Employee Performance Archives

Can Gamification Help Employees Beat The “Great Gloom”?

November 10, 2023/Company Culture, Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Employee Retention, Gamification, Podcast, Podcast Recap, Podcast Recaps /by Meghan M. Biro

Whoosh! The winds of workforce change continue blowing in every direction. Are you feeling it?

First, the pandemic forced employers to go all-in with remote work. Then by 2021, forward-thinking leaders rolled out hybrid work models, hoping flexibility would keep the “Great Resignation” at bay. No such luck. By last year, turnover reached record highs as employee engagement continued to sink.

What’s next? Well, now, in the face of broader economic troubles, many employees are choosing to stay put. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re happy. Not at all. In fact, researchers say the “Great Gloom” is upon us. Oh my. Yet another buzzword. And this one doesn’t sound promising for anyone.

What exactly should we make of this current wave of workforce discontent? It seems we’ve arrived at a sort of no man’s land, where people are neither engaged nor disengaged — just discouraged and disheartened. But that won’t steer anyone in the right direction. So what’s an employer to do?

This brings me to a topic we’ve discussed before — gamification.

Why It’s Time to Get Serious About Gamification

After so much disruption, some employers may welcome this pause as a moment of relief. But no one can afford to get too comfortable. If the past few years taught us anything, we know this isn’t over. Profound shifts will continue, even if we can’t see what’s around the corner. So, how can teams move forward and perform their best, while rolling with more organizational twists and turns?

I think gamification is part of the answer. I’m not just talking about fun and games, here. I’m talking about thoughtful strategies that fit into everyday work culture and tap into innate human traits, like curiosity and the desire to perform at our best.

We know from experience that gamification works for everything from recruiting and onboarding to team building and talent development. And these capabilities are within nearly every employer’s reach. So what are you waiting for?

What’s at Stake

Gallup estimates that employers lose $1 trillion each year to voluntary turnover. A majority of those former employees say their manager or organization could have done something to keep them. But companies aren’t asking, “How could we keep these people onboard?” until they’re already gone.

And now, even though more employees are staying, many are as disengaged and unfulfilled as those who left during better economic times. That’s not a good sign for business.

Success depends on productive teams — and productive teams depend on competent, committed employees. But building a high-performance culture isn’t easy, especially when remote and hybrid work schedules make communication, trust, and teamwork harder to manage. It sounds like a job for gamification.

Tips From a Gamification Expert

This reminds me of a previous #WorkTrends podcast guest who recommends that employers tap into the power of gamification to elevate the employee experience.

Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks is the Founder of Keep Wondering Out Loud (KeepWOL), a game-centered talent development platform she developed after 14 years in leadership at five Fortune 500 companies. An accomplished, award-winning black entrepreneur and engineer, Lauren is passionate about leveraging gamification to improve performance among individuals, teams, and organizations…

So, what is gamification, and how important is it for companies to gamify their training and engagement initiatives? Lauren explains:

Defining Gamification

We’ve all played games before. But think of gamification as game elements and mechanics you can add to work situations that aren’t meant to be games.

Think about how games work. They have rules, they have a framework, they have a structure. And these fundamentals apply to everyone.

For example, when you play Monopoly, you can’t just make up your own rules unless other players agree. This means games give everyone an opportunity to start on equal footing, so each of us has an opportunity to win.

Why Gamification Is So Powerful

As humans, we all want to win. Even if we’re not competitive, no one wants to lose or fail. So games hack your brain. They typically require strategic thinking or quick decisions that disarm people and bring them into a competitive mindset. This taps into the brain’s reward center so you tell yourself, “I want to do well. I want to put my best foot forward.”

I think all teams can benefit from gamification. However, the results depend on the types of games or game mechanics you use, and whether it’s done well. There are many possibilities, but it’s important to be mindful about how you implement it.

How Does This Prepare Us For the Future of Work?

Gamification isn’t a new concept. But companies are on a mission to incorporate it into talent development initiatives, so they can bridge the gap between learning and doing.

Deloitte predicts that soft-skill-intensive occupations will represent 2/3 of all jobs by 2030, and demand for those jobs will grow 2.5x faster than for others.

That means companies need to improve soft skills among today’s employees. And these skills are hard to develop. They don’t come intuitively. You have to practice. But games, gamification, and simulations are fun, creative ways for people to learn, practice, and retain information. They help us grow more naturally. So they’re ideal for soft-skills training.

Why Gamification Wins

We’ve worked with teams of all types and sizes — matrix-based teams, C-suite teams, and multidisciplinary teams. People who work remotely, in-person, and a hodgepodge of both.

That’s what’s amazing about games and gamification. It’s more expansive than a ropes course or an escape room or trivia questions. These methods can bring together people from different generations and cultures to build trust, connectedness, and productivity.

My Turn: How Gamification Helps

Is it really worthwhile to integrate gamification into employee engagement initiatives? That’s a fair question. Here’s my perspective. If you look closer, you’ll find multiple reasons to invest. For example, with these techniques, you can:

1. Inspire Individuals to “Level Up”

Modern employees crave personalized feedback and recognition for their contributions. Game-oriented platforms help with real-time performance tracking. This often includes reminders and rewards that motivate people to keep moving forward. It also keeps managers in the loop with alerts and insights that enable them to intervene when coaching is needed or to celebrate achievements when the time is right.

2. Help Teams Run-Up the Score

In this case, “the score” is your organization’s overall success. Adding game-based logic to department or group projects demonstrates how employee contributions translate into measurable business impact. For example, you can drive team performance by awarding points to people who collaborate effectively and share creative ideas. Similarly, you can help people sharpen their skills by integrating game elements into employee training programs.

3. Tap Into Employees’ Competitive Nature

Gamification shapes behavior with incentives that spark friendly competition and help individuals become better versions of themselves. This is where employers must tread lightly to avoid triggering a cutthroat war among staffers. However, team-oriented strategies and meaningful rewards can build confidence, competency, and camaraderie.

4. Avoid “Game Over” Scenarios

HR and business managers can use insights from gamification platforms to understand and respond to employee development needs. Think of this as a form of workforce intelligence gathering, where employee performance metrics reveal red flags, as well as exceptional performance that deserves attention. When you actively support employee career growth, your team members are less likely to leave.

5. Appeal to All Generations

Younger employees tend to care about the purpose behind their role and they want more control over their career destiny. Gamification can provide them with a more satisfying, personalized work experience. For example, Deloitte’s Mass Career Customization program lets employees pick their work preferences. Another company, Valve, uses gamification to help employees choose projects they prefer. Methods like this offer younger employees the kind of instant gratification they crave but often miss in traditional corporate settings.

6. Boost Your Employer Brand

By improving job satisfaction, engagement, and retention, gamification can eventually transform employees into brand ambassadors. This elevates recruitment by demonstrating that your company culture is modern and healthy — and puts employees first.

7. Lighten The Mood

Let’s face it. When thoughtfully implemented, gamification is fun. And don’t we all deserve a little less friction and a little more fun in our lives these days? Positive emotion can help connect us more deeply with our colleagues and with our work. Sounds like a smart “gloom slayer” tactic to me.

Game On! Can Your Culture Outplay The “Great Gloom”?

Gamification isn’t likely to solve all of today’s workplace challenges. But it can give employees something new to be excited about. And when employees are motivated to engage, work together, and accomplish something greater, good things are much more likely to happen.

Honestly, it’s hard to think of any other talent management methods with the power to pull people out of a sense of gloom. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. So, what are you waiting for? It can be exactly what you need to get your employees more invested in their roles and engaged with your organization. Ultimately, that means you can build a winning culture. So get ready, set, go!

EDITOR’S NOTE: For more in-depth information about how to develop and manage successful gamification initiatives, visit the Keep Wondering Out Loud website, where you’ll find helpful resources for employers. And for more #WorkTrends insights, check our growing collection of episodes at Apple or Spotify and subscribe!

Engagement and Feedback and People Science, Oh My!

October 20, 2023/Company Culture, Employee Engagement, Employee Experience, Employee Happiness, Employee Performance, HR Technology, Podcast, Podcast Recap, Podcast Recaps, Talent Analytics /by Meghan M. Biro

The world of work isn’t exactly the Land of Oz, but it can be a scary place. These days, we’re surrounded by uncertainty. Leaders must find the courage to face the unknown and act on whatever they encounter along the way. It isn’t easy. But it’s a path that leads to a stronger work culture, a more enriching employee experience, and sustainable change.

After all, management is a journey. It’s a process. At its best, it’s a virtuous cycle, fueled by feedback that reveals important truths about the human realities of work. Often, we uncover this intelligence through tools based on the principles of people science. But which tools really help? Let’s dig deeper…

So Many Tools, So Little Time

This is the perfect season to assess your organization’s existing feedback capabilities and identify future needs. I’m sure that’s what many employers are doing after seeing what’s new at the annual HR Tech Conference earlier this month. But innovation isn’t the only thing driving their choices.

Just think about the complex issues weighing on leaders’ minds:

Employee engagement and retention continue to slide. Still, productivity and performance expectations remain high.

After years of overwhelming change, stress, and burnout, managerial ranks are dwindling at all levels.

Many organizations are still trying to reconcile return-to-office policies with flexible work preferences. This means they must prioritize workforce wellbeing, inclusion, and trust — all of which depend on strong communication.

In the face of ongoing economic headwinds, employers are hesitant to move forward with expansion plans. Some are even cutting staff. Yet, finding and keeping highly qualified talent for in-demand positions remains an uphill climb.

AI is rapidly reaching critical mass. On the heels of the recent surge in generative AI, other forms of automation now touch every corner of our work lives. And momentum is expected to accelerate.

With all these factors in play, it may seem tempting to turn to technology for solutions. But that could make the situation even worse. Why?

Tech stacks are already suffering from post-pandemic bloat. After years of investing in tools to support changing workforce dynamics, too many organizations are still not making the most of their incremental tech investments or managing them strategically.

The story is all too familiar, isn’t it? No matter how many tools we acquire, if the right people can’t, don’t, or won’t apply them effectively, what’s the point? After all, technology is only as powerful as the people who use it to connect, communicate, collaborate, discover, grow, and perform each day.

On the other hand, the right tools in the right context can make a huge difference — if the right people put them to good use. Sounds like a people science challenge to me.

How People Science Helps

This reminds me of a conversation I had about a year ago on a #WorkTrends podcast with people science expert, Kevin Campbell. Over the years, Kevin has worked with some of the most prestigious firms in workforce strategy, including Culture Amp, Deloitte, Gallup, and now Qualtrics.

How does people science add value, in Kevin’s opinion? Check these snippets from our discussion:

Kevin, what exactly do you do?

People science requires expertise in multiple disciplines. Think of a Venn diagram with three intersecting circles:

One is people analytics, another is organizational psychology, and the other is applied practice. An employee experience scientist sits in the intersection of those three areas.

What does the term “employee engagement” mean to you?

It’s important to talk about what it is not, as well as what it is.

It’s not a survey. Often, we lose sight of the fact that engagement is an emotional and psychological state. A survey is just a tool that helps us measure that state.

Engagement really starts with emotional commitment. I emphasize the emotional aspect because it’s about the desire to stay with an organization and help fulfill its objectives — not because you’re obligated or you feel forced to do it, but because you want to.

What is the most critical challenge you’re seeing right now?

Organizations often overemphasize understanding and underemphasize improvement in action.

For example, according to 2021 data, nearly 90% of companies measure engagement or have some type of employee feedback program, but only 7% of employees say their company acts on feedback in a highly effective way.

How can employers address this problem?

It’s important to recognize that the engagement survey or data isn’t the end. It’s really just the beginning.

To improve, you’ll want to translate results into actions that can have outsized impact on your company culture. And the key is simple coaching skills.

For more insights, listen to the full podcast episode here…

5 Feedback Strategies People Science Experts Use

So, if you want to gather ongoing insight to improve the employee experience, where do you start? We didn’t discuss that in our podcast interview, but Kevin did share helpful ideas in a LinkedIn article, “The Truth About ‘Always On’ Employee Listening.” Here’s a summary of his recommendations:

“Always on” means different things to different people. So I would start by asking stakeholders to define “always on.” Some surveying solutions work better than others at improving the employee experience and increasing employee engagement. Here are five use cases and considerations for each:

1. Digital Suggestion Boxes

Some organizations add intercepts on their intranet home page asking things like: “What feedback do you have?” Also, they post QR codes in break areas or add links to surveys in leaders’ email signatures. Digital suggestion boxes can build trust in other ways, as well. For example, you could gather ideas for peer recognition or business improvements.

Considerations:

It’s important to continuously monitor employee input and ensure that leaders reply. At small companies, it can be highly effective when the CEO responds directly. However, input volume can quickly become unmanageable. You could streamline the review cycle by establishing a process to filter and delegate suggestions as they are received.

2. Daily Surveys

Increasingly, we see daily surveys with a handful of simple questions about how employees feel. This kind of on-demand, anonymous channel for employees to raise issues, share feedback, and offer insights helps capture a real-time snapshot of staff morale and satisfaction.

Considerations:

As with digital suggestion boxes, volume can become overwhelming. However, this method can be beneficial if employees realize they can use it to gauge their own experiences without expecting others to act on all input. For instance, you could invite people to assess their own activities and emotions with a daily wellbeing check, so they can understand where they’re focusing time and attention, and how they feel about it.

3. Surveys to Optimize Specific Work Experiences

This involves in-the-moment feedback in the flow of work. For example, you can survey employees during and after each support instance, including live help desk, online chat, and self-service. Digital intercepts can capture feedback whenever people complete key milestones or engage with online properties like company intranets and HRIS systems.

