Appreciation changes everything.
Engagement. Performance. Turnover. The Bottom Line.
And we can help you measure it.
Join us for a free and informative webinar on measurement. This session will help you learn who uses recognition in your organization, how employees feel, and the business success it generates.
Recognition Impact: Ways to Measure the Value of Your Recognition Solutions
Gary Beckstrand – O.C. Tanner Vice President, Research and Assessment Services
Thursday, June 10 2010
10:00 am EDT
Register here.
For more information about this event, or for assistance with all your recognition needs please contact your Baltimore Appreciateologists at 410-661-5668 or email Baltimore@octanner.com.
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Raising Engagement - Cut through the hot air about engagement to find factors that motivate your employees
By Adrienne Fox - HR Magazine
A vast majority of employees say they are disengaged or not engaged, creating an unproductive—or, worse, toxic—work environment.
The August 2009 Gallup Employee Engagement Index reported that only 33 percent of workers are engaged in their jobs, 49 percent are not engaged, and 18 percent are actively disengaged. The Gallup Organization defines the categories as follows:
Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
Non-engaged employees have essentially “checked out.” They sleepwalk through workdays. They put in time but don’t approach their work with energy or passion.
Actively disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what engaged co-workers accomplish.
Gallup researchers, who base the Employee Engagement Index on a survey of nearly 42,000 randomly selected adults, estimate that disengaged workers cost U.S. businesses as much as $350 billion a year.
While troubling, these figures could also be viewed as an opportunity to re-engage a large percentage of disengaged workers—and reap financial benefits. Other research shows that companies with highly engaged employees perform better: Gallup’s 2009 analysis of 199 surveys found that business units scoring in the top half on employee engagement double their odds of delivering high performance compared to those in the bottom half. Those at the 99th percentile are nearly five times more likely to deliver high performance than those at the 1st percentile.
In a subsequent study in January of this year, Gallup researchers found that companies in the top 10 percent on employee engagement bested their competition by 72 percent in earnings per share during 2007-08. For companies that scored beneath the top quartile, earnings fell 9.4 percent below their competition.
And in a September 2009 study of 50 multinational companies, the London office of Towers Perrin, now Towers Watson, documented the impact of engagement on financial performance. The report found that during a span of 12 months, companies with high levels of engagement outperformed those with less-engaged employees in operating income, net income growth rate and earnings per share growth rate.
“Our research shows that the connection between employee engagement and business performance is [a stronger] indicator than any other measure of employee attitude and business performance,” explains Julie Gebauer, managing director at Towers Watson in New York. It “makes a difference in terms of dollars and cents.”
Reports such as these have piqued the interest of executives seeking to move the needle of engagement in their favor. HR professionals are now bombarded with a multitude of sales pitches for survey tools, models, books and technology—all promising to deliver improved employee engagement.
What is your company doing to improve employee engagement? Are your executives on board? Contact your Baltimore Team for asisstance with all your appreciation needs.
410-661-5668 or email Baltimore@octanner.com.
A vast majority of employees say they are disengaged or not engaged, creating an unproductive—or, worse, toxic—work environment.
The August 2009 Gallup Employee Engagement Index reported that only 33 percent of workers are engaged in their jobs, 49 percent are not engaged, and 18 percent are actively disengaged. The Gallup Organization defines the categories as follows:
Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
Non-engaged employees have essentially “checked out.” They sleepwalk through workdays. They put in time but don’t approach their work with energy or passion.
Actively disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what engaged co-workers accomplish.
Gallup researchers, who base the Employee Engagement Index on a survey of nearly 42,000 randomly selected adults, estimate that disengaged workers cost U.S. businesses as much as $350 billion a year.
While troubling, these figures could also be viewed as an opportunity to re-engage a large percentage of disengaged workers—and reap financial benefits. Other research shows that companies with highly engaged employees perform better: Gallup’s 2009 analysis of 199 surveys found that business units scoring in the top half on employee engagement double their odds of delivering high performance compared to those in the bottom half. Those at the 99th percentile are nearly five times more likely to deliver high performance than those at the 1st percentile.
