Book offers framework for engagement success

A new book, Employee Engagement: A Roadmap for Creating Profits, Optimizing Performance, sounds like a great investment for anyone who needs to boost engagement in the workplace (which, these days, is pretty much everyone).

The author Brad Federman takes the position that the solution to today’s economic problem is properly investing in employees, and that recruiting and retaining the right people is the most important effort a company can make. His book promises a strategy to help companies do just that.

Of course, we have to be careful about accepting a one-size-fits-all solution to the engagement problem. Organizations are inherently different in terms of corporate culture, resources, and leadership’s willingness to invest in employees.

Industry and corporate goals also play a huge role in how likely employees are to support management and advocate for the company. Being aware of unique challenges, and adapting recommendations to fit situations accordingly, is critical.

Nonetheless, this book promises to offer some step-by-step guidelines for putting a strategy in place to engage employees, create a better work environment, and gain a competitive advantage. And for these potential benefits, it sounds like a worthwhile read to me.

The missing ingredient

Dunder Mifflin, a great place to work! Anybody? Show of hands, anybody want to intern at Dunder Mifflin. We do not offer college credit, we can not give you any sort of pay, but it is a really fun work environment. Anybody? Show of hands? Dammit. Ok. I’m gonna wrap it up here. Thank you, for your time. And drive safe! – Michael Scott, The Office

Ok…maybe Dunder Mifflin isn’t a great example of a fun place to work, but Trader Joe’s is. And fun in the workplace does matter.

Read: Monica Nolan on Fun: The Secret Ingredient in Employee Engagement for PeopleMetrics

Of course, it needs to be relevant and appropriate to the existing corporate culture and not negatively affect the organization or its reputation. And it certainly isn’t a substitute for other key motivators such as solid leadership and fair pay. But encouraging employees to have a good time on the job ultimately may lead to higher engagement and loyalty, which in turn means  lower turnover. The best part? A fun place to work is a fun place to shop.

To read more about Trader Joe’s and its unique approach to employee engagement, pick up The Trader Joe’s Adventure: Turning a Unique Approach to Business into a Retail and Cultural Phenomenon, a book by Len Lewis.

Levels of engagement

I read a great article today by Mitch McCrimmon on the Management-Issues website. What I appreciated most about the author’s approach is that he separated engagement into four distinct levels. I think this is an important way to view engagement, and one that management should take a moment to consider.

I suspect a number of leaders look at engagement as an “all or nothing” venture. In other words, a company should either embark on a massive internal communications initiative to engage all of its employees at the highest level or just sit back and hope for the best. Unfortunately, we can assume from survey data and research that many companies opt for the latter approach.

Thankfully, and particularly in these times when resources are so tight, McCrimmon offers an alternative: aim for something in between. To this end, he summarizes four levels of engagement that cover everything from meeting basic needs to welcoming bottom-up leadership.

Here, in a nutshell, is what McCrimmon has to say about levels of engagement:

Level One: Basic Engagement
A basic level of engagement uses motivational factors we have known about for decades, such as clear direction, good supervision, empowerment, career development, open communication, recognition and creating a great place to work. Such initiatives all involve doing something for employees, however, and are thus paternalistic.

Level Two: Employees as Suppliers of Services
A deeper level of engagement requires a culture that encourages employees to think of themselves as running their own businesses, as suppliers of services. Most organizational cultures, being paternalistic, take far too much responsibility for developing people.

Level Three Engaging Leadership
Level three engagement requires a deeper culture change because it asks managers to fundamentally reframe how they see their roles. It goes beyond level two engagement by encouraging managers to be more proactive in seeking input from employees but it also puts more pressure on employees to do more thinking and be less content to merely follow directions.

Level Four: Beyond Ownership to Passion

Level four engagement involves an even more significant culture change. Now, instead of viewing employee ideas merely as good suggestions, their contributions are reframed as bottom-up leadership.This move engages employees by making them feel a stronger sense of providing direction to the organization, or at least a small part of it.

While companies may lack the time, money, or infrastructure to ever get to the highest level of engagement, it is important to know there are interim levels of success and that it’s worth whatever effort can be made.

I highly recommend reading the full article, for further insights.

Read: Mitch McCrimmon on Four Levels of Employee Engagement for Management-Issues (11.13.09)

HR vs. IC?

Watson Wyatt apparently agrees with my point that employee engagement is not solely the responsibility of the HR department. In a recent study, the consulting firm showed that companies with effective internal communication programs are better positioned to keep employees engaged and retain key talent.

