The What Goes Around Blog

Employee Engagement – There has to be a better way

Employee Engagement – a mighty buzz phrase in the HR lexicon. But hold on a minute…

I haven’t heard of it

I saw some really interesting research data at the CIPD conference earlier this month, published by Surveylab. Their 2013 workplace survey involved over 1,000 people across the world of work, and four out of five had not heard of the term, employee engagement.

I can’t describe it

Are you surprised? I was a little, though when you consider that even Nita Clarke, who with David MacLeod co founded Engage for Success, struggled to explain what employee engagement is to the Queen when accepting her OBE for ‘services to employee engagement and business’ recently, maybe I need to reset my expectations.

I don’t believe it

I was taking part in the online #nextchat which is run each week by SHRM over in the USA. This week questions were being discussed relating to disengagement and for the mega keen among you – there’s a storify of the chat here. This exchange between Matt Charney and TeamBonding caught my eye:

The chat ebbed and flowed between encouragement and disbelief, and many points in between. What was key to me was how other things like Matt’s comment, and talk of trust, respect and feeling valued landed much more helpfully for people.

Feeling Valued

Surveylab also asked people to respond to the statement ‘I feel valued for what I do’. Whilst feeling valued is also subjective, I nevertheless think this is a much more interesting, powerful and accessible thing to ponder. It implies belonging, whereas the term employee engagement can feel divisive, us and them, to some people. In the survey results, 49% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, and of those people, 90% were overall, satisfied with their employer, 88% enjoyed coming to work, and 93% tried to contribute more than expected of them. By comparison, the figures for those who did not feel valued are 11%, 14% and 72% respectively.

Trust and Respect

Here’s what Surveylab found out when they asked people about trust, respect and fairness too.

Once again, unsurprisingly, those who felt favourable about these important things also registered much higher satisfaction, enjoyment and willingness to contribute. I expect most of us can agree that making work better is important, and there clearly is a camp of employee engagement enthusiasts who think there way is the right way. But you have to ask yourself, if 80% of the workforce have never even heard of the term – isn’t it time to find a better way?

Disclaimer:

I’ve asked and been given permission to use some of the Surveylab data – I have no commercial interest in the Surveylab business and I’m not being paid to share this stuff. I just think the results of their survey are interesting, helpful and a lot more accessible than the nebulous world of employee engagement. If you are interested, the Surveylab blog will have more news as they unpack the learning from this 2013 survey.

A Review of HR Unscrambled

At the CIPD Conference in Manchester earlier this month, Meg Peppin and I were invited to facilitate a short unconference session titled ‘HR Unscrambled’. Here are our reflections from the session.

“Whether you’re passionate about improving organisational culture, employee-led change, employee communication or anything else that will help make work better, we’d like to invite you to HR Unscrambled.” Our invitation to members.

We wanted to co-create an opportunity for dialogue between the CIPD, its members and any other people interested in exploring both the CIPD purpose, Championing better work and working lives, and the future for HR. We believe there is great meaning to be found in exploring ways to work co-actively, doing things with each other. HR Unscrambled represents the beginning of that learning.

In the future we shall:

Explore ways to broaden the reach – build on the social media energy that is growing, and extend beyond it too.
Utilise more open space facilitation at future events and conferences.
Integrate research from the CIPD and other relevant parties and involve members in shaping the future.

8.00am one morning in Manchester

Our space was airy, breakfast was available, and tables were set up for four people. Guests were invited in small groups to discuss what brought them to the session. There were 30 contributors from a wide range of backgrounds including, CIPD staff, HR and Learning and Development professionals from the UK public and private sectors, and independent consultants. We were delighted too that Peter Cheese the CEO of CIPD joined us for the first half despite seemingly being everywhere else too!

The emerging themes were connecting, sharing and learning – and the future.

The connecting and sharing through networking – in its most enjoyable sense – included sharing insights, building on those insights, reflecting and thinking through them together and the implications for organisations.

A question that users of social media are asking with increasing frequency – how can we invite in those who don’t access SoMe – how do we extend the conversation?