In a subsequent study in January of this year, Gallup researchers found that companies in the top 10 percent on employee engagement bested their competition by 72 percent in earnings per share during 2007-08. For companies that scored beneath the top quartile, earnings fell 9.4 percent below their competition.
And in a September 2009 study of 50 multinational companies, the London office of Towers Perrin, now Towers Watson, documented the impact of engagement on financial performance. The report found that during a span of 12 months, companies with high levels of engagement outperformed those with less-engaged employees in operating income, net income growth rate and earnings per share growth rate.
“Our research shows that the connection between employee engagement and business performance is [a stronger] indicator than any other measure of employee attitude and business performance,” explains Julie Gebauer, managing director at Towers Watson in New York. It “makes a difference in terms of dollars and cents.”
Reports such as these have piqued the interest of executives seeking to move the needle of engagement in their favor. HR professionals are now bombarded with a multitude of sales pitches for survey tools, models, books and technology—all promising to deliver improved employee engagement.
What is your company doing to improve employee engagement? Are your executives on board? Contact your Baltimore Team for asisstance with all your appreciation needs.
410-661-5668 or email Baltimore@octanner.com.
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Carrot Principle Training Seminar - 6/3/2010
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Corporate America’s most valuable training program is now offering open enrollment with limited seating!The Carrot Principle Training Seminar teaches Managers how to engage employees and accelerate performance through purposed recognition.
Greater Washington DC Metro Area
Date: Thursday, June 3rd
Time: 9 am - noon
Location: Capital One Headquarters, 1680 Capital One Drive, McLean, VA 22102
PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN
Time: 9 am - noon
Location: Capital One Headquarters, 1680 Capital One Drive, McLean, VA 22102
PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN
- The science behind recognition's impact in an organization (based on the New York Times bestselling book The Carrot Principle and it's 10-year, 200,000 person study)
- Why aligning recognition with your organization's core values, goals or strategies can immediately engage employees - initiating immediate results.
- How recognition done right can accelerate performance, increase productivity and impact you bottom-line in a down economy.
- How and when to most effectively recognize employees, along with countless low- and no-cost ideas to help you personalize recognition efforts to your team or organization.
- How to form an action plan and implement a recognition strategy today.
All registered participants receive the A Carrot a Day Recognition toolkit, a copy of the New York Times bestselling book The Carrot Principle, educational videos, stationary, and more!
All this for only $199!
All this for only $199!
* plus taxes and shipping
"The use of this seal is not an endorsement by the HR Certification Institute of the quality of the program. It means that this program has met the HR Certification Institute’s criteria to be pre-approved for recertification credit."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Five Tips for Effective Employee Recognition
How to Reward, Recognize, Award, and Thank People Successfully
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide
Employee recognition is not just a nice thing to do for people. Employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces and rewards the most important outcomes people create for your business. When you recognize people effectively, you reinforce, with your chosen means of recognition, the actions and behaviors you most want to see people repeat. An effective employee recognition system is simple, immediate, and powerfully reinforcing.
When you consider employee recognition processes, you need to develop recognition that is equally powerful for both the organization and the employee. You must address five important issues if you want the recognition you offer to be viewed as motivating and rewarding by your employees and important for the success of your organization.
The Five Most Important Tips for Effective Recognition
You need to establish criteria for what performance or contribution constitutes rewardable behavior or actions.
· All employees must be eligible for the recognition.
· The recognition must supply the employer and employee with specific information about what behaviors or actions are being rewarded and recognized.
· Anyone who then performs at the level or standard stated in the criteria receives the reward.
· The recognition should occur as close to the performance of the actions as possible, so the recognition reinforces behavior the employer wants to encourage.
· You don't want to design a process in which managers "select" the people to receive recognition. This type of process will be viewed forever as "favoritism" or talked about as "it's your turn to get recognized this month." This is why processes that single out an individual, such as "Employee of the Month," are rarely effective.
