CareerCurve™

Who would have thought that commuting costs would figure into a person’s decision to stay or leave a company?  Unfortunately, this is a fact now.  In my area of the country, I’ve seen gas prices of $4.35/gallon.  Most of the country has hit $4.00 and prices are expected to go up higher still.    Workplace studies show that the average commute for an employee is about 30 miles. Depending on the car the employee owns, this will really add up for some of your employees.  It reminds me of the question stay at home moms consider when deciding whether or not to reenter the workforce – does the cost of child care outweigh the salary and benefits?  Is it worth it?  HR departments need to explore ways to assist employees with these costs in an effort to retain and attract top talent. 

If you have employees who travel a significant distance to come to work, you can bet they will be considering a position closer to home.  They almost have to.  However, there are things your company can do to try to help your employees.

Change the schedule.– One example of this would be to lengthen each day and take Fridays or Mondays off the schedule.  Many employees would jump at the chance to work four, 10 hour days and have a three day weekend.  This also removes a roundtrip, saving a whole day’s worth of gas. 

Coordinate car-pooling. – You can do this yourself internally with carpool boards or on your intranet, or you can recommend employees go to a site that will do it for them, such as erideshare.com.  Encouraging your employees to get involved shows you are aware that gas prices are affecting them.  If differing schedules are an issue, be open to considering assisting multiple employees to get on the same schedule in order to make it work.

Offer on-site lunches.– Explore ways to feed your staff and keep them at work during lunch.  You may be able to negotiate special pricing with restaurants and catering businesses to make it more cost effective for employees to remain on-site.  This is also a great engagement tool, especially if once a month or so the company springs for the lunch.  Your employees get to socialize with other people in the company.  As with many of the other suggestions, this doesn’t have to be an every day event.  Offering the ability o order and buy lunch once or twice a week still helps.

Consider telecommuting where possible.- How many of your employees could work from home?  If you don’t want to make it permanent, be non-committal about the timeframe and relay to them that this is a program you will try temporarily, in order to help them get through this.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing either.  Maybe some employees could work from home 1 or 2 days a week and be in the office the others.

Look into subsidizing public transportation.-  Are you familiar with public transportation in your city?  Can you offer incentives for employees to use it?  Or can you offer to pay for it?  This may prove to be a minimal cost compared to the cost of turnover and hiring and on-boarding.  Many times there are incentives offered by the public transportation authorities themselves such as group discounts or pre-tax savings for those who purchase passes through your company.  If your company is large, your organization may actually be able to negotiate an incentive program with the public transportation authority.

Work these solutions into your “green” program, too. – Many employees, particularly Gen Y, are interested in working for companies who care for the environment.  Going green is where it’s at, so you can use some of these solutions to demonstrate how you not only want to help your employees, but do your part to improve the environment as well.  You could roll the programs out as something you want to try to help with gas prices and want to keep in an effort to cut down on pollution. 

My best recommendation on all of these suggestions would be to take a vote.  If you’re not sure which program might be effective, ASK.  This situation provides your company with the ability to be transparent, which builds trust.  You can let them know you’re not sure what will work but you’d like their input and will explain any reservations.   The simple act of asking your employees what would help them demonstrates that you are aware of the impact that gas prices may be having on them and shows them that you want to do what you can to ease the burden.  Proving to them that you care will do wonders for your employer brand, engaging your employees, increasing retention, and attracting top talent.  Happy employees are productive employees, so putting in the effort means a win for everyone.  

Is your company currently offering any programs to help your employees deal with rising gas prices?  Do you plan to?  Please share any other examples in the comments.

I am fascinated by ROWE, which stands for Results Only Work Environment and is exactly that - an environment where how, when and where work is accomplished is completely irrelevant. 

Most managers say they evaluate employee performance on the results produced, but is this true?  Don’t things like showing up for work, being available for and attending meetings, and managing corporate politics play a large part in how an employee is evaluated?  With ROWE all of these things are thrown out the window and employees are  evaluated strictly on the quality of work produced. 

ROWE, quite simply, revolves around trusting your employees.  And trusting employees increases engagement and motivation which increases productivity for the company as a whole.  As you know, I am all about instilling trust and the benefits of it, but is it realistic?

