2011 June Archive - RecognizeThis! Blog

Archive for June, 2011

SHRM 2011 – It’s All about Culture

Recognize This! – Values are key to your company culture. Recognition is key to making those values real.

SHRM’s annual conference is always an exciting time and a great venue to meet people in person to discuss intriguing ideas and developments in the industry. Keynote speakers, however, tend to be hit or miss. John Hollon summarized well why this is so in TLNT.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, was the most on target keynote presenter – speaking directly to issues and areas of concern that HR pros can influence and one critical area of top-level concern for chief officers – company culture. Though Hsieh spoke primarily on how to create the company you want in a new organization, there are lessons for companies of any age and at any stage of development.

How to Build the Company Culture You Need to Succeed

1) Start with the culture you want. This is the crux of Hsieh’s message. If you’re lucky enough to be in a position of starting a company, institute the culture you want from the beginning. How?

Define the Values – Figure out what values are important to you for how your company will conduct business.
Hire to the Values – Hire employees based on these values and involve as many current employees as possible in the interview process (formally or informally). For example, Hsieh mentioned the value of “Be Humble.” If a candidate interviews well in the formal process, but treats the shuttle driver poorly on the trip to the airport, then the candidate will not be hired.
Manage to the Values – Zappos recently made demonstration of the values 50% of their performance review process. More on that in this post, but in summary, Hsieh said about this: “Employees would no longer be rated on how well they accomplish tasks, such as meeting deadlines or being punctual. Instead, success would be determined by how well employees embody Zappos’ 10 core values.”

2) In a decades-old institution, change to the culture you need. All of Hsieh’s suggestions are good and valid when you have the luxury of starting from scratch in a new organization. But what do you do when you need to change the culture of a decades-old institution? Changing the habits and mindset of entrenched employees and management can be difficult.

This where strategic employee recognition plays a powerful role. By focusing on the values you want to see demonstrated in your desired new culture, then recognizing every demonstration of one of those values by any employee you begin to develop the culture you need. This can only be successful if employees at all levels understand that this change of focus will be long-lasting and not the latest management “fad.” How?

Authenticity – Every recognition given must be authentic, specific and meaningful. An off-the-cuff “Thanks!” has limited value in comparison to a detailed, specific message of praise and appreciation for the value demonstrated and why that effort was important to a greater objective.
Consistency – Authentic messages, inconsistently given, cause any effort at changing company culture through strategic employee recognition to lose its credibility. Leadership must be consistent in how it not only recognizes others’ accomplishments, but also in how it encourages all employees to express appreciation based on the values to their peers and colleagues.
Frequency – Recognition loses its impact and relevance quickly. An employee who is told “Thanks” weeks or months after the event deserving of recognition no longer has a tight connection between the event deserving of recognition and why it is worthy. To make company values come alive – to be real in the daily work of an employee – recognize those employees immediately when they demonstrate a key value. Do not limit this recognition with false quotas, but let those deserving of repeat recognition receive it.

3) Keep your winning culture during leadership transition. Inevitably, someday Tony Hsieh will have to hand over the reins of Zappos to another leader. How can he ensure the culture he has so carefully built will live on after he is no longer an active presence in the company?

Succession plan according to your culture and values – Just as all employees are hired to the values, so should any new senior leader. Those conducting succession planning should always have an eye out for who most understands, respects and wants to perpetuate the culture.
Embed your culture into your corporate brand – If your culture has become part of who the company is in the eyes of consumers (as it has at Zappos and Southwest), it becomes nearly impossible for any subsequent leader to even consider destroying the power of that brand by changing the culture.
Protect your culture tree! – But it can happen. Wally Bock wrote a couple of powerful posts on the importance protecting culture during succession (summarized here) and how failing to do so can dramatically hurt the bottom line. As Wally says: “Culture is a powerful but fragile thing. If you burn down the culture tree, it takes a long time to grow another one.”

The bottom line – recognize and reinforce the values you know are critical to your organization’s success. Do so often, authentically and consistently. Protect the culture and values you’ve worked hard to implement.

