made us spend extra time on task forces to address cosmetics and desk arrangements. Our reward for taking time to give them good feedback that would improve efficiency and profitability – was to be ignored and given extra work on how we would decorate the department… This is so stupid! We were ignored and punished…and we really tried to help.”

Sure, it’s easier to resolve the “cosmetic” issues than tackle the deeper, cultural aspects. But if you aren’t willing to honestly look at your organisation and commit the resources to address the challenges your employees bring forward, don’t bother to survey them in the first place.

2) Most Disengaged Don’t Bother to Respond to the Survey

A colleague of mine shared her story of disengagement at her last place of employment:

“I was so disengaged and disgusted with the company that I didn’t even bother to respond to the engagement survey – nor did most of my teammates. Besides, we knew they wouldn’t take action on the survey results anyway, so why bother? We’d all laugh (snicker is more like it) when leadership would talk about engagement numbers because we all knew the most disengaged weren’t even taking the survey, thereby dramatically overstating engagement levels.”

Your engagement results may actually be worse than you think, especially if you routinely don’t react appropriately to what the employees are telling you through the survey.

3) Bad Survey Timing, Especially Waiting to Survey on Engagement until the Exit Interview

Our semi-annual employer survey with SHRM regularly shows that the exit interview is the second most common way companies survey employee engagement. The obvious issue is it’s far too late to do anything at that point in time. Or, asBarbara Milhizer put it in TLNT:

“As an employee, I’m wondering why no one bothered to ask me these questions over the past 18 years? It’s a little insulting to be asked why I’m leaving for the sake of good data and action planning. Is the implication that I was expendable, but heaven forbid anyone else ever fall victim to a bad manager and lack of recognition?”

The Bottom Line – Don’t bother to survey employees on engagement unless you’re willing to take their feedback, honestly evaluate what they are telling you, and take steps to resolve perhaps deep cultural issues. If you’re not willing to make that investment of time and finances up front, you will only serve to further disengage and disgruntle employees.

How does your organisation take action on employee survey results?

5 Reasons to Go The Extra Mile and Live Your Best Life

Leadership Development — Thu, 23 May 2013 11:02:31 GMT

I couldn’t resist taking my most topical theme of the whole month and writing about it today! Yes, I am really proud and excited to announce that our monthly E-zine Launches today, and to celebrate I wanted to share with you, the reasons I think Read More......(read more)

UK economy grew by 0.3% in Q1 2013, revised GDP estimates show

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:30:00 GMT

The risk of a triple-dip recession may have passed (for now at least), but economic growth remains weak at best. UK economy grew by 0.3% in Q1 2013, latest revised estimates reveal Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.3% during the first quarter of Read More......(read more)

What's the best way to 'sell' social media to HR?

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:30:00 GMT

What's the best way to 'sell' social media to HR? There're so many positives that can come from using social media in the workplace (if it's done right and done well). So what's the best way to convince HR of the benefits of social Read More......(read more)

Falling employee engagement? Stop seeing staff as peas in a pod

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:47:34 GMT

A number of surveys, conferences and webinars in the past week on employee engagement and talent management shed some light on how to approach these central HR responsibilities. My key take away points are: Aggregated employee engagement data (some employee Read More......(read more)

#ECTalent Managing in the Great Reset / 1

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:15:00 GMT

A lot of the Economist's Talent Management conference did focus on changes in the world of work. Dean Royles even nicked Peter Cheese's phrase about work, the workforce and the workplace. Here are my highlights: Firstly, Will Hutton provided en Read More......(read more)

Lessons for line managers on giving feedback to employees

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Feedback. We know it's important to employee engagement. We know it can help to address poor performance before it becomes a capability issue. Yet many line managers are not doing it often enough or well enough. Why? Lack of time is one reason given Read More......(read more)

To fly. To serve. To learn. Meeting Mojo goes live at British Airways

BW blog — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

On Monday, May 20th, Meeting Mojo kicked off for Adult Learners' Week live at British Airways, who was kind enough to invite Brightwave and 'the meeting doctor' David Pearl to fly in to make meetings more healthy. David Pearl guests blogs Read More......(read more)

Dave Ulrich Support Act - South America

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:31:00 GMT

I'm also going to be doing my Dave Ulrich support act once again at Seminarium's annual HR conference in Chile and Colombia next month. This promises to be a great event: "Today the HR function is evolving and expanding their responsibilities Read More......(read more)

The land where discrimination is still lawful

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:14:54 GMT

Living in the UK, you're more likely to overhear someone complaining that an employee who suffered discrimination in the workplace received an excessive or ridiculous pay out than someone bemoaning the absence of discrimination laws in the workplace Read More......(read more)