This article does a nice job of summarizing the components of creating this type of work environment as well as the types of businesses where it could be successful and the industries where it could not.  I personally find the whole concept very appealing and can see how it could create the type of corporate culture that would not only attract the best and the brightest, but would be a great retention tool as well.  Then, when I stop to think about the details involved in actually running a company this way it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that anything could actually be accomplished in a timely manner.

Doesn’t a successful company revolve around commitments and deadlines managed by numerous people to accomplish the business objectives?  How do you manage that without meetings, set availability of team members and mandatory updates on progress?  And legally, are the complications it presents worth the rewards?

Have any of you encountered this type of management philosophy?  Was it difficult to implement and do you see better results than a traditionally run organization?  Are your employees happier and more productive and is the quality of their work higher?  Please share real-life experiences in the comments.

We are all familiar with the ongoing debate about whether Human Resources is strategic, whether it should be, and what role HR plays in the business goals of an organization.  I was trolling Amazon and ended up reading one of their “Look Inside” sections of Stephen Covey’s The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.  Suddenly, the importance of Human Resources jumped off the page and I can’t even see how it’s really debatable.  Now I know this is a book from the middle of the last decade with research from that time, but I don’t think the relevance has changed.

Human Resources has been defined as “the name of the function within an organization charged with the overall responsibility for implementing strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals.”   So, in the broadest terms, if your role is to manage your workforce, take a look at the following for examples of how pivotal HR is to an organization.

Covey, citing data from a Harris Questionnaire of 23,000 U.S. residents employed full time in key industries and in key functional areas, summarizes the research that explains what employees are thinking.  As you read these, think engagement, talent optimization, retention, culture, relaying strategic business goals, and all the other HR buzzwords and functions that make up the things you need to worry about as an HR professional.

• Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
• Only 1 in 5 was enthusiastic about their team’s and organization’s goals.
• Only 1 in 5 workers said they have a clear “line of sight” between their tasks and their team’s and organization’s goals.
• Only half were satisfied with the work they have accomplished at the end of the week.
• Only 15 percent felt that they organization fully enables them to execute key goals.
• Only 15 percent felt they worked in a high-trust environment.
• Only 17 percent felt their organization fosters open communication that is respectful of differing opinions and that results in new and better ideas.
• Only 10 percent felt that their organization holds people accountable for results.
• Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they worked for.
• Only 13 percent have high-trust, highly cooperative working relationships with other groups or departments.

I think anyone would agree that these are problems.  When it comes to fixing them, how could anyone BUT Human Resources be effective?   Managing the above IS managing individuals.    

And if skeptics don’t see the importance of addressing these misperceptions (remember, perception matters more than what is real here), give them Covey’s example:

“If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only four of the eleven players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only two of the eleven would care. Only two of the eleven would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but two players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.”

Do you think this team’s going to win many games?  Do any of the other issues that plague an organization matter as much if this is the mindset of its employees?  By managing the individuals, HR is laying the groundwork for the company’s success.

Many times HR is placed in a position to deliver a message, sometimes to a particular employee, sometimes to the masses. Obviously I’m a big proponent of telling the truth even though it can be difficult – I’ve written about the importance of being truthful in creating and maintaining a transparent culture, how being truthful leads to trust and why trust is so important, and how telling the truth engages, motivates, and inspires your workforce.

Idealistically, making the commitment to be truthful to your employees results in many positive outcomes. Realistically however, there are hidden challenges in the way your employees think that could impact how accurately your message is perceived.  In many cases, there isn’t much you can do about it either – they are simply thought processes that exist within the employee receiving your message. But knowledge is power and knowing these challenges are out there can be helpful in how you move forward.

• Everyone has a comfort zone and it can be difficult to get your employees to consider ideas or make decisions outside of it. If the truth you try to deliver doesn’t fall within a place of security for them, you may be challenged by their desire to distort what they’ve heard.

• Selective hearing is another challenge. Employees subconsciously hear what they want to hear, and tend to support the things that match or support their own beliefs while discounting those that don’t. This can make it difficult to know the information was relayed  accurately, particularly since you may not be intimately familiar with their value and belief systems.

• The way your employees view you, the company and themselves also comes into play. If your employees don’t like you or the company or agree with how either operate, they are not likely to believe you or give credence to the message you are trying to deliver. Likewise, they will tend to view themselves as having better judgment and higher morals than you. All of this means that your message will be disregarded more easily. If they like you and the organization, odds are they will be more accepting of what you are trying to say, regardless of what it is.