Why the Most Popular “Recognition” Program Can Be the Least Effective

Recognize This! – Years of Service programs do little to engage, encourage and reinforce employees.

How important is recognition to employees? A recent study out of Australia reported “employees value their bosses’ ability to give good feedback and recognition more than any other attributes.”

Sadly, I’m not surprised by another finding in the report that “49% of the office staff want their employers to publicly recognize and reward their achievements, yet only 38% of employers plan to recognize top performance in 2011.”

That’s even worse than it sounds. Notice the phrasing – 49% of all employees want more recognition, yet 38% plan to recognize only TOP performers. What about the rest of employees of who are doing good work, demonstrating your company values and helping team members, customers and the company as a whole achieve its goals?

Why do employees want the recognition? It’s not a grab for kudos, as some like to think. No, “they want to know really clearly what is expected of them and whether they are achieving it or not.”

As I’ve said many times, the annual performance review simply doesn’t’ cut it for giving employees the level of feedback they need. Yet, neither does a Years of Service recognition or Employee of the Month designation.

By far the most popular “recognition” program (WorldatWork, Globoforce/SHRM survey), Years of Service “doesn’t move the needle on employee engagement as well as recognition tied to corporate values and the great work employees do,” as Carol Meyers said in last week’s webinar. Years of Service programs have their place in acknowledging employee loyalty over time, but they should never be the primary recognition mechanism in an organization committed to engaging and motivating its employees.

As my Compensation Café colleague Laura Schroeder recently wrote:

“You don’t rely on massive annual processes in other parts of your business. For example, I’m guessing you don’t produce all your widgets in one day or pay all your suppliers once a year because it would be eccentric and inefficient. So why reward people that way?”

Even worse is the traditional Employee of the Month program. These often devolve in one of two ways – either turning into a competition instead of praise and acknowledgment or becoming a “who’s turn is it this month?” exercise. Susan Heathfield summarized the challenges of Employee of the Month programs well in About.com:

“My most important concern with Employee of the Month recognition is that employers will believe their job of creating a motivating, rewarding work environment for employees is complete with this award. Employee of the Month recognition is not a substitute for day-to-day positive recognition, reasonable pay and benefits, company sponsored activities and events, and an environment of appreciation. With so many opportunities available to provide employee recognition, what employees want from work, why offer an Employee of the Month award with its inherent problems?”

Effective recognition occurs in the moment, positively reinforcing in a timely, specific, personal and meaningful way what the employee has demonstrated or achieved that the company needs to see repeated time and again.

What do you think the value is of Years of Service and Employee of the Month programs? What role do you see them playing in employee engagement and culture management?

3 Tips to Keep Headhunters Away from Your Top Employees

Recognize This! – It’s never the employee’s fault if they’re recruited away from your organization.

Who’s fault is it if a headhunter or competitor successfully lures your best employee away?

The headhunter/competitor – He/she shouldn’t have been talking to my employees.
The employee – He/she should know how much we need him.
Your own – You didn’t do enough to “fortify your defenses.”

Given that scenario, the company leadership is the one at fault, every time. More than just Mercer are talking about the high numbers of employees testing the job market. A Portfolio article points out Deloitte research showing 65% of the currently employed are looking, and TalentGuard notes losing a key employee could cost $125,000.

In Fistful of Talent, Josh Letourneau makes a strong argument that it’s up to the company and leadership to create a work environment from which employees cannot be easily headhunted. Check out the post for his three signs you may need to bolster your defenses.

Once you’ve determined that, perhaps, you do need to take steps to make your organization so attractive to employees headhunters won’t even bother, what steps should you take?

Help employees see the meaningfulness of their work within a greater picture by recognizing and rewarding employees based on their behaviors and efforts that reflect your company values and contribute to your strategic objectives.
Take the time to give employees the frequent feedback they need to stay on course and know their contributions are noticed and valued.
Create a culture of recognition in which any employee is encouraged to appreciate and praise any other colleague or peer.

These simple steps, sincerely implemented and frequently followed, will go a long way to keeping the headhunter away from your door.