Social Media Applications in Asia / Singapore

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:50:00 GMT

I'm back in Asia at the end of June delivering this programme on effective use of social media. It's being held in Singapore on 24th and 25th June. If you'd like to know more about how social media can support HR, effective management and Read More......(read more)

My 10 top HR tweets (21 May 2013 edition)

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

I am proud to present the third post in my irregular series compiling the tweet-length morsels of HR wit, wisdom and provocation. Out of sheer necessity, this list is extremely selective, as it has to be limited to tweets from people I follow, and that Read More......(read more)

3 Reasons Why All Employees Must Be Company Strategists

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:13:00 GMT

Recognise This! – Strategy can only be executed by those who intimately understand strategic objectives and their role in it.

Strategy is one of my passions. I’m fortunate that helping clients formulate strategy is also my job. Indeed, my title is Vice President, Client Strategy and Consulting. I greatly enjoy my work helping organisations of all stripes develop a strategy for proactive management of their company culture. Yet, I also believe that everyone is (or should be) strategist in their organisation.

Two pieces on strategy I read last week helped me coalesce my thinking. First, from Strategy + Business comes the ideas of Cynthia Montgomery, Timken Professor of Business Administration and former chair of the strategy unit at Harvard Business School. The article describes Montgomery’s approach to strategy this way:

“When you look at strategy as a frame of mind to be cultivated, rather than as a plan to be executed, you are far more likely to succeed over the long run… To Montgomery, a business strategist is not primarily an analyst of position, or of resources; nor is the strategist purely adaptive, responding reactively to the vagaries of fate. He or she is someone who engages in a conversation about the purpose of a company. The company rises or falls on the quality of that conversation and the way it is used to make decisions about the ongoing work of the enterprise.”

Then, this article discussed the results of a survey of employees to see how many could identify their own company’s corporate strategy when presented with options that included the corporate strategy of their competitors. Employees failed abysmally.

“Overall, we found that only 29.3% of employees could correctly match their company to its publicly espoused strategy… There’s no doubt that training matters. Firms with more direct training initiatives seem to have employees who are better able to recognise what the firm views as its goals. What matters most is documentation that outlines clearly how more vaguely articulated strategies are to be implemented — note that these are not mission statements, statements of value or codes of conduct but actual ‘how to’ manuals.”

I see three new ways to rethink corporate strategy in these articles:

1) Everyone must own the company strategy for the company to succeed.

People who feel ownership over their own direction and personal success are also more committed to helping realise desired outcomes. “Strategists” must not be envisioned as a lofty position that all do not have some sense of direct, personal contribution to.

2) Strategy must be an ongoing conversation, not a point in time.

Three and five year strategic plans have a role, but often fail when those plans are codified, introduced, then never mentioned again. Strategy must become part of the daily effort and understanding of the work.

3) Strategic ideas must be made concrete in daily tasks of all employees.

Employees need to understand how their daily efforts contribute to achieving the bigger strategic objectives. After all, if their work is not aligned with the strategy, why are they doing that work in the first place? Help employees understand how their efforts contribute to the strategy by recognising and rewarding them very specifically for efforts that reflect, reinforce or help achieve strategic plan.

I can already hear the arguments: “But don’t we need doers, not just thinkers?” I argue we are all must better doers when we know the thinking behind our actions. Or in the terms of the researchers in the second study I referenced:

“If we are to avoid employee cynicism and truly motivate individuals to do well for both their companies and our society, then managers need to work harder not just in crafting these strategies, but ensuring employees have the enthusiasm and instruction to implement and execute them as well.”

Do you know your company’s strategy and, critically, how you contribute to its achievement every day? What percentage of people in your organisation do you think could correctly select your strategy from among your competitors?

Performance-related pay survey open: take part by 13 June

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25:37 GMT

Linking pay awards to an assessment of the performance of individual employees remains a popular reward strategy. However, unless performance-related pay schemes are carefully designed and implemented, they do not always meet their objectives. XpertHR Read More......(read more)

Why Most Companies Fail at Innovation (And What to Do Instead)

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:57:00 GMT

Recognise This! – Innovation is not just the big, market-transforming end result, but the little ideas along the way.

What’s the most powerful word in business today? Innovation.

Read any blog, any news source, any prospectus and you will quickly stumble over “innovation.” How the company pursues innovation, how innovative the products are, how “innovation” is a core value of the company. And this is all well and good – innovation truly is what propels industries and markets ever forward.

But the real question smart companies should be encouraging every employee, in every role, to ask is: “What can I do, in what I do every day, to be more innovative? How can Iinnovate our product, our service approach, to better serve our customers, change the market, or push the company forward?”

