Sirona Says

Would these employee benefits help keep you at a company?

We all know that as the market is fast picking up, the passive employees are slowly becoming 'un-passive' and seeing what else is out there in the job market. Coupled to this, there is the tranche of recruiters and organisations now actively targeting passive job seekers (social media has REALLY helped this).

Companies (if they haven't done so already) should be actively looking at retention NOW! I saw a post on MindFlash.com and liked some of the things other companies have done in this area. Not huge things, but the little perks that we all like. Would they make you stay at an employer? Maybe not 100%, but they will certainly help!
Which one of these examples below is your favourite? Mine is between the MillerCoors PubClub, and the Quicksilver surfing time!

So now it is your turn - what have been the best perks/benefits you have had at an employer, past or present?

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Does your employer even care about employee engagement?

 

The UK is returning to work after the combination of Easter and May Bank Holiday. There will be a good few people I am sure, wishing that they didn't have to go to work today for their current employer! My daughter,was one of them. She is a classic gen Y, and while she works hard, put in the hours and has good performance reviews for her employer (a global PLC), she is not engaged in any way shape or form!

I meet and talk to HR and recruitment teams for companies large and small, and many of them believe that they have an engaged workforce. But what is the reality? And quite frankly, without expensive employee engagement surveys, is it even possible to measure it accurately?

I came across a blog post on MindFlash and liked the way that they break down employee engagement into five levels, shown below:

I love the definition of the middle ground of engaged employees - Hamsters - they spin their wheels on the non-essential tasks! [people who have medium to high satisfaction with their employer that have a low contribution level]

So where do you sit in the scale of 1 to 5? >> Go on, be honest with yourself!

Can you honestly say you're fully engaged with your employer and happy with your work? If you are 'Crashed and Burned' or 'Disengaged' , are you even going to do anything about it?

Employee engagement should be a core business strategy. Personally, I am not convinced that the majority of companies even think about it, and of course then wonder why they have a staff retention issue.

So, back to my daughter. What's she doing about it? She is gen Y employee stuck in a very large 'traditional' organisation, that talks about being focused on its employees, but is ultimately reliant on the calibre of their local managers. If these managers are not bought into company philosophy on employee engagement (if there even is one), then what hope do the employees actually have.
You can make your own mind up, in regards to what she plans to do, but it isn't hard!

Do companies actually care whether they have engaged employees? After all for the past few years, they have been able to recruit people easily enough from the masses. But what about the future - surely they will be the first to suffer, won't they?  And what do you do as an employee, with an engagement level of 4 or 5 (from above) - do you stay, know you are unhappy but doing enough to stay in your job, or do you do something about it?

Or maybe you are content to sit nicely snug in your hamsters wheel?

[For the full infographic from Mindflash click here]

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The recruitment reality check: Your employees are leaving sometime soon!

Are you one of those companies who like sticking your fingers in your ears, while singing 'la la la' out loud. hoping that it won't happen to you? Come on, you know you are!
After all, all your staff are happy, you have a great employer brand and everything is 'nice and dandy' with your employees, right?

WRONG!

You need to order in some of the reality check cookies and start munching away quickly. Whatever you think you are as an employer and however loyal you think your employees are........... think again - we have entered a very interesting recruitment phase at the moment, that doesn't appear too often.

Some economists would probably call it, 'post recessionary recruitmentism' or some other 'over-clever' mumbo jumbo .................. for me it much simpler. I just call it recruitment reality.

We are coming out of recession (well most places are, anyway) , M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) activity is buoyant again and there is (finally) talk of large hiring strategies again. Things are already changing fast with regards to candidate availability, as recruitment markets are quickly picking up again - most recruitment agencies have been seeing a surge in demand for candidates now for the last few months. For many it is the busiest they have been for the last 2-3 years.

