About 10 years ago I was having my annual holiday party, and my niece had come with her newly minted M.B.A. boyfriend. As he looked around the room, he noted that my employees seemed happy. I told him that I thought they were.
Then, figuring I would take his new degree for a test drive, I asked him how he thought I did that. "I'm sure you treat them well," he replied.
"That's half of it," I said. "Do you know what the other half is?"
Read the article at: http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=115335182&gid=2234494&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Ffinance%2Eyahoo%2Ecom%2Fcareer-work%2Farticle%2F109063%2Fthe-secret-to-having-happy-employees%3Fmod%3Dcareer-leadership&urlhash=qypA&trk=news_discuss
Showing posts with label employee satisfaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label employee satisfaction. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Overcoming Cynicism, Misconceptions, and Apathy about Employee Engagement
Written by: Leigh Branham and published with permission by Canadian Management Centre
Will the new decade bring new hope or just more cynicism to the business world? You may have seen this recent Dilbert cartoon, printed last month in the winter of our recessionary discontent:
Dilbert's Boss: "We need more of what the management experts call employee engagement. I don't know the details, but it has something to do with you idiots working harder for the same pay."Dilbert: "Is anything different on your end?"Dilbert's Boss: "I think I'm supposed to be happier."
The cartoon was an instant classic. Unfortunately, it captured the deep employee cynicism about the most highly misunderstood business buzzword of the decade just ended. As the cartoon suggests, many employers have earned the cynicism by invoking the term "employee engagement" to mean "doing more with less"-aburden to be borne by employees. Consider the following recent survey reports:
Seventy-two percent of companies have reduced their workforces in response to the recession, according to Towers Perrin
The number of actively disengaged workers increased from 3 percent to 24 percent in organizations that have laid off employees, Gallup researchers found Watson Wyatt's Employee Engagement Index declined 9 percent for all employees from 2008 to 2009. More importantly, among top-performing employees, engagement dropped a much steeper 23 percent.
Read the entire article: http://www.trainingindustry.com/training-outsourcing/articles/overcoming-cynicism.aspx
Will the new decade bring new hope or just more cynicism to the business world? You may have seen this recent Dilbert cartoon, printed last month in the winter of our recessionary discontent:
Dilbert's Boss: "We need more of what the management experts call employee engagement. I don't know the details, but it has something to do with you idiots working harder for the same pay."Dilbert: "Is anything different on your end?"Dilbert's Boss: "I think I'm supposed to be happier."
The cartoon was an instant classic. Unfortunately, it captured the deep employee cynicism about the most highly misunderstood business buzzword of the decade just ended. As the cartoon suggests, many employers have earned the cynicism by invoking the term "employee engagement" to mean "doing more with less"-aburden to be borne by employees. Consider the following recent survey reports:
Seventy-two percent of companies have reduced their workforces in response to the recession, according to Towers Perrin
The number of actively disengaged workers increased from 3 percent to 24 percent in organizations that have laid off employees, Gallup researchers found Watson Wyatt's Employee Engagement Index declined 9 percent for all employees from 2008 to 2009. More importantly, among top-performing employees, engagement dropped a much steeper 23 percent.
Read the entire article: http://www.trainingindustry.com/training-outsourcing/articles/overcoming-cynicism.aspx
Monday, June 22, 2009
Why Employees are not Happy and Engaged
by Hubert Rampersad
Personal Balanced Scorecard as Roadmap for Employee Happiness and Engagement.
Lack of engagement is endemic, and is causing large and small organizations all over the world to incur excess costs, under perform on critical tasks, and create widespread customer dissatisfaction. The annual financial loss in the US due to disengagement of managers and employees is about $300B US (Gallup Poll, 2005). Improving organizational performance requires a highly engaged and happy workforce. Research on happiness in the workplace suggests that worker well-being plays a major role in organizational performance and that there is a strong relationship between worker happiness and workplace engagement. Our own research indicates that no organization is free of the issue. But what is being done about it? This article entails some new and unique principles that will help organizations tread the above mentioned problems and the demanding and often frustrating road towards sustained employee engagement improvement and stress reduction. Remember what Charles Handy said: "The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just through growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul".
What ever happened to employee engagement? Lack of engagement is endemic, and is causing large and small organizations all over the world to incur excess costs, under perform on critical tasks, and create widespread customer dissatisfaction. For example, in Europe it is estimated that what we call mental absence, when the employee's mind is elsewhere than at work, is costing $30,000 per employee per year. It is the same story in the US. "The trend is disheartening", said Optimize magazine in April 2005. "Since 1995, according to a new survey by The Conference Board, appreciably fewer Americans are satisfied with their work. And it's not just one or two facets of work that's making them crankypick a topic, and there's dissatisfaction. Take vacation policies. In 1995, 56% were satisfied. Ten years later, the figure is 51%. Satisfaction with physical facilities is down to 52% from 56%. Age and income don't matter either; the trend is all downward." The average U.S. worker wastes more than two hours a day, and that's not including lunch, according to a new Web survey by America On-line and Salary.com. That means companies spend as much as $759-billion (U.S.) on salaries annually for which they receive no apparent benefit, the research found." Our own research indicates that no organization is free of the issue. But what is being done about it?