A Working Example of Successful Recognition
A client company established criteria for rewarding employees. Criteria included such activities as contributing to company success serving a customer without being asked to help by a supervisor. Each employee, who meets the stated criteria, receives a thank you note, hand-written by the supervisor. The note spells out exactly why the employee is receiving the recognition.
The note includes the opportunity for the employee to "draw" a gift from a box. Gifts range from fast food restaurant gift certificates and candy to a gold dollar and substantial cash rewards. The employee draws the reward, so no supervisory interference is perceived. A duplicate of the thank you note goes into a periodic drawing for even more substantial reward and recognition opportunities.
More Tips About Recognition and Performance Management
· If you attach recognition to "real" accomplishments and goal achievement as negotiated in a performance development planning meeting, you need to make sure the recognition meets the above stated requirements. Supervisors must also apply the criteria consistently, so some organizational oversight may be necessary.The challenge of individually negotiated goals is to make certain their accomplishment is viewed as similarly difficult by the organization for the process to be a success.
· People also like recognition that is random and that provides an element of surprise. If you thank a manufacturing group every time they make customer deliveries on time with a lunch, gradually the lunch becomes a "given" or an entitlement and is no longer rewarding.In another organization, the CEO traditionally bought lunch for all employees every Friday. Soon, he had employees coming to him asking to be reimbursed for lunch if they ate lunch outside of the company on a Friday. His goal of team building turned into a "given" or an entitlement and he was disappointed with the results.
· There is always room for employee reward and recognition activities that generally build positive morale in the work environment. The Pall Corporation, in Ann Arbor, MI, has had a "smile team" that meets to schedule random, fun employee recognition events. They have decorated shop windows, with a prize to the best, for a holiday.They sponsor ice cream socials, picnics, the "boss" cooks day, and so on, to create a rewarding environment at work. Another company holds an annual costume wearing and judging along with a lunch potluck every Halloween.
Rewards and recognition that help both the employer and the employee get what they need from work are a win-win situation. Make this the year you plan a recognition process that will "wow" your staff and "wow" you with its positive outcomes. Avoid the employee recognition traps that:
· single out a few employees who are mysteriously selected for the recognition,
· sap the morale of the many who failed to understand the criteria enough to compete and win, and
· sought votes or other personalized, subjective criteria to determine winners.
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide
Employee recognition is not just a nice thing to do for people. Employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces and rewards the most important outcomes people create for your business. When you recognize people effectively, you reinforce, with your chosen means of recognition, the actions and behaviors you most want to see people repeat. An effective employee recognition system is simple, immediate, and powerfully reinforcing.
When you consider employee recognition processes, you need to develop recognition that is equally powerful for both the organization and the employee. You must address five important issues if you want the recognition you offer to be viewed as motivating and rewarding by your employees and important for the success of your organization.
The Five Most Important Tips for Effective Recognition
You need to establish criteria for what performance or contribution constitutes rewardable behavior or actions.
· All employees must be eligible for the recognition.
· The recognition must supply the employer and employee with specific information about what behaviors or actions are being rewarded and recognized.
· Anyone who then performs at the level or standard stated in the criteria receives the reward.
· The recognition should occur as close to the performance of the actions as possible, so the recognition reinforces behavior the employer wants to encourage.
· You don't want to design a process in which managers "select" the people to receive recognition. This type of process will be viewed forever as "favoritism" or talked about as "it's your turn to get recognized this month." This is why processes that single out an individual, such as "Employee of the Month," are rarely effective.
A Working Example of Successful Recognition
A client company established criteria for rewarding employees. Criteria included such activities as contributing to company success serving a customer without being asked to help by a supervisor. Each employee, who meets the stated criteria, receives a thank you note, hand-written by the supervisor. The note spells out exactly why the employee is receiving the recognition.
The note includes the opportunity for the employee to "draw" a gift from a box. Gifts range from fast food restaurant gift certificates and candy to a gold dollar and substantial cash rewards. The employee draws the reward, so no supervisory interference is perceived. A duplicate of the thank you note goes into a periodic drawing for even more substantial reward and recognition opportunities.