Considerations:

It’s important to close the loop on these touchpoints with dashboards and alerts that notify experience “owners” and “designers,” so they can act quickly on the issues raised. This is also a great integration point for pulse surveys. For example, say a pulse survey identifies equipment ordering as a workplace issue. You can add an intercept on your intranet where people order equipment.

4. Lifecycle Surveys

You may not think of lifecycle surveys as “always on.” However, people are constantly being onboarded, leaving the company, and returning from leave. Each of these events is an opportunity to collect a stream of valuable feedback for leaders to consider.

Considerations:

This is also an integration point for pulse surveys. For instance, pulse questions that tie back to goal alignment, expectations, or enablement could indicate that onboarding surveys would be useful. Or if employees express concern about training and development, you could create an event-triggered survey about learning experiences.

5. Frontline Customer Feedback

You might think of this as a customer experience use case, but enabling frontline employees to make suggestions on behalf of their customers is another “always on” strategy that can elevate both CX and EX.

Considerations:

This makes the most sense when customer-facing employee roles aren’t already empowered to make changes, or they don’t have other ways to frequently share ideas and feedback with leaders.

What Would a People Science Expert Do?

Clearly, effective feedback isn’t just about the ability to gather input. Although it’s essential to welcome ideas and measure staff sentiment, that’s not enough to make the right kind of impact on workforce commitment, engagement, or performance. In fact, too much of a good thing doesn’t serve anyone well.

What really matters is whether leaders take timely, appropriate action to address whatever the feedback process uncovers.

Knowing this, the challenge in the year ahead is probably not where to find money for new or better feedback tools. The question is, whenever employees let you know the truth about their experience, do you pay attention? And are you willing to do what’s necessary to drive change and keep the conversation going?

That takes more than a big budget or fancy tools. It takes courage.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Find more helpful insights for business and HR leaders who care about people and the future of work. Check our growing collection of #WorkTrends podcasts and subscribe!

How Does HR Analytics Transform Workforce Planning?

October 2, 2023/DEI Diversity Equity Inclusion, Employee Performance, Hiring and Retention, HR, HR Technology, Organizational Planning, Talent Analytics, Talent Management /by Bill Achola

With so many interesting new HR tools available lately, are you wondering if more modern HR analytics could improve your workforce planning capabilities? In a world where companies need data-driven approaches to define, deliver, and improve workforce strategies, exactly how can modern tools help?

Today’s HR tools offer exciting new capabilities. For example, these solutions can accelerate data gathering, provide predictive intelligence, assist with hiring decisions, streamline performance management, and much more. But to avoid becoming overwhelmed with choices, it’s important to define the people challenges your company needs to address.

This article is intended to employers consider multiple facets of HR analytics:

Historical context
Popular functionality
Key benefits
Real-world use cases

How HR Analytics Has Evolved

Initially, HR analytics focused primarily on helping organizations eliminate intensive manual labor. These tools were useful for complex data collection and spreadsheet management to help employers gain useful intelligence from HR metrics and KPIs.

However, technology is constantly evolving, and this has led to multiple breakthroughs in HR analytics. For example, innovative solutions now integrate advanced workforce planning tools for faster, easier employee data analysis.

Now HR professionals can much more quickly and easily identify meaningful workforce patterns and forecast relevant trends. Using these insights, HR teams can develop, implement, and measure strategies and programs with greater precision and confidence. This improves HR’s ability to work side-by-side with business leaders to align with organizational objectives and improve overall performance.

To see what exactly HR analytics tools can do to improve workforce management, let’s move on…

Key HR Analytics Functions

1. Data Collection and Aggregation

Collecting and aggregating huge data sets is a core HR analytics strength. These tools can integrate data from numerous sources for access through centralized storage.

For instance, imagine you need to verify that a staff member has signed an NDA. Or when preparing an annual review, you want to see how an employee’s performance metrics have changed over time.

When detailed data is structurally organized and highly accessible, HR and business managers can make better-informed decisions much more quickly.

2. Data Analysis and Visualization

Leading-edge HR analytics also provide powerful ways to analyze and visualize workforce data. By extracting actionable insights and applying high-end algorithms and statistical analysis, these tools can help HR teams uncover meaningful patterns, trends, and relationships.

In addition, these tools can make complex data more coherent and useful by translating information into visually rich charts and graphs that add context and improve understanding.

3. Talent Management

It’s crucial for HR analytics platforms to include talent management capabilities. These features are designed to help organizations improve employee engagement and retention throughout the employee lifecycle.

For example, some tools make it possible to assess individual and team skills and translate them into recommended learning paths and development opportunities. This helps HR build employee competencies and align career growth with company needs and goals.

4. Workforce Planning

HR analytics plays a central role in workforce planning because it directly supports strategic decision-making. With more timely, accurate, complete decision support insights, HR and business leaders can develop workforce strategies that are more fair, less biased, and better tuned to organizational realities and priorities.

These capabilities typically focus on resource allocation, employee recruitment, and workforce restructuring, among others.

5. Performance Improvement

Many newer platforms make it possible to analyze workforce performance data in a variety of ways. This helps HR pinpoint and resolve specific performance gaps, curate and deliver customized development plans, and acknowledge excellent performers.

Benefits of HR Analytics

1. More Effective Strategic Planning

Data-driven tools enhance strategic HR planning in several critical ways. For example, it becomes faster and easier to forecast future workforce requirements, facilitate succession planning, and avoid potential talent gaps.

These tools also help HR teams more quickly develop appropriate recruitment procedures to meet existing business needs.

2. Valuable Predictive Capacity

HR analytics tools provide powerful forward-looking capabilities that help HR teams operate more efficiently and effectively. By applying data from past patterns and trends, it’s possible to generate forecasts that more accurately anticipate and prepare for future needs.

This kind of advanced capability helps HR and business leaders take proactive measures and adjust on-the-fly. It also leads to more effective talent management practices and higher employee retention.

3. Better Understanding of Workforce Performance

The ability to more deeply analyze employee performance is beneficial at several levels. First, it helps organizations evaluate, motivate, and reward talent in the most effective ways. Also, it reveals the differences between high-performers and their under-performing colleagues. This can lead to more effective performance improvement roadmaps and results.

Ultimately, this not only helps individual employees grow but also elevates skills and competencies across the company.

4. Improved Hiring and Engagement Outcomes

When hiring, data-driven analytics is an exceptional sourcing tool. It can dramatically decrease time-to-hire by helping talent acquisition teams quickly assess any candidate’s suitability for a job.

Once an employee is onboard, retention becomes crucial. Workforce analytics can help HR continuously calibrate metrics like employee engagement, productivity, and burnout. By benchmarking these indicators, HR can take action when needed to reduce negative factors and boost positive results.

5. Stronger Diversity and Inclusion

Data-driven tools can also help employers build a culture of diversity and inclusion.

For example, HR teams can identify key factors that contribute to job satisfaction and engagement (and conversely turnover) among minorities. Then, by monitoring these indicators, they can identify potential issues and work proactively with recruiters and managers to support inclusion and belonging.

6. Optimized Costs

Analytics also helps HR leaders effectively allocate and manage workforce budgets and resources.

For instance, by benchmarking factors like headcount, compensation, benefits, or location strategy, employers can determine which costs are higher than comparable organizations. This can also be a foundation for calculating return on investment across various workforce-related variables.

Real-World HR Analytics Examples

The following examples demonstrate how world-class employers are using data-driven workforce tools to improve decision-making and HR operations.

1. Google

Google is an excellent example of how employers can apply HR analytics to enhance workforce planning and organizational culture.

Even though the company had been growing successfully for more than two decades, it became obvious in 2020 that workforce diversity and inclusion weren’t keeping pace. Historically, the company had struggled with gender and ethnic diversity in hiring. And by 2018, employee confidence in the company’s leaders was declining.

This issue began to cast a shadow over Google’s employer brand, which made it increasingly difficult to attract and retain top talent, especially among underrepresented groups.

Google’s People Analytics team recognized the need to improve workforce planning, so they turned to HR analytics for a solution. Relying on their workforce planning tools, the team gathered and interpreted relevant data and generated useful insights. As a result, they defined talent gaps, identified areas where diversity was lacking, and exposed below-average recruitment patterns.

How Google Tackled These Problems

To address these issues, Google turned to its annual feedback process known as Googlegeist. Launched in 2007, this survey captures employee opinions about multiple facets of work life and organizational culture.

By rigorously analyzing employee feedback data, the HR team easily recognized underlying factors that allowed DEI issues to persist. In response, they developed targeted recruitment strategies to provide more opportunities for employees, job candidates, and potential applicants from underrepresented groups.

One of the outcomes of this effort is Google’s partnership with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The main purpose is to draw hidden potential from sources that have historically been overlooked.

In addition, Google now trains recruitment staff to avoid hiring biases and exclusionary hiring practices. The company also trains its leaders in methods for managing diverse teams more effectively. Over time, Google is building a more diverse and inclusive workforce, while simultaneously improving its work culture and employee experience.

2. IBM

Another company that relies heavily on data-driven employment tools is IBM. This particular case focuses on applying HR analytics to reduce employee attrition.

The HR team was concerned with the rate of job hopping across its employee base. By using Watson Analytics, they analyzed a variety of factors, including employee demographics, engagement data, and performance metrics.

How IBM Resolved This Problem

These findings helped the HR team develop a predictive prototype to identify employees who were most likely to quit their jobs. Next, the team created a multifaceted retention strategy to address the specific needs of high-risk employees.

This strategy included curated development programs, employee safety and wellbeing, workforce recognition, and mentoring.

After implementing this strategy, IBM’s employee retention rate improved. As a result, the company saved money on recruitment and training, while improving the work environment for everyone in the company.

Final Note on the Power of HR Analytics

Data-driven workforce planning tools are a game changer for modern organizations. They bring a new level of convenience and efficiency to HR professionals. No wonder employers everywhere are embracing these platforms. But is data-driven HR, alone, enough to change an organization’s culture?

These tools can’t replace the unique people and innovative spirit that set great employers apart. However, they can become a decision-making backbone and help keep any organization ahead of the competition.

What about you? What do you see ahead for your workforce? How will you put HR analytics to prepare for your organization’s future?

Employee Motivation Matters. How Can Leaders Help?

August 15, 2023/Career Development, Employee Performance, Employee Recognition, Leadership /by Mike Szczesny

You’re a business leader. You believe in your company with all your heart. Your commitment to the organization’s mission drives you to aim high, work hard, and put in your best effort. However, that’s not the case with your workforce. You want your team to be as dedicated as you are, but employee motivation doesn’t happen by chance. And that’s where leaders too often miss the mark.

In an article about employee appreciation, Harvard Business Review briefly illustrates the problem:

An employee arrives at work on his 10th-year anniversary and finds a gift card with a sticky note on his desk. The note is from his manager, acknowledging his anniversary. Realizing the message doesn’t include a thank-you or congratulations, he rolls his eyes.

This missed opportunity speaks volumes. Just imagine the cumulative impact on morale when this kind of scenario plays out on a regular basis.

Layoffs continue to capture headlines as the economy sputters. Nevertheless, employers are still vying for qualified talent so they can stay competitive. But no one can effectively attract and retain stellar people without inspiring them. And the ability to inspire depends on your willingness to motivate people on an ongoing basis.

Connecting Motivation With Business Benefits

The power of motivation is undeniable. It directly influences multiple business metrics. For example, it can:

Boost Productivity and Profitability
Because motivated employees are more engaged with their work, they tend to be more productive and deliver higher-quality results. In fact, research says highly engaged teams can increase business profitability by more than 20%.

Reduce Absenteeism and Turnover
When motivation and engagement are low, people are more likely to call in sick or resign. The cost of both can be steep. On the other hand, Gallup says organizations with high engagement see significant benefits, with an average of 81% lower absenteeism and 43% lower turnover.

Improve Collaboration and Innovation
Motivated people typically are more content with their jobs. As a result, they’re more open to teamwork and collaboration, which leads to better problem-solving and innovation. They also tend to be more efficient and willing to go above and beyond to achieve business objectives.

Most leaders understand the value of motivation. But motivating people is easier said than done. What can you do to fuel employee motivation? When work starts piling up and engagement is at a low ebb, try these 8 ideas to engage your team and steer them toward success:

8 Ways to Inspire Employee Motivation

1. Communicate the Big Picture

Regularly sharing information about your organization’s vision, goals, challenges, and achievements helps people feel more invested in its success. Here are some effective ways to keep people in the loop:

Articulate Your Expectations: This is essential. Unless people know how you define success, and understand how it relates to their roles and output, they have no way to gauge their status or progress.

Set Objectives Collaboratively: Work together to set clear, achievable objectives. This helps people grasp the purpose behind their work and how it fits into the company’s broader mission and strategy.

Provide Periodic Business Updates: Keep employees informed about how the organization is performing to plan. This is also an opportunity not only to focus on key issues but also to celebrate successes and milestones. Keep in mind that timely, specific public recognition is one of the most effective ways to motivate people.

2. Seek Employee Input

It’s easy to become so focused on top-down communication that you may overlook the value of employee input and feedback. Asking employees direct questions during a group meeting or private conversation lets them know you care about their opinions and are open to their ideas and concerns.

It’s also helpful to periodically gauge overall employee satisfaction and engagement by conducting anonymous surveys. This is an opportunity to remind people that their opinions matter. Ask for feedback about what needs improvement and suggestions for how to improve.

Of course, any input you receive deserves swift attention and action. A timely, thoughtful response tells employees you value their feedback. It’s also a way to demonstrate the kind of loyalty you hope they’ll return by doing their best.

3. Give People Autonomy

Handing employees some control over their work can be a highly effective motivator. This can be as simple as giving people a chance to work on projects they love or letting them choose a schedule they prefer from a variety of options.