• Employees often believe that their successes are based on talent and ability, while yours are most likely luck. Their personal failures are attributed to external factors and bad luck, but yours are due to your own mistakes. This presents a challenge for you in terms of credibility. And if your employees think you are less credible than they are, doesn’t this impact the way they hear your message?

• Employees often conform to their group’s mindset. This could mean their team or department and the level of unconscious conformity may depend on how tightly knit their group is. And they are probably unaware that this desire to conform exists. For you, this means that their response to a message may not be their own and they may not even know that.

All of these examples are difficult to recognize – they are, after all,  subconscious thought processes. Knowing that the possibility exists that one (or more) of them are affecting what is heard can help you craft and deliver a more effective message.

Is it the amount of money the company spends?  Is it the quality of the food?  Is it how much booze you provide?  Is it how ritzy the venue is?  Is it timing – too early and no one feels festive and too late and everyone is too rushed?    Your holiday party is now nothing more than an item on an already overloaded checklist of things to do?

I believe a successful holiday party can happen anywhere at any time and it’s all about the planning.   I can safely say that because I just attended mine and none of those things mattered, at least not to me.  Don’t get me wrong  -  the venue was beautiful, the food was great, drinks were served.  I’m not yet horribly pressed for time and holiday obligations.  I’m also not in denial where I think Halloween just happened a few days ago.  The most important thing I noticed was the mindset in the planning.

I know there are risks to putting on a party for your employees but this may actually interfere with the whole point of it.  I’ve read so many do’s and don’ts like this one, and while I see the reason for concern to a degree, I just don’t know if you can have a great party if you try to plan for each eventuality.  Being too caught up in potential liability seems to change the tone and really sends some messages to your employees that you may not be aware of.

So why do I think ours was a successful holiday party? And what kind of messages did we employees get from it?  Here are some things I noticed that made it a great night that sent great messages.

No pressure – I don’t think I would’ve been committing career suicide if I couldn’t make it.  The message here was it was truly meant for enjoyment.

Menu choices – Again, it wasn’t about the food, but it sure was nice that the company recognized that we are individuals. We may not all like the same thing to eat. 

The short public thank you before dinner –  this was not  a state of the union address and all about the company, but personal thank yous with real-life examples of how each group is integral to our success.  And it was incredibly genuine.  I felt appreciated.

The effort not to discuss work – all conversation starters were either a thank you for my contribution or questions about holiday plans and family.  The message I received was that this was a night out, not a meeting.

We were trusted -  to have cocktails and it was assumed we would be responsible.  There weren’t drink tickets or time limits for the bar to be open as if we were college kids at a frat party who couldn’t behave unless we were monitored.    It was assumed everyone was mature enough to handle the presence of alcohol, and we did.

What is your experience with holiday parties?  Are you so obsessed with the risks your forget it’s supposed to be fun?  What kind of messages do you unconsciously send your employees when your planning is focused on instituting rules and policies to avoid liability?

I posted a while ago about letting your employees teach you how to re-recruit them.  Then I read a really great blog post by a fellow blogger, Terry Seamon in October, about listening.  I’ve suggested in the past that listening is a great retention tool and and he is offering that it is an act of leadership.  Dwane Lay, another fellow HR blogger, explains in November how listening to your team will also develop trust.  I brought up a number of questions to ask and Terry developed a strategy for how to listen and then what to do with the answers.   Dwane suggests numerous reasons why listening to your people means you are listening to the right people and how this will ultimately assist you in making sound business decisions. 

Retaining top talent is one of the largest concerns HR has right now and that is not going to change anytime soon.   Because there are multiple reasons for this problem, there are multiple solutions as well.  But a common denominator to the success of these solutions comes from listening.  

What does listening cost the company?  Nothing.

Yes, I and others strongly recommend that once you hear, you take action.  But even if you can’t make sweeping change to your organization right now, the benefits of sincerely listening will still be felt.  Employees want to feel validated and work in an environment where their opinions and ideas matter.  If you don’t listen sincerely, trust that your employees will know it and you’ll end up with the attitude I discuss here.

Changing the organization’s style will pay off in increased trust, higher engagement, better retention, and ultimately greater production.  As these things occur, you can then invest more and more into implementing changes your employees recommend.  Start small and start with developing your listening skills.