The premise of this article is that self-examination is the only road to sustaining employee engagement. In fact, it is the only road for gaining it in the first place. Enter the Personal Balanced Scorecard The Personal Balanced Scorecard (PBSC) is a new personal approach to non-work and work performance founded on self-examination. The thinking process and mind-set change that provide its basis are designed to prepare you for action and, just as important, for inner involvement in your work. The two together foster resolution, passion and energy. The underlying principle is quite straightforward. By writing down your PBSC, you put a mirror in front of you. As you acquire insights, you become more pro-active and self-assured, and find you will learn faster and think more clearly. The PBSC is a scorecard of your work and non-work, encompassing your personal mission, vision, key roles, critical success factors, objectives, performance measures, targets and improvement actions, divided along four perspectives: internal, external, knowledge & learning, and financial. It draws on what is important to you, such as your personal habits, skills and behaviors. These are pointed to your personal well-being and success in society. Your personal ambition (personal mission, vision, and key roles) enables you to express your personal intentions, identity, ideals, values, and driving force, as well as gain more insight into yourself.
The elements of the PBSC are divided among the following four perspectives: 1. Internal: your physical health and mental state. How can you control these in order to create value for yourself and others? How can you remain feeling good in your skin at work as well as in your spare time? 2. External: relations with your spouse, children, friends, employer, colleagues, and others. How do they see you? 3. Knowledge and learning: your skills and learning ability. How do you learn, and how can you remain successful in the future? 4. Financial: financial stability. To what degree are you able to fulfill your financial needs?
These four fundamental perspectives form an integral part of your personal ambition, and together with your personal critical success factors form the bridge between personal ambition (long term) and personal objectives, performance measures, targets and improvement actions (short term). The PBSC can be defined as follows in formula form: PBSC = personal mission + vision + key roles + critical success factors + objectives + performance measures + targets + improvement actions (divided along the four perspectives: internal, external, knowledge & learning, and financial).
Personal Balanced Scorecard as Roadmap for Employee Happiness and Engagement.
Lack of engagement is endemic, and is causing large and small organizations all over the world to incur excess costs, under perform on critical tasks, and create widespread customer dissatisfaction. The annual financial loss in the US due to disengagement of managers and employees is about $300B US (Gallup Poll, 2005). Improving organizational performance requires a highly engaged and happy workforce. Research on happiness in the workplace suggests that worker well-being plays a major role in organizational performance and that there is a strong relationship between worker happiness and workplace engagement. Our own research indicates that no organization is free of the issue. But what is being done about it? This article entails some new and unique principles that will help organizations tread the above mentioned problems and the demanding and often frustrating road towards sustained employee engagement improvement and stress reduction. Remember what Charles Handy said: "The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just through growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul".
What ever happened to employee engagement? Lack of engagement is endemic, and is causing large and small organizations all over the world to incur excess costs, under perform on critical tasks, and create widespread customer dissatisfaction. For example, in Europe it is estimated that what we call mental absence, when the employee's mind is elsewhere than at work, is costing $30,000 per employee per year. It is the same story in the US. "The trend is disheartening", said Optimize magazine in April 2005. "Since 1995, according to a new survey by The Conference Board, appreciably fewer Americans are satisfied with their work. And it's not just one or two facets of work that's making them crankypick a topic, and there's dissatisfaction. Take vacation policies. In 1995, 56% were satisfied. Ten years later, the figure is 51%. Satisfaction with physical facilities is down to 52% from 56%. Age and income don't matter either; the trend is all downward." The average U.S. worker wastes more than two hours a day, and that's not including lunch, according to a new Web survey by America On-line and Salary.com. That means companies spend as much as $759-billion (U.S.) on salaries annually for which they receive no apparent benefit, the research found." Our own research indicates that no organization is free of the issue. But what is being done about it?
The premise of this article is that self-examination is the only road to sustaining employee engagement. In fact, it is the only road for gaining it in the first place. Enter the Personal Balanced Scorecard The Personal Balanced Scorecard (PBSC) is a new personal approach to non-work and work performance founded on self-examination. The thinking process and mind-set change that provide its basis are designed to prepare you for action and, just as important, for inner involvement in your work. The two together foster resolution, passion and energy. The underlying principle is quite straightforward. By writing down your PBSC, you put a mirror in front of you. As you acquire insights, you become more pro-active and self-assured, and find you will learn faster and think more clearly. The PBSC is a scorecard of your work and non-work, encompassing your personal mission, vision, key roles, critical success factors, objectives, performance measures, targets and improvement actions, divided along four perspectives: internal, external, knowledge & learning, and financial. It draws on what is important to you, such as your personal habits, skills and behaviors. These are pointed to your personal well-being and success in society. Your personal ambition (personal mission, vision, and key roles) enables you to express your personal intentions, identity, ideals, values, and driving force, as well as gain more insight into yourself.
The elements of the PBSC are divided among the following four perspectives: 1. Internal: your physical health and mental state. How can you control these in order to create value for yourself and others? How can you remain feeling good in your skin at work as well as in your spare time? 2. External: relations with your spouse, children, friends, employer, colleagues, and others. How do they see you? 3. Knowledge and learning: your skills and learning ability. How do you learn, and how can you remain successful in the future? 4. Financial: financial stability. To what degree are you able to fulfill your financial needs?
These four fundamental perspectives form an integral part of your personal ambition, and together with your personal critical success factors form the bridge between personal ambition (long term) and personal objectives, performance measures, targets and improvement actions (short term). The PBSC can be defined as follows in formula form: PBSC = personal mission + vision + key roles + critical success factors + objectives + performance measures + targets + improvement actions (divided along the four perspectives: internal, external, knowledge & learning, and financial).
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Fixed Grin, Satisfaction and Distrust
By Martin Kornacki (ASTD)
The job market may be bleak, but those of us still in work are reporting an increase in job satisfaction. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) employee outlook survey of 3,000 workers found the proportion satisfied with their job almost doubled since 2006. But despite the positive mood among staff, around half said there had been an increase in office politics, stress and uncertainty as a result of the recession and just under a fifth said their employer had cut back on training.
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