When employees have a voice in defining their priorities and daily activities, they’re more likely to feel committed to their work and invested in their results.

4. Reward Success

People will sign up for your mission and stay with your business when you give them a reason to care. And recognizing their efforts is one of the most effective ways to build this kind of connection.

For example, implementing an employee incentive program is relatively straightforward strategy:

Focus first on how to align rewards with company values and goals.
For each level of achievement assign appropriate awards, such as crystal trophies and cash bonuses, as well as certificates and verbal recognition.
Establish clear, attainable criteria for receiving awards, and regularly share program guidelines with everyone who is eligible.
Build peer-to-peer recognition into the process, so employees can nominate colleagues for recognition.
Celebrate achievements publicly to increase visibility and inspire others.
Regularly review and update your incentive program to keep it fresh and relevant.

5. Foster a Positive Work Environment

Formal recognition isn’t the only way to shape employee attitudes and behavior. For instance, leaders can also make a significant impact on employee morale and motivation simply by fostering an open, supportive work environment. This includes:

Work structures and processes that encourage teamwork and collaboration,
Programs and policies that promote work-life balance, and
Opportunities for employees to socialize and form strong bonds.

The important thing to remember here is that, even in small companies, work cultures are complex. The status quote won’t change overnight. If your culture needs to shift, prepare to be intentional and consistent. It may take time, but you’ll be rewarded with lasting business impact.

6. Offer Opportunities for Professional Growth

What better way to motivate people than to enrich their professional knowledge and skills? Especially if your business is expanding rapidly, giving people opportunities to learn, develop, and grow within your organization can be a tremendous incentive.

There are many ways to help people expand their capabilities beyond formal training. For example, consider adding stretch assignments, cross-training, educational reimbursement, mentorships, and internal career advancement to the mix.

7. Lead With Encouragement

Every day brings new opportunities to help employees overcome inevitable mistakes and failures. By encouraging people to focus on continuous improvement, you can help them develop a positive mindset and the determination to see things through.

When projects don’t go according to plan, resist the temptations to start by investigating whose to blame. Instead, focus on working together to identify the root cause and solve the problem. During difficult times, remember to tell people you trust them or send a supportive email message. And be sure to reinforce anyone who takes accountability and steps up to the challenge.

8. Remain Available

No matter how busy your schedule is, make it a priority to be responsive when anyone needs help or advice. Can you blame an employee for becoming frustrated and demotivated if you’re never available to offer guidance, assistance, or approval?

Here’s a sign that you may need to adjust your standards: Think about your one-on-one meetings. Do you regularly postpone these sessions, or blow them off altogether? Don’t be surprised if productivity and engagement are suffering.

A Final Word on Employee Motivation

Any leader who wants to elevate organizational performance and productivity should start with employee motivation. There are multiple ways to move in the right direction, but here’s the bottom line:

If you want employees to commit to your organization, you’ll need to commit your time, attention, and effort to motivate them on a continuous basis. This is clearly a long-game process, but the journey can be one of the most rewarding investments your business will ever make.

Why Is Great Leadership Like a Fine Watch?

August 8, 2023/Company Culture, Employee Performance, Leadership, Organizational Planning /by Mark Huber

A fine mechanical watch is exquisite in its own right. But if you look closer, you’ll see more than just a special timepiece. It is also useful as a framework for leaders who want to improve the quality of their organization’s performance. What does that leadership framework look like? Here’s my perspective…

I’m continually amazed at how unrelated things in life tend to line up with almost perfect timing. Nearly a year ago, I decided I wanted to own a “real watch,” so I began researching popular brands. Around the same time, I was recruited to run Birkman International. Birkman is a 72-year-old company that provides businesses with a roadmap that helps teams work better together and drive operational performance.

These two unrelated events have allowed me to witness the elegance and intricacies that both watches and companies need to run well.

What Do Watches Teach Us About Great Leadership?

Imagine opening the case back of a mechanical watch. Inside you’ll find what seems like a highly complicated collection of gears and wheels. Most of us only open our watch when there’s a problem with its function. The same holds true for businesses — we never seem to look inside until we detect an issue.

In a properly functioning company, each individual, department, and team knows its role. They work at the right pace to accomplish their respective tasks. It is all about coming together at the right time to achieve success. Just like clockwork.

Look Inside

When you open the back of the case and look carefully, you’ll see that it is powered by a mainspring. Without it, the entire mechanism won’t work. The same is true with any company.

The mainspring of the business is the CEO who provides the power needed to drive the business forward. As the mainspring, a CEO is responsible for keeping the organization under a kind of tension that creates motivation, movement, and results over time. However, to ensure consistently high performance, this tension must be released in a regulated way.

This is where the Chief Operating Officer (COO) steps in to serve a critical function. The COO is an organization’s balance wheel. This leader is responsible for distributing the power generated by the CEO, releasing it to the rest of the organization at a steady, reliable pace, like the hands of a watch.

However, unexpected things happen sometimes. For example, what if you accidentally drop your watch? The balance wheel absorbs the shock and ensures that the movement keeps spinning at the right rate. Similarly, unexpected things will happen at work. Regardless, the COO ensures that daily business operations continue to run smoothly and reliably.

A Fine Watch at Work

Once a watch’s power is being created and released at the correct pace, it’s up to the gears and wheels to do their job. But first, these components must be positioned in all the right places. Likewise, employees must be placed in the right position before they can move your organization forward effectively.

For any watch (or any company) to perform well, the real trick is to make sure every “right wheel” works with all the other “right wheels.” This is when the elegance of a great organization reveals itself. It is also when underperforming teams require careful attention. Leaders may need to open the “case back” of their organization and diagnose issues by investigating two questions:

What is stopping us from achieving the desired results?
How do we get things running the way they should?

The good news is that, often, new parts aren’t required to fix a broken watch. The same is true in business. Throughout more than 30 years as an executive, I’ve found that organizational problems aren’t rooted in individual employees, but in the friction between all the moving parts. This is why great leadership can make a significant difference.

Making Everything Run Like Clockwork

If you take a watch apart, clean the pieces, reassemble it, and oil it, you end up with a wrist piece that runs properly. Likewise, if we take sufficient time and care to work with our people, we’re likely to find an effective solution to any problem.

In business, “oil” is the understanding of ourselves and others’ needs. This helps us communicate well with people so they can overcome the friction that arises from misunderstanding and mistrust. This gives us the ability to move forward in unison.

To maximize business results, leaders must take time to break down what their organizations are doing at their core. When we define our company’s purpose, bring it into focus with laser-sharp clarity, and provide a psychologically safe environment for team members to communicate, we build a foundation for truly remarkable results.

When we add oil to watch components, the mechanisms come to life. The same holds true for businesses. The latest technologies may increase efficiency, but they cannot reduce human friction within a team. Similarly, a modern smartwatch may be a reliable way to keep track of time, but it does not compare to the craftsmanship of a fine watch.

Effective Leadership Endures

The tagline of luxury watchmaker Patek Phillipe is, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.” In other words, if you properly care for one of their watches, it will last hundreds of years.

This aligns with my approach to leadership. I believe executives are merely caretakers for their successors. As the leader of a business now entering its third generation, I take heart in knowing that if we do the work to improve ourselves and better our organization, our impact on the world will be an enduring legacy.

I hope leaders everywhere share the same vision. The future of business depends on it — as does the future of work.

Developing-Your-Team-versus-Driving-Performance

Developing Your Team Versus Driving Results: How Do You Strike a Balance?

May 26, 2023/Career Development, Employee Engagement, Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Leadership, Skills Development /by Dakota Murphey

Faced with increasingly turbulent economic times, businesses are rapidly learning the importance of strong leadership. The world has had enough problems dealing with the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath. And companies that lacked strong leaders have been struggling to move through a nonstop stream of business problems in recent years. Many organizations have responded by emphasizing short-term performance. But the truth is that you’ll ultimately achieve better results by developing your team, as well. It’s a long game. However, this strategy pays in multiple ways.

Developing Your Team Builds Strength for the Future

During difficult times, it is natural for businesses to focus on achieving essential near-term results. The burden of generating more leads, maintaining a strong sales pipeline, and sustaining profitability normally falls to leaders. But these objectives also need to be balanced with broader business interests.

When teams are successful, it’s clear that their leaders are effectively managing people, strategy and resources. But when the inverse is true, it can underscore leadership problems that shouldn’t be ignored.

Here’s a contradiction that makes things even more complicated: as companies push harder for better results from team members, staff are likely to feel underappreciated, especially if individuals aren’t encouraged to develop in ways that help them grow professionally.

So, you may get the results you need in the short-term. But it can come at the cost of long-term company success, as skilled team members decide to move on and pursue more promising opportunities.

In this article, we look at how business leaders can strike a better balance between driving great results and developing their teams.

Great Leadership is a Journey, Not a Destination

The first thing to consider is that it is important to understand your own expectations of leadership, and determine if you ought to adjust those assumptions. Being a leader means making measured decisions and balancing their consequences every single day.

You can always learn more and understand more. But this isn’t something leaders can afford to take for granted. It’s important to intentionally embrace growth and stay open to learning — for yourself and everyone on your team.

“The best leaders learn from experiences — including failures — and apply those lessons to unfamiliar situations in the future,” says Gemma Leigh Roberts, a chartered psychologist specializing in leadership. “They see challenges as opportunities, as opposed to threats, proactively seek knowledge to stay up to date in a rapidly shifting professional environment, and are curious to identify areas for development and try new ways of doing things.”

Retain Top Staff by Developing Your Team

It is important to remember that if you want to get strong results across your company, you need a strong team. Your business results are driven by the people working with you. There is always pressure to get the best out of all your people in their day-to-day activities. But it’s equally important to ensure that top performers are kept happy, challenged, and supported.

Remember that talented individuals will always be able to find positions elsewhere. So, you’ll want to nurture and retain your organization’s best performers. A key way of doing this is by providing them with opportunities for career growth and development.

“While training is often necessary when teaching people new skills, it’s only the first step toward a more distant end,” says Margaret Rogers in Harvard Business Review. “In my experience, the most impactful development happens not through formal programs, but also through smaller moments that occur within the workplace: on-the-job learning opportunities that are wholeheartedly catered to the worker’s unique needs and challenges.”

Ideas for Developing Your Team While Keeping Results in Mind

1. Link Personal Goals to Business Goals

Too often, when we think about “top performers,” we consider it only from the perspective of how well people are achieving their professional goals. But it’s also important to link their goals with business objectives. To illustrate this point, let’s look at an example:

Imagine the highest-performing member of your sales team completes 50 sales in a recent month. But since then, only 5 of those sales have turned into repeat business because your top performer has been overselling in order to complete the original sales. Meanwhile, another member of the team made 30 sensible sales, and has subsequently turned 15 of those sales into valuable repeat business.

Here’s another example: Say a staff member wants to upskill for a role that will benefit your business, and they want to enhance their driving capabilities. By supporting this staff member’s personal training goals, you can help them acquire a higher-level license that will also be of value to your organization. In this circumstance, a personal goal can serve two purposes — simultaneously helping a team member grow while also helping the organization address business needs.

2. Establish Achievable Goals

If you want to motivate staff and provide them with opportunities for development, you need to ensure that you set realistic goals for their growth. It is also important for leaders to understand and agree with the scope of these goals.

“You need to have the discipline to take risks,” explains Howard Shore of management training specialists, Activate Group. “If your management and executive team are not aligned in their goals, and if your company culture is underdeveloped and unsupportive of change, this can create enormous friction.”

3. Know When to Change and Adapt

Leaders and managers recognize when their business is doing well because they’re rewarded with strong revenues, profits, and momentum. They know established goals are being met. Likewise, their employees and customers also feel more accomplished and satisfied. However, if success comes down to striking a good balance between today’s results and preparation for the future, then it’s essential to recognize when things may be off-balance.

Smart leaders know how critical it is to stay alert and keep an eye out for issues that require adjustment. When, how and why can an off-kilter equilibrium slow your progress or tip the scales of success against you? Here are some obvious but important factors to keep in mind:

Rising salaries
Increasing financial costs from external causes, such as inflation, recession, exchange rate fluctuations or taxes
Falling profits
Deteriorating business growth
Staffing issues
Supply chain problems
Threatening economic events or political instability.

4. Give Staff Ample Agency to Grow

It is important for staff to understand that they have agency in your business. The best way to manage this is by delegating tasks to team members, rather than trying to manage everything yourself. In this context, effective leaders focus on how to let people lead themselves. Having agency gives people a chance to develop on their own terms, and provides paths to growth that can be beneficial to the business as well as the individual.

5. Link Success to Opportunity

Just as it is wise to provide staff with the chance to grow, it is important to emphasize the idea that a company’s long-term success depends on team members’ collective contributions. Company-wide success is an opportunity for staff, too. This is why goal alignment matters. In the best-case scenario, individual success aligns with company achievements. This makes it easier to find an effective balance between results and team growth.

Final Notes on Driving Results Versus Developing Your Team

Leaders are essential to team success. A great team with poor leadership can lose focus or descend into infighting. It is up to management to find ways to maximize results while also ensuring effective development of their team. By keeping a continuous eye on both and proactively managing both sides of the equation, companies look forward to long-term success.

How can you design a more productive, people-centered organization? Listen to this #WorkTrends Podcast with successful startup leader, Alex Furman of Performica...

How to Design a More People-Centered Organization

May 12, 2023/DEI Diversity Equity Inclusion, Employee Performance, Featured, Leadership, Organizational Planning, Podcast, Podcast Recap, Podcast Recaps /by Meghan M. Biro

Sponsored by Performica

In today’s world of work, it’s easy to find two very different types of people — self-promoting “squeaky wheels” whose voices are often the loudest, as well as those who quietly deliver without much recognition. Both bring something to the table. Still, leaders often judge an employee’s value based primarily on their visibility. This kind of bias is a critical reason why it’s important to build a people-centered organization.