More Tips About Recognition and Performance Management
· If you attach recognition to "real" accomplishments and goal achievement as negotiated in a performance development planning meeting, you need to make sure the recognition meets the above stated requirements. Supervisors must also apply the criteria consistently, so some organizational oversight may be necessary.The challenge of individually negotiated goals is to make certain their accomplishment is viewed as similarly difficult by the organization for the process to be a success.
· People also like recognition that is random and that provides an element of surprise. If you thank a manufacturing group every time they make customer deliveries on time with a lunch, gradually the lunch becomes a "given" or an entitlement and is no longer rewarding.In another organization, the CEO traditionally bought lunch for all employees every Friday. Soon, he had employees coming to him asking to be reimbursed for lunch if they ate lunch outside of the company on a Friday. His goal of team building turned into a "given" or an entitlement and he was disappointed with the results.
· There is always room for employee reward and recognition activities that generally build positive morale in the work environment. The Pall Corporation, in Ann Arbor, MI, has had a "smile team" that meets to schedule random, fun employee recognition events. They have decorated shop windows, with a prize to the best, for a holiday.They sponsor ice cream socials, picnics, the "boss" cooks day, and so on, to create a rewarding environment at work. Another company holds an annual costume wearing and judging along with a lunch potluck every Halloween.
Rewards and recognition that help both the employer and the employee get what they need from work are a win-win situation. Make this the year you plan a recognition process that will "wow" your staff and "wow" you with its positive outcomes. Avoid the employee recognition traps that:
· single out a few employees who are mysteriously selected for the recognition,
· sap the morale of the many who failed to understand the criteria enough to compete and win, and
· sought votes or other personalized, subjective criteria to determine winners.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Employee Engagement: Define It, Measure It and Put It to Work in Your Organizations
Research by APQC, one of the leading proponents of process and performance improvement, has yielded key insights into what engagement is, how it can be measured and how it can be integrated into organizational culture.
By Rachele Williams.
Employee engagement is to HR what customer loyalty is to marketing and sales. It is that often elusive frame of mind that goes beyond satisfaction and ensures the long-term and productive tenure of the faithful employee with the employer.
This article describes how leading organizations define employee engagement, how they collect and measure and put into play relevant information and how they ensure senior leadership is held accountable for making employee engagement a part of the organizational culture.
Defining employee engagement
In order to make the most of such key talent processes as recruiting, training and development and retention, organizations should be tuned in to the “voice of the employee” and ensure that valued employees are engaged with the organization.
A manager of organizational effectiveness and employee engagement at a Fortune 100 company put it this way: “The typical organization today views talent management as three building blocks: attract, develop and retain. These are solid building blocks. The challenge is that these blocks won’t stick together unless there is mortar. And that mortar is employee engagement. A robust, world-class talent management process has to put the mortar between those three key building blocks.”
To avoid platitudes, every organization should define employee engagement to ensure that the information it is gathering from the workforce on can be put into practice. For example, one organization researched by APQC for its newest collaborative research project, “Rewarding, Engaging, and Retaining Key Talent,” defines employee engagement as commitment, work ethic and loyalty.
Another organization defines employee engagement as a combination of perceptions—including satisfaction, commitment, pride, loyalty, sense of personal responsibility and willingness to be an advocate for the organization—that have an impact on behavior.
And a third defines engagement centrally as “an individual sense of purpose and focused energy, evident to others in their display of personal initiative, effort and persistence, that is directed toward organizational goals.”
Each organization in the study is clear about what it means to be an engaged employee. That definition is reinforced through standard processes and practices for collecting employee engagement information.
Why employee engagement is important?
Both qualitative anecdotes and quantitative research indicate that organizations realize positive outcomes from employee engagement.
