Employee Engagement is More than just the Current HR 'Buzzword'

Employee engagement can be defined as an employee putting forth extra discretionary effort, as well as the likelihood of the employee being loyal and remaining with the organization over the long haul. Research shows that engaged employees: perform better, put in extra efforts to help get the job done, show a strong level of commitment to the organization, and are more motivated and optimistic about their work goals. Employers with engaged employees tend to experience low employee turnover and more impressive business outcomes.

Employee engagement is more than just the current HR 'buzzword'; it is essential. In order for organizations to meet and surpass organizational objectives, employees must be engaged. Research has proven that wholly engaged employees exhibit,

§ Higher self-motivation.
§ Confidence to express new ideas.
§ Higher productivity.
§ Higher levels of customer approval and service quality.
§ Reliability.
§ Organizational loyalty; less employee turnover.
§ Lower absenteeism.


Focus on employee engagement:

Current studies show that organizations are focusing on the meaning of employee engagement and how to make employees more engaged. Employees feel engaged when they find personal meaning and motivation in their work, receive positive interpersonal support, and operate in an efficient work environment. What brought engagement to the forefront and why is everyone interested in it? Most likely, the tight economy has refocused attention on maximizing employee output and making the most of organizational resources. When organizations focus attention on their people, they are making an investment in their most important resource. You can cut all the costs you want, but if you neglect your people, cutting costs won’t make much of a difference. Engagement is all about getting employees to “give it their all.” Some of the most successful organizations are known for their unique work environments in which employees are motivated to do their very best. These great places to work have been recognized in such lists as Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.

The concept of engagement is a natural evolution of past research on high-involvement, empowerment, job motivation, organizational commitment, and trust. All of these research streams focus on the perceptions and attitudes of employees about the work environment. In some ways, there are variations on the same fundamental issue. What predicts employees “giving their all?” Obviously, all organizations want their employees to be engaged in their work.

Several standardized tools exist for assessing employee engagement and providing feedback for making changes. These tools tend to have several common goals and characteristics:

Create a simple and focused index of workplace engagement-Many organizations are using very short, simple, and easy to use measures that focus on the fundamentals of a great workplace. Instead of conducting broad culture/climate surveys with 100 or more questions, organizations are opting for a focused approach that measures fundamental qualities of the workplace that likely will be important 10 years from now (e.g., feedback, trust, cooperation).

Allow for benchmarking-Most organizations want to know how they compare to other organizations. Using a standard measure of engagement allows organizations to see how they compare to other companies along a simple set of fundamental work qualities.

Direct action-Engagement measures tend to be very actionable. This means that the organization can alter practices or policies to affect employees’ responses to every item in the measure.

Show relationship to company performance-Without a link to company performance or other critical outcomes, measures of engagement have little value. The whole idea behind engagement is that it leads to enhanced performance. The link to performance outcomes is a necessary underlying assumption of all engagement measures.

Engagement Predicts Organizational Success

Many studies have shown that investments in people (i.e., HR-related practices) have a reliable impact on the performance of organizations. The Bureau of Labor conducted a comprehensive review of more than 100 studies and found that people practices have significant relationships to improvements in productivity, satisfaction, and financial performance. Research has shown that when engagement scores are high, employees are more satisfied, less likely to leave the organization, and more productive.

Each organization is different and there are many factors that affect bottom-line outcomes; however, engagement scores can serve as meaningful predictors of long-term success. Some organizations use engagement scores as lead measures in their HR scorecards. When an organization can show the relationship between engagement scores and bottom-line outcomes, everyone pays attention to the engagement index. Establishing this critical link between people and performance helps HR professionals prove that people-related interventions are a worthwhile investment.

Elements of Engagement

Some researches conclude that personal impact, focused work, and interpersonal harmony comprise engagement. Each of these three components has sub-components that further define the meaning of engagement.

Personal Impact-Employees feel more engaged when they are able to make a unique contribution, experience empowerment, and have opportunities for personal growth. Past research (e.g., Conger and Kanugo, 1988; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990) concurs that issues such as the ability to impact the work environment and making meaningful choices in the workplace are critical components of employee empowerment. Development Dimensions International’s (DDI) research on retaining talent (Bernthal and Wellins, 2000) found that the perception of meaningful work is one of the most influential factors determining employees’ willingness to stay with the organization.