Unfortunately, too many people think innovation is too big for them or “not in my job description.” I believe that’s because we as leaders have failed to explain what real innovation actually looks like. David Steinberg, chief executive of XL Marketing, gives a much better definition of innovation in a recent New York Times “Corner Office” column:

“Innovation to me doesn’t have to be about creating the light bulb or the telegraph. Innovation can be very important small changes to something that’s already working. That’s the stuff that’s overlooked, and it can take things to the next level.”

Innovation is the perseverance to keep searching, to keep tweaking, to keep making something better. In reality, it’s usually many small innovations over time that result in a huge “new” innovation that gets all the press.

Kaihan Krippendorff explains it as committing to continually looking for the fourth option:

“The ‘fourth option’ is the option others don’t see and don’t expect. Your competitors contemplate three choices and feel satisfied that they are considering enough. But the strategic innovator is not satisfied. She asks, what else? What other option are people overlooking?”

So, back to my original question – how do you encourage all employees to seek the fourth option, to pursue the small changes for continuous improvement?

You must help employees see and understand what this looks like in their daily work. The quickest, most positive, and most effective way to do so is through strategic recognition. Every time an employee demonstrates an attribute of innovation in this way, recognise them for it. Say, “John, thank you for contributing to our goal of continuous innovation with your diligence on the Suarez project. The way in which you kept asking the next question to drive to not just our standard solution, but a truly unique approach in this situation not only solved the client need, but gave us an avenue to advance our solution and meet an unexpected market need going forward. Well done!”

That specificity makes the difference for John by letting him know what exactly “innovation” looks like in his daily work. When publicised through an internal social newsfeed, it also serves as an excellent training mechanism for other employees who can see why John was recognised and emulate that behaviour in their own work.

How is innovation encouraged in your organisation? How are you innovative in your own work?

UK GDP forecasts round-up May 2013: Are we looking at a 'lost decade' of growth?

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:00:01 GMT

The UK has successfully avoided a triple-dip recession . Yet "the UK risks enduring a 'lost decade of growth', while many of its economic rivals forge ahead." This is according to TUC analysis of latest IMF growth projections. Here we Read More......(read more)

Whatever the UK’s problems are, leaving the EU won’t solve them

Flip Chart Fairy Tales — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:35:38 GMT

The question of Britain’s EU membership is causing chaos in our governing party again. So much so that our Prime Minister was forced to answer trivial questions about it when he was trying to look statesmanlike. However much you might … Continue Read More......(read more)

Today on Compensation Cafe: What the Oreo Cookie Teaches Us about Global Employee Recognition

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:01:00 GMT

Recognise This! – Never assume the local approach for employee recognition and rewards will work equally well globally.

Today on Compensation Cafe, I discuss why HR and recognition pros must seek to understand the local wants and needs of their globally distributed employees. I share an example of the Oreo cookie and how it nearly failed in the Chinese market until Oreo producers Mondelez International changed the cookie formulation to change the shape, sweetness and filling flavour (green tea is most popular in China) to align with local tastes. Now, Oreo sales in China account for nearly half of all global sales of the iconic cookie.

Click over to Compensation Cafe for the full story and how you can apply the lessons of the Oreo cookie to your global employee recognition and rewards programs.

Recognise This! – Never assume the local approach for employee recognition and rewards will work equally well globally.

Does HR share the blame for corporate wrongdoing?

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:46:37 GMT

Trust in senior executives in multinational companies could take another major knock if theraids this week on the company offices of oil giants BP and Shell by the European Commission result in prosecutions. The raids were over suspicions that executives Read More......(read more)

#HRTells: You know you work in HR when...

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

What's the surest sign that you work in HR? What does HR know that other people don't? You know you work in HR when...? I'd love to get your input on the above! Please get in touch with details of your surest HR giveaways (or should we call Read More......(read more)

Paid Parental Leave Does Not Replace Workplace Flexibility

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

What's the best approach to take on parental leave benefits when it comes to recruiting and retaining existing, new or expectant parents? Is it all about paid leave? Or should the focus be on work-life balance? Or maybe a little from column 'A' Read More......(read more)

The 5 Deadly Temptations of Specialness Great Leaders Avoid

Leadership Development — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:16:16 GMT

Being a great leader is paradoxical. Leaders have to be pretty special people to be a great, although in order to be great they fundamentally understand that everyone is the same. We are either all special or all ordinary. In group work, I invariably Read More......(read more)

HR data round-up May 2013: Public sector still leads on annual leave

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:02 GMT

XpertHR's HR data round-up for May 2013 looks at latest benchmarking data on annual leave entitlements. We also provide links to all the latest additions to XpertHR Benchmarking and present our regular round-up of the best HR data blog posts and HR Read More......(read more)