The concept of “employee engagement”

Practitioners and academics have argued that an engaged workforce can create competitive advantage. These authors say that it is imperative for leaders to identify the level of engagement in their organization and implement behavioral strategies that will facilitate full engagement.

There is an old truism “people leave managers, not organizations.” This is no longer true. When people leave, it is usually a combination of the organization and all its elements that cause turnover. A bad manager can force someone to leave, but usually there are many other factors that create low performance or a departure. Activities like offsite, food coupons; etc are no more sufficient to motivate employees. Today’s generation needs a new motivational source every month. They need a new purpose to survive and sail the same boat again with a new perspective and dimension.

HR professionals, while wearing their innovative hats, have come up with ideas like conducting Zumba classes and allowing employees to use social networking websites in office. Financial institutions are redefining their mission and values. Pharmaceutical companies are shifting from “drug companies” to “health and wellness companies.” Organizations are trying to re-engage their people by using these employee engagement strategies. Companies should develop an employee engagement calendar like the training calendar that they create at the beginning of the fiscal year so that they have enough budgets and other resources in hand to implement employee engagement.

In fact, I believe the issue of “engaging people well” is becoming one of the biggest competitive differentiators in business. The change we need to make is to redefine engagement beyond an “annual HR measure” to a continuous, holistic part of an entire business strategy. If your people love their work and the environment you have created, they will treat customers better, innovate, and continuously improve your business.

It’s time to rethink the concept of “employee engagement.”

Holes in Glass Ceiling

In recent years, Fortune 500 companies have appointed a good number of women to top jobs. From Meg Whitman at eBay and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook to Indra Nooyi at Pepsico, and Ginni Rometty at I.B.M; but how general is the phenomenon of females rising to the top? Despite the progress that has been made in promoting gender equality in the workplace, it seems only superwomen break through the invisible mental and political barriers (“glass”) and make it to the elite positions (“ceiling”). In some sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing and finance, male-dominated executive suites are still very much the norm.

According to a recent study based on a massive sample of individual income records obtained from Social Security Administration, the holes in the glass ceiling have grown a lot bigger over the last thirty years and that many more women have clambered through them. Despite these improvements, the ceiling remains intact: women still make up less than a fifth of the economic elite. The number of women occupying CXO slots is very less.  Whether a woman is capable or not, she gets rejected on parameters like lack of flexible working hours, family planning, security concerns, etc. Instances when a female employee does not get a project just because it involves travelling late at night, are not uncommon, especially in India.

Few other common perceptions that solidify the glass ceiling include ‘women have mood swings’, ‘women cannot take good decisions’, ‘women are more interested in gossiping at workplace’, ‘women have lesser intellect than the male counterparts’, etc. Such shallow perceptions eventually lead to a reduced representation of the stronger thought (“women”) in the important decision making.

HR professionals need to break the glass ceiling. They have to change the traditional thought process and identify the policies to promote a fair representation of females in the top management per basis performance and capabilities. The upper echelons of corporate world should educate the female employees so that they can advance into management-level positions and break the ‘glass ceiling’.

HR ANALYTICS – This is what all new HR professionals needs to learn

Who are the employees who could potentially leave the organization? Who are the employees who deserve to be aptly rewarded for their contribution to the success of the organization? What is the cost per hire? What is the yield ratio and which hiring method to follow?

‘HR Analytics’ helps in answering such questions that directly affect the growth story of any organization.

Human resources (HR) analytics, also called talent analytics, is the application of sophisticated data mining and business analytics (BA) techniques to human resources (HR) data. HR analytics aims at providing an organization with insights for effectively managing employees so that business goals can be reached quickly and efficiently.

It is dominantly being used for predicting attrition rate, star performers, identifying the skill sets required for a vacancy which assist in CV short listing, manpower planning, combination of benefits preferred by various age groups, training needs, succession planning and the list goes on. Various companies like Google, Sears, Accenture, Well Fargo and many more are using HR analytics.

Almost all such problems can be solved by using one or more techniques, which can be broadly classified into two categories-

• Quantitative techniques which are of seven types- time series, moving averages, exponential smoothing, index numbers, regression analysis, econometric models and input-output analysis
• Qualitative techniques which can be divided into two types- expert opinion and consumer survey method. Consumer survey can be conducted in three ways- complete enumeration, sample survey and end-user survey

 

For carrying out complex analysis several tools such as Statistical Analysis System (SAS) or R Programming can be used. The challenge here is to identify what data should be considered and how to use the same to model and predict capabilities so the organization gets an optimal return on investment (ROI) on its human capital.

To change the perception of HR department from “maintenance department” to “revenue turnaround engine”, right metrics such as ‘incremental revenue contribution per employee’, ‘the change a new hire will bring in the sales’, ‘the percentage change in attrition rate’, etc. should be defined and measured to understand the effectiveness of HR professionals.

Reducing cross generational gap with Reverse Mentoring

The ever evolving technology has become a source of concern for the leaders of the organizations. There is a difference in the wavelength of today’s generation and leaders due to the cross generational difference. It is the need of the hour for the leaders to understand the needs and demands of the youth in order to cater to them.

In today’s scenario, it is common for a new joiner to have a better understanding of the technology than a person who has been in the business for more than a decade. Therefore, the role of mentors has been reversed from the conventional manner. The leaders are the mentee and the juniors have become the mentors. The GE former chairman Jack Welsh was among the first people to implement reverse mentoring in 1999.

The objective behind Reverse Mentoring is to stay updated and ahead of your competitors. In order to stay in the competition and exceed the expectations of the customers, you need to identify the need of the consumer of which he/she is self not aware of.

So, if you are a budding organization and want to implement Reverse Mentoring program, you need to follow the below mentioned simple steps –

1. Identify the leaders who wants to be a mentee
2. Identify the fresh talent who will be the mentors
3. Preferably mentor – mentee who have similar interests should be tied together
4. Set up frequent meetings so that exchange of knowledge can take place
5. Conduct mid-point meeting with both mentors and mentees (ideally separately) to see how they are getting on
6. Work on the feedback and continue the cycle

Following the above mentioned six steps can do wonders for the company, provided there is a trust and comfort level between the mentor and mentee. The major challenges in conducting reverse mentoring program in the company are the following –

1. Lack of commitment to work
2. Lack of ability to learn after a time
3. Removing the barriers of seniority
4. Overcoming the fear of role reversal
5. Investing time willingly

But despite the challenges, a number of companies are able to successfully implement the program like Accenture, Cisco and P&G.

I believe that the biggest advantage of the program is the cost. There is no additional cost incurred since you are utilizing the existing human capital of the company, which is a very important point from a human resource perspective. Just to forecast its effect in future, I can see that companies may make it mandatory to have a fresh talent as a member of the strategic decision making team. The motive behind it would be to incorporate the youth perspective in the strategies. Also, it will enrich the culture of the organization by making it more performance based driven rather than seniority based and encourages free flow of thoughts and knowledge.