Focused Work-Employees feel more engaged when they have clear direction, performance accountability, and an efficient work environment. Aside from the personal drive and motivation to make a contribution, employees need to understand where to focus their efforts. Without a clear strategy and direction from senior leadership, employees will waste their time on the activities that do not make a difference for the organization’s success. Additionally, even when direction is in place, employees must receive feedback to ensure that they are on track and being held accountable for their progress. In particular, employees need to feel that low performance is not acceptable and that there are consequences for poor performance. Finally, employees want to work in an environment that is efficient in terms of its time, resources, and budget. Employees lose faith in the organization when they see excessive waste. For example, employees become frustrated when they are asked to operate without the necessary resources or waste time in unnecessary meetings.

Interpersonal Harmony-Employees feel more engaged when they work in a safe and cooperative environment. By safety, we mean that employee trust one another and quickly resolve conflicts when they arise. Employees want to be able to rely on each other and focus their attention on the tasks that really matter. Conflict wastes time and energy and needs to be dealt with quickly. Some researches also find that trust and interpersonal harmony is a fundamental underlying principle in the best organizations. Employees also need to cooperate to get the job done. Partnerships across departments and within the work group ensure that employees stay informed and get the support they need to do their jobs.


Making Use of Engagement

Measurement of employee engagement can have many applications in the organization. Earlier, it is mentioned that engagement could serve as a general index of HR effectiveness in an HR scorecard. Also, engagement measures serve as an easy way to benchmark the work climate against other organizations.

Other uses include:

Needs Analysis-The fundamental issues measured in engagement provide a quick index of what leaders and HR need to do to make things better. In addition, items in engagement surveys tend to be very actionable. This means that leaders or others in the organization can take action that will affect the score on a single item.

Evaluation-Many learning and performance interventions are designed to impact some aspect of engagement. When an engagement measure is used as a pre-implementation baseline, the impact of the intervention can be gauged by measuring post-implementation changes in engagement.

Climate Survey-Some organizations like to use engagement measures as simple indexes of the workplace culture. While more extensive surveys are valuable, sometimes it’s easier to focus attention on a few simple and proven factors.

Leader or Department Feedback-Depending on the demographic information collected when the engagement measure is implemented, one can create breakout reports by department or leader. This means departments and leaders can gain a better understanding of how engagement in their groups differs from the rest of the organization. This information can be used to create development plans or plans for larger-scale interventions.


References:
1. www.greatplacetowork.com
2. www.ddiworld.com

A True Story About an Employee Who Was Too Good

A True Story About an Employee Who Was Too Good

by Steve Bruce

I met him at least 8 years ago at the Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport. He wore black pants and a white shirt with a black tie and bib apron. "Let me carry that for you, young man," he said, noticing the balancing act I was performing with my luggage and the tray of food from Paschal's Restaurant.

The old fellow grabbed my tray with a smile and was off, limping heavily on one leg that was obviously shorter than the other. I followed him around the escalator to an empty table I would never have found, and it was only then when I realized that he had also brought napkins, a straw, and packages of salt and pepper ... items I usually forget.

With a flourish, he wiped the table, removed my plate from the tray and arranged it carefully with the napkins and the iced tea. Pulling back my chair as I hurriedly retrieved three, one-dollar bills from my pocket, he smiled and said, "God bless you." His nametag read: FOSTER.

I was curious to see if this was a new service the airport had put in place. Certainly, I had never been "helped" before. I saw several other men and women dressed like my new friend, loosely assembled, and talking with each other, waiting without enthusiasm for tables to come empty. At that point, one of them would disengage from the group, clear any trash left on the table wipe it down, and return to their co-workers.

Glancing around the huge area, I quickly spotted Foster. Smiling, laughing, and moving fast, he helped one person after another. He never waited to be summoned. He went where he was needed.

I was back through the airport the next day and couldn't wait to visit the food court again. Sure enough, there he was, the old man with the big smile. He helped me to a table as he had the day before (with napkins, salt and pepper, and a straw) and said, "God bless you, young man," as he held out my chair.