So what is going to happen?Here are my five 

1. It's hemorrhage time (go on sing it to MC Hammers famous song - you know you want to!). Candidate attrition has been still running at just over 18% on average  during the recession. This would mean that you would lose one in five of your workforce this year. BUT, realistically this could double if not treble over the next 12 months, as candidates start sticking their heads above the parapet again.  - Yes! Many companies will have staff turnover rates of well over 50% in the next 12 months!!!  What are you going to do about it then?  Are you ready to replace half your workforce? Where are you going to find them from? When was the last time you looked at your career site? You need to have a recruitment strategy in place (NOW!) just to maintain your existing workforce levels.
2. Past employers will return like Great White sharks. Remember they couldn't get rid of their employees quick enough two years ago could they?  You snapped up some great catches then, didn't you? Well, now they are leaner and meaner and ready to come hunting for your staff. And don't think your employees won't consider going back, they will for the right package - the recession has taught them to forget about loyalty (unfortunately) and focus on themselves and their own needs (perceived or real). You won't know anything about it until they are gone!
3. Recruitment agencies are also sniffing for blood. A fact of employment life is that your good staff WILL be getting calls from recruiters, looking to prise them from your company. Ignore this fact at your peril - a good recruiter is like a pitbull - once they have the teeth into your employees, they just simply won't let go, until they get what they want - your staff!
4. Thanks to social media it has made it even easier to find your employees!! To be fair, it has never been easier to find candidates, what with LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs and of course Google. Obviously 'finding' candidates isn't recruiting them, and that is a whole different ballgame! But, they are there waiting to be found, and there is nothing you as an employer you can do to stop that happening.
5. Finally, what about all the 'regular ordinary workers' - your company's lifeblood -  out there, that are unhappy in their work? There are many! During the recession, they just keep their heads down, grateful for continued employment. Now the grass is looking greener again. They have started to realise that there are more jobs out in the marketplace again. They are starting to actually look for jobs again! >>> Now this is a BIG problem. These are the workers who you BELIEVE to be your loyal subjects, and happy in their work. When was the last time you said (about them) "they won't leave, they are like part of the furniture here" to a colleague? Don't say I didn't warn you - they WILL be walking out the door sometime soon!!

Now you may feel I am being a little over dramatic here - I just wish I was. I am having these conversations with companies every day - they are seeing their staff leave EVERY day, and yes they can counter offer, but that is only temporary. I read a survey last month that said 84% of all employees expect (or want) to change jobs in the next 12 months - now that is scary stuff!
Employee engagement, employer brand and (dare I say it) salary package reviews are all areas of focus at the moment, but is it too late for your company?

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Making Employee Engagement and Social Recruiting Real - a great case study from TGI Friday's

If you were looking for examples of great employee engagement and social recruiting case studies, you wouldn't necessarily think of the restaurant where you take the kids for a treat, have a boozy work night out or where you can have a few cocktails while chatting to your mates.

TGI Fridays have actually been ahead of the social curve. They saw the potential of the word 'social' as early as 2008 - funnily enough at the World Bartending Championships, at the Bellagio Hotel, in Nevada Las Vegas.
They realised that amongst the hype, fun, razzamataz and euphoria of this event there was a way that it could all be transplanted into everyday life within the company......after all it did personify the ethos of what TGI Friday employees were all about! They already had an amazing culture full of great characters, events, stories and experiences but needed to bring this all together and leverage it in corporate terms. They recognised the power of their potential employment brand when it came to recruitment, and became one of the first companies to engage in social recruiting.

So the challenge was set….. to make the amazing culture of TGI Friday’s visible to an internal and external audience to get greater value from an existing but underutilised asset - their employees. 

Enter the solution provider - CultureBank. They developed a platform (website) that enabled them to leverage social media in celebration of the great people who work at Fridays for them to tell their stories, post their pictures and videos and create a truly honest reflection of the culture and brand. And did I mention it had to be fun at the same time?

The solution was a recruitment website www.fridoids.co.uk

The results have been excellent:

Recruitment
The peer generated content distributed by the employees has been a highly engaging and effective recruitment channel generating:
• 20% more visitors
• 625% increase in page views
• 655% increase in time spent
Another interesting fact is that Facebook is referring more traffic than media buys!

A manager's job, warts and all !

Training
They run competitions that enable people to demonstrate their skills and knowledge, helping them to develop themselves in the process.
Check out Ro-Be's video of him showing his bar skills.

Employee Engagement
They engaged their existing employees in their employment proposition as well as potential candidates resulting in an amazing £5 million pounds saved in a year!

Employer Branding and Reputation
They created an honest picture of the business from the stories, pictures and videos of their employees… warts and all! The employees have produced hundreds of positive stories, pictures and videos about their experiences at work and why they love working at TGI's, creating a great example of their employer brand.
The staff love working there and are happy to share this with everyone.

Culture Change
Surely the best person to comment is the UK Managing Director of TGI Friday's, Karen Forrester, ‘Fridoids acts as a beacon for the great culture of TGI Friday’s, helping us to ensure that the culture exists right across the business”.

Go and have a look at the Fridoids site, it really is an inventive way of creating employee engagement. If you are looking to work at TGI's then the site leaves you with no illusions of what to expect!

For me, what is great about this case study is the definition of 'social'. This example is definitely about social media - the sharing of content and the viral aspect of communication. BUT, they have not yet embraced Facebook or Twitter effectively - those two channels could have so much potential for them with all that content!
However you could argue (and very much so), that by having such a content rich and easy to use platform (it is built on the Wordpress blog platform after all) they don't need to be sending people to Facebook or Twitter, as they have it all on the Fridoids site. 