For example, a best-practice organization candidate for APQC’s “Rewarding, Engaging, and Retaining Key Talent” study found that high levels of employee engagement have been correlated with high levels of quality, productivity and attendance. Another has correlated higher levels of employee engagement with higher levels of new product innovation. And a third has observed some very positive business outcomes, in large part because of its focus on employee engagement over the past four years, including a reduction in team member turnover of 19 percent, a reduction in workers’ compensation claims of 27 percent, an increase in net revenue of 22 percent, and an increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 43 percent.
Quantitative research reinforces the relationship among customers, employees and the bottom line. For example, the classic 1994 Harvard Business Review article “Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work” establishes relationships among profitability, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction and productivity. A 2003 article from Journal of Applied Psychology—“Which Comes First: Employee Attitudes or Organizational Financial and Market Performance?”—found consistent and significant positive relationships over time between overall job satisfaction and financial and market performance (as well as reciprocal relationships).
Measuring employee engagement
Employee attitude or climate surveys are two tools for gathering feedback and enhancing workplace communication. APQC’s Open Standards Research shows that workforce climate surveys primarily take the form of an annual census, which means that all employees are surveyed once a year. (About half of survey participants conduct employee satisfaction/engagement surveys at least once per year.) The results are then communicated to senior leaders and the top managers responsible for such key employee areas as talent management, compensation and benefits for action and process improvement.
APQC’s qualitative research also sheds light on how best-practice organizations monitor the voice of the employee and take action. For example, one organization calculates an employee engagement index, based on a subset of employee survey items measuring the engagement of respondents:
• Satisfaction: Employees are asked, “Considering everything, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with the company at the present time?”
• Advocacy: Employees are asked whether they “would recommend the company as a great place to work.”
• Retention: Employees are asked to respond yes or no to the statement “I rarely think about looking for a job with a new company.”
• Pride: Employees are asked to respond yes or no to the statement “I am proud to work for the company.”
At another organization in APQC’s collaborative research, employee engagement is measured two times per year through a formal survey. First, the organization administers a formal employee engagement survey to all employees worldwide. This information is analyzed, and action plans are developed and implemented based on results. Participation is voluntary; in 2008, roughly 92 percent participated in the survey. Then about halfway through the year the organization conducts a random poll to assess how well it is doing with the action plans generated from the annual survey results.
Sustaining a commitment to employee engagement
The final steps in the engagement process are ensuring that the information can be acted upon, that senior leadership is held accountable for the results, and that a focus on employee engagement is instilled in organizational culture.
Employee satisfaction and engagement research should be important elements in HR and organizational strategic planning processes. Of the organizations participating in APQC’s Open Standards Research, 77 percent indicate that employee feedback and surveys are key aspects of the organizational HR planning process (Figure 1, N=75). Because employees are important customers—indeed, the ultimate customers—of HR plans, policies and strategies, their opinions can help organizations gauge the success of particular initiatives, determine strategic priorities and pinpoint needed improvements.
Which of the following are inputs into your HR planning process?
Organizational long-term objectives 83%
Organization mission statement 80
Senior management directive 79
Employee feedback/surveys 77
Internal and external analysis 75
Corporate and unit strategies 72
HR customer satisfaction surveys 52
Other 5
Organizations must also reinforce how seriously they take employee engagement. According to APQC’s Open Standards Research, employee satisfaction and the growth of key staff members are the most common employee- or HR-related metrics factored into leadership compensation (Figure 2, N=156). Employee satisfaction is typically gauged via employee satisfaction, engagement, climate or culture surveys. Staff development is typically measured by the number of promotions and developmental opportunities completed.
Which of the following people/HR metrics are built into the compensation plan for the leadership team at your business entity?
Employee satisfaction (climate/culture survey) 40%
Growth of key staff (promotions, developmental opportunities provided) 40
No people metrics built into compensation plans for leadership 32
Attrition/retention of key staff 28
Staff training completed in comparison to learning goals 21
Number of available positions filled internally 19
Diversity 15
Other 9
Here are some examples from APQC’s collaborative research of how leading organizations act on this information:
• The organization feeds results of the employee engagement survey into action plans and process-improvement initiatives. Through data analysis, it compares each group’s employee engagement index against the organization overall and against the benchmarks.