2 Better Questions to Ask to Assess Employees Looking to Leave

Recognize This! – Employee focus and attention while on the job is more important than assessing their desire to leave.

All over the news and blogs last week were reports about the latest Mercer What’s Working survey. Shock and alarm were expressed at statistics such as 32% of workers are seriously considering leaving their jobs, and 21% are not looking to leave, but are completely disengaged.

TLNT and The Wall Street Journal brought some sanity back to the discussion, reporting also that while this may be true, only 1.4% of employees have voluntarily left their jobs since April.

Taken together, I tend to believe that 21% figure of disengaged employees is actually higher. Combine that with those who want to leave, but can’t for whatever reason. As I’ve written before, that not insignificant percentage of employees are distracted by thoughts, daydreams or plans to leave your organization. They are not fully focused on the task at hand, nor fully engaged in helping you achieve your strategic objectives.

Asking “Would you leave your current job if you could?” is the wrong question.

Perhaps a better question would be: If currently employed, how much effort would you be willing to expend in looking for a new job?

None. I’m happy here.
Maybe 20% effort – If a friend recommended a promising position to me, I’d go for the interview.
Perhaps 40% effort – I’d poke around the job boards at home and on the weekend, maybe send in a few resumes.
At least 60% effort – I’d spend every spare second looking for a new job.
Easily 80% – I have to get out of here and will do whatever it takes.

What could we learn from that question? Three important takeaways:

Level of employee engagement on the job right now
Level of employee distraction from the task at hand
Just how broken the company culture has become

Perhaps the best question would be to ask employees – Rank the following in order of importance to you:

Learning opportunities – I want to constantly be learning or doing something new.
Growth opportunities – I want to be able to move up in my career.
Meaningful work – I want to know that I’m contributing to something greater.
Frequent recognition and feedback – I want to know when I’m doing well and when I need to improve.
A good relationship with my manager – I want to be confident and unafraid at work.
Compensation and benefits – I need to know that I’m paid fairly for my work.

What could HR pros learn from this question? Again, three important takeaways:

In aggregate, where the organization may need to invest more budget.
On an individual basis, what would be most engaging for the employee.
An understanding of where the organization may not be able to meet an employee’s needs, paving the way for more effective talent management and honest conversations.

How would you answer the above two questions? What other questions do you think would get to the heart of employee dissatisfaction and disengagement more effectively?

Designing Effective Employee Recognition * My Mumblr Interview

Recognize This! – Strategic Recognition is very different from old school employee rewards and incentives.

Earlier this month, Abhishek Mittal, author of the Mumblr blog, did me the honor of interviewing me for a post on his blog: Designing an Effective Recognition Program (Interview).

Pop over to Abhishek’s post to see my full answers to these questions:

There is something you call “Strategic Recognition.” Could you share with me what Strategic Recognition is all about and how it benefits organizations?

Strategic recognition is very different from what many people think of as employee recognition and reward programs. It’s much more than a years of service program or sales incentives. And the benefits are proven, significant and attainable by nearly any organization.

Human Resources professionals often draw out recognition programs for their organizations. What are some of the missing ingredients in such programs based on your experience? What are the key elements to consider when designing such programs?

I share the 5 Tenets of Strategic Recognition and how to build them into your employee recognition programs.

Is there a measurable ROI on strategic recognition programs?

Indubitably, yes!

In your opinion, are non-monetary forms of rewards & recognition as effective as monetary forms?

No. Non-monetary rewards and recognition are MORE effective than monetary forms.

Finally, what are 3 recent books that you enjoyed reading?

Click through for my recommendations for summer reading!

I’ve subscribed to Abhishek’s blog for years now and highly recommend his blog to you. I consistently learn something valuable from his insightful posts and commentary on employee engagement, management and human resources.

Tracking Employee Engagement Shouldn’t Start with the Exit Interview

Recognize This! – If employee engagement is your top HR challenge, perhaps you should intervene before people decide to leave.

This week I’ve written about employee engagement and poor management practices leading to RIFs. Last week I wrote about the need for courage to do what is right for your organization, not what is common in others.