But what can leaders do to better understand everyone’s true contributions? And how can they use these insights to develop more engaged, productive teams?

This issue matters, not only now, but for the future of work. That’s why I want to dig deeper with an HR tech innovator and entrepreneur who understands what it takes to design a more productive, people-first work culture.

Meet Our Guest: Alex Furman

Please join me in welcoming Alex Furman, CEO and Co-Founder at Performica, a people analytics platform provider. Previously, Alex co-founded Invitae, where he was responsible for growing the company’s collaborative culture of innovation at scale.

His first-hand experience as a senior business leader with technology expertise makes Alex an ideal guest for this discussion. Join us as we explore how you can leverage technology to build a more equitable and effective work environment…

Designing a More People-Centered Organization

Welcome, Alex! How do you define a people-centered approach to organizational design?

For a truly human-centric organization, we need to understand how people actually operate in the context of getting work done. Historically, we haven’t done that. We’ve thought in terms of org charts, business units, profit centers, and vertical silos.

But people are our greatest asset. And they’re social. The dynamic, cross-functional way people actually work doesn’t show up on org charts.

So to optimize people as an asset, we need to make sure everyone is seen, heard, valued, supported. That means moving away from analyzing org chart boxes and looking through the lens of humans working together.

Finding Hidden Influencers
You say teams rely heavily on “stealth influencers.” Could you tell us more?

As the head of people at a rapidly growing tech company in 2014, I wanted to see who was actually working together in real time. So I asked our engineers to connect our internal systems and create an org graph.

Soon it was clear that we had been over-celebrating those who were good at promoting themselves. Meanwhile, we were under-recognizing quieter “non-leaders” who were actually stronger influencers.

It was humbling. But that was the beginning of a solution to an important problem in the corporate world.

Tech’s Role in a People-Centered Organization

How can technology help leaders build a more people-centered organization?

We all know people are a company’s biggest asset. At most companies, 75-85% of expenses involve things like payroll, office space, travel and entertainment.

But people are also our biggest liability. We see this when cultures go sour and top performers start leaving. It becomes hard to attract talent and this can cripple a company.

But truly knowing your people and how they work is like a superpower. For example, one of our customers is going through significant change management. In this company of 1000 people, we identified only 24 people who are driving about 50% of employee sentiment and engagement.

So we’ve worked with senior management to target their interventions through that group of influential people. Now we’re seeing a massive and very measurable positive effect.

For more insights from Alex about how you can build a more people-centered organization, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

Also, to continue this conversation on social media anytime, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Is hot desking the key to a flexible future of work? Learn how to make this rising trend more efficient and effective for your workforce

Hot Desking: Key to a Flexible Future of Work?

April 24, 2023/Digital Workspace, Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Future of Work, Hybrid Work, Remote Work /by Robyn Rawlings

For most of the last three years, millions of people clocked in at work from the comfort of home. Now, eager to return to a state of normalcy, many organizations are asking employees to come back to the office — for at least part of every workweek.

The problem? A smooth return to the office is easier said than done. In fact, research shows that 82% of decision makers are concerned about successfully getting employees back to the office this year. Employees want freedom — not just in terms of where they work, but in how they work, as well.

Enter hot desking. This innovative workspace solution is bringing much-needed flexibility to the modern workplace. But what exactly is hot desking? How does it work? And most importantly, how can your organization benefit from implementing it? Let’s take a closer look…

What is Hot Desking?

Hot desking is a temporary workspace strategy for people with hybrid onsite/offsite work schedules. It’s essentially a flexible seating arrangement where employees can book and use any workstation anywhere in the office on an ad-hoc basis, as long as someone else hasn’t already booked the space.

As an alternative to the traditional fixed-desk setup, this approach lets people freely work onsite wherever they feel comfortable on any given day.

The goal is simple. Employers want to optimize available office space and maximize workforce efficiency, while minimizing as many redundancies as possible. Ideally, this translates into an office environment that is more productive and harmonious.

Why is Hot Desking Becoming so Popular?

Hot desking is far from a new phenomenon. In fact, CitiBank helped pioneer the concept in 2014. After realizing that its office space was underutilized, the company introduced flexible workstations that made better use of existing real estate.

Now, this approach is gaining traction, as more organizations embrace hybrid work models. In the aftermath of the pandemic, employers have been eager to bring people back to the office. However, some employees are strongly resisting mandates to return to the workplace on a full-time basis. This push back has led some employers to shift to hybrid work policies, instead.

Benefits of Hot Desking

Despite criticism from some quarters, the hot desk concept offers undeniable benefits. More than just a seating arrangement, hot desking is a strategic way to drive workforce productivity while supporting broader business goals. Here are some key advantages:

Reduced cost: As noted in Forbes, hot desking translates into decreased office expenses. This is because employees who share on-demand space, equipment, and utilities require fewer overall resources.

Improved collaboration: Employees who regularly change their workspace location tend to spend more time with colleagues from different departments. This helps remove communication barriers, encourage cross-functional productivity, and strengthen company culture.

More organized workspaces: When employees regularly use different workstations, they’re less likely to accumulate clutter and are more likely to surround themselves with work essentials. This isn’t just about maintaining a tidier environment. It also helps improve productivity by reducing unnecessary distractions and keeping people focused on work-related deliverables.

Increased retention: With the freedom to work wherever they prefer, hot desking employees enjoy an in-office experience that is comfortable and fits their unique workstyle. This sense of autonomy can help improve engagement, diminish burnout, and reduce turnover.

Measurable insights: An effective way to manage a hot desking team is through a centralized dashboard. This makes it easy for everyone to book workstations and for managers to follow key metrics. It’s also a great way to identify issues that need improvement. By connecting your hot desking setup with a dashboard, you can track all kinds of usage insights. This helps you spot trends and make informed decisions about space allocation.

Hot Desking Tips and Best Practices

When introducing a new hot desking setup, take some time to carefully consider everything you need for a seamless transition. Otherwise, employees may not embrace the change. To ease the process, consider these implementation tips:

1. Make Sure it Makes Sense for You

Before you get started, consider whether hot desking is a good fit for your organization. Circumstances vary, depending on your existing work model, your culture, and other business realities. Start by thinking about how hot desking would work in each of these scenarios:

Hybrid work model: Hot desks are great for people who come in to the office on specific days but work from home the rest of the week. This ensures everyone always has a workstation whenever they’re in the office.

Office-first model: Even if your workforce is fully in office, hot desking supports cross-functional teamwork and encourages people to move about the workplace. Also, visitors such as vendors, clients, and business partners can use hot desk space for their business needs while on-site.

Fully remote model: Do you have a distributed workforce? If so, hot desking can still work in your favor. Whether at a coworking location or in the office, hot desk sites offer employees a remote work alternative when needed.

2. Use Wayfinding to Your Advantage

Wayfinding is the process of literally finding your way around the workplace. It includes any physical or digital system people use to navigate through an office, from physical maps and digital floor plans to more advanced devices that connect with video conference schedules, room controls, and booking capabilities.

How does wayfinding relate to hot desking? Fundamentally, it helps people find available workstations. But as organizations adopt more advanced technology, wayfinding solutions can also encompass room booking and scheduling, environmental monitoring, room controls, and more.

When people regularly switch desks, looking for an available space can be confusing, time-consuming and frustrating. Wayfinding can cut this search time dramatically and help people go where they need to be faster and with fewer hassles.

3. Equip Desks with the Right Technologies

What good is a workstation if it doesn’t actually make work easier? According to Kantar, 64% of hybrid and on-site workers take calls and virtual meetings at their desks.

This means it’s essential to outfit hot desks with all the essentials: USB ports, softphones, video conferencing devices, cameras — basically, anything people need to collaborate efficiently in the modern workplace.

4. Complement Workstations with Bookable Meeting Rooms

Sometimes people need privacy — or at least some peace and quiet. Aside from hot desks, bookable meeting rooms offer a secluded place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the office, so employees can engage in deep work.

It’s smart to install collaboration devices in these rooms, so people can easily initiate and join virtual meetings, collaborate, and stay productive throughout the day. For example, Cisco Room Kits can transform ordinary office rooms into fully functioning video conferencing suites.

Prepare for Your Flexible Future

As your organization jumps back into the swing of things at the office, now is the perfect time to step back and consider the power of hot desking. More than a trend, hot desks are an effective way to support your hybrid workplace and provide employees with more convenience and freedom of choice.

With advanced digital tools that help employees easily share workstations and meeting rooms, hot desking can help your organization pave the way to a successful future of work.

Cognitive Decline at Work: Employers, Are You Prepared?

April 17, 2023/Employee Performance, Employee Safety, Employee Well-Being, Health and Wellness, Mental Health Awareness, Workplace Empathy /by Cyndy Trivella

Cognitive decline is a tricky subject. It can be caused by a variety of factors – from natural aging to hypothyroidism to Alzheimer’s disease. Sometimes, the symptoms are treatable and reversible. But in other cases, cognitive struggles indicate the onset of a serious underlying illness that will eventually become debilitating. Either way, working alongside a person with cognitive issues can be difficult. It’s okay to admit that.

But what can you do to support someone who suffers from increased confusion, memory loss, a shorter attention span, or other cognitive challenges? And how can you minimize safety risks that could harm that individual or others on their team?

Putting People First

Let’s start with mindset. Sweeping generalizations and business rules aren’t helpful when addressing specific cases of cognitive decline. Mental capacity is a sensitive issue. Therefore, tact and prudence are of utmost importance when discussing this topic.

Every situation is complex and unique. It requires awareness of an individual’s industry, organization, job responsibilities, performance history, and work context. Therefore, it makes sense to respond in a personalized way.

Nevertheless, employers can’t deny broader societal factors that are making conversations about cognitive decline much more important and more commonplace.

Coming to Terms with our Aging Workforce

We’re all aging. It’s a fact of life. But now, significant generational shifts are beginning to shape the future workplace. For example, Americans are living longer, and more of us are working later in life.

Although I’m a fan of encouraging older people to participate in the workforce, it’s time for organizational leaders to address age-related cognitive decline. By becoming more educated and cautiously protecting all employees, employers will be better equipped to support our aging workforce.

Here’s why this is so important. Recently, the Harvard Law School Bill of Health newsletter published some staggering statistics in its article, “Managing Cognitive Decline Concerns in the Workplace:“

By 2034, about 77 million U.S. residents will be senior citizens. That’s about 21% of our nation’s population.

After age 65, the risk of Alzheimer’s disease doubles every five years. And nearly one-third of people over 85 have this disease.

Of course, Alzheimer’s is only one cause of cognitive decline. However, because so many people are touched by its ripple effects — family, friends, and work colleagues — it illustrates how devastating cognitive decline is likely to be as Americans continue to age.

Soon, most of us will know, love or work with someone touched by Alzheimer’s or another form of cognitive decline. So, how can we prepare to handle this professionally, legally, and with grace?

The Impact of Cognitive Decline at Work

When cognitive changes impact reliability – and even trust – it becomes a larger issue for leaders and teammates. Memory loss, difficulty with multi-tasking or problem-solving, and even personality changes can upset and distract colleagues.

It’s important to treat this topic with compassion. But that means care and concern should also extend to co-workers who are directly experiencing these effects. Keep the door open for discreet conversations about their concerns, and invite input on how to improve the situation.

SHRM offers multiple recommendations in its article, “Coping with Cognitive Declines at Work.” These are some suggested priorities for employers:

Conduct a Safety Assessment. The need for this is more obvious in certain lines of work, where rapid response is critical. However, it can be a factor in other professions, as well. There are multiple ways to determine if a person is safe to work.

Engage Employees. Non-confrontational conversations about specific concerns are an opportunity to find out more about what’s going on and open lines of communication for future dialogue.

Keep Thorough Records. Take notes that detail your concerns. Repeated instances of missed deadlines, significant memory lapses, or behavior problems may be helpful down the line. Stick to the facts and steer clear of age-related commentary.

Legal Considerations

Let’s start at the top. There is no reason to draft a policy that defines workability or retirement readiness. Mandated retirement policies are illegal.

Larger organizations with legal counsel are well aware of The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. However, if you’re a leader at a new or smaller company, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the basics of this law.

Also, if you need a refresher, be sure to take the time to revisit these regulations. Understanding the legal parameters of hiring, firing, and pushing retirement based on age is a savvy business move. It’s worth your while because the business risks of acting outside the legal lines can be significant.

Cognitive testing is also dicey from an ethical and legal perspective. Harvard says, “Testing older employees who have no job performance deficits, but not testing younger ones, violates the core principles of the ADEA.”

And that’s not all. It also violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This law permits employers to test employees only if the assessment is job-related and consistent with business necessity. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, testing is permitted only if it is “triggered by evidence of current performance problems.”

So, to avoid claims of age discrimination, will employers want to administer cognitive tests to all employees? Let’s not go there, either. It triggers a slew of concerns related to ADA, Title VII, and other discriminatory issues.

Lastly, it’s important to consider the tremendous medical advances that have led to predictive tests and markers associated with cognitive decline. However, it seems logical to leave those medical procedures to employees’ families. That said, if an employee brings these findings to your desk, be prepared to align your discussion with ADA regulations.

Solutions Start With Education

You may wonder why I’ve been investigating this topic. To be honest, it comes from a personal place. Someone dear to me was deeply concerned about a coworker’s cognitive decline.