• In another example, each business unit develops action plans based on results of the previous year’s engagement survey and the follow-up pulse survey. The organization also requires that all managers with direct reports have performance objectives related to engagement.
• A third organization directs information from the customer and employee surveys to the appropriate process owners for action and improvement. This information is used as one factor in computing bonuses for senior leadership and is communicated to managers for process-improvement purposes. Results are also used for group training purposes when necessary. The organization also convenes a cultural council for every operating location to review information from the employee and customer surveys and discuss other employee issues and concerns, such as turnover and career paths. The cultural council comprises employees who meet on a monthly basis as part of the council and discuss improvement opportunities. Actions and feedback suggested by the councils then are communicated at the district and the division level.
The final consideration is making employee engagement part of an organization’s culture. One way to do this is by integrating employee engagement into other key talent initiatives and activities. For example, one organization integrates employee engagement into such activities as learning and development, Six Sigma, succession management and nonfinancial recognition:
• In learning and development: One e-learning module focuses specifically on the “fundamentals of employee engagement.”
• In Six Sigma: The company has been able to calculate estimated improvements in business outcomes based on improvements in the employee engagement scores using Six Sigma processes.
• In succession management: Successors are ultimately selected based not only on their performance and potential, but also on their engagement, leadership and values, as measured by the employee opinion survey.
• In nonfinancial recognition: The company grants an annual “Chairman’s Recognition for Engagement” award to deserving employees each year.
In this manner, employee engagement is integrated throughout different aspects of talent management and is instilled as a key part of organizational culture.
By Rachele Williams.
Employee engagement is to HR what customer loyalty is to marketing and sales. It is that often elusive frame of mind that goes beyond satisfaction and ensures the long-term and productive tenure of the faithful employee with the employer.
This article describes how leading organizations define employee engagement, how they collect and measure and put into play relevant information and how they ensure senior leadership is held accountable for making employee engagement a part of the organizational culture.
Defining employee engagement
In order to make the most of such key talent processes as recruiting, training and development and retention, organizations should be tuned in to the “voice of the employee” and ensure that valued employees are engaged with the organization.
A manager of organizational effectiveness and employee engagement at a Fortune 100 company put it this way: “The typical organization today views talent management as three building blocks: attract, develop and retain. These are solid building blocks. The challenge is that these blocks won’t stick together unless there is mortar. And that mortar is employee engagement. A robust, world-class talent management process has to put the mortar between those three key building blocks.”
To avoid platitudes, every organization should define employee engagement to ensure that the information it is gathering from the workforce on can be put into practice. For example, one organization researched by APQC for its newest collaborative research project, “Rewarding, Engaging, and Retaining Key Talent,” defines employee engagement as commitment, work ethic and loyalty.
Another organization defines employee engagement as a combination of perceptions—including satisfaction, commitment, pride, loyalty, sense of personal responsibility and willingness to be an advocate for the organization—that have an impact on behavior.
And a third defines engagement centrally as “an individual sense of purpose and focused energy, evident to others in their display of personal initiative, effort and persistence, that is directed toward organizational goals.”
Each organization in the study is clear about what it means to be an engaged employee. That definition is reinforced through standard processes and practices for collecting employee engagement information.
Why employee engagement is important?
Both qualitative anecdotes and quantitative research indicate that organizations realize positive outcomes from employee engagement.
For example, a best-practice organization candidate for APQC’s “Rewarding, Engaging, and Retaining Key Talent” study found that high levels of employee engagement have been correlated with high levels of quality, productivity and attendance. Another has correlated higher levels of employee engagement with higher levels of new product innovation. And a third has observed some very positive business outcomes, in large part because of its focus on employee engagement over the past four years, including a reduction in team member turnover of 19 percent, a reduction in workers’ compensation claims of 27 percent, an increase in net revenue of 22 percent, and an increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 43 percent.
