Employee Engagement 9781846639692, 9781846639685

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11/06/2008

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ISSN 0967-0734

Volume 16 Number 3 2008

Human Resource Management International Digest

Employee engagement

www.emeraldinsight.com

Table of contents Employee engagement

Volume 16 Number 3 2008

Feature articles Access this journal online

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Abstracts

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Suggested reading

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What’s on the web

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Viewpoint If you aspire to be a great place to work, you’ve set the bar too low

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Martha I. Finney

How to generate and maintain employee engagement

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The crucial role of internal communications, training and recruitment

Does HRM + TQM = job involvement?

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Analyzing strategies in the Malaysian semiconductor industry

Viewpoint Ac-Count-able HR

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Alison Ward

Does the board know whether it is the money, or the love?

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Employee motivation in the Greek public sector

Keeping employees in Indian call centres

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How to address poor rates of retention

What is happening on the inside?

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The business case for promoting employee wellbeing

Viewpoint Employee engagement – completely

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Patrick Townsend and Joan Gebhardt

Making HR count

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How to validate a ‘‘soft’’ function through employee-engagement strategy

Feeling valued is the best motivation

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Perks and pay incentives cannot beat feeling needed

Success begins at home

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Addressing the emotional engagement of your workforce

Interview with Mike Campbell, HR Director of easyJet

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Interview by Rachel Brown

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Viewpoint If you aspire to be a great place to work, you’ve set the bar too low Martha I. Finney

s I write this piece, this is the close of a big week for me. This was the week when the much-anticipated annual Best Companies to Work For edition of Fortune magazine arrived in my mailbox. For an engagement geek like me, I suppose the excitement is parallel to, uhm, sports enthusiasts receiving their annual swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated. With what I can only presume to be the same focus and determination, I immediately go straight to the gatefold centerfold to look at the yummy table to see who is Number One, to see where my clients and friends have landed on the list, and to see who’s off this year.

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Martha I. Finney, president and CEO of Engagement Journeys, LLC. A former business journalist, Martha Finney helps companies capture the passion of their employees. Her new book, The Truth about Getting the Best from People, was published by Pearson Education/Financial Times in February. Contact her at [email protected]

But it is the far-right column that has always held my attention longest – what I fondly call the doodads column, which lists the accoutrements of best companies to work for. These typically span the selection from the essential, like worklife/balance policies; health coverage; stock options; and tuition reimbursement to the frivolous, like the parties and the toys. I have to say, though, that this year everything seems to be shopworn and tired. Where once this column was the domain of the toys, special excursions to exotic lands, permission to bring one’s pooch, this year the column is listing things that people should be expecting anyway, for instance Number 22, American Century Investment claims bragging rights over the fact they give a rousing welcome to new employees. The doodads have lost their va-voom. A sign of the times, I suppose. But I think it is also a sign that perhaps it is time for the entire employee engagement conversation to undergo a 2.0 overhaul. We have done the doodads accounting for over ten years now, and now we need to transform the topic of what makes a great place to work to what makes a culture where great people want to come to work. This is not in any way meant to disparage The Great Places to Work Institute or call into question the authenticity of its intent and the quality of any individual company that competes to make the list. However, like any movement that starts out true and good and is fighting hard to keep its integrity, its core concept has also been high-jacked by those who want to feed off the original vision, those who just want to win – or companies and consultants that want to make money helping employers make the list. With the emphasis focused on making the list rather than truly creating a place where people voluntarily contribute their absolute greatness – what William Blake called the divine spark – we have shifted our attention to the finger pointing at the moon rather than the moon itself. We have gotten too fancy. As a result companies have become slave to the methodology rather than the mission. The elaborateness of survey instruments, indexes, even the doodads dangled in front of employees like bait reveal a fundamental disconnect that persists: Employees – one by one – are looking for a job (or life’s work) that they can truly pour their hearts into. The result? The company has an extensive, Byzantine metrics system set up to gauge how engaging its managers are. And it has a doodads list long enough to encircle the globe. But there is absolutely no understanding of what passions truly burn in

