Tag: HR

The Art of Engagement

I spent last night having my brain stretched at a debate called “Employee Engagement, art or science? Fact or fiction? The event was put on by Matt O’Neill and his team at Event Extra Limited and was hosted at Baker Tilly’s offices in London. The panel included Sean Trainor, John Smythe and Karen Drury.

The atmosphere was charged, helped in part by the fact that the event was being filmed. Maybe folks were hoping to deliver Oscar winning performances?

The debate moved at a good speed between the panellists, each offering different and sufficiently opposing views to make the conversation stimulating. Sean Trainor in particular was up for a fight and had some edge about him, and some humour too. I’m afraid I found the audience’s participation somewhat less stimulating. Too often folks were handed the mike only to….well, go on a bit. And I felt there were a couple of pretty poorly executed plugs too.  That said Brad Jennings made a powerful pitch for the need to see employee and customer and brand experience as connected elements of what makes work engaging. I think it was a shame that the chair, who managed the panel quite well, could not assert the same effect on the audience.

Art or science? I prefer to see engagement as an art. I believe it is fundamentally a conversational thing, and that it is simple too. And that does not make it easy. I love the arts and I love helping people to make work better.

I enjoyed Karen’s point about the slavish need for consultants to connect engagement so directly to measurable results. Personally I often tell the board of prospective clients that together we don’t really know what we’re doing. We’re going on a journey of discovery which my experience and global research shows us can lead to lots of real benefits and lots of fun. Will it work? That is largely down to them. I’m not ashamed to say I don’t have the answers; it’s usually the folk at the front line who do. I can help draw those answers and insights, and together we can shape a different future for the customer. Does that cost me business? Probably – but it’s business from half hearted folk that I wouldn’t want anyway and at least we both found out early on that we aren’t suited.

Overall I thought the event was well run and good fun. Well done Matt and co. I look forward to hearing the debate continue.

Other resources: Scott McKenzie’s Collective Conversation Blog

Employee Recognition

There’s a Simpson’s episode I love, called “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?” The plot starts: A routine physical exam at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant reveals that Homer Simpson has become infertile after being exposed to radiation. Fearing a lawsuit, plant owner Mr. Burns awards Homer with the “First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence” and a $2,000 prize in exchange for a legal waiver freeing the nuclear plant of all liability. Homer is dazzled by the award and Burns is off the hook. Good work Mr. Burns. Eeeeeexcellent in fact.

Employee recognition is a topic which seems to divide folk. I know people who love to get formal recognition, a certificate and a prize similar to Homer’s, and I know folk who hate it. However it is done, one of the things which sits at the heart of good recognition is a sense of immediacy, and another is authenticity.

With this in mind I want to share a couple of fantastic award categories which have been sent in to me. I’ve made them anonymous, apart from that they are repeated verbatim, in full. These were ‘awarded’ every two months, and the wording on the certificates was always the same.

Significant contribution award

For demonstrating outstanding quality ingenuity or perseverance and maintaining an excellent level of professionalism

Team award

For teams displaying initiative through innovation by improving current practices or identifying and solving problems

Monty Burns would be proud of these – how might you feel if you received one?

Induction is suckin’ the life out of me

Some names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Imagine the scene. You’ve passed the interviews and all the tests. Finally it is day one at Doofus Corp and in you walk, the new broom, ready to sweep clean. Sitting in the shiny new reception area you wonder, what excitement awaits you on this day of days?

Hallelujah – it’s induction time! Time to find out all that cool useful stuff you just have to know about.

The doors to the inner sanctum slide effortlessly open and you are bathed in a warm, welcoming light. Unable to resist you are drawn to the light and you enter in. Keen to show willing you move to the front of the room and take a seat. The lights dim, the curtains part to reveal a screen and you feel a little…different? The screen illuminates with a slide. The slide says welcome to Doofus Corp. It is followed by another slide, and another, and another, and another…

Six hours and one hundred and ninety five slides later you emerge. The shine has gone. Long gone. You have been inducted. And it hurts. I wish I was kidding, but I’m not. In a recent conversation I learned that a company delivers a one way, six hour, one hundred and ninety five slide induction nightmare.

It doesn’t have to be like this – does it?

Thankfully it doesn’t. There are folks out there, caring sharing folks who have some interesting and thoughtful ideas around how to make the onboarding, the induction experience more meaningful. One of these sharers is Ben Eubanks. I’ve not met Ben but we’ve shared tweets and blogs, and he seems a good guy. He likes zombie HR too. Ben runs UpstartHR and has recently published a useful ebook about onboarding and induction. He’s collaborated with some interesting folk to give this publication a diversity and a depth you don’t normally find. Especially in the world of induction.

And then there’s Sukhvinder Pabial. Sukh has been in the field of learning and development for a number of years, he and I meet regularly in twitter land and we’ve even shared a few good ideas in real life. I recently read and enjoyed an interesting article about onboarding that Sukh wrote for Training Journal. In it he talks about the importance of collaboration and one of my favourite things – the power of proceed until apprehended.

And as much as I respect Ben and Sukh, and as much as their ideas are much better than those at Doofus Corp – I feel there’s still something missing. All this onboarding, induction stuff is too one way, too broadcast. Cue a great conversation with Liam Barrington-Bush. Liam is from Toronto, and he’s been to the bar owned by Alex Lifeson of Rush fame which instantly qualifies him as a dude. And he is a founder of Concrete Solutions, an innovative community interest company which is all about “helping organisations to be more like people”. I love that.

Liam and I have followed each other on twitter for several months. We met recently and enjoyed a diverse and vibrant conversation about how to make the world of work feel more like…the rest of the world. We both had a good moan about induction and its dehumanising effect. I mean – companies recruit individuals because they believe they will fit in, sure. But what about the spark you saw in the potential new recruit – that sense of individual flare? Surely you’re not telling us that you only asked those questions about creativity and innovation because someone told you to?

Over the course of two beers (each – how rock n roll is that?) Liam and I agreed that there needs to be something else. What about anti-induction, antiduction? Nahhh, that word doesn’t work but the idea might. A lot of what seems to get covered at induction (is it just me or is that word starting to creep you out too?), could be given out as reading material if it’s really necessary – and then new folks could get together with each other and a few folk who have been there a while and chew this stuff over.

Wouldn’t it be cool if when folks are onboarded, they get a chance to onboard something of themselves too? It would be really interesting and hell, maybe even really useful to learn more about these people, their ideas, their personalities. But nearly all Liam and I see in the world of induction and onboarding (aaaccckkk!!) is one way – telling telling telling. Kinda haunting eh?

So next time you welcome some new folks into your place – why not make some time for them to remind you about why you invited them in. Help them to help you, one conversation at a time. Is there room for that? I think there should be.

photo c/o …Alba…