I won’t bore you with the statistics here, but I thought this is an interesting look at the role communications can and should play in employee engagement, particularly during such challenging times.

According to Kathryn Yates, global leader of communication consulting at Watson Wyatt:

As the economy continues to shift, keeping employees up-to-date on how the company is responding, and how they are affected, will help insure against their becoming demoralized and disconnected. Effective communication helps engage employees, and that has positive implications for productivity and the bottom line.

That being said, addressing employee engagement is ideally a joint effort among a number of internal departments. The stakes are simply too high, and the work too impactful, not to have buy-in across the organization.

Read: Effective Communication Can Drive Employee Engagement, Help Retain Top Performers, According to Watson Wyatt for CNNMoney (Press Release dated 11.09.09)

When surveys meet strategy

Almost everything I’ve read or written about employee engagement to this point has referenced multiple surveys—and they all say pretty much the same thing. Most companies suffer from an engagement deficit, and it doesn’t take a genius to intuit that the current economic crisis is not helping matters.

But I find that the constant focus on the numbers actually detracts from the matter at hand. The statistics, after all, do not solve the engagement problem. They merely provide more information about an issue already known to exist at least to a certain degree.

Last night, I tested a number of surveys for a market research class I am taking. As the respondent, they seemed long and tedious. I spent more time than I care to admit trying to draw a meaningful distinction between a “4” and a “5” on the satisfaction scale.

But as the person who helped design the surveys, I understood why the questions were necessary. I knew why we were asking the questions and what we were trying to learn. Most importantly, I understood how we would use the results to inform our communications strategy.

Employee surveys are no different. They require substantial investments of time and money, and risk annoying the employees who are asked to take them. What is done with the results is critical and is the only justification for conducting the survey in the first place. So, I realized last night, it is absolutely crucial that companies take a strategic approach to conducting employee surveys.

I found a great article about this subject today, coincidentally. It focuses on a collaborative effort by Amway and Towers Perrin to incorporate business goals and strategy into the design and implementation of an employee survey. In doing so, the authors uncovered four guiding principles. In a nutshell, they are:

Integration: Questions should be designed to get at the heart of what matters most to the company. Results, therefore, become as valuable as key strategic and financial indicators.

Alignment: Surveys should be centralized (particularly across geographic regions) to ensure the focus remains on improving the culture of the organization as a whole. Consistency assures that results can be compared across regions later.

Discovery: Results should be presented in such a way that the organization’s leaders want to engage with the data and can collect insights that are relevant to key strategic initiatives.

Execution: Emphasis on organizational effectiveness, including survey roll-out and use of technology, is as important as design. Training at the local levels further supports a global leadership team and ensures uniformity and credibility across the board.

The results of this strategic approach were impressive. Not only did Amway achieve an extremely high response rate while reducing overhead, leaders were able to correlate employee feedback with business metrics. The ability to quantify corporate culture in terms of business performance was an extremely enviable outcome. Survey results also provided an opportunity to compare results across regions, thereby enabling leaders to leverage strengths across the organization and develop local solutions where necessary.

The article goes on to list seven also very useful steps for optimizing employee surveys (for strategic impact, of course).

Read: Jon Brickner and Joe Dettmann on Beyond Engagement: Using Surveys to Drive Strategy for Talent Management Magazine (11.09)

I’m not convinced that this process rests entirely with the HR function as the authors seem to suggest. Therefore, this article comes highly recommended from me, as an internal communicator.

On the value of engagement

I skipped rather quickly over the definition of engagement in my last post, so I’d like to step back for a minute to review this concept in more detail, and particularly its business value.

Generally speaking, engaged employees are passionate employees. They understand and are committed to their company’s mission, vision, and values. They recognize that their individual role and actions will impact the company, and how. They voluntarily spend additional effort and exceed job requirements to help a company meet its goals. And they do all of this not for tangible benefits, but because they are personally committed to the organization and its success.

Sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not.

Top performing businesses understand that these employees do exist and the tangible benefits they bring to an organization. Several independent studies (by very credible sources) support the correlation between engagement and business results. In its Global Workforce Study 2007-2008, Towers Perrin reported that companies with high employee engagement enjoyed a 19% increase in operating income over a one-year period. In the same timeframe, companies with low engagement saw a drop in operating income of more than 32%.

Watson Wyatt’s 2008/2009 WorkUSA Report found that engaged employees are more likely to be top performers, exceed expectations, and support management change initiatives. Their employers, on average, boast 26% higher employee productivity, have lower turnover, and attract top talent.