I am sure I’m not alone. More and more of us are crossing paths with people who display cognitive changes or have been diagnosed with a related condition. Some of you have been caretakers for those who have experienced cognitive impairment.

This is a triggering and heart-wrenching topic. It’s delicate. But it’s important. And if you are an employer or people manager you’ll likely find yourself affected by it more frequently, going forward. My best advice? Educate yourself.

Upon exploring this topic – and then writing about it – I’ve felt some anxiety and dread. But knowledge is power. And fortunately, there is an abundance of reliable information at our fingertips.

It’s important to be curious and forward-thinking about a topic like this. It’s equally important to understand the law, as well as the needs of people who may be unsure and fearful about their own diminishing cognitive capabilities.

If this is new territory for you, don’t be afraid to ask questions, read up, take notes, and admit that you are learning. But watch your language, mind your approach, and make decisions carefully. Err on the side of caution and care. And remember that kindness is always a good move.

Resources

Alzheimer’s Association: This organization offers many resources, including:
10 Early Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer’s

CDC:
Subjective Cognitive Decline: A Public Health Issue

Mayo Clinic:
Mild Cognitive Impairment

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:
Mental Health Provider’s Role in a Request for Reasonable Accommodation at Work

Workplace Strategies for Mental Health (via Canada Life):
Dementia Response for Leaders

Does Everything at Work Seem Urgent? Let’s Fix That

April 7, 2023/Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Employee Well-Being, Leadership, Podcast Recap, Podcast Recaps /by Meghan M. Biro

Three years ago, the pandemic lockdown triggered a wave of relentless workplace change. Over time, we’ve all had to revamp our attitudes, expectations and behaviors when it comes to productivity and how we get work done. Yet, some people treat nearly every action item as an urgent priority. And this mindset isn’t serving anyone well.

Why is workplace urgency still so widespread? And how can we let go of this counterproductive behavior? Experts say progress is possible, if we wake up and deal with the problem when it arises. But that’s not always easy, especially in our new work environment.

What’s Changed? Where We Work

Globally, 16% of companies now rely on a fully remote workforce, with 62% of employees saying they work remotely at least part of the time.

In the U.S., 35% of employees have been offered full-time remote work, while 58% can choose to work from a distance at least once a week.

Employees see multiple benefits from this increased flexibility. Although remote work no longer looks the same as it did in the early days of Covid, surveys say that up to 90% of employees feel they’re at least as productive when working from home.

What exactly is behind this enthusiasm for remote work? It’s not just about less commute time and improved quality of life. It’s also about efficiency and effectiveness. For example, many remote workers experience fewer interruptions and enjoy more freedom to engage in “deep work.” But that’s not all.

Does Distance Diffuse Urgency?

I suspect many people prefer working at a distance because it also helps them feel less susceptible to what #WorkTrends podcast guest Brandon Smith calls “the urgency epidemic.” In other words, too many managers say a task is “urgent” when a rush really isn’t required. This is an especially irritating aspect of office life. And it’s all too common.

Think about it: When was the last time you faced an unnecessarily urgent work demand based on a leader’s unrealistic expectations? Yesterday? Last week? How did you respond?

Brandon sees this pervasive sense of urgency as a sign of managerial dysfunction. He should know. He’s an expert on leadership communication. So that’s why he wrote the book, The Hot Sauce Principle. He’s on a mission to help managers recognize this problem and help their teams heal from its toxic impact.

An organization’s most precious resource isn’t money. It’s time. So, as Brandon says, when everything at work is always urgent, it creates “a Petri dish for anxiety.” And over time, if employees and managers aren’t careful, it leads to a decline in efficiency and quality of work.

Unfortunately, this is rampant in today’s work settings. But it clashes with remote and hybrid work cultures in multiple ways. Here are Brandon’s tips to help us all understand and resolve the “urgency epidemic.”

How to be Productive Without Making Everything Urgent

1) Realize that time pressure creates stress

Time management has always been a challenge. It turns the clock into an ever-present source of stress. Yet too often, managers use urgency as a tool to get things done. The result: People become so overwhelmed with stress that their efficiency slips and their quality of work declines.

2) Think of urgency as hot sauce

I love a strong visual metaphor. Brandon’s hot sauce concept is perfect. While conducting research for his book, employees told him it felt like “hot sauce was being poured on everything.” What a powerful way to describe the effect of unnecessary pressure!

3) Honor the line between motivation and migraines

Most managers use urgency as a motivator. That’s not always a bad thing. In the right circumstances, it can inspire teams to come together and align around a common goal. It can shape a sense of mission and purpose when working on a short timeline. But it can’t be the norm.

When everything is treated as urgent, it can trigger needless headaches, missteps and disengagement. It’s just not reasonable to work full-tilt in crisis mode all the time.

4) Understand urgency’s diminishing influence

If you’re a leader, think back to your early training. You were likely taught that a sense of urgency is a powerful way to drive an immediate response. Urgency can convince people to jump into action or to change their behavior.

However, modern employees aren’t as readily motivated by urgency. These days, change is a constant — in teams, in technology and in culture. Introducing urgency to the mix doesn’t add value. In fact, it just creates more chaos.

5) Don’t let yourself become numb

We’ve all heard of the boy who cried wolf. If a manager says everything is urgent, eventually nothing seems urgent. Determining which projects are actually urgent becomes impossible, so people simply give up.

Clearly this creates problems for work productivity. But it also undermines a manager’s authority and credibility. Again, the key is for leaders to carefully choose which tasks deserve immediate attention.

6) Pick only five targets

This is my favorite recommendation. Brandon says managers and business leaders should limit how many projects they categorize as “urgent” at any given time. He suggests no more than five to-do items.

As he says, “The best teams, the best departments, the best organizations are executing off of three to five priorities … let everything else just be relief from the heat.”

The Bottom Line

To be sure, continually labeling projects or tasks “urgent” is not a best practice. It may be effective in the short-term. However, it’s also a highly effective way to erode your work culture. That’s because urgency pushes boundaries, and boundaries are critical for a healthy work culture. That’s especially true in today’s new remote/hybrid world of work.

So if you’re a leader, don’t be the kind of person who wants your team to drop whatever they’re already doing to rush in and put out the latest fire on your to-do list. Acknowledge the lines between life and work (unclear as they may be), and home and workplace (virtual or not).

Resist the urge to constantly reorder your team’s priorities. Don’t blindly insist that your priorities are more important than theirs. Regularly take a moment to read the room — even if the room may be distributed across multiple locations. I bet you’ll find that your team starts achieving more and you’ll all be happier for it.

How Leadership Values Shape Culture - #WorkTrends Podcast

How Leadership Values Shape Successful Cultures

February 24, 2023/Company Culture, Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Leadership, Podcast, Podcast Recap, Podcast Recaps /by Meghan M. Biro

Leading people is never easy, even in the best of times. But what does it take to build and sustain a successful work culture in this post-pandemic environment? The answer starts with strong leadership values at all levels of your organization.

It’s not magic. It takes intention and effort. But how exactly do you connect the dots between leadership values, organizational culture, and performance? That’s the question we’re exploring today with someone who has devoted his life to helping people understand themselves and others, so they can achieve better business results…

Meet Our Guest: Gregg Lederman

Today, I’m excited to welcome back New York Times bestselling author, Gregg Lederman. As a sought-after leadership consultant, speaker, and performance coach, Greg understands all too well what helps leaders achieve more in their own lives, and through others. He also knows the pitfalls along the way. Join us as we explore this topic in more depth:

Better Cultures Start With Better Leaders

Welcome back, Gregg! Every organization wants a healthy work culture. So what’s stopping them?

The short answer is leadership at all levels. Simple leadership skills training is no longer enough.

Of course that’s important, but truly great leadership begins from within. That means people need to go through a journey to understand who they truly are as leaders.

If you’ve never taken the time to deal with your fears as a human being, then how will you understand why you’re thinking, speaking, and acting the way you are as a leader? You simply don’t.

Where Leaders Find Insight

You often talk about four truths that guide great leaders. Could you tell me more?

Well, my mom passed away when I was very young. But she left behind a letter that I received when I was 12. It focused on her deepest thoughts about what it takes to live a great life.

Over time, that guidance has evolved into my understanding of what it takes to be a great leader. It’s all based on four truths.

Leadership Truths

So tell us, what are these four fundamental truths?

Well, first, life is a game. And to be a great human or a great leader, you need to play the game by a certain set of rules. Those rules are your core values.

So you make the rules. If you believe in your rules and you follow them, you’re going to win in this game of life.

What “Life Rules” Look Like

Could you share some examples of these rules?

For instance, I have five core values. They are things like integrity without compromise, patience, and loving and accepting others.

This is not just about building my reputation around these attributes. This is about the way I think, speak, and act as a result of these values. They are truly my guiding light for my behavior on a day-to-day basis.

Connecting Values With Culture

What if your organization’s culture doesn’t match your values?

Great point, Meghan. I encourage leaders to look at where their values align with their organization’s. What does that reveal?

Everybody wants a strong work culture because that’s the foundation of a great customer experience. But you can’t just define your culture and hope everyone delivers on it. You need enough great leaders. That’s why I say the biggest challenge organizations face is a lack of great leadership.

To improve, you must invest in developing better leaders at every level. And leaders need to invest in themselves. You need to take the time to do the work.

How Leaders Improve

So, you say growth comes from various mountains we all face in life and work?

Right. There are seven types of mountains. The challenges are different for each of us and they evolve over time. But happiness is not something you find on the other side of people, places, and things. It comes through daily habits that bring your values to life.

People who live a values-driven life are comfortable in their own skin. They’re happier because they aren’t always waiting for something else to happen.

For more insights from Gregg about how to achieve success in life and in leadership, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

Also, to continue this conversation on social media anytime, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Is Quiet Quitting a Symptom of Poor Mental Health?

December 19, 2022/Company Culture, Employee Benefits, Employee Burnout, Employee Engagement, Employee Experience, Employee Happiness, Employee Performance, Employee Well-Being, Health and Wellness, Healthcare and Benefits, Mental Health Awareness /by Vittoria Lecomte

One workplace buzzword many people are eager to leave behind is “quiet quitting.” The phrase dominated headlines this year, especially when a Gallup poll revealed that at least half of U.S. workers are disengaged.

Although this term is quickly running its course, the underlying problem remains. In fact, work engagement continues to slide, indicating a growing disconnect between employees and employers. No doubt, the quiet quitting phenomenon is a symptom of ongoing workplace upheaval. But I suspect it also reflects the need for better mental health support at work.

What Research Says About Workforce Wellbeing

Even as post-pandemic work engagement is dropping, countless studies reveal that depression and anxiety are on the rise. And the uptick in layoffs and economic uncertainty creates even more stress. Let’s look closer.

Nearly three-quarters of employees (72% ) say they’re concerned about finances – up from 65% last year – according to a recent report from financial wellness solution provider, Brightplan. And PWC research indicates that declining financial health impacts employee mental health and work productivity. Specifically, PWC found that 69% of employees who are financially stressed are less likely to feel valued at work – and therefore, they are becoming less engaged.

Depression and anxiety are also leading reasons why people take time off from work. In fact, employers lose an estimated 12 billion workdays annually as a result of employee depression and anxiety. According to The World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization, this costs the global economy nearly $1 trillion a year. Both organizations acknowledge the need for concrete action to address workplace mental health.

How Can Employers Respond?

Some employers may ignore these disturbing trends. But others are taking action by creating an environment where workers feel more valued and supported.

For example, if you notice that “quiet quitting” is spreading among your ranks, it’s likely that these employees feel under-appreciated. By offering professionally managed support groups as a benefit, you can send a much-needed message that tells people, “We see you, we care about your wellbeing, and you are valued here.”

This kind of benefit extends assistance to people who might hesitate to pursue individual therapy — which has historically been costly and difficult to access. And the pandemic has only made it worse. For example, at the height of the Covid outbreak, the U.S. average wait time to see a therapist ranged from 29-66 days.

The Benefits of Group Support

Multiple studies underscore how support group participation leads to improved employee mental health and job performance. In fact, our own research found that when employees attended group sessions, 50% became more productive and 100% experienced improved attitude and outlook.

Why are these results so striking? When employees have access to a clinically-backed support group program, their social connectedness and mood tend to improve. This, in turn, alleviates depression and anxiety. And group support not only helps reduce anxiety and stress. It can also play a central role in preventive care strategies designed to avoid employee burnout.

Why Group Support Helps

Depression and anxiety can fuel feelings of isolation and loneliness – two key reasons why people seek group support in their personal lives. Providing a safe space where employees discuss meaningful issues and concerns can increase their positive feelings about work and improve overall job satisfaction.

Because group support encourages dialogue among people with different perspectives, it can help participants build trust, empathy and openness that carries over into the workplace. However, it’s important not to require colleagues to join the same group. Also, it’s important to respect participants’ privacy by preserving their anonymity.

While the benefits of peer counseling are well known, new studies demonstrate how digital group support can extend mental health services access to more diverse populations. For example, some people have limited mobility or are located in rural communities where trained mental health providers aren’t unavailable.

Video-based group support is an excellent alternative, because it is affordable and accessible online from nearly anywhere on any digital device. This encourages connections and therapeutic conversations without requiring participants to wait for weeks or travel long distances.

Tips to Improve Group Support

When offering this kind of mental health benefit to your employees, keep this advice in mind:

1. Emphasize Voluntary Participation

Everyone comes to the table with a unique background and point of view. This is why the group model can be a particularly powerful tool. So, although encouraging individuals to take advantage of this benefit can be helpful, avoid pressuring anyone or threatening them with repercussions. The goal is to destigmatize mental health and make pathways to wellbeing more accessible and affordable.