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the hearts of its employees. One very common tell-tale sign: the company has a web-enabled careers tab that may be state-of-the-art technology-wise, but it has the inspiring welcome of a flounder flat and dead on a platter. Instead of aiming to be a so-called great place to work, employers should shift their emphasis to becoming the place where great employees know they can wisely invest their passion, creativity, hearts and smarts. Let us take a look at what a great employee is. Great employees passionately identify with the company’s mission and they will go to extremes to help the organization achieve its goals. Great employees do not care about arcade games and free coffee; they care about customer service, innovation and making the world a better place as a general result from their daily efforts. Great employees can get very angry when they see evidence of their company’s purpose sliding off the rails; so in this sense they can be very uncomfortable to be around at times. Great employees love to close a sale, please a customer, find the solution, find an even better solution, and do all these things with co-workers who are as passionate about their work as they are. This is what great employees want: They want to believe in the company’s mission. They want a clear line of sight between their efforts and the company’s most essential goals. They want to know that trust and respect flow both ways between themselves and their managers – and among their co-workers, for that matter. They want to know that they are heard and believed and acknowledged – not as aggregated statistics but as individuals with original, epic points of view of their own. They want to keep pushing the boundaries of their potential. They want to know that their tenure with their employer is an essential part of their own life’s saga. There has to be meaning in their efforts on a daily basis, but more than that, they want to be able to look back on their life’s career journey and see, ‘‘Ah, yes, I see exactly the reason why I was there at that time.’’ To borrow a phrase from our metaphysical friends: Employees are not merely human beings having a corporate experience. They are individuals using their careers as one way to express the fullness of who they are in this life on this planet. There is that joke you have probably heard before: The narcissist says, ‘‘Well, enough about me, let’s talk about you. How do you feel about me?’’ That has been the essential driver of most of the conversations around best places to work. Tedious survey questions asking employees how they feel about the company. The company that truly attracts and keeps the great employees will find its own greatness as an employer when it stops to ask of its employees, ‘‘Who are you in your heart, mind and dreams? How can we help you make those dreams come true? Come. Sit. Tell us all about it.’’ Keywords: Employee involvement, Team management

Shift your focus from becoming a great place to attracting great employees and treating them with honor and respect once they sign on with you. And they will give you the moon in return.

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How to generate and maintain employee engagement The crucial role of internal communications, training and recruitment

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uch has been written about the importance of employee engagement and its positive links with performance. But what should organizations and managers do to generate and, more importantly, maintain engagement in their employees?

The most obvious method is through internal communications (IC) efforts which are often labelled as internal branding. But, according to Punjaisri et al., internal branding is about more than just IC – marketing and HR also play a key role. The authors point out that although there has been a great deal of research into the internal branding concept, it is often senior management and consultants that provide input.

Internal branding – the employee perspective In order to find out more about the employee’s perspective, Punjaisri et al. carried out some research in the hotel industry. They chose Thailand as the setting as it was thought to provide international service to international customers. Six hotels were then selected which had a star rating of four or five (it was felt that the high end hotels would be more concerned about corporate branding and reputation than a one or two star establishment). The authors carried out semi-structured interviews (20 senior managers and 30 front line staff) and distributed questionnaires (699 of 747 people responded). Participants were asked about the process of internal branding, what methods were employed at their hotel and about their attitudes towards internal branding. Punjaisri et al. discovered that employees were very much aware that their behaviour is strongly aligned with the brand consistency of service delivery. Employees also identified training and internal communications as the major methods of internal branding (whilst management referred to IC as internal communications, many employees spoke newsletters, daily meetings, discussion forums and other tools used in IC). However, training was the only aspect of HR strategy that was raised by respondents. Other factors such as recruitment and pay and reward were only discussed after the interviewer had mentioned them. In addition, only management talked about rewards as a way to engender commitment to the brand whereas employees did not speak of this at all.

Importance of employee attitude It was also discovered that although training and IC can help employees to fulfil brand promise, the strength of their relationship with the brand is predominantly down to employee attitude. When the authors looked at the mediator effects of brand attitudes they discovered that brand identification, brand commitment and brand loyalty were all partial mediators between IC and employee brand performance. In other words, brand attitudes of employees improves the relationship between IC and employee performance as well as the training performance relationship so tools used to improve brand performance will also improve brand attitude. When it came to measuring the efficacy of the two major methods, the authors found that IC has a stronger effect on performance than training. And whilst front line staff agreed with management about their importance regarding brand promise and service delivery, they

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also felt that managers played an important role in communicating brand values. The authors believe that in order to fulfil brand promise managers needed to think about how they translate these values into daily activities that the staff can relate to. It was also interesting to note that all respondents understood that back-room staff played an equally important role when it came to service quality. Notable by its absence was the role that recruitment has to play in internal branding. Although it is often difficult to recruit someone whose values are exactly aligned with the organization’s, it is possible to factor internal branding into the recruitment and selection process. Companies should also consider more the reward systems in place to recognise brand promise fulfilment and therefore strengthen employee engagement.

Effective communication So, having established that internal communications is one of the most effective methods of internal branding, what issues should management take into account? According to David Lawton, the most important thing one can do is to ‘‘communicate well and early’’. He believes that at the earliest possible opportunity, new employees should be informed of: B

organizational strategy and business goals;

B

products and services;

B

company interaction;

B

values and ethos;

B

performance expectations.

This stops them from feeling isolated and helps them see how their specific responsibilities fit into the bigger picture. As Lawton points out, sometimes managers are so busy teaching their recruit the core tasks that they forget to put their role into context. The checklist above provides the framework for a positive induction and other suggestions include the appointment of a mentor, treating your employees as a customer group in their own right and making sure no department is made out to be more important than another. Lawton’s top five tips are: 1. Think like a marketing professional. 2. Make sure the information you are conveying is credible. 3. Ensure employees are working cross-functionally and create opportunities for areas such as finance, office services to network across the business (both formal and informal). 4. Develop a forward-planning mentality where managers communicate regularly. 5. Make the most of technologies such as intranets and e-mail. By co-ordinating HR and marketing activities it is possible to see how internal branding can be effectively implemented and sustained within a business. By recruiting the right people and providing a solid induction, HR can ensure employees are engaged from the outset. And by providing timely and relevant communications managers and marketing can continue to develop positive attitudes amongst employees.