But while the numbers are compelling, they are not the entire story.

Engaged employees can, and likely will be, a company’s best advocates and brand ambassadors. They create a positive corporate culture that supports an organization’s values and moves it toward its goals. “Best places to work” rankings and word of mouth leave no doubt companies can build a strong reputation founded on an engaged workforce.

But if, as most estimates say, only a small percentage of today’s workforce is actually engaged, there clearly is a significant business opportunity to be had for companies willing to invest the time and effort on an internal communications plan to further engage this critical audience.

(Photo credit: Pacific Adventure)

Are you engaged?

In a recent study of nearly 30,000 employees around the world, Right Management concluded that commitment to an employer’s core values is the top driver of employee engagement. If that’s the case, it would seem that companies who adopt and promote CSR within an organization are on the right track.

But beyond values, there are numerous reasons for employee engagement. Right Management identified five:

1. I am committed to my organization’s core values
2. Our customers think highly of our products and services
3. My opinions count
4. I have a clear understanding of what is expected of me at work
5. I understand how I can contribute to meeting the needs of our customers

Read: Sharing an Employer’s Core Values is Leading Driver to Boost Employee Engagement (Press Release dated 10.30.09)

But in what is probably the most well-known indicator, Gallup outlined 12 key elements (known as the Gallup Q12, below) designed to measure just how engaged employees really are.

* Do you know what is expected of you at work?
* Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
* At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
* In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
* Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
* Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
* At work, do your opinions seem to count?
* Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
* Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
* Do you have a best friend at work?
* In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
* In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

But what does all this mean?

Exact definitions of employee engagement vary slightly, but the basic idea is that it is the willingness to exert discretionary effort to help a company reach its goals. Engaged employees care about their employer and want to do their best to help that employer succeed. And they are willing to go beyond immediate job requirements to do so.

In fact, analysis has revealed that those with high Q12 scores exhibit lower turnover, higher sales, better productivity, better customer loyalty and superior job performance. It’s no wonder, then, that employee engagement has been closely linked to an organization’s higher shareholder value, solid business results, and positive corporate culture.

Unfortunately, engaged employees are hard to come by; by most estimates, they represent less than 30% of the workforce. I’m curious to know, are you engaged?

(Photo Credit: Gallup)

AngelPoints and Saatchi measure green online

In an article also written this week, and as a follow-up to her post I cited a couple days ago, Deborah Fleischer explored why and how employee engagement and CSR can and should be integrated to benefit an organization’s bottom line.

The theory is if you can get employees engaged and excited about being greener in their personal lives, they will bring this excitement and energy to their jobs as well.

To this end, AngelPoints and Saatchi & Saatchi S have launched a new software tool to help companies increase and subsequently measure sustainability engagement among employees.

The new online Personal Sustainability Project (PSP) tool charts individual and team progress in a number of “green” areas by focusing on (1) creating project goals and commitment; (2) tracking progress and impact; and (3) measuring end results.

Read: Deborah Fleischer on Employee Engagement: AngelPoints and Saatchi S Launch New PSP Tool for TriplePundit (10.27.09)

Thankfully, this article also addresses the important questions you may be asking, such as: Who cares? Why should a company be so concerned about whether its employees are actively engaged in sustainability initiatives?

Employee engagement is a key driver for increasing employee retention, attracting the best and brightest talent, fostering innovation and capturing cost savings from efficiency. However, to capture these benefits, there is growing pressure on companies to get their employees thinking about sustainability and incorporating it into their daily jobs.

This summary makes it sound relatively easy, but employee engagement is actually a very complex, and challenging, issue for internal communicators. In fact, I am currently enrolled in a semester-long course dedicated to the subject of internal engagement (and will be blogging about it quite a bit in the coming days).

But in the meantime, the AngelPoints PSP model (at left) shows that motivated employees can ultimately affect improved business performance and inspire a corporate culture of sustainability. In case you’re not convinced, this general progression is supported by research conducted by consulting powerhouses Watson Wyatt and Towers Perrin (among others).

I’m optimistic that an online PSP tool will encourage employees to connect with one another in support of their company’s CSR strategy. Given the adoption of online communications tools in other areas of organizations, this seems like a natural progression. A bonus? Accountability. Always a good thing.

(Photo Credits: AngelPoints)

Speaking green

According to the say-do matrix (Roger D’Aprix, Communicating for Change), it’s not enough for a company to think green; it must also learn to speak green. This, of course, is the hard part.