2. Prepare to Overcome Fears

Group support is a highly misunderstood term. Too often, people associate group settings only with treatment centers. In the workplace, many people who need support fear they’ll be perceived as “weak” and their careers will be damaged if they join a group. For anyone concerned about this, you can share positive use case data demonstrating how helpful and healing group support can be. Employers can leverage this information as a reference tool and assure concerned employees that their identity will be protected.

3. Insist on Anonymity

Video-based group support should provide access to online sessions on any day and time that works best for each member, while also protecting their identity. Solutions like Sesh, which is 100% HIPAA-compliant, let every user select a pseudonym. Individual data is never shared, and employees are notified when anyone within the same organization registers for their group.

My Perspective

I discovered the value of group sessions while in treatment for an eating disorder. Being part of a group was the catalyst that catapulted my recovery to the next level. This experience led me to launch Sesh.

Typically, therapist-led support is difficult to access, difficult to pay for and designed for monolithic audiences. That’s why I’m committed to extending therapist-led group support to people from all communities, circumstances and identities.

With an affordable, accessible group support experience through their employer, people can finally receive the high-quality mental health support they need and deserve. This helps individuals cope with challenging personal issues, while helping businesses create a more harmonious, productive workplace. And in the process, it may also silence quiet quitting. That is my hope.

How can your organization use OKR methods to improve performance? Learn from OKR expert Matt Roberts

Using OKR Methods To Lift Business Performance

December 6, 2022/Employee Performance, HR Strategy, Leadership, Organizational Planning, Performance Reviews, Talent Management /by Matt Roberts

As 2022 draws to a close, most organizations are deeply involved in planning, budgeting and forecasting for the coming year. To complete this rigorous process, leaders often invest significant time, attention and energy for weeks or even months. Yet research says more than 90% of those strategies will never be executed. How can you develop an operational plan you’ll actually use?

Today’s uncertain economic environment is prompting leaders to seek out more flexible, reliable planning tools. But there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. For decades, some organizations have relied on highly effective, affordable practices and tools based on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

Understanding OKRs

The OKR framework is favored by fast-growing tech giants like Google, LinkedIn, and Spotify, as well as start-ups that hope to follow in their footsteps.

OKRs are a way of setting strategic goals, first at the company level. Then departments, teams and individuals align their goals with the organization in a systematic way. But this framework is much more than a simple goal format. It comes with multiple step-by-step execution best practices.

For example, consider the “check-in” step, which is usually conducted on a weekly basis. This lightweight update process keeps everyone on your team focused, informed and on-track throughout an OKR cycle. Regular check-ins also help leaders avoid becoming consumed in reactive firefighting, which is often why strategies never see daylight.

Specialized software can help make steps like check-ins faster and easier to manage. For example, with OKR tools like ZOKRI, the check-in process takes only minutes to complete.

Unlocking The Full Benefits of OKR

The OKR process seems simple enough. However, making the most of OKRs requires nuance. Understanding how to navigate these nuances can help you quickly move from an OKR novice to a highly skilled OKR-driven organization.

Some important nuances are outlined below and are illustrated in this OKR “Snakes and Ladders” infographic:

7 OKR Ladders (Top Tips)

To help you succeed at OKRs, here are 7 top tips from organizations that have relied on them for years to drive performance and growth:

Use OKR as a focal point for debating issues and opportunities that, if solved, can move the needle. You could also consider them a blueprint for team “therapy” that creates engagement and excitement.
Identify meaningful, measurable outcomes (“key results”) to be sure you define success effectively. Discourage vanity metrics and “to-do list” outcomes.
Use KPIs to measure business-as-usual performance. Reserve OKRs for more valuable performance metrics, focused on strategic initiatives.
Establish aspirational goals selectively to improve focus and unlock innovative ways of thinking. OKRs let you set stretch goals without creating unnecessary stress among stakeholders.
Keep in mind that OKRs do not have to follow your organization chart. For example, they can be used effectively with cross-functional team initiatives.
Use operational processes built into OKRs to ensure that information is flowing as needed and your organization develops an executional rhythm.
Leverage retrospectives at the end of OKR cycles by creating positive shared learning experiences that inform future plans.

7 OKR Snakes (Pitfalls)

Perhaps the greatest strength of the OKR framework is its popularity. The biggest obstacles and mistakes have already been solved many times before, so common issues like these are easy to spot and avoid:

Sometimes, executive teams are not prepared to lead by example. Instead, they expect others to set and update goals, but they don’t manage their own. You don’t want to be one of these leaders.
Goals assigned to you aren’t as effective as goals you help create. To unlock stronger performance gains, get more people involved in the process. Discover together what needs improvement and support others in achieving their goals.
Similarly, avoid developing team OKRs in a silo. Team OKRs are much more powerful when they’re the product of cross-team discussions.
Too many team or individual OKRs dilute your focus. Instead, set fewer goals, each with high potential business impact.
Don’t treat OKR steps as optional actions. Without mandatory check-ins, you lose a single point-of-truth and people stop taking reports and updates seriously.
When the risks and consequences of not achieving OKRs are perceived as high you might be tempted to low-ball, but that can undermine the process. Grading OKRs and retrospectives helps you avoid this issue.
Setting and forgetting OKRs opens the door for business-as-usual firefighting to take over your agenda. Clearly, this jeopardizes overall performance outcomes. It’s important to commit to the OKR cycle and not skip updates or OKR meetings.

Summary

OKR is a proven goal setting framework. It can help you structure, share and execute organizational strategy, while making it easy for individuals and teams to support those goals.

Businesses that rely on OKRs typically are high-performers with traditional organization charts and cross-functional teams. But as everyone works toward aligned goals, people are more likely to identify and solve problems. And they learn from each other faster than those without OKRs.

Adopting OKRs is more than adopting a new goal format. It means you’re embracing a new way of talking about challenges and opportunities, and tracking progress towards goals and learning from experience. The know-how and tools to implement OKRs are within reach – even for organizations with a limited budget and management resources.

Key Design Decisions for 360 Feedback Success

November 1, 2022/Career Development, Employee Experience, Employee Performance, HR, Leadership, Performance Reviews, Talent Management /by Dale Rose

Many managers and HR practitioners are familiar with 360 feedback as a leadership development practice. However, no two 360 feedback experiences look alike.

That is actually a good thing. Most successful 360 feedback drives behavior change both for individual leaders and their employers because the process is tailored to the organization’s unique culture as well as the intended purpose of the exercise.

On the other hand, this need for customization means practitioners face an overwhelming number of decisions when designing a new 360 feedback assessment. For example:

Who should participate?
How many survey questions should we include?
Who should receive the report?
What kind of follow-up support should we offer?
Who should choose the raters?
What role should HR play in the process?

Fortunately, some 360 feedback implementation practices have become ubiquitous. That means some guesswork, research and debate aren’t necessary. For example, below are five must-haves for strong engagement and outcomes.

Five Design Factors for 360 Feedback:

1) Which groups should participate in ratings?

Anyone who has observed a leader’s on-the-job behavior can provide useful rating input. This could include the leader who is being assessed, as well as a combination of direct supervisors, secondary managers, peers, direct reports, customers, board of directors representatives, donors and even skip reports.

In some situations, it is helpful to include other groups to meet specific requirements. For example, if a leader is actively involved with strategic partners or other third-party groups, their voices could add useful context.

While there is flexibility to customize the participant mix, 360 feedback assessments typically include these four core rater groups as a baseline: self, peers, direct reports, and direct managers. In fact, according to soon-to-be-released research from our firm, 88% of organizations include these four core groups.

2) Who will select and approve raters?

Among 360 feedback experts, there is some debate about the best way to choose raters. Should assessment recipients choose their participants? Those who favor this approach say it ensures a sense of ownership and buy-in. Others say a third party (a manager or HR representative) should choose raters. This ensures that feedback is well-balanced and avoids a “friends and family” bias.

Most 360 feedback process owners agree leaders should choose their own raters to build trust and establish assessment process buy-in. On the other hand, 70% of organizations tell us they review and approve final rater lists.

We agree that manager involvement is a wise practice, and a leader’s direct manager should approve the final list. Over the last 20 years, we’ve found that this is the most common approach. And according to our new benchmarking analysis, 48% of companies continue to use this method.

3) How will we score surveys and generate reports?

As with many HR processes, technology has also transformed 360 feedback implementation practices. Now, most HR practitioners rely heavily on online tools so they can collect, organize, analyze and share useful feedback faster and easier.

In 2009, spreadsheets and even paper surveys were still popular ways to collect and report 360 feedback data. Today, those methods are all but obsolete. In fact, 91% of organizations now use a web-based reporting tool to manage surveys and generate reports.

Many practitioners are also choosing to outsource this task to specialized service providers. In fact, our recent research shows that 80% of employers rely on an external vendor or consultant to handle this aspect of the process.

4) How can we assure rater anonymity?

To encourage honest responses, employers must ensure that feedback sources remain anonymous. Therefore, it’s not surprising that 81% of employers tell us rater anonymity is essential to the success of their 360 feedback endeavors.

A common way to ensure anonymity is by requiring a minimum number of survey responses for any group specified in the report. For example, peer scores are displayed separately only if at least 3 peers respond. If fewer peers respond, then that data is included only in overall average ratings.

Most often, organizations require a minimum of three raters in a category. In fact, 83% of companies use this three-rater threshold rule. Very few skip this requirement altogether (3% require no minimum responses). And on the other end of the spectrum, very few require more than three responses.

5) How will we help leaders translate the report into action?

For best results, talent management experts agree that personal follow-up is essential. To optimize ROI, employers should avoid the “desk drop” follow-up, where leaders receive a 360 feedback report, but no direct support to discuss results, implications, or next steps.

Follow-up can include any number of supportive actions, such as: Adding development suggestions to the report, offering action planning guidance, providing individualized 1-on-1 coaching, assigning in-person or online workshops, referring leaders to specialized resource libraries, and more.

The most common step is also what talent management professionals feel is most critical for 360 assessment success: Provide a one-on-one meeting with a trained 360 feedback coach who can facilitate action planning based on the results.

Historically, these sessions were conducted in person. However, in recent years, video meetings have become the dominant format. Also, reliance upon external coaches (rather than in-house staff) has become more popular.

Fortunately, 88% of organizations say they provide debrief sessions and one-on-one coaching, so feedback recipients can interpret insights and chart a relevant path forward.

Final Thoughts

Good leaders thrive on feedback. But for 360 feedback assessments to be effective, it’s important for leaders to understand the results and commit to improvement.

This means employers must take care to design and implement a valid, well-informed process from end to end. By addressing key design elements at the outset and by investing in ongoing leadership guidance, organizations can dramatically increase the likelihood of success.

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Want to learn more about the decisions talent managers make when designing and implementing 360 feedback assessments? Replay this recorded webinar, where the 3D Group unveils findings from its latest benchmarking study, Current Practices in 360 Feedback, 7th Edition. This analysis includes 20 years of data from more than 600 companies.

What is skillability - and why is it so important for future-minded organizations?

Skillability: Will It Solve the Talent Crunch?

October 18, 2022/Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Future of Work, Learning, Learning and Development, Skills Development, Talent Management /by Jeff Mazur

The current talent market poses numerous challenges for leaders and employees, alike. Perhaps the most disruptive force redefining the post-pandemic business landscape is persistently high employee turnover. This “Great Reshuffle” demonstrates just how quickly teams can change—even beyond the pandemic shift to remote work.

A New Business Necessity: Skillability

This fluid employment environment brings good news and bad. Employees are welcoming it as an opportunity to advance their careers. But among employers, it has given rise to the practice of talent poaching. Global companies are proactively pursuing candidates from all over the world, culling the best talent away from other, smaller businesses.

And on top of this highly competitive talent market, employers are now struggling with the effects of inflation. As the cost of living continues to increase, so do demands for higher wages. And candidates are willing to hold out when employers don’t meet their salary expectations. These dynamics can make it tough to fill openings, even for high-paying, highly-skilled roles.

At the same time, employees face a volatile economic landscape that is sending conflicting messages about how to weigh the stability of an existing job against other attractive options. Today’s sky-high inflation hasn’t done employees any favors, either. Even though individuals have more bargaining power, inflation quickly eats into any wage increases gained from a job switch. As a result, economics plays a much more active role in career choices these days.

But despite all of these issues, both employers and employees can rely on one shared secret weapon. It’s something I call skillability.

The Power of Skillability

A skill is an individual’s capacity to perform a job task or function, based on existing knowledge, ability and competence. Skillability, in contrast, is an individual’s capacity to develop proficiency in an unfamiliar skill.

The faster and more efficiently someone can develop a skill, the better. So, skillability can be measured by determining the time an employee needs to develop new skills, along with the investment needed to build those skills.

Training, alone, is not enough to improve skillability. It also requires a supportive, learning-forward work environment. Together, they can nurture professional growth and create a win-win for individuals and their employers.

It’s essential for leaders to develop key workforce skills internally. This gives them new ways to support employees in their current roles, while helping them prepare for future growth within the organization. At the same time, by proactively encouraging team skillability, leaders can uncover new growth opportunities for themselves.

For example, consider technology advancements. While new technologies may promise greater operational efficiency and profitability, they also require specific skills that existing employees may lack. Employees with a high level of skillability can help companies hedge against the uncertainty of changing technology by being adaptable and agile in the face of change.

Building Skillability Within Your Organization

Skillability may sound like a trait, but the ability to develop new skills can actually be learned. It’s all in your approach to training, development, and talent acquisition. Here are just a few ideas to help your organization move forward with this strategy:

1) Consider Candidates Who May Not Fit the Mold

Candidates who lack one or more “required” proficiencies can bring a background or experience that enables them to quickly pick up new skills, duties, and responsibilities. Don’t screen out these individuals.