I really like the approach Culture Bank took with this project, and it shows that all that is needed is a good platform, vision and some imagination....and of course a company that is happy to tell the world about themselves!

What do you think?

Would your company be this brave, and share this much information about your employees and your workplace with the outside world? 

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Guest blog: Is employee engagement really just about good communication?

 

Last week I had the pleasure of talking to Pam Kennett from a company called Chiswick Consulting. They do alot of work around organisational effectiveness, and improving the way companies work.

One of the parts of our conversation, revolved around communication, and how poor it is within many companies - specifically around employee engagement. It resonated so well with me I asked if she would write a guest post on this subject, and she kindly obliged. Here is Pam's guest blog:

It's not engagement, it's communication

I know I keep banging on about communication and how important it is to business success, but I was recently reminded of just HOW important with a few stunning statistics:

•    Highly engaged employees can improve business performance by up to 30 percent
•    Fully engaged employees are 2.5 times more likely to exceed performance expectations than their ‘disengaged’ colleagues.

Of course you may want to define what we mean by ‘highly’ or ‘fully’ engaged versus ‘disengaged’ but if we think about the bigger picture and potential, it’s quite amazing.

Just think what would happen to your business if your performance improved 30% with the same resources? That’s 30% on your bottom line profit is it not?

Now you may be thinking that engagement takes money and that in a recession you don’t have any money to invest. But it doesn’t have to. Engaging with employees is nothing more than keeping the lines of communication open. And given more than 1/3 of employees plan to change jobs once the recession is over, communicating with them now is likely to manage unwanted staff turnover.

An example of how communication (or ‘engagement’ if you prefer) was used to help reduce costs and raise performance is from North Dorset Council.

In 2006, North Dorset was told it had to save £2.4 million when central government slashed its budget by a quarter. You would think this would have a serious negative impact on morale and yet a recent survey found that staff felt both supported and happy. On top of this, the authority has exceeded savings targets by more than half a million pounds.

They did this by communicating and asking staff to help cut costs, prioritise investment and plan change.

Every year since 2006 the council have asked their staff to find savings in their budgets. For every £25,000 in savings they find, they save a job.

The council also went out to the public to communicate with them and had open and frank discussions about the budget situation and asked them what they thought was the best way to achieve the savings. They planned future cuts well in advance and communicated changes before they happened.
So what have we learnt from North Dorset that we can apply to our own businesses:
•    Explain where investment is being made in the business and why
•    Engage staff in cost cutting exercises – communicate cost cutting in meaningful ways (eg save £25k and you save a job)
•    If we have to make difficult changes, plan them and introduce them over time
•    If we have to cut services or product lines, focus on delivering the best quality possible and take pride in that
During tough times, it’s even more important to keep communicating with staff. In the absence of information, staff will assume the worst and all that worrying will get in the way of them delivering their job.
George Bernard Shaw said "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." In our current woes, let’s not forgot to communicate and engage with our staff.

Thanks Pam for a great article. If you want to get in contact with Pam then she can be found at pam@chiswickconsulting.com .

If you would like to be a guest blogger on Sirona Says, then please email me with your article idea - please bear in mind it has to be on topic and not an advertorial!

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Are Brands failing to follow the rules of candidate engagement?

While reading Marketing Week yesterday, I came across a a very interesting article entitled, Brands Fail to Follow Rules of Engagement. And while it sits in a marketing magazine, I believe that the same applies to recruitment and candidates.

Research from Targetbase Claydon Heeley (now that's a catchy company name, if ever I heard one!) suggests that the majority of company marketers (for my analogy substitute HR Director) are confident they are engaging with their audiences (for me, prospective employees), while consumers ( the job seekers) believe the opposite.

Here is the summary of their results:

What do you think the results would have been if they had asked HR Directors similar questions?

Do you think that 41% would have selected 'Demonstrating understanding of the customer' (read job seeker)? or 44% would have selected 'Personalised and tailored communications' (with job seekers)?

While I think they may well have made a utopian selection (just to look good in a survey!), experience tells me that, in reality, they actually have no understanding of the job seeker at all!

There are some very good organisations of course - the best I have seen for a while is Deloitte's - , but they, I believe, are currently in the minority........unfortunately.

What do you think? If you substituted a recruitment slant to the title of the table above, would it look much different?

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How to present social media engagement to your employees

I have just seen these two short video's online, on presenting social media engagement to your employees. I think they are an excellent approach by Telstra - the Australian telco - to use social media to encourage the staff to engage via the same media.