Today, I’ll bring it all together with some interesting research just released by Globoforce and SHRM in their 2011 Employee Recognition Tracker Survey. A bit concerning to me are these findings:

The majority (69%) of respondents (HR managers and leaders) said employee engagement was the most important HR challenge they would face in the coming years and yet the primary method used to track employee engagement levels was employee exit interviews (71%). Does anyone else see the incongruity in using exit interviews to track engagement levels? The second most common method, employee retention rates 65%), is little better as it’s purely passive.
The majority of respondents (69%) think employees are not satisfied with the recognition they receive for doing a good job and that managers do not effectively acknowledge or appreciate employees (54%). Yet years of service programs are the most common recognition tool reported (58%). It’s obvious to me acknowledging someone’s contributions every few years – at best – is going to do little to improve employee perceptions of appropriate recognition of their efforts.

For more interesting results from the Employee Recognition Tracker Survey, join the webinar today, 11:30 Eastern, as Globoforce and SHRM representatives unpack the results and share insight into what HR leaders are doing to promote a positive, productive work environment.

Eliminating RIFs through Proper Performance Management

Recognize This! – Poor management is often at the heart of the reason for RIFs, not a poor economy.

How many of you are in organizations that conducted some kind of reduction in force (RIF), layoff, furlough – call it what you will – during the recession or after? Why was that action necessary? Were reasons communicated throughout the organization or where employees left to surmise “because the economy sank and business is bad.”

In her excellent HR Ringleader blog, Trish McFarlane offered a better answer – poor management practices. She cites three basic reasons a RIF is necessary:

Fearful managers – those who would rather hide from poor performers than offer the constructive feedback they need throughout the year to get back on track.
Lazy managers – those who simply don’t want to go through the legal hoops of documentation and firing appropriate for chronic poor performers who should be terminated.
Incapable managers – those “lacking in business acumen” promoted beyond their ability to managerial roles in which they overhire, forcing RIFs.

I’ve perhaps oversimplified, but I do agree with Trish that these types of managers are common in organizations across industries, and they do lead to bloated staff of non-contributors. What do you do about it, especially in an environment reported in the UK (and that I see elsewhere in the world) in which employee confidence and trust in senior leader is at record lows? From a CIPD survey:

“The survey findings highlight the importance of senior leaders in organizations putting even more emphasis during tough times on how they communicate, consult and involve staff where major changes such as restructuring or redundancies are being proposed. Evidence suggests that where employees benefit from effective communication and feel their views matter, and are taken into account before decisions are made, they are more likely to remain engaged in their work and committed to the organization.”

In good times and bad, managers must manage appropriately! Provide consistent feedback and praise throughout the year to encourage high performance and correct poor performance. If necessary, remove poor performers who cannot or will not improve. Keeping them on board conveys a confusing message to employees that poor performance is tolerated.

Should a RIF still be necessary, communicate the reasons to employees, listen to their concerns, and involve them as much as possible in the load-balancing process. As long as actions are not a surprise to employees, trust can remain strong – even in the worst of times.

What are other reasons for a RIF? Is it purely poor management?

Employee Engagement Best Practices

Recognize This! – There’s no “silver bullet” for employee engagement, but there are indisputable key elements to creating an environment in which employees want to engage.

I just finished reviewing an interesting report “Hitting the Right Note: Best Practice Guide to Employee Engagement.” (Summarized and made available for order here) Produced by Osney Media, it offers an interesting summation of much of the research on employee engagement from the last several years.