This approach offers several advantages. First, it opens your organization to new, often untapped talent pools. Also, it encourages the development of existing internal talent, which can drive retention and avoid the consequences of unwanted turnover.

Think about it. If you hire new employees for skillability and their desire to learn, you’re not just investing in their future, but in your organization’s future competitiveness, as well.

2) Build Achievable Benchmarks Into Training

Benchmarking is nothing new. Business leaders use it to determine the highest standards of performance. However, it can also be used for training and onboarding. Benchmarks and timelines can spur self-driven learning over a defined period.

Industrial technology provider, Emerson, relies on a powerful version of this model. It instills lifelong learning “DNA” in new employees to ensure that they will be skillable throughout their employee journey. This kind of approach indicates early on whether employees are likely to grow continually and take on new challenges as they arise. It also encourages the most enterprising employees to quickly distinguish themselves and demonstrate their skillability.

3) Break Employees Out of Their Comfort Zones

Sometimes, the most effective way to cultivate skillability is to nudge employees toward learning opportunities that push their existing boundaries and routines. This strategy is inspired by the fact that people learn more effectively when they’re somewhat uncomfortable as they explore new ways of thinking and doing things.

Effective learning disrupts the status quo, so to speak. And overcoming these challenges has a way of encouraging people to continue pursuing learning opportunities for themselves. This means you’ll want to put employees in new situations that force them to challenge their thinking, expand their knowledge, test their abilities, and ignite their desire to grow and evolve in their careers.

4) Establish a Supportive Environment

The climate you establish for new and existing employees is paramount to skillability’s success. It’s important to create a setting where fear is seen as an invitation to grow, rather than a signal to hold back.

Often, leaders inadvertently discourage growth in others because they fear negative consequences or they’re anxious about their own ability to grow. This can intimidate others and put a damper on skillability. One way to avoid this is for senior leaders to consistently and openly encourage all team members to develop skillability, and for the organization to reward people at all levels who step up to the challenge.

Final Thoughts

Employers can become so invested in hiring for a specific skill set that they fail to consider a candidate’s skillability. When you hire people, you’re already planning to involve them in training. So, why not broaden your talent options to include those with a stronger likelihood to learn much-needed skills in the future?

Even if you look within your ranks for employees with motivation and a commitment to continuous learning, you’re likely to find viable job candidates you might not have otherwise considered. It may only take a gentle push in the right direction and an environment that gives them the support they need to grow and succeed.

How to Motivate People With Better Performance Evaluations

October 11, 2022/Employee Experience, Employee Performance, Performance Reviews, Talent Management /by Matt Romond

When someone says it’s time for performance evaluations, what happens? You can almost hear a collective groan ripple across an organization. Reactions run the gamut, from indifference to full-on dread.

It’s not just the idea of a performance review that makes people so uneasy—it’s also how the process is handled. Although employees tend to agree that performance evaluations are beneficial, too often, the way employers conduct and use reviews leaves a lot to be desired.

We’d like to dig deeper into why performance evaluations stir up so many less-than-positive reactions. But first, let’s look briefly at how they became a standard business practice…

A Short History of Performance Evaluations

Appraisals were first developed during World War I. Back then, they had little to do with helping people improve and move forward in their careers. Instead, military leaders used appraisals to determine which personnel had the skills to qualify for a promotion when openings became available. They also used appraisals to identify and dismiss underperformers, so they could protect their ranks from harm or inefficiency.

The practice of workplace performance evaluations didn’t gain a firm foothold until the 1960s. But since then, reviews evolved in two sometimes conflicting directions. One rationale focuses on assessing current talent. The other emphasizes talent development for the future. However, as employee reviews have become more widespread, so have their scope and complexity. No wonder this topic makes so many people groan.

Why Employee Reviews Are Often Loathed

Today, many executives, managers, and employees agree that the traditional performance review system is no longer practical or effective. This is primarily because reviews are usually conducted on an annual basis.

Experts agree that an annual review cycle isn’t frequent enough to change behavior. Instead, managers should ideally offer feedback or guidance soon after an issue arises, not months after the fact.

Also, with a year’s worth of activity to evaluate, an appraisal can become an intense, high-pressure process, charged with the fear of being reprimanded or fired. In addition, an annual cadence tends to put an organization’s interests first, while undervaluing the employee experience.

Even so, most companies haven’t figured out how to replace or adapt that traditional review process with something better. How can we redesign performance evaluations to more closely meet the needs of employees, managers, and the organization? Let’s start by clarifying those needs.

The Benefits of a Better Review Process

For employers, a strong review process helps people apply their skills and experience to support organizational objectives. Clearer priorities, fewer mistakes, improved performance, and a more united team all contribute to a more profitable and sustainable business.

For managers and other leaders, a strong review process is efficient and effective. It provides timely direction, re-energizes people who have been disengaged, and makes the whole team more eager to deliver high-quality results.

For employees, a strong review process provides a clear picture of their current skills and proficiencies, while offering useful guidance on how to improve. It makes people feel more connected with their role in the organization and more supported in their specific work goals.

What’s at Stake

By relying on these various interests as a blueprint for improving the review process, organizations can achieve measurable gains. For example, a more productive, supportive form of evaluation can be a highly motivating process. Ideally, it creates an opportunity for meaningful dialogue that builds people up, rather than tearing them down. That can make all the difference for organizations that recognize the business value of employee retention.

On the other hand, choosing not to invest in an effective evaluation process brings significant downside risks. For example, people tend to become disenchanted and disengaged when they’re expected to work without constructive feedback, clear goals, or meaningful career paths.

In fact, one survey indicates that 85 percent of employees would consider quitting if they felt they received an unfair performance review. Imagine the impact if that happened in your organization!

Designing Better Reviews

The key to designing effective performance reviews is to recognize that this is a process, not an event. So many of our negative impressions of performance evaluations come from worrying about a single, looming “judgment day” when we wonder if we’ll be praised, criticized, or perhaps even fired.

For a better experience all around, try these approaches:

1) Start with a Different Mindset

The point of a performance review is to measure performance. However, evaluations don’t need to be limited to numbers and volume metrics.

This is an opportunity to think holistically about an employee’s overall connection with their team, and with your company’s culture and values. It’s also a chance to consider qualitative factors that affect an individual’s mental and social well-being.

2) Co-Create the Review

Gone are the days of top-down leadership and authoritarian work atmospheres. A performance evaluation should be a two-way experience.

It’s helpful for managers to work with employees upfront to co-create the goals that will frame their performance evaluation. Goals that align with key business objectives will serve the organization’s interests while giving an employee a sense of autonomy, purpose, and direction.

3) Increase Evaluation Frequency

You may think fewer evaluations are better. But a once-a-year trial builds unnecessary pressure. Distributing all of that annual review energy across more frequent cycles is a much smarter option.

In fact, according to Gallup, employees who receive daily feedback from managers are three times more likely to be engaged than those on an annual review schedule. To encourage professional growth, consider adding monthly progress checks or weekly one-on-one meetings, focused on development.

4) Lead with Recognition

Motivating employees is not always complicated, and we don’t always need expensive perks to do it. Simply acknowledging someone’s work and effort can go a long way to making them feel engaged and connected to their goals.

A whopping 69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt recognized. Let that insight inform your review structure. By leading with acknowledgment—communicating first and foremost what an individual has done successfully—you lay a foundation of trust and validation that can lead to further dialogue.

5) Communicate Changes Clearly

Many performance evaluations focus on a salary increase or a title promotion. But even long-awaited good news needs to be delivered in a way that’s clear and motivating.

For example, with a salary change, what new responsibilities are expected? What new objectives come with this role? Use these shifts in position as an opportunity to have an open conversation about career growth and planning for future skills development and upward mobility.

Final Thoughts

It’s no secret—performance evaluations are a challenge to manage. And improving your existing methods may seem like a thankless task. But many employers are discovering that it’s well worth taking the time and effort to ensure that your process is truly effective.

Any investment you make to improve feedback and communication has the potential to strengthen the sense of connection people feel with their job, their team, and your organization. Ultimately, those kinds of benefits can lead to a significant impact on your ability to retain talent, enhance work quality and improve your bottom line.

Matt Romond is an HR business partner at Jotform. He’s passionate about collaborating with teams to help them do their best work. Outside of work, Matt loves spending time with his family and adventuring in the mountains.

Alexis Russell is the U.S. HR business partner at Jotform. Based in San Francisco, she is the point of contact for all things HR and recruitment at Jotform.

10 Ways to Drive Employee Engagement With Team Problem-Solving

September 6, 2022/Employee Engagement, Employee Experience, Employee Performance, HR, HR Strategy /by Brett Farmiloe

Are you looking for proven ways to drive employee engagement? Many organizations find that collaboration is a highly effective strategy. For instance, consider these 10 team-centered methods recommended by business leaders:

Use the SCRUM Framework for Project Management
Involve Action Focus Groups to Improve Employee Engagement
Empower Employees to Take Ownership of Work Issues
Give Employees a Voice in Problem Solving
Create a Strength-Based Team Culture Using Assessment Tools
Leverage Diversity and Mastermind for Problem-Solving
Take a Bottom-up Approach
Use OKRs to Drive Teamwork and Engagement
Engage Employees in Weekly Virtual Team-Building Activities
Personalize Engagement Drivers to Employee Groups

Why are these engagement ideas so powerful? Learn more from the descriptions below…

1) Use the SCRUM Framework for Project Management

The SCRUM framework encourages team members to work together to solve problems and complete tasks. This helps foster a sense of teamwork and engagement. It also gives team members a say in a project’s direction and execution, so they feel a sense of ownership and responsibility. Plus, each phase of the project is transparent to everyone on the team, so everyone on the team remains aware, focused and motivated.

Omer Usanmaz, CEO of Qooper Mentoring & Learning Software

2) Involve “Action Focus Groups” to Improve Employee Engagement

We conducted an engagement survey with results that identified six individual areas for improvement. Instead of using managers to do this, we asked for employee volunteers to create a response to the challenges identified in the survey. Each Action Focus Group (AFG) included 10 members who met 3-5 times to identify and recommend a solution for the company to implement. Then, each AFG presented its improvement plan to the senior leadership team, which in turn, provided feedback. After each group adjusted its plan, we implemented the final recommendations.

With this AFG approach, employees became actively involved in solving key problems. In addition, this process gave participants an opportunity to build connections outside their primary business areas.

Deborah Norris, Senior HR Manager at Amentum

3) Empower Employees to Take Ownership of Work Issues

We drive employee engagement with team problem-solving by encouraging employees to identify and solve problems affecting their work. We have found that employees are happier, more engaged and more productive when they can take ownership of issues that impact their work.

We achieve this by providing space for employees to voice their concerns about issues and encouraging teams to come together and solve problems (sometimes with incentives), instead of relying only on managers or supervisors.

Debee Gold, Owner & Clinical Director of Gold Counseling & Wellness

4) Give Employees a Voice in Problem Solving

Too many organizations identify problems, and then leadership dictates solutions in a vacuum. But at 104 West, we recently held an all-company meeting, where administration and staff broke out into groups, identified roadblocks to growth, proposed solutions, and then came together to share thoughts. Now, we’re implementing plans based on those ideas, and every person in the organization has a role in this—a role they helped determine.

This process helped us drive employee engagement at all levels, empowering people to be solution-seekers and showcase their problem-solving and leadership abilities.

Joan Wyly, Vice President of 104 Degrees West Partners

5) Create a Strength-Based Team Culture Using Assessment Tools

Using assessment tools like Gallup StrengthsFinder, team members can understand how to create a more strength-based approach to teamwork and problem-solving. Additionally, regular “skip level” sessions allow for bottom-up feedback that helps build a more robust work culture. Also, personalized recognition leads to a more positive employee experience.

Together, these practices can produce a psychologically safe environment where teams thrive.

Rapti Khurana, VP of Talent Engagement & Development at the National Football League

6) Leverage Diversity and Mastermind for Problem Solving

When problems need to be solved, team members tend to find a solution by relying on their individual experience and determination. That can lead to excessive time scratching heads and spinning wheels, without making much progress. However, when people come together to leverage the power of cognitive diversity, an equally diverse array of potential solutions becomes more readily available.

A mastermind-style problem-solving conversation brings together members of disparate teams that are traditionally siloed. Coming together in this way to work toward a common goal can positively impact everything from engagement and retention to trust and productivity!

Erich Kurschat, Owner of Harmony Insights LLC

7) Take a Bottom-up Approach

I’m a big proponent of the bottom-up approach to team problem-solving, based on the teachings of Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa. We involve our front-line employees in group problem-solving, as well as our managers. Front-line employees are given the authority to act autonomously within specific guidelines.

This approach is practical because those closest to a problem often know the most about it and are in the best position to devise solution strategies. Empowering workers at all levels of our organization to participate in problem-solving drives employee engagement.

Dean Kaplan, President of The Kaplan Group

8) Use OKRs to Drive Teamwork and Engagement

For our team at Compt, goal setting and management have been driving forces in employee engagement and group problem-solving. We set objectives and key results (OKRs) as a company, and each department has its own OKRs that support overall company goals. In addition, each employee’s personal goals are tied to that employee’s department goals.

We host monthly company-wide “retro” meetings to share how each team is performing in a measured and data-driven way. Everything we do is quantified, which promotes accountability and cross-department teamwork to achieve overarching goals. This ensures that we are all constantly moving in the same direction toward the same outcomes. And because each individual’s actions impact the company’s success, we feel compelled to be more engaged and create a workplace that benefits us all.