See what you think.

This is the introduction video.

Now here is a sample of the training video's - they have already been completed by over 25% of their workforce.

Aren't they good?

While these are a great idea, would they suit your company culture? I would be interested to hear what you think.

And if you think these are funky, check out Telstra's other online social media training material - now they ARE definately  too radical for all but the gen Y'ers in your workforce (well that's my opinion anyway!).

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Should work-life balance be replaced with a new word - 'Weisure'?

Over the last week there has been much talk in the recruitment blogging community of work life balance, and what the reality actually is.

Ever one to have an idea, Bill Boorman, started the whole thing off with a video he posted on You Tube, aptly titled 'The work life balance'. in which he believes there are four areas of balance that are needed in todays busy and hectic lives; Work; Life; Life/Work; Me time. When you listen to it, he will confuse you by inverting work and life, but he has raised an interesting point around a hugely important subject.

If you spoke to my wife (feel free to do so on Twitter -@saraheadworth - by the way!), then she would tell you that my work - life balance is firmly entrenched on the work side! My Blackberry is always at my side, and while I do try to manage my time, it has become part of everyday life.
This means that my 'work brain' is very rarely turned off (much to the disgust of Sara!), and that I am continually considering something to do with work, both consciously and subconsciously. (Yes I know this isn't overly healthy!)
Now you may call this a little sad, especially if you are in a 9-5 job (do they actually exist anymore?) and go home at night, completely detached from work. But, the difference is that I run my own business - my business, by default, then becomes my life. If you then factor in the fact that I really enjoy what I do, then it really doesn't bode well for a solid demarcation line between work and play, does it?

The crux for me is that I enjoy what I do, and for me the social aspect of the web that has 'exploded' over the last couple of years has really added to this. Just in case you think I am a complete addict, I do know where the 'OFF' button is on my Blackberry - I just don't use it often enough!!

I was recently sent some information regarding a forum of 10 HR experts entitled Raging Debates in HR, and some key HR conversations they discussed between them. While reading through it, the subject of 'weisure' was covered by these HR guru's. It makes interesting reading, so I thought I would share some of the responses with you. The question they were asked was:

Is "weisure" good for business or do we need to maintain boundaries between work and leisure?

Peter Capelli: I think the idea that we have a new generation of workers that doesn’t care about boundaries between work and life outside of work is wrong.  It is probably true that many younger workers are willing to have most of their life absorbed by interesting career opportunities, especially when they are living in a new location and have no other ties there. That’s not particularly new.  Once people grow a little older, acquire families and other non-work interests and responsibilities, the intrusion of work into those spaces is an annoyance at best.
David Creelman: Too late.  Weisure is here. Personally I interweave business and pleasure—was that trip to Paris really just to maximize my net present value? But each individual has to find their own way of being.
Kris Dunn (Founder of Fistful of Talent): Unless you are an hourly worker in America, boundaries between work and leisure are dead. Work bleeds into life, and life bleeds into work. People have the smart phone, aka the "digital leash". Work will never be the same. It's already gone.
Richard Hadden: I don’t know if “weisure” is necessarily good for business or not, but I am reasonably convinced that it’s a part of life as we know it in the first decade of the 21st century. If a “weisure” lifestyle is here to stay, there should be limits within which both the employee and the employer should work. It takes organization, skill, discipline, and a measure of assertion, but I believe that the purposes of work and of leisure can be met simultaneously.
Lance Haun: I've fortunately never heard of this term but I don't think it is bad for business. Now it might be bad for the employee but a good employer should recognize the boundary issues and seek to define it for people that have trouble with the concept.
Sharlyn Lauby (President of ITM Group): I’m cool with the idea of weisure. Hate the name…maybe we can call it something else? Reminds me of the band Weezer. Businesses need to deal with work time, productivity and results in the high tech world.


And the last word goes to the lady of Punk Rock HR blog fame……


Laurie Ruettimann: Weisure is an offensive term. Boundaries are healthy and important to maintain. I'm more than just an extension of the company's brand. So are you. Take the day off.

So what do you think? Do you have set rules in place? Do you let you iPhone or Blackberry govern your social activities?

Ultimately Laurie is quite right when she tells us to 'take the day off', and it is a sentiment that my wife would definately echo, but come-on, it doesn't happen anymore does it?

Three big staff motivation assumptions that don't hold water

There is a subject that is sure to get companies talking and that is staff motivation. Judging by the popularity of my last - funny - post, showing  video of some "extreme" staff motivation, people are still intrigued by knowing how best to motivate their staff!