Think about it this way.  How much time do you spend pretending to listen to comments and concerns in order to show employees you care?   What does that cost you?  Are you actually just letting them vent or are you honestly considering what they have to say?  Have you ever tried to make listening to your employees a top business priority?

I’ve posted previously about the culture of an organization and the various roles it plays in retention, trust, engagement level, and overall productivity of the company.  I’ve also said that culture is to an organization what character is to an individual.  But did you ever think about the connection between an ethical culture and effective compliance programs?

A strong ethical culture exists when doing the right thing takes precedence over getting the job done.  In short, HOW things are done matters most.  The Ethics Resource Council has published many fascinating studies on numerous topics related to ethics but one I found particularly interesting discusses the effectiveness of workplace compliance programs depending on the ethical culture.  This study also discusses the most important factor in establishing a strong ethical culture.

Compliance programs are meant to both reduce misconduct and increase reporting of misconduct.  If you have a strong ethical culture your employees feel less pressure to commit misconduct. Because they don’t feel pressured they are also far less likely to observe misconduct by others.  In strong cultures employees are much more likely to report misconduct and the retaliation rate drops considerably.  This means your compliance program is far more likely to be effective.   To me it seems as though a strong ethical culture is key to uniting the organization toward a common goal where those that want to break the rules are not welcome and should be reported.

So what is the most important component in creating a strong ethical culture in your organization?  The behavior and perceived behavior of top management and executives. 

Keep in mind that most of this is based on perception.  When considering ethics, perception is reality.  It doesn’t matter nearly as much WHAT is happening.  It’s all about what the employees THINK is happening.  The actions and perceived ethics of top management drive the culture and the culture has the largest impact on the critical components of compliance issues. 

To  implement effective compliance programs building and maintaining a strong ethical culture needs to be a business goal.   This has an impact on the risks and costs of misconduct (legal action, turnover, retaliation), as well as company reputation and employer brand.  Creating this culture has to start at the top and can be accomplished by transparency, communication, building trust, and walking the talk.

This is one situation where a top down business model is still the most effective.

Do you have effective compliance issues?  Do you have a strong ethical culture in your organization?

The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal.  How can you accomplish this in your organization? 

A good place to start is to understand the difference between employees working in groups or working in teams.  Once you know what to look for, you can evaluate whether your organization is focusing on the most effective approach to projects.

Here are some suggestions followed by an explanation of some subtle differences that mean a lot.

Have the members establish the goals.

In group projects, members tend to focus more on their personal role since they were not involved in the creation of the goals.  Team members, on the other hand, tend to take ownership of the goal because they were a part of creating it.

Encourage collaboration.

Groups run in a way that typically assigns a task to a member and doesn’t encourage suggestions outside of his or her area of expertise.  Teams, because they are aligned with the overall goal, are focused on taking advantage of the talent and experience of all members.

Have the members work interdependently, not independently.

Group members tend to work independently on their task to the detriment of the overall desired goal.  Many times they are unable to see the desired goal beyond their own role.  This means they cannot support other group members because they don’t understand how it fits into the big picture.  Team members understand that while they have personal goals, the end result will be met by mutual support.

Be extremely clear when defining objectives to instill trust.

Group members are given a task but tend to be very cautious in communication simply because they don’t fully understand what is going on within the group.  They don’t trust that their suggestions are relevant or that anyone in the group will want to hear them.  Conversely, teams operate in a way where feedback, questions, and varying opinions are encouraged.  In addition, if group members don’t understand the ultimate objectives, they may suspect the motives of the members.  On teams, objectives are clear and there is not a question of motive because the members understand each other’s roles.

Assign a leader, but reiterate that this is a team effort.

Groups tend to value conformity more than positive results.  This is due to all the factors listed above.  In groups, the members participate less and assume that the leader will make all final decisions, whereas teams value results.  Team members understand that if consensus is not reached, the leader will hold the final vote, but that an improved solution will occur because of the exchange of ideas and that each member is important to the process.

Does your organization work in groups or teams?  In your opinion, is one more effective than the other?

I recently had a conversation with someone who had completed a survey about benefits for his company. The employee’s mindset surprised me and got me wondering what led to this attitude and what a company needs to do to avoid it.