Just last week, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR)—one of the world’s leaders in corporate social responsibility consulting and research—hosted its 2009 conference in San Francisco. On this year’s agenda? Internal Communications: Making the Case for CSR’s Value.

Read: Deborah Fleischer on BSR 2009: Top Strategies for Getting Employees Behind Sustainability for TriplePundit (10.26.09)

In her article, Fleischer recaps the session and outlines several expert recommendations for promoting CSR within an organization. Key themes include: getting senior management support, getting employees more engaged at work, and making the case for CSR as a good business practice.

To increase employee engagement, Kevin Moss from BT Americas offered roughly these three strategies:

1. Demonstrate commitment. Get senior leaders behind the initiatives and outline clear policies and procedures to show that the company is truly committed to achieving certain targets.
2. Empower employees. Make sure employees have the support and occasion to engage in the company’s CSR initiatives. Even something as simple as providing recycling bins can help employees see that they are contributing. Opportunities to submit sustainable ideas or take action at home also increase engagement.
3. Harness the momentum. Create a line of sight so individual employees can see the impact they are having on the company’s bottom line and the environment. It is important for employees to know that they have the ability to make a difference.

Also useful, I thought, was the complete list of best practices and strategies that came out of the author’s breakout session with Moss. A few highlights:

Create a council where employees come together to share resources and ideas;

Create more defined strategies—for example, BT America is focused on climate change, digital inclusion and disaster relief;

Give stores/facilities latitude to do what they want—for example, Best Buy gives stores only broad, general guidelines. Not as much consistency, but you harness what individuals care about;

Build sustainability metrics into performance objectives;

Link volunteer hours and community engagement to sustainability priorities;

Recognize employees by making a monetary donation to employees’ charity of choice; and

Engage employees in their personal lives (i.e. Pfizer It Begins With Me and Wal-Mart Personal Sustainability Projects).

But even when it comes to noble CSR initiatives, a number of challenges exist for organizations to increase engagement and tap into employees’ willingness to exert discretionary effort. Successful organizations will be those who take the time to carefully craft an internal communications plan around a thoughtfully-constructed CSR strategy. This includes taking into consideration current corporate culture, employee sentiments, and existing internal communications structure. Good luck!

Thinking green

Last month, Newsweek published its inaugural “Green Rankings”—a list of the 500 most environmentally-responsible U.S.-based companies. Environmental data is admittedly hard to collect and compare across vastly different industries (obviously the carbon footprint of an oil company will be greater than that of a consulting firm). But Newsweek did its best to acknowledge efforts to improve environmental policies, performance, and reputation by assigning each company an industry-adjusted “Green Score.”

I was expecting to see General Electric at the top of the list, mostly as a result of its Ecomagination campaign. Not surprisingly, GE’s reputation survey score came in at 2nd, behind only Walmart. But I was surprised and, if I’m being honest, a little pleased to see that GE was ranked only 82nd overall and a mere 261st for its green policies and performance. Apparently, and thankfully, Newsweek based a company’s total Green Score on more than expensive above-the-line marketing and Wizard-of-Oz-themed Superbowl ads. If external communications can’t secure a more enviable spot in the Green Rankings, what can?

Well, lots of things, obviously. Low carbon emissions, energy efficiency, and waste reduction, to name a few. But beyond that, how “green” can a company truly become if it doesn’t expend effort on its internal communications?

In mid-October, Ethical Corporation published a four-part series on social media and sustainability (you can get a free two-week subscription to read the full article text). The first part supported the argument for using social media to engage with stakeholders on sustainability issues. Based on the bottom-up origins of both movements, the integration of the two seems only natural.

The second article in the series dealt with the growth of social networking, the new tools that continue to evolve and expand, and the best way to harness social networking to promote corporate sustainability and responsibility.

The next section tackled the ongoing debate over who owns social media. Is it a PR function? Does it belong to marketing ? Or, in this case, maybe the corporate social responsibility (CSR) department, if there is one, should take over. The reality is that social media is present throughout an organization and every employee, regardless of job description, should be called upon to be active in the movement.

The fourth and final section is what got my attention with this underlying premise: when it comes to CSR, employee engagement is not a novelty, it is a necessity.

Most companies now recognize the business value and good karma that results from CSR, but the challenge remains to integrate it into corporate culture and make it a part of every employee’s experience. This happens to be the topic of my next post, so stay tuned!

(Photo credit: Wired.com)