Quantitative research reinforces the relationship among customers, employees and the bottom line. For example, the classic 1994 Harvard Business Review article “Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work” establishes relationships among profitability, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction and productivity. A 2003 article from Journal of Applied Psychology—“Which Comes First: Employee Attitudes or Organizational Financial and Market Performance?”—found consistent and significant positive relationships over time between overall job satisfaction and financial and market performance (as well as reciprocal relationships).
Measuring employee engagement
Employee attitude or climate surveys are two tools for gathering feedback and enhancing workplace communication. APQC’s Open Standards Research shows that workforce climate surveys primarily take the form of an annual census, which means that all employees are surveyed once a year. (About half of survey participants conduct employee satisfaction/engagement surveys at least once per year.) The results are then communicated to senior leaders and the top managers responsible for such key employee areas as talent management, compensation and benefits for action and process improvement.
APQC’s qualitative research also sheds light on how best-practice organizations monitor the voice of the employee and take action. For example, one organization calculates an employee engagement index, based on a subset of employee survey items measuring the engagement of respondents:
• Satisfaction: Employees are asked, “Considering everything, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with the company at the present time?”
• Advocacy: Employees are asked whether they “would recommend the company as a great place to work.”
• Retention: Employees are asked to respond yes or no to the statement “I rarely think about looking for a job with a new company.”
• Pride: Employees are asked to respond yes or no to the statement “I am proud to work for the company.”
At another organization in APQC’s collaborative research, employee engagement is measured two times per year through a formal survey. First, the organization administers a formal employee engagement survey to all employees worldwide. This information is analyzed, and action plans are developed and implemented based on results. Participation is voluntary; in 2008, roughly 92 percent participated in the survey. Then about halfway through the year the organization conducts a random poll to assess how well it is doing with the action plans generated from the annual survey results.
Sustaining a commitment to employee engagement
The final steps in the engagement process are ensuring that the information can be acted upon, that senior leadership is held accountable for the results, and that a focus on employee engagement is instilled in organizational culture.
Employee satisfaction and engagement research should be important elements in HR and organizational strategic planning processes. Of the organizations participating in APQC’s Open Standards Research, 77 percent indicate that employee feedback and surveys are key aspects of the organizational HR planning process (Figure 1, N=75). Because employees are important customers—indeed, the ultimate customers—of HR plans, policies and strategies, their opinions can help organizations gauge the success of particular initiatives, determine strategic priorities and pinpoint needed improvements.
Which of the following are inputs into your HR planning process?
Organizational long-term objectives 83%
Organization mission statement 80
Senior management directive 79
Employee feedback/surveys 77
Internal and external analysis 75
Corporate and unit strategies 72
HR customer satisfaction surveys 52
Other 5
Organizations must also reinforce how seriously they take employee engagement. According to APQC’s Open Standards Research, employee satisfaction and the growth of key staff members are the most common employee- or HR-related metrics factored into leadership compensation (Figure 2, N=156). Employee satisfaction is typically gauged via employee satisfaction, engagement, climate or culture surveys. Staff development is typically measured by the number of promotions and developmental opportunities completed.
Which of the following people/HR metrics are built into the compensation plan for the leadership team at your business entity?
Employee satisfaction (climate/culture survey) 40%
Growth of key staff (promotions, developmental opportunities provided) 40
No people metrics built into compensation plans for leadership 32
Attrition/retention of key staff 28
Staff training completed in comparison to learning goals 21
Number of available positions filled internally 19
Diversity 15
Other 9
Here are some examples from APQC’s collaborative research of how leading organizations act on this information:
• The organization feeds results of the employee engagement survey into action plans and process-improvement initiatives. Through data analysis, it compares each group’s employee engagement index against the organization overall and against the benchmarks.
• In another example, each business unit develops action plans based on results of the previous year’s engagement survey and the follow-up pulse survey. The organization also requires that all managers with direct reports have performance objectives related to engagement.