Learning comes from connecting and sharing, and having space to assimilate the learning. We explored technology and how it is changing the way we learn, what we know about how we learn, and how we can integrate technology into our Continuous Professional Development. There was also a desire to think about generational learning differences.

Implications for the future – what the generational differences and similarities are, what self directed learning means culturally within organisations, and what skills HR professionals need – were all up for discussion.

Learning

People grouped together in fours to explore common interests around these subjects. The conversations were self-organised; people went where they had the most interest. During the discussions, we invited people to move tables with the purpose of stimulating the development of the conversation and to facilitate more networking. People were also invited to use flipcharts to capture their thoughts, priorities – what they would like to share with people who weren’t there.

We noticed that across what seemed like a broad range of topics, a dominant theme emerged in relation to learning. Discussions encompassed the tools for learning, how people learn, how technology is changing traditional methods and creating opportunities for people to become curators of their own learning. IT can get twitchy but technology, self-directed learning, and the autonomy it offers has arrived. This has so many implications, and we were left with some big questions:

Social Media brought people together in this space – it feels edgy but are we just on the edge? There’s a huge community of HR people both members of CIPD and non-members. How can we bring them in?
What implications does self-managed learning have for how organisations are designed?
What does the HR of ten years time look like; how can we build towards that now?
What could we do more of in relation to mentoring?
What manager capabilities are needed for the future?
Are we too inward looking; how can we engage more outside our community to broaden our perspective?

We’d like to thank all of those who were motivated to get up early and create this event, and we look forward to building on this.

Meg Peppin and Doug Shaw

These notes are available free to download.

No You Can’t. Yes You Can.

Over the weekend I spotted this cartoon doing the rounds on the web. If anyone can tell me where it originates from I would love to credit the artist. As I looked at it, the image spoke to me of my relationship with my mortgage company.

No You Can’t

The current tracker rate on our Natwest mortgage expires at the end of this month. I’ve been in conversation with the bank about the choices we have available for the next few years, and we’ve reached a decision. Last week I call Natwest to book a new deal over the phone. I’m told I can’t. I have to wait over a week for a callback because no one is available to process my request.

I don’t need any investment advice, and I know the deal I want, if they’d give me access to the computer – I’d book the thing in myself! And there’s a sting in the tail. If by the time the Natwest calls me back the deal has expired, we’ve missed out – tough luck. A few weeks ago I could have made the arrangement on the spot – since then, apparently there’s been a ‘policy change’. We to and fro for a while. I ask to speak with a supervisor, once again I hit the no one is available wall.

I try my luck on Twitter and the bank responds quickly and gives me another number to try, and I end up in the same situation. The Twitter version of Natwest expresses sympathy.

I appreciate the sentiment, and sympathy don’t pay the rent.

I have to settle for an appointment at the end of next week, and a call back from a supervisor within 24 hours – though I’m assured they’ll be able to do no more than that which has already been offered.

‘Natwest – Helpful Banking’ runs the strap line. Sorry but I ain’t feeling it.

Yes You Can

It’s Saturday morning, and the Natwest supervisor phones me and offers to process my new mortgage deal – right there – on the spot. I accept the offer and a half hour later, we’ve blundered through a vaguely incompetent call and have done the deal, two days after being told that this wouldn’t be possible before next Friday.

Pleased and Disappointed

The deal is done. I shan’t deny it – I’m pleased about that, although I genuinely worry when the customer knows more about the product being ordered than the sales person.

We’ve had to jump through hoops to make it happen, I’m not pleased about that, and I can’t imagine the Natwest is either. Time has been wasted, disempowered employees have been disengaged (well they would have been if they knew what it meant – more on that another day), systems have failed, and process has been broken in order to patch up a failed experience. Plenty of HR survey results and white papers will extoll the benefits of an empowered workforce. And I think until HR goes beyond HR, and helps people to join the dots right through the organisation and on to customers, suppliers and more, empowerment will remain high on the buzzword chart and low on action.

I have a great week in store and I hope you do too. If during this week you can find and solve a customer problem through making it easier for your people to deliver better service, then my hope will become your reality.