Taking that into account, it probably isn't surprising that, in a typical workplace, only 29% of employees are actively motivated and engaged in their jobs, while 71% are unmotivated and disengaged, according to the Gallup Management Journal’s Employee Engagement Index.

Now anyone who is involved with staff retention, recruitment and HR will have seen an improvement in employee engagement since the recession. This of course is not unnatural, as employees make sure of keeping their heads below the radar, and staying in their jobs. (Whether it fear of losing a job, or improved employee engagement is questionable though!)
But, and it is a VERY BIG BUT - this will start to change as the so-called "Gordan's green shoots" of the economy take effect. With all the lay-offs and staff cutbacks, many companies are now running on less staff while still conducting old levels of business - that means higher workloads, bigger pressures and ultimately reduced employee motivation (for the time being anyway!)

So I get back to the point of this post - staff motivation has again become a topic of increased interest. Can I just say that I am not a psychologist or tefal headed employment professor (although my head is as smooth as a frying pan!), so I don't proclaim to baffle you with theoretical rhetoric. My comments are based on my years of experience working with different companies and seeing different staff are motivated....or not as the case may be!

There have over the years, been traditional methods of motivating your employees, and while they work for the few, employees' expectations are changing, to a point where some of these methods need revising. Here is my take on three of the biggest assumptions made by employers when it comes to staff motivation:

Assumption No.1:  All employees are greedy b***ards and are motivated by money. WRONG!

Everyone assumes that salaries and bonuses are the primary way to an employees' heart. That may be the case if you are an egotistical money grabbing city trader, whose only desire is to worry about the colour of their next Ferrari.
But money is only one factor in motivation, usually appearing below job satisfaction, work life balance, training, work environment, recognition and career opportunities.

Assumption No.2: SSSHHHH... Just keep feeding them sh*t and treating them like mushrooms! WRONG!

Keeping your staff in the dark, feeding them sh*t, and not ever giving them any good news is a surefire way of demotivating your employees. Ever heard of the phrase "spreading like a wildfire"? Well all companies have to do is factor in the instant communication tools out there like the internet, forums, Twitter and texting, and suddenly the so-called "secret" bad news is no longer secret. What does it make the companies look like then? There is nothing worse that having a suspicious workforce who believe (quite rightfully in many cases) that bad news or information is being kept from them. That is when the rumours start and staff become noticeably p***ed off at work.
Some honesty and transparency is all that is needed to make the employees more valued and trusted.

Assumption No.3: "If you don't like it, just leave, there are plenty of others out there!" WRONG!

Some companies believe that wow is the time for them to be arrogant, egotistical and downright disrespectful!!
Yes people need jobs - that is obvious, but to think that employers are working on the concept that staff are 'just grateful' to be in employment, is so dangerous and naive it is scary.
The employees are the lifeblood of any company, large and small, and what some employers are stupidly forgetting is that their employees they have their own mind and a mouth. If they feel that they are being taken for granted they will just walk out of the door, when the time comes.
There are some companies that I have spoken to recently, that have not just been arrogant, but have been downright  and blatantly stupid when it comes to staff retention. They have taken this concept right to the edge, with the attitude of, "if you don't like it, just leave - there are hundreds out there that would snap your job up, so don't think you will be missed"!
I can't wait to see them suffer when the recession starts to ease, and their staff jump ship like drowning rates!


The bottom line is that employees can make a choice - maybe not all of them can just now, but they will be able to soon. And if employers don't actually start to understand their employees and learn how to effectively motivate them, then the recruitment industry will be a busy one in a few months time, back filling employees for these short sighted companies!

Employee engagement: Is it just about satisfying the 'me, me, me' attitude?

According to the Gallup Management Journal’s Employee Engagement Index survey, in a typical workplace:

• 29% of employees are actively motivated and engaged in their jobs

• 71% are unmotivated and disengaged

• 54% are not engaged at all

• 17% are actively disengaged

Many people are just grateful to have a job in this climate - even if they have higher workloads due to less staff to do the work.But experience tells us that when the (eventual) upturn actually happens, employee engagement will get get worse, with the resultant figures above reducing.

But what is interesting is the summary of what workers responding to this survey said they what they want from their managers:

• Focus me
• Know me
• Care about me
• Hear me
• Help me feel proud
• Help me review my contributions
• Equip me
• Help me see my value
• Help me grow
• Help me see my importance
• Help me build mutual trust
• Challenge me

Does this sound about right for your place of work? Are all the employees 'me,me,me' focused? Are there certain industry sectors that are better than others from your experience?

Do these statistics lend more to any of the generational groups? More gen Y or more gen X for example?

What do you think?