A few points I found interesting:

Employee engagement definition: A highlight of a CIPD definition of engagement as the intersection between “package” (pay, bonus, benefits), “job satisfaction” (achievement, respect and recognition, autonomy, etc.), and “employability” (career advancement, training and development opportunities, etc.). This intrigued me as it’s a very different take from the usual definition of engagement centered around employee discretionary effort. Three of the biggest employee concerns that affect engagement are addressed, however: am I being compensated fairly, am I acknowledged for the work I do, am I getting the additional development and interesting projects I need to move my career forward.
Positive psychology: Acknowledgment that employees who are truly happy create a “virtuous circle” of increased productivity, satisfaction, meaningfulness of work and a myriad of other benefits.
Measurement: Too many employee engagement surveys are conducted with no plan for what to do with the responses generated and insight gleaned. Surveys are not your answer to employee engagement. Clear communication and appropriate action based on what you may learn from surveys is.
Communication: Reiteration of the importance of communication with a clear strategy and from the top down and then across at all levels is critical to fostering a culture change. No initiative, no matter how well intended or requested by employees will be successful without appropriate communication.

A final thought – a quotation from research by Macey and Schneider:

“There seems to be no silver bullet. … Companies that get these conditions right will have accomplished something that competitors will find very difficult to imitate. It is easy to change price and product: it is another thin to create a state and behaviourally engaged workforce.”

There is no silver bullet. What works for one company may not work for another that faces different challenges, different cultures, different markets. But it’s important to try. Because those who get it right will win in the marketplace.

Happy vs. Satisfied vs. Engaged Employees

Recognize This! – Managers and leadership can only influence so much. Our own attitude is up to us.

As if the discussion over engaged employees vs. satisfied employees wasn’t confusing enough, now let’s toss in happy employees.

An article in Fortune last month pointed out:

“Recent studies have demonstrated that the happier a worker is, the more productive they will be on the job. While an employee may appear engaged in their work, they may not be as effective as they could be if they were happy.”

This makes sense to me. I’ve written for three years now about the importance of increasing employee engagement through frequent, timely and specific recognition of employees who demonstrate company values in their work. Such specific, values-based recognition boosts engagement because it communicates to employees precisely what the company needs them to focus on in their daily tasks and praises them for doing so.

Can this also increase happiness? I think so, largely based on the mountains of research showing people are happier in their work when they feel their efforts have meaning – they are contributing to achieving something larger than themselves. Again, strategic recognition is a powerful means of communicating this.

But let’s be realistic. There are many factors to happiness, some organizations and managers can affect (a good working environment, a culture conducive to happiness at work) and many more they cannot in employees’ personal lives outside of work.

And that’s up to the employee. Happiness is – ultimately – a choice. Our attitude at work is up to us every day. Equally important the attitude we choose can affect the attitude of those around us. Do you choose to be happy?

Having the Courage to Do What’s Uniquely Right for Your Business

Recognize This! –“What everybody else is doing” won’t meet your unique business needs.

As a child did you, like me, use the ever popular “But everyone else is doing it!” whine to try to convince your parents to let you do whatever foolish thing your friends were involved in?

How well did that work for you? It never worked for me. The most common answer I got was, “If everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?” (Oddly, I think this parenting technique is culturally ubiquitous.)

If the “everybody else is doing it” argument didn’t work for you as a child, do you expect it to work any better when you’re proposing a new people process in your organization? Ann Bares wrote well on this in a Compensation Café post summarizing her lessons learned from WorldatWork’s 2011 Total Rewards conference.

“Have we, as a profession, become too mired in discovering and copying what others are doing, at the expense of really learning the business of our businesses and figuring out what will drive their success? Have we bought the lazy premise that simply mimicking the market is a sound reward strategy?”

I think companies have stuck with Years of Service, Employee of the Month, and sales incentive programs as the primary if not only means of employee recognition and reward programs in their organizations for decades for just this reason. “Everybody else is doing it. We’ve always done it this way.”

Of course, I advocate launching an entirely new approach of truly strategic employee recognition that aims to recognize 80-90% of employees based on demonstration of company values in their daily work in contribution to achieving company objectives. Doing so can be frightening – but the rewards are exponential compared to the old-school programs – double digit increases in employee engagement, increased retention and, most importantly, fundamental company culture change.

But you have to have the courage to look beyond “what everyone else is doing,” do the work of looking at your unique business needs, and create the program that meets those unique needs. Sure, check references on vendors. Find out what other people are doing to learn what may work in your organization, too, but don’t blindly copy.

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