Amy Spurling, CEO, and Founder of Compt

9) Engage Employees in Weekly Virtual Team-Building Activities

One way we combat engagement issues is through weekly virtual team-building activities. Each session is planned and hosted via Zoom by a different group of employees. This way, our workforce enjoys programming variety, while each group has a vested interest in the success of the activity they host. For example, activities have ranged from virtual quiz nights to elaborate online escape room challenges.

These team-building activities have been a resounding success. They’ve provided employees with memorable shared experiences and have helped build bonds between colleagues, ultimately leading to increased workplace collaboration.

Clare Jones, Marketing Manager at OfficeSpaceAU

10) Personalize Engagement Drivers to Employee Groups

The best employee engagement strategy is to ride the drivers. Each organization, of course, will have different drivers. For example, meaningful work, career growth, empowerment, belonging, recognition, leadership, and fulfilling work relationships.

Choose a segment of your employee population. Then implement a strategic theme strategy across your drivers that is personalized to the group but high-profile enough that successes will be seen and heard throughout the organization. Ride the drivers, measure, rinse and repeat.

Marc us Holmes, HR Operations General Manager at City of Detroit

EDITOR’S NOTE: These ideas on how to drive employee engagement were submitted via Terkel. Terkel is a knowledge platform that shares community-driven content based on expert insights. To see questions and get published, sign up at terkel.io.

To Boost Retention – Review for Projects, Not Performance

August 22, 2022/Employee Performance, HR, HR Strategy, Performance Reviews, Talent Retention /by Meghan M. Biro

If you’re ramping up for Q4 in your workplace, you may be anticipating a slew of quarterly performance reviews. It’s your manager’s last chance of the year to address recent performance issues, map out a plan for improvement, and set a goal for what’s next year.

But if you’re concerned with retention, you may want to reconsider. Performance reviews, depending on how they’re done, may not have the right tone to fit the turbulent world of work we’re in right now. They may not support your engagement and retention challenges. Employees are jumpy — and while feedback is always a good idea, it may all be in the delivery and the framework.

What works instead? Take a project-based approach — in which feedback and reviews are based on specific projects rather than overall performance over time. It avoids focusing on trickier metrics like behavior and “commitment” and provides a picture of a given situation and a given challenge. And it creates a clear boundary between life and work at a time when many of our workforces are seeing those lines blur. The day-to-day of a given job may be filled with ebbs and flows that didn’t exist when performance review criteria was designed. Particularly in categories like “attitude,” “willingness,” or “energy.” But a project is a project: you get it done.

Projects and Teams are Already on the Rise

The world of work is already shifting to projects as an increment of production instead of focusing simply on time. A project-based approach to the workplace is already a reality for a growing number of organizations. Of course, there are industries that traditionally lend themselves to project-based cadences of work. Industries such as marketing, advertising and content, engineering, legal firms, consultancies, and other service providers. But even high-service industries can shift to projects — framing work into initiatives, special efforts, campaigns, and quotas.

Taking this approach can bring your people together as a team. And we’re seeing the rise of teams — Deloitte’s research on the power of high-performance teams to catalyze organizational growth is pretty compelling. We divide into teams to better structure communications channels within digital workplaces, to forge accountability, to better manage, and to create a unit we can rely on. Projects and teams go hand in hand: a team executes on a project, essentially — and may interact with other teams, but they have a specific role, specific tasks. That actually frees up a manager to track a whole lot more in terms of individual input and contributions, responsiveness, creativity, and the ability to work in a group — and as reflected in the outcome of the project they were a part of.

Anchored to Specific Targets

The uneasy truth may be that many organizations wonder if performance reviews are working, but don’t have an alternative. But this is the era of transformation — like it or not, we transformed where and when and how we work out of necessity. It’s a reality right now that employees are stressed — and a bit jumpy if you look at the Great Resignation.

So consider the fact that just 14% of employees agree their performance review inspires them to improve, according to Gallup research. Further, traditional performance reviews and approaches to feedback can take a psychological toll — actually making performance worse about one-third of the time, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. No one wants to unintentionally build more resentment instead of more engagement, best intentions aside.

I’ve seen plenty of well-designed performance reviews that stay brilliantly on specifics. But one of the common objections employees have to performance reviews is that the criteria can feel vague; in that gray area may live bias, unfairness, arbitrariness, etc. Going granular may alleviate that: you’re looking at clear tasks delineated within the arc of a project: beginning, middle, completion. There’s closure. A sense of accomplishment. Finishing something feels good — and deserves credit. It may offer a tactful cantilever to other issues that need to be addressed. And there’s no question that each individual’s contribution to that project — and their own experience being a part of it— offer countless opportunities for feedback, for clarification, and for recognition.

Reflecting What’s Happening Now

Is taking a project-based approach to reviews feasible for most organizations? It could be more feasible than you think. It fits the changes the world of work is already undergoing, and: factors many organizations are already experiencing:

An increase in bringing in gig workers, SMEs, and consultants that either complement existing skills among our salaried workforces or expand them as necessary — and therefore redefining the essence of a team.
A shift from depending on the overall cohesion of a physical workplace to a remote and hybrid one, where people don’t come together organically but over the work they do.
A new emphasis on flexible scheduling and more work/life integration — seeing the job as a series of projects rather than a monolithic block of time no matter what happens.
A need to integrate faster into operations and get employees aligned before that 3-6 month period when many consider leaving: A recent survey of some 2,000 U.S. employees found that more than half (52%) were already on the hunt for a new position after being in their present one for less than 3 months.
A workforce in which teams, no matter their composition, can autonomously and independently execute, and a well-managed or self-managed team is becoming the essential engine of production (more than individual output) and a key part of the organizational chart.

A Resilient Framework

Recently the Harvard Business Review pointed to the resiliency of a project framework: instead of focusing on process and controls, it focuses on how to deliver the elements with the greatest value. It’s not a leap to see how that approach could also remove bias (such as recency) and gray areas from the equation, making the effort more about purpose, intent, strategy, goals, execution, and lessons learned. In terms of HR and talent management, that kind of shift immediately opens the door for feedback and self-reflection on the part of its participants and makes self-observation part of growth. In essence, it democratizes the review process by making it more clear.

Depending on the size and nature of your organization, performance reviews may be a critical factor in your talent management strategy. But adding project-focused reviews to the mix adds a concrete benefit. A tangible means to gauge people’s efforts to achieve real results, in real-time.

It’s also a smaller-scale way to build larger-scale results: as we know, growth happens in increments and iterations, not whole-cloth. No question, it’s easier to drive alignment and achieve collaboration across a team focused on a project. So take that sense of accomplishment, focus on it and celebrate it, and then do that over again. In terms of employee engagement, that can create a truly strong foundation — and more reason for them to stay.

10 tips for leaders who want to empower and engage employees

10 Tips on How To Empower and Engage Your Employees

May 5, 2016/1 Comment/Employee Engagement, Employee Experience, Employee Performance /by Julie Ellis

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. – Stephen R. Covey

The classic “my-way-or-the-highway” leadership style is no longer effective. Yes men and women who simply follow rules, policies, and procedures won’t produce strong results and lasting growth. As a business owner or manager, you know it’s vital to empower and engage your employees.

The more connected people feel with their work, the more likely they’ll a sense of ownership in your company. That sense of ownership leads employees to be innovative, customer service oriented, problem solvers who take pride in their work.

Of course, this doesn’t just happen by accident. It takes good leadership techniques to ensure that people on your team feel free to make decisions and take actions with autonomy. Here are 10 tips you can use to help empower and engage your staff.

10 Ways to Empower and Engage Employees

1. Give Them Opportunities to Demonstrate And Strengthen Their Leadership Skills

In order for empowerment to be successful, it has to be accompanied by confidence. You can’t simply tell your employees that they have the power and autonomy to act in the best interests of the company and its customers. They need to find and develop confidence in their own leadership and decision making skills. As the leader, you can do this by finding ways to let employees at all levels lead and make decisions. Eventually, you won’t need to direct them to take the lead.

2. Tell Them

Make sure that the language that you use doesn’t contradict your goal of creating a culture of engagement and empowerment. If you are used to using an authoritarian leadership style that might reflect in the words that you use. Be mindful of the tone and words that you use when addressing your team. Your words should tell them that you are sincere about the work environment that you want to provide and remember that “Employees engage with employers and brands when they‘re treated as humans worthy of respect.” Meghan Biro

3. Provide Regular State of The Company Updates

In order to act in the best interests of the company, employees need to be kept engaged with regular and candid updates on the current state of things, along with your vision of the future. This includes acknowledging areas of concern and struggle. Your team needs to know where things are going wrong in order to find ways to be proactive and improve areas of weakness. These regular updates will also keep everybody on the same page.

4. Encourage And Enable Personal Development

The more support you give your employees regarding their pursuit of their career goals and skill development, the more that they will trust that you have their best interests in mind. One way to do this is to give them the time and resources to spend on personal development.

5. Back Them up When They Use The Power You Give Them

If you pull the rug out from underneath employees when they act with autonomy, you will struggle to ever get them to believe your rhetoric on empowerment again. Now, this doesn’t mean that you can never step in and intervene if you believe a course of action is a mistake or redirect an employee who has overestimated the extent of their empowerment. It just means that care must be taken to ensure that the employee understands that the intervening action was taken in their and the company’s best interests.

6. Reward Successful Results And Recognize Good Efforts

When employees show initiative and take action to solve problems, keep customers happy, improve processes, or create growth, your recognition is what will encourage them to do the same in the future. When their efforts really make a difference, rewarding them is an appropriate action to take.

7. Give Them Space

Just like authoritarian language can undermine your message of empowerment, so can hovering and micromanaging. Give your team members space to do what they do best, and trust them to bring you in when you are needed.

8. Review And Revise Policies That Could be Hindering Empowerment

If your written policies don’t reflect your goal of creating a more empowered workforce, your employees may be in an uncomfortable situation. It’s difficult to heed verbal encouragement to act with autonomy, when written policy is full of mandatory procedures and admonishments to follow chains of command.

9. Help Them Pursue Career Tracks That Reflect Their Talents

It’s fairly easy to make employees who are doing well feel empowered, but what about employees who are struggling to find their footing. It is often these employees who need the most mentoring to make them feel empowered and engaged, while still directing them to improve their performance. In many cases, a lack of good performance is the result of an employee being placed in a position that doesn’t allow them to use their talents, and they feel stuck. Encourage employees to take on roles and responsibilities that reflect their skills, even if that means transferring to another area, or changing path they joined your company to pursue.

10. Create an Environment Where The Possibility of Failure Doesn’t Create Fear

When people are given power to make decisions without checking in with their supervisors or running to a policy manual, great things happen. Sense of ownership increases, performance improves, and customers are happier. Unfortunately, another side effect of this is that people are going to make mistakes, and their efforts will occasionally result in failure. Failure in itself is painful enough for employees, make sure that you communicate that failure as the result of sincere effort isn’t going to be met with harsh criticism or penalty.

Photo Credit: Robots are Stupid via Compfight cc

Why It’s Time to Get Serious About Gamification

What’s at Stake

Tips From a Gamification Expert

Defining Gamification

Why Gamification Is So Powerful

How Does This Prepare Us For the Future of Work?

Why Gamification Wins

My Turn: How Gamification Helps

1. Inspire Individuals to “Level Up”

2. Help Teams Run-Up the Score

3. Tap Into Employees’ Competitive Nature

4. Avoid “Game Over” Scenarios

5. Appeal to All Generations

6. Boost Your Employer Brand

7. Lighten The Mood

Game On! Can Your Culture Outplay The “Great Gloom”?

So Many Tools, So Little Time

How People Science Helps

5 Feedback Strategies People Science Experts Use

1. Digital Suggestion Boxes

Considerations:

2. Daily Surveys

Considerations:

3. Surveys to Optimize Specific Work Experiences

Considerations:

4. Lifecycle Surveys

Considerations:

5. Frontline Customer Feedback

Considerations:

What Would a People Science Expert Do?

How HR Analytics Has Evolved

Key HR Analytics Functions

1. Data Collection and Aggregation

2. Data Analysis and Visualization

3. Talent Management

4. Workforce Planning

5. Performance Improvement

Benefits of HR Analytics

1. More Effective Strategic Planning

2. Valuable Predictive Capacity

3. Better Understanding of Workforce Performance

4. Improved Hiring and Engagement Outcomes

5. Stronger Diversity and Inclusion

6. Optimized Costs

Real-World HR Analytics Examples

1. Google

How Google Tackled These Problems

2. IBM

How IBM Resolved This Problem

Final Note on the Power of HR Analytics

Connecting Motivation With Business Benefits

8 Ways to Inspire Employee Motivation

1. Communicate the Big Picture

2. Seek Employee Input

3. Give People Autonomy

4. Reward Success

5. Foster a Positive Work Environment

6. Offer Opportunities for Professional Growth

7. Lead With Encouragement

8. Remain Available

A Final Word on Employee Motivation

What Do Watches Teach Us About Great Leadership?

Look Inside

A Fine Watch at Work

Making Everything Run Like Clockwork

Effective Leadership Endures

Developing Your Team Builds Strength for the Future

Great Leadership is a Journey, Not a Destination

Retain Top Staff by Developing Your Team

Ideas for Developing Your Team While Keeping Results in Mind

1. Link Personal Goals to Business Goals

2. Establish Achievable Goals

3. Know When to Change and Adapt

4. Give Staff Ample Agency to Grow

5. Link Success to Opportunity

Final Notes on Driving Results Versus Developing Your Team

Meet Our Guest: Alex Furman

Designing a More People-Centered Organization

Finding Hidden Influencers You say teams rely heavily on “stealth influencers.” Could you tell us more?

Tech’s Role in a People-Centered Organization

Finding Hidden Influencers
You say teams rely heavily on “stealth influencers.” Could you tell us more?