The attitude was that the survey was simply pacification – a way to make him feel as if his opinion matters, even though it doesn’t. He thinks HR is going to do whatever they want but they don’t want to come out and admit that. The survey provides justification for whatever decision they make because they can now say “Well, we asked everyone.”

This has got to be the polar opposite of what HR wanted to accomplish. Why would an employee feel this way and what can be done to change this attitude?

In some cases, it is a personal characteristic of the employee to be skeptical that their opinion will change anything. But there are things that can be done to discourage skepticism and prove the employee wrong. In many cases, this attitude is developed by mistakes the company made along the way.

Here are some things to keep in mind when surveying your employees.

Consider what matters to your employees, not only what matters to you.

Don’t send out a survey about diversity if you are hearing rumblings that your employees are having issues with teamwork. This will help the employees assume that you really don’t care about the same things they do. Or that you’re not listening.

Define the objectives prior to creating and dispersing the survey.

If you don’t know what kind of issue you hope to get feedback on, you can’t relay the changes you hope to make from the results.

Communicate clearly what you hope to accomplish.

Think in terms of it being impossible to over communicate. There must be a purpose (assuming it is NOT true that you are simply trying to pacify your employees), so share it. In a detailed, precise way.

Make sure the questions you ask match the overall goal.

If you relay the goal of the survey and then ask questions that are irrelevant, you breed skepticism.

Narrow the topic.

Make sure that your goals are clearly defined but not too broad. The point is to implement change and you can’t change everything at once. If the survey covers too many areas, your employees will quickly realize that change cannot happen in all of them. He/she may then assume that change will happen in none of those areas.

Remember different things matter to different employees.

This also supports narrowing the topic. If you make only one change as a result of a broad survey, those that didn’t care about that topic will become disengaged. They will not feel their opinions matter.

Make sure the survey makes sense.

The subject should reflect corporate goals and values and again, this should be communicated.

Share the results.

Let your employees know that their opinion mattered, and how each responded as compared to the whole. Then you can share the changes you are working on based on the majority opinion. A survey whose results are only known to the higher ups will make your employees think that nothing is being done with it, there is an agenda they are unaware of and the survey didn’t support it, or their opinions really are irrelevant.

Follow up and DO something.

If you don’t do a thing with the results, your employees won’t bother completing the next one and will assume surveys are pointless because nothing ever happens anyway.

Surveys can be great engagement tools if properly managed from start to finish. They should be used to create meaningful change with a positive impact. If they are not, they can actually hurt your organization and lower your employee engagement, and ultimately, productivity.

Seeing as I’ve written so much on the topics of trust, inspiration, transparency, and engagement etc. the natural progression seems to be empowerment.

My definition of empowerment in this context is you helping your employees grow and become more confident in their abilities.

As I look at the outline in my mind of how to achieve talent optimization, high levels of engagement and retention, and the effective recruitment of top talent, it seems to me that empowerment needs to be addressed.  (After establishing trust, of course.)

Employee empowerment has a significant effect on creativity and creativity has a strong effect on innovation.  Successful companies are innovative.

So how can you empower your employees and encourage creativity and innovation?

Many of the things you can do will be the same exact things that you do to instill trust and increase engagement.  Once you have a decent level of trust established, try some of these suggestions and you will not only bolster that trust but also encourage creativity.  They all go hand in hand.

Believe in them – and let them know it.  Show them that you have all the faith that they will do their job well and also that they will continue to improve in their role, even if they make mistakes.

Give them freedom – freedom to make decisions quickly without a bunch of hoops to jump through.  Freedom from a ton of rules and regulations that stifle creative thought and make it not worth their time or energy to institute creative problem solving.

Align values – sorry, I’m saying it again.  Let your employees understand the values and goals of the company and how each of them fits into this overall corporate picture.

Have them participate in important decisions.  I’ve said this before too but it is such a factor in engagement, inspiration, empowerment and innovation.  How can an employee feel connected to the ultimate goal if he/she is not part of the process?  Ask for their advice or suggestions and listen to what they have to say.  You might even learn something.

Empowering your employees is going to do wonderful things for your organization.  Remember, business today is no longer about commanding and controlling with a top-down hierarchy.  Organizations require a connect and collaborate mindset and empowering your employees will not only make them more creative but will reinforce the connection and the fact that everyone is in this together.