I had a twenty folded and ready to place in his hand that day. I was impressed and inspired by this old man who struggled to walk, yet moved like a dervish as he cleaned empty tables and looked for people to serve. From that day forward, he was Mr. Foster to me.

As the years rolled by, I developed a great admiration for Mr. Foster. I saw him several times each month and introduced him to anyone with whom I was traveling. "Watch this guy," I would always instruct as he left our table. "And watch that bunch of other people over there dressed just like him." The contrast was clear.

I never once suspected Mr. Foster was making a play for tips. In fact, though I rarely slipped him less than twenty dollars, he often made me wait while he helped someone in obvious need of assistance. And whether they offered money or not, he always smiled, held their chairs and said, "God bless you."

And then he was gone. Unable to find my friend, I asked the ladies at Paschal's, "Where is Mr. Foster today?"

"Fired," they told me. "They fired him. Humiliated him. Sent the man home!"

The Atlanta Airport Authority, I was told, had determined that Mr. Foster had become "a distraction." They ordered him to stop helping people. "Stand with everyone else," he was told, "and wait for the tables to empty. You are a busboy; act like one."

A few months later, he was back (happy as ever) on a trial basis. But I never again let him carry my tray. I did, however, continue with the tips. He took the money because I made him take it. I was mad for him and he knew it. His "God bless you's" often came to me with a tear. His spirit was gone.

Today, I went by Paschal's. Before I could even ask, one of the ladies on the serving line spotted me. "I been expecting you," she said. "Mr. Foster's gone. He quit. Told 'em he was old and sick and couldn't do the work no more." Then she cocked her head and added with a whisper, "He ain't sick. There ain't nothing broken about that old man."

Nope, I thought as I turned away, there ain't nothing broken about that old man. Nothing but his heart.

What happens to the Mr. Fosters in your organization? What can you do to encourage employees to go above and beyond for customers? Or should you? What do you think?

Andy Andrews can be reached at www.Andyandrews.com.

8 Ways to Kill Employee Morale

There are countless articles and books that promise to tell employers how to boost employee morale. They may or may not be right, but there is something we all can be certain about. There are easy ways to kill employee morale. Thoroughly. Some of them are simple; some take time. But they all work.

So with some levity and a lot of truth, here are 8 great ways to destroy the spirit of even the most dedicated of employees:

8) Start new hires with promises of raises, promotions and other perks, and then “forget.”

One of the best ways to destroy morale from the start is to make promises to your new hires, and then never mention them again. Truly creative morale-smashers may want to extend this technique to existing employees, so even seasoned workers can share in the disappointment.

7) Make rules that defy logic and then enforce them – harshly.

If your employees don’t come within miles of a customer, ban jeans and make them dress up for work. Prohibit personal decorations on desks. Send out a memo limiting the time in the restroom to five minutes. Whatever it is, make sure the consequences of these performance-related violations are severe – letters of reprimand, docked pay – anything to make them fear for their jobs.

6) Play favorites.

Everyone remembers the teacher’s pet – bring that dynamic into the workplace. A great way to destroy employee morale is to make it clear that a few people can get away with anything, while the rest must toe the line. Or consider the reverse scenario… selectively enforce the rules with a few employees while letting the rest off the hook. Morale is certain to take a nose dive.

5) Skimp on necessary tools, equipment or technology.

Invite employee discontent by maintaining a tight hold on the purse strings when it comes to the tools employees need to do their jobs well. Dole out pens, paper and other office supplies like they were the items about to tip the company over the financial edge. Create a make-do attitude, and then hold employees to standards unachievable given the lack of good tools and equipment.

4) Maintain an atmosphere of fear in the workplace.

This technique can take many forms, but one of the most effective is to keep employees wondering whether their jobs will exist tomorrow. Dwell on declining sales, especially if you can do so in several contexts. Ask them casual questions about their spouse’s job security. Drop small but favored perks such as water bottles, good coffee or the annual company picnic. Productivity and employee attitude will fall simultaneously.

3) Show employees you don’t trust them.

