Employee Engagement – Not all Song n’ Dance

A few days back, I came across this graphic which shows Engagement of Employees as blocks of a house. Being in the Real Estate sector, this obviously aroused my curiosity.

What is interesting is that the foundation of employee engagement is the Organizational Culture and the Values being espoused at the workplace. This in turn shapes the job / organizational content for an employee. This content might include everything from the nature of the job, the work conditions, the associated rewards, the perceived value of the job, the attitude of the management towards the role, the person, and expectations along with a feeling of contributing to the success of the organization. All these factors in place, one can expect a great attitude from each employee, thereby leading to what is fancily called Organizational Citizenship.

However, this is a long list of expectations to be fulfilled, especially in the millennial workforce where the average job tenure is starting to be counted in months rather than years.  Hence, HR managers of today have to focus on what is most relevant to the workforce and what will have maximum impact in the shortest time.

Now what’s relevant might differ from one employee to another. Here the HR team has to do some legwork in identifying areas of concern / impact for employees to show to employees that the organization cares. I’ve seen an organization where the average age of the workforce was below 30 and they tweaked the compensation structure to maximize the take-home for the younger lot. The relatively senior ones were still given the option to safeguard or maximize their retirals. Small change, but high impact.

Some obvious quick-wins visible in the graphic:

·     Communication – I have seen examples of leaders / top management who go out of the way to make sure that the employees stay ahead of the rumor mills. Employees love such leaders. It gives the impression that the top management is accessible and human and makes the employees feel involved in the longer term vision.

·    Happy Workplace – As  Jack Welch famously said a happy workplace gives us happy customers, leading to better cashflows. Small things like impromptu public recognition meetings, go a long way in sustaining the morale of employees. Elaborate song n’ dance routines are effective if it is ensured that the involvement is from the larger workforce, and not restricted to the HR / Marketing teams. The process is more important than the end result.

·     Flexibility – Treating employees as humans. The line between ‘work’ and ‘life has become blurred. So practice it both ways. Not only work time encroaching into ‘family’ time. Give some flexibility in letting it work the other way. And see the results for yourself.

These in no way should take one away from the fact that the biggest X factor in employee engagement is the immediate manager. Most other factors impacting this metric are the responsibility of the immediate manger. Hence, a more longer-term ongoing imperative is training managers to become human and treat their team members as humans. The message has to be that in the longer term, only the creative and agile organizations will survive. And creativity is fostered in a positive environment only. So trust the team and treat them like you would want to be treated yourself.

How we love Stories...

We all love stories – whether its telling stories, listening to stories, making up stories or finishing stories, the fact is that we, as a race love stories. Right from childhood, when we make our parents read out stories to us, to the most read fiction bestseller; stories have a way to ignite our imaginations.

Then why not make use of this penchant and love for stories to try and use it to build employee connect. Easier said than done – because employees like only interesting stories, and not all of them become bestsellers within the organization. But just like we have the huge rows and columns of shelves in large bookstores, and we choose the books we like, employees do lap up stories that affect them, that strike a chord with them, that make them laugh.

So, what does an HR person do.

Step 1) Find out the folklores within the organization. Easier for legacy organizations which are 100+ years old, lesser for startups which might be a 100 months/days old. But try and build these tales around personalities – the ones who have been able to survive the years of onslaught the organization has gone through / who are stars in the organization and employees look up-to them

Step 2) Have a catchphrase for your story a.k.a, brand your initiative. Take help if you have a marketing agency working with you or you have an in-house art/edit team. The visuals should be eye-catching and the tone must reflect the feel of the story.

Step 3) Market the story. Ask the people in the story to explain formally and informally (to juniors and newcomers) what they went through, how they were able to do what is showcased, and how things have changed.

Once you have this in place, you will find people aspiring and contributing for your next set of stories. And slowly and steadily, you will see a cultural shift towards the kind of stories you are showcasing. What one needs to be careful of is that the stories should focus on the direction in which you want your employees to think.

Each story we like leaves a little bit of it in us. Because we all love stories..and we remember them…like the race between the rabbit and the tortoise..:)

Gen Y – The Mindset Challenge!

The definition of Gen Y varies from source to source but let’s take the more generic one – the ones born in the late 80s and after. Essentially which form a large proportion of junior and middle management in most organizations.

The problem starts when we have the Baby Boomers and Gen X being part of the top management and expecting Gen Y to behave and act the same way as they did when they were in their 20s. So how do we go about resolving this imbroglio?

While there is no concrete answer as people strategies differ from culture to culture and organization to organiation, it would be best for both sides to understand that they can co-exist in a productive manner.

Some things have evolved…

- Slicker and faster presentation – Modes of presentation as well as confidence to use those modes has come a long way. So while you have Gen Y carrying presentations on their phones and making last minute changes, it’s a far cry from the printouts carried by the seniors.

- Always-on communication – with Whatsapp and Facebook messenger topping the communication list of Gen Y, information is beginning to travel to far-off places real time. So we might find a teen who is relaying what is being said in a discussion to a remote location reducing the time lag considerably.

- Reduced need for job security – The post-liberalization phase has got various types of opportunities for the new generation. After all, who would have heard of a social media marketer till a few years back.

- Need for faster gratification – Gone are the days when you could tell your team members that things would be taken care of in the next appraisal cycle. Gen Y is looking for instant gratification for their efforts and have no qualms in moving ahead if they feel that they have been shortchanged. That is why we see a large number of employees leaving without a job and not being overly concerned about finding another.

- Greater self-confidence – With more exposure and information at their fingertips, Gen Y is forever confident about themselves. They are ready to take on the most difficult of challenges at the earliest in life and are not scared of anything.