• A third organization directs information from the customer and employee surveys to the appropriate process owners for action and improvement. This information is used as one factor in computing bonuses for senior leadership and is communicated to managers for process-improvement purposes. Results are also used for group training purposes when necessary. The organization also convenes a cultural council for every operating location to review information from the employee and customer surveys and discuss other employee issues and concerns, such as turnover and career paths. The cultural council comprises employees who meet on a monthly basis as part of the council and discuss improvement opportunities. Actions and feedback suggested by the councils then are communicated at the district and the division level.
The final consideration is making employee engagement part of an organization’s culture. One way to do this is by integrating employee engagement into other key talent initiatives and activities. For example, one organization integrates employee engagement into such activities as learning and development, Six Sigma, succession management and nonfinancial recognition:
• In learning and development: One e-learning module focuses specifically on the “fundamentals of employee engagement.”
• In Six Sigma: The company has been able to calculate estimated improvements in business outcomes based on improvements in the employee engagement scores using Six Sigma processes.
• In succession management: Successors are ultimately selected based not only on their performance and potential, but also on their engagement, leadership and values, as measured by the employee opinion survey.
• In nonfinancial recognition: The company grants an annual “Chairman’s Recognition for Engagement” award to deserving employees each year.
In this manner, employee engagement is integrated throughout different aspects of talent management and is instilled as a key part of organizational culture.
Monday, December 14, 2009
A review of THE CARROT PRINCIPLE in Financial Executive Magazine
The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent and Accelerate Performance; revised edition. By Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.
In this, their second look at the use of corporate carrots--the first edition was a big 2007 seller--authors Gostick and Elton offer further evidence that praise and recognition belong in every manager's toolkit. In fact, they write, in the long-standing recession, "the Carrot philosophy has never been more relevant."
Indeed, finding ways to recognize people and honor their work doesn't require new resources, just new ways of thinking. Recognition isn't simply the softer side of leadership, they write, but a "secret ingredient that great leaders add to their companies for [a] direct impact on profits."
Organizations that more effectively recognize and reOward excellence, according to a 10-year study of more than 200,000 employees cited in the book, had triple the return on equity as companies that did the worst at recognition. And of employees reporting the highest morale, more than 94 said their managers were good at recognition.
These numbers stand in sharp contrast to others evincing the general sorry state of recognition efforts. Almost two-thirds of North American workers cited in the study said they had no recognition at all in the past year, and 79 percent of top performers who left their companies said "lack of appreciation" was a key reason.
The authors do a superb job of sketching out how and why recognition programs work, citing companies like Quest Diagnostics, KPMG, WaltDisney Co., Avis Budget Group and DHL. As they write, "Smart companies have realized that workers are being asked to do more than ever, and find work less fulfilling. Recognition that builds motivation is essential to keeping them and to getting the most from them."
In this, their second look at the use of corporate carrots--the first edition was a big 2007 seller--authors Gostick and Elton offer further evidence that praise and recognition belong in every manager's toolkit. In fact, they write, in the long-standing recession, "the Carrot philosophy has never been more relevant."
Indeed, finding ways to recognize people and honor their work doesn't require new resources, just new ways of thinking. Recognition isn't simply the softer side of leadership, they write, but a "secret ingredient that great leaders add to their companies for [a] direct impact on profits."
Organizations that more effectively recognize and reOward excellence, according to a 10-year study of more than 200,000 employees cited in the book, had triple the return on equity as companies that did the worst at recognition. And of employees reporting the highest morale, more than 94 said their managers were good at recognition.
These numbers stand in sharp contrast to others evincing the general sorry state of recognition efforts. Almost two-thirds of North American workers cited in the study said they had no recognition at all in the past year, and 79 percent of top performers who left their companies said "lack of appreciation" was a key reason.
The authors do a superb job of sketching out how and why recognition programs work, citing companies like Quest Diagnostics, KPMG, WaltDisney Co., Avis Budget Group and DHL. As they write, "Smart companies have realized that workers are being asked to do more than ever, and find work less fulfilling. Recognition that builds motivation is essential to keeping them and to getting the most from them."
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