Make sure employees know they are not at all trusted. Double and triple check their paperwork, logs and products. Listen in on conversations. Hide behind cubicle walls and eavesdrop on employee discussions. Search them as they leave, even if they have no access to anything of value. The impact on morale and work quality will be noticeable almost instantly.

2) Make it an us and them atmosphere.

Demand that staff- level employees take cuts in pay, hours or benefits. Postpone or cancel promotions. Delay replacement of worn-out but needed equipment and furnishing. Then give the executive staff new 22” flat panel computers. Talk about how hot it was on your trip to Italy. Complain about how your Porsche is always in the shop. After all, they should be happy to have a job, any job. Right?

1) Wherever possible, reinforce the idea that they are replaceable.

This is the number one way to kill employee morale. For every person employed in your company, there are at least a dozen applicants eager to take their position. Let your current employees know that, whether through words, deeds or environment, that they could be replaced tomorrow.

Ref: Training Time

Employee Engagement: Doing It vs. Measuring

It seems today that employee engagement is in vogue. Everywhere I look I hear about balanced score cards that include a placeholder for employee engagement, and I learn about organizations making their living out of measuring engagement and trying to explain it to their clients. I like the idea, but I worry about it. I worry that this is what employees would call “another HR thing.” Let’s face it – we have lots of “HR things.” They are called fads. These are the bandwagons upon which we hop.

Perhaps it’s time to evaluate whether employee engagement is a fad or a new knowledge domain from which HR executives can help make their companies a better place to work. One key difference between an HR fad and a real intervention is who owns the new process. Therefore, in this article I would like to evaluate who owns employee engagement with the goal of deriving ways in which we can make employee engagement a useful process and not just one more fad. But before going further, I want to define employee engagement.

Defining Employee Engagement

I like to define engagement in terms of what people do at work. I use something called role theory to elaborate on that definition. Role theory reviews different roles that people engage in at work, and it explains reasons why people engage in certain roles and not in others. My colleagues and I have been able to use role theory to understand conditions under which employees are either engaged or disengaged and examine what happens under both conditions. In particular, we uncovered five work-related roles that exist in any company. These roles are:

1. Job holder role – employees come to work and do the job that is listed in their job description.

2. Team member role – employees go “above and beyond” to help members of their team work toward common goals.

3. Entrepreneur role – employees come up with new ideas and processes and try to get those ideas implemented.

4. Career role – employees do things to enhance their career in the organization; they learn, they adapt new skills, and more.

5. Organization member role – employees do things that promote and help the company even if it’s not part of their jobs or their team’s duties.

Employees are in a highly engaged state when they are doing the nonjob roles. In general, we find that most employees have a sense of fairness, and even if their employer treats them poorly, most will show up to work and do the job role. But having employees show up at work simply doing their jobs gets an employer nowhere in terms of long-term competitiveness. If all of your employees show up and only do their jobs, then you are not building organizational strength and long-term competitiveness through people because anyone can hire those same employees and duplicate what you are doing.

It’s the synergy that comes from people working together and gathering creative ideas that leads to long-term organization wealth creation. That synergy and “above and beyond” behavior is evidence of employee engagement.

The question that we must ask ourselves is: “what are we doing to engage employees?” I’ve seen some approaches that involve using magical survey questions (the super 15, 30, 100, or more questions) to investigate and understand what you have to do in order to transform your workforce from disengaged to engaged. This means the process of engagement is dictated by the specific questions that one chooses to measure engagement. This approach worries me because it seems that we are trying to MEASURE engagement without necessarily helping individual managers really AFFECT engagement in their day-to-daywork.

Ref: Theresa Welbourne

Absconding employees

A leading BPO to recently bear the brunt of a suit filed on them by an employee who had disappeared from work for more than a month and then suddenly got back one day to rejoin. The organization which had tried several ways of communicating and contacting the employee had to finally terminate him after all the efforts failed. The employee is now claiming unfair dismissal.

Quite often, employers are faced with the problem of an employee who simply disappears without any form of notification to the employer. Any employer who has had this problem is sure to have been faced with a disruption to his/her business. There have been many instances where an employee simply vanishes leaving the organization in a crunch. And to add more to this he/she emerges much later claiming the job. How does an organization handle such a situation in order to be fair to both, the employer and the employee?