While some others have not…

- Need for recognition and differentiation – Gen Y needs to be recognized and appreciated for the work they do. And this is no different from our seniors. There has to be a clear line of sight of what they are expected to deliver and the underlying rewards.

- See value in what you do – Gen Y is very conscious of what they do and their need to bring in value to what they do is very similar to what the senior management is looking for.

- Responsibility and Ownership of work – While Gen Y maybe perceived as being obnoxious and aggressive, they are as responsible and like to maintain ownership of what they do as their predecessors.

- Need to make an impact – Gen Y wants to make an early impact in whatever they do. While the timeframe might be different, the ideology is similar to what the senior management thinks and desires.

So there are some areas where Gen Y is different, but the basic ideology is still very similar to what is desired at the top. Our management needs to understand that things/ideas/modes have evolved and channelize these energies to make the best us of them.

How the Work Ethic has evolved!

The concepts of ‘work’ and ‘job’ have undergone a sea change over the past few years. Our parents’ generation believed in the ‘One life one job’ concept and we see numerous cases from that generation where they have spent their entire lives in one organization.

The work ethic has evolved over the years and the concepts at the workplace have also changed. The ‘Pentium’ kids (those born with a computer at hand all the time) are most comfortable with communication and digitized mediums and have very different concepts relating to the age-old definitions:

Loyalty – While our Parents generation believed in spending one life in one job, the Millennials are most comfortable with their own development and look at constant and accelerated growth for themselves. This is the reason we see a lot of resumes these days with an average of 1.5-2 yrs per job. Organizations are also waking up to this fact and are realizing the value of employees who can contribute well over a period of 2-3 years.

Respect – Our Parents grew up with the concept of respecting seniors at the workplace because of their age and the fact that a senior might have a spent a decade more than them working in the organization. Gen Y, on the other hand, has a practical approach towards the concept of respect, They respect you if they feel the need to. Respect at the workplace is earned by your actions rather than the number of grey hair that you have.

Communication – Our parents grew up in the age where there was no Internet, no mobile phones, no ‘Google’, etc. The Pentium kids take all these things for granted and resources such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other networking mediums are available 24X7.

Work Timings – The conventional work timings of 9 to 6 which existed a few years back have also seen major changes. There has been a blurring of lines between working at office, working from home, working on the move, and so on.

Networking – With resources like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc, gaining momentum, the way we network has also revolutionalized. While networking was restricted to office parties for the previous generation, this has turned into a 24X7 activity with ‘always available’ tools gaining ground.

The greatest challenge for the HR department lies in the fact that the expectations of these two sets of employees have to be brought together. The top management team has typically been brought up on the previous generation values but they. in turn, have to manage the millennial employees with a different set of expectations. The HR team has to ensure that both sets of employees are educated about this. It has to be clearly communicated to both sets that different people may have different styles of working. No one style is really wrong. One has to maximize productivity by trying to make the best out of both and breed creativity rather than contempt.

Facebook and Twitter – Should they be blocked in office !

A vociferous NO!!

There are numerous times when we see the page shown below (or something similar telling us that its against organizational policy) in our offices when we try to login to Facebook, Twitter or any of the other social networking websites.

The traditional arguments supporting the blocking of these pages have been:


i) Employees will waste time on these rather than doing actual work – My take on this is that employees are an innovative lot. If they HAVE to waste time, they will find numerous ways to do it. The analogy to this could be that you do not provide telephones at workstations because employees might call up their friends during the day and waste time!!!


ii) Employees might leak confidential information – First of all, employees are not stupid and they understand that this will not be taken lightly by senior management. So they will be extra careful. And if you really have an employee doing this deliberately, then he really has no business being part of the organization in the first place.


Even if organizations keep banning these websites, smart-phones are an obvious option that the employee has to access them 24x7. Smart-phones have penetrated deep into the Millennial and the Gen Y population and are no more restricted to the corporate boys, as signified by the new Vodafone-Blackberry ad.


From the business point of view, I will take the example of 2 types of organizations to push my case for NOT banning social networking websites and how these could help in the long run:

• Service based Organizations – It is critical that these types of organizations keep an open ear to what is being said about them in the marketplace. And Facebook is the biggest marketplace in the world today. Last heard, if Facebook was a country, it would be the 3rd biggest in the world. So that’s the size we are talking about. Consumers who thrive on sharing information are on the rise and they do not hesitate to put real time feedback on Twitter for ex.,
• “Having Cappuccino at XYZ Coffe Place..the service sucks!
• “The new XYZ mobile service rocks!....Just had a smooth conversation in a lift 3 levels below the ground floor ”

One can imagine the kind of impact these simple tweets can have on the group of people listening to this conversation on the web.

• Sales based Organizations – With social networking websites garnering huge membership figures, it is essential that the conversations in these maintain a positive note. Any negative discord has to be handled quickly and efficiently. These websites have taken word-of-mouth publicity to levels never ever imagined a few years back.
  
  
  
  
  
  Just imagine if a marketer was listening to the natural conversation above…

And users consider this publicity GENUINE, simply because it is coming from people they know and it is taking natural conversations onto the cyber space. Apart from the genuineness, marketers can use these to increase visibility as well as get on-the-spot feedback on what people think about new schemes/ launches / products, etc.


In effect, what I am trying to say is that these websites can actually add value to the business. And my belief is that the HR function’s role is complete only when it can help in adding value to the business.


So we need to come out of the old mindset and start exposing employees and our marketers to this ongoing revolution and modify our policies to accept these changes. The insightful Dilbert sums up my discussion: