Category: employee engagement

ruin your brand

Bad news travels far swiftly. Almost three-quarters (72%) of job seekers say they share negative experiences with companies where they apply online.

Offering a bad experience to potential candidates is, by and large a surefire way to drive your employer brand into the ground.

What’s worse, some initiatives are so simple to implement. So simple, in fact, that it’d be a shame not to do it.

React. A simple message to acknowledge that the candidacy has been received successfully goes a long way. If at all possible, including the typical response time in that message makes a huge difference.

Image ordering online, checking out without any indication whatsoever regarding delivery. How many customers would purchase again with that same company, or leave an enthusiastic review?

one rule

There is one crucial rule Elon Musk forgot about or deliberately chose to disregard.

Recently, some news outlets reported that Musk told Twitter employees they should expect 80-hour workweeks, no more free food, and some other arguably hostile announcements.

Whether it’s personal – or professional relationships, seduction generally works better than coercion.

Maybe, by exemplary leadership alongside creating a culture so good, that people don’t mind working double shifts, employees would automatically choose to go the extra mile.

Maybe, similar to the trend we’re seeing in Silicon Valley at the moment, it’s a (rather harsh) way of letting people go. Threatening them with a bad time could cause employees to pack up and go.

invisible

The notorious double q, “quiet quitting,” isn’t a new phenomenon. What has, however, changed drastically recently is its visibility.

Almost three centuries ago, workers on assembly lines would have people hovering over them while the latter watched the workers and their productivity levels.

Today, Corona has accelerated and increased working-from-home initiatives. Making employees’ productivity, or lack thereof, much less visible.

At the risk of introducing a communistic undertone, Lenin once said, “Trust, but verify.” Without proper initiatives to check in with employees, the risk of them sliding into quiet quitting mode is substantial.

Those initiatives should be tailor-made and personalized. Small talk just won’t cut it. Apply a (scientifically sound) model to measure employee engagement to get ahead of the dreaded double q.

logic shift

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson once went on a camping trip. After dinner with a bottle of wine, they call it a night. A little later, Holmes wakes up and immediately wakes up his trusted friend.

“Watson, look at the sky. What do you see?”

“I see millions of stars, Holmes,” Watson replied.

“So what do deduce from that?”

“Well, astronomically, we can deduce that there are millions of galaxies and planets. Astrologically, I see that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically it tells me that the time is about a quarter past three. Meteorologically we will have a nice day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is mighty and that we are a little and inconsequential part of the universe. What do you see, Holmes?”

Holmes remains silent for a moment. “Watson; this is one of those important moments where we must apply logic. Don’t you see? Someone has stolen our tent!”

We could write books, jampacked with theory around the difficulties in recruiting human resources. Until we deduce that candidates hired leave within the first year. Hiring talent through the front door while the back door remains open isn’t sustainable.

Sometimes we must apply logic and shift perspective.
Retaining talent isn’t enough. Talent remaining onboard against their better judgment isn’t beneficial to either the talent or the employer.
Retention, built on top of engagement, that’s where it’s at.

quiet quitting

Newsflash. Quiet quitting has been around for years. The term might be new, but the phenomenon, unfortunately, isn’t.

In 2016, 50% of employees were looking for another job within the first year of employment. Before the so-called “Great Reset,” only a small percentage actually followed through and changed jobs. The remaining people felt stuck in their jobs, unmotivated, and often actively disengaged.

The cumulative loss in productivity, profits, and personal well-being is straight-up bad.

Identifying which employees are motivated — and to what extent is — possible. The results could be used for job crafting, internal mobility, coaching, and much more.

Currently, those insights are rarely generated, let alone applied. Companies are often forced to react when it’s too late. The potential gains of mapping employee engagement proactively are enormous.

better recognize

The fourth and final pillar in an employee engagement framework for the banking industry is reward and recognition. The model, beautiful in its simplicity, can be relatively easily applied outside of the banking industry.

Earlier I described training and career development, co-worker relationship, and perceived organizational support. Now, let’s take a look at reward and recognition.

Reward and recognition.

A very straightforward yet complicated principle. Credit where credit is due, and a sincere thank you will get you a long way. Back in 1998, Flynn claimed that rewards and recognition activities help the organization build up the confidence level of the employees and improve their motivation and morale. The ultimate aim of a recognition and reward program is to make the employees believe that the organization truly values their contributions.

If done well, this will boost employee engagement and productivity.

The challenge for larger organizations is to reward and recognize their employees sincerely, at scale.

A system that maps professional preferences and soft-skills, is required so managers or HR professionals can tailor their rewards and recognition to a market of one, the employee on the receiving end.

support felt

Perceived organizational support is about as important as training and career development in the employee engagement mix. One particular conceptual framework to map employee engagement in the banking industry is built on four pillars: training and career development, co-worker relationship, perceived organizational support, and reward and recognition. The model is beautiful in its simplicity, and there aren’t many barriers to apply this model outside the banking industry.

Earlier I described training and career development and co-worker relationship. Now, let’s look into perceived organizational support.

Perceived organizational support.

Emphasis on perception. Some organizations think they support their employees quite well, whereas, in reality, the employees indicate feeling little to no support from the organization. Sometimes the underlying reason can be as simple as a misunderstanding. For example, Samia is very ambitious, and naturally, she wants to improve her professional capabilities. Her employer offers courses, online learning tools, and workshops. Except they failed to mention it on numerous occasions. During hiring or pre-boarding, but no later than onboarding, crucial aspects like this should have been brought up.

Organizations seeking out (increased) employee engagement must support their employees. Period. From small, one-off initiatives like a birthday card to large career-spanning initiatives to fully support the people throughout their journey with the company.

One way to go about this is to just ask. Ask the employees what it is they need. Some employees might not be able to vocalize their needs well, which is fine; that’s why a framework to map professional preferences comes in handy.

co-worker combo

Co-worker relationship is the most prominent factor influencing employee engagement in the banking sector. One particular study provides a conceptual framework to map employee engagement in the banking industry, built on four pillars. Training and career development, co-worker relationship, perceived organizational support, and reward and recognition. The model is beautiful in its simplicity, and there aren’t many barriers to apply this model outside the banking industry.

Earlier I described training and career development. (link). Now, let’s look into the co-worker relationship.

Co-worker relationship.

It goes without saying that, depending on the type of job, the kind of co-worker relationships varies. A nurse may have other nurses as colleagues and doctors, to name a few. A junior engineer may be paired with a senior engineer, a project manager, and a tester.

One of the biggest employee engagement boosters is to identify and communicate team roles within a team. When companies help their employees understand their preferred roles within a team, they can build better matches with greater compatibility.

Some people naturally show more leadership characteristics, whereas others are more hands-on. More specifically, some people are helicopters, keeping an overview at all times. Other people are planners, maximizing efficiency within the team.

Different tasks require different team compositions. Start with identifying soft-skills and professional expectations regarding team roles to boost engagement and productivity.

true engagement

An IT support engineer recently asked me if he could call me with good news. I answered; yes, of course.

Amid a rather complex migration issue — one that he’d been working on for quite a while — a new solution manifested itself.

The support engineer said; I can’t tell you how happy I am I found this solution. The intonation and vibe only added credibility to the authenticity with which he relayed the message.

That’s what employee engagement looks like.

job tree

One particular conceptual framework to map employee engagement in the banking industry is built on four pillars. Training and career development, co-worker relationship, perceived organizational support, and reward and recognition. The model is beautiful in its simplicity, and there aren’t many barriers to apply this model outside the banking industry.

In the next few days, I’ll briefly describe each pillar.

Training and career development.

As time progresses, it’s becoming more apparent that one of the best ways to convince people to choose for an employer is the ability of the employer to provide perspective. Not in an old-fashioned kind of way, as in, if you work hard, we’ll bump your salary in eighteen months. If you keep working hard, we’ll bump it again in another eighteen months, and so on…

In this day and age, providing perspective means offering the candidate a map. A map with a pin showing the candidate, today, you are here. Tomorrow, proverbially, these are all the (career) routes you could take. 

Some of them might require hard-skills training. Perhaps additional degrees or certificates are necessary for a follow-on job. Some of them might require soft-skills training. When an employer moves into a managerial position, specific people skills, stress management, and responsibility become increasingly important.

Mapping the current situation, combined with suggesting multiple possibilities and future outcomes, is the foundation for training and career development.

Practical advice: map both people’s and jobs’ hard- and soft-skills to create a tree of internal career possibilities, alongside insight into which skills gaps need to be bridged to move between positions.