When an employee simply fails to return to work and remains absent for sometime employer is confused regarding the exact law for termination of absconding cases. When an employee remains absent for sometime without any intimation, the employer has to act in the following manner. Firstly, on the second day of absence, the employer should contact the employee telephonically. If telephonic contact is not possible, then send an official communication within 2-3 days. Even there is no response is received; send an official letter which should be registered. The letter must enquire the reasons of absence and also mention the consequences. After a week of sending the first letter, the second letter should follow stating the necessity to appoint a new candidate for the post. The employer finally can seek legal advice and accordingly act to terminate the services.

Company can also frame a policy on uninformed absenteeism. If an employee goes absconding from work for seven days in a row, the company separates him/her from their system involuntarily on grounds of un-informed absenteeism. For any informed absenteeism of lesser than seven days at one go, they roll out warning letters to employees. A second case of warning and the employee is liable to be terminated with immediate effect on third instance.

A few companies try to contact such an employee through telephone and registered post. But if the absconding employee does not respond for more than a month, then they terminate his/her services and refuse to release their relieving letters.

Are there any solutions which can be offered to companies to curb this unethical practice? How stringent should an employer be in fighting this menace? Can you identify a probable absconder?

An appointment letter must mention the terms of service including un-notified absence. Legal action of terminating the service is possible. Other than the legal side, at the time of interview and selection, the candidate must be scrutinized – the mental set up, family background, etc., must be taken into consideration. Also, any new candidate must be under behavioral observation. In larger companies, the HR department should evolve a system of analysis. In smaller organizations, the concerned bosses need to be observant. Employees will have to be firm and company rules will have to be followed.

Though organizations follow very stringent background checks, absconding employees are a problem that no organization can totally evade. An employee, most likely to disappear tends to be highly volatile with a skewed career graph by virtue of age and job profile. Past employment history provides considerable insight into a person’s commitment to an organization. Once the candidate joins the company, his/her attendance record, discipline on floor and performance records may form the basis for predicting his/her stay at the company.

Therefore the companies must make sure that a thorough screening of all employees is done before getting them on board. Also keep a track record of all employees and try to read the mind and outlook of an employee. But if an employee had made up his/her mind, nothing can have done about his/her decision.

There are no typical solutions to this practice. Despite company policies and laws, the un-informed absenteeism cannot be abolished though these policies help firms to reduce such instances and help in reducing the impact of uniformed absenteeism on manpower deployment. However, well defined warnings and separation guidelines and the awareness of the same amongst employees is a key to compliance and adherence.

An interesting observation in such cases is the fact that many times, these absconding employees come back after long intervals and they claim that they have been unfairly dismissed. How does the HR department of a company react, when the employees themselves go missing, and the company becomes liable? The study of human relations and emotions is not only interesting but intriguing. The basic fundamental of the fact that no two people are alike or can be alike makes such studies very non-conclusive. Yet psychological studies over the years have shown that a general pattern ca be understood. The act of disappearing in itself is unethical and illegal. Therefore, such employees do not have any moral or legal rights. The management, however, must take the necessary legal steps to counter any claim the employee might make. If the absconding employee was unable to be contacted, then the returned registered letter is the legal proof.

Once the timeline for reverting back to work by an employee absconding is over, the employee has to be separated from the system. The employee has every right to present his/her side of the story within the defined timeline. It could be over any mode of communication. Any communication from the employees’ side only strengthens faith in the employee and his/her commitment to work. However, absconding cases have to be dealt with differently. Failure to communicate from the employee’s side leaves the organization in a lurch. The organization cannot wait indefinitely for the employee to return. In genuine cases, employers may reconsider the employee and re-hire him/her as he/she is already a trained resource for them. Even at Patni, if a disappearing employee comes back within a month, he/she is given a chance to explain his/her absence and is then considered for re-joining. Organizations now become smarter in their policies in order to fight this menace of disappearing employees. It is well understood that if the absconding employee has a genuine reason, he/she will be given a chance to justify his/her actions. But if the reason behind the absence is pure bad intention then it is time up for the employee.

Ref: CiteHR