From brand ambassadors to brand soul Ultimately, these employees can become brand ambassadors which will serve to enhance both the performance and the perception of your organization. This could assist in developing what Laurence Knight describes as ‘‘brand soul’’. Knight believes that companies with brand soul are more integrated with the community because their brand is built on values or ethics (e.g. raising self-esteem, equality or integrity) and so customers will feel motivated by them and have a genuine affection for the brand, contrasting with the transactional relationship one has with a business that uses positioning and pay-offs to establish its brand. Knight cites the following as companies who have brand soul:

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Pepsi – through the self-expression of music.

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Avon – equality for women.

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L’Ore´al – raising self-esteem (‘‘because you’re worth it’’).

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Aveda – using natural resources.

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Google – helping people find what they want.

Conversely, he feels that Nike does not have brand soul. Knight also asserts that ‘‘the biggest threat to brand soul is radical change in personnel or the parent company’’. This reliance on employees heightens the need to engage and develop staff to become brand ambassadors.

Management implications Through the work of Punjaisri et al., Lawton and Knight it is clear to see the connections between employee engagement and success. And whilst some may dismiss the term internal branding as a faddy name, it is harder to dismiss the key components of this concept such as: B

regular internal communications;

B

ongoing brand training;

B

introducing the brand concept throughout the HR process;

B

considering value alignment during recruitment and selection;

B

rewarding behaviour that fulfils brand promise;

B

encouraging cross-functional communication.

Comment This review is based upon ‘‘The role of internal branding in the delivery of employee brand promise’’ by Khanyapuss Punjaisri and Alan Wilson, ‘‘Working in harmony’’ by David Lawton and ‘‘The beauty of ‘brand soul’‘‘ by Roderick White. Punjaisri and Wilson’s article is an interesting piece of research about employee attitudes towards internal branding activities. The authors look at the attitudes towards brand promise fulfilment that affect performance and find that training and internal communications are considered to be the two major components when it comes to internal branding. A discussion about other HR activities that contribute to this concept is also included, making the paper balanced and highly informative.

Keywords: Employee attitudes, Employee involvement, Brand loyalty, Corporate branding, Human resource management

Lawton’s short article provides some practical tips for ensuring your internal communications strategy is effective. As well as some basic points such as thinking like a marketing professional and encouraging cross-functional communication, Lawton also offers more in-depth advice and provides a handy checklist of questions one should answer as part of an induction program for new recruits. Finally, White’s interview with Laurence Knight is an interesting take on branding and unique selling points. The link with employee engagement becomes apparent when Knight cites major personnel changes as the main threat to ‘‘brand soul’’.

References Lawton, D. (2007), ‘‘Working in harmony’’, Personnel Today, 19 June, ISSN 0959-5848. Punjaisri, K. and Wilson, A. (2007), ‘‘The role of internal branin in the delivery of employee brand promise’’, The Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 15 No. 1, ISSN 1350-231X. White, R. (2007), ‘‘The beauty of ‘brand soul’’’, Admap, Vol. 42 No. 487, ISSN 0001-8295.

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Does HRM þ TQM ¼ job involvement? Analyzing strategies in the Malaysian semiconductor industry

he development and increased sophistication of management practices in the so-called ‘‘Tiger Economies’’ have led to a slew of fascinating academic studies into what makes industrialized companies tick in South-East Asia. Areas such as Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard have found many new converts along with some degree of success in these countries, producing varying results to those based in the USA and Western Europe. This is especially important due to the scale of outsourcing of manufacturing by the West in these countries.

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Two such areas that can be considered are human resource management (HRM) and total quality management (TQM), with the latter particularly important in countries such as Malaysia. While much TQM research has been done, relatively little has looked at its interaction with HRM practices, which has particular relevance to actual management on the ground. What are the effects on workers in a given industry? What works? What fails? And what can be learned from these experiences?

The theory While HRM itself has been identified and studies for decades, there has been much debate as to how it is undertaken and whether, for example, it is followed collectively or individually. However despite these debates, the area of ‘‘job involvement’’ seems to be a key aspect. Job involvement itself can refer to the primacy in employees’ lives of their employment, their self-image, prestige and self-esteem, or the level of a person’s life involvement in work. However if one takes the idea that job involvement is an ‘‘individual’s identification with a job’’, this links in more cogently with how organizations can link TQM with HRM practices. TQM itself escapes a uniform view; however most theories put pursuit of excellence of one form of another at its core, and they also agree that certain areas within a business are relevant, such as training and development. Many theorists have drawn the link between HRM and TQM, and the importance of integration between the two and other areas within an organization. This integration throws up several dimensions which also relate to job involvement, and in their article ‘‘HRM and TQM: association with job involvement’’ (2007), Ool Keng Boon et al. put forward eight areas where the three phenomena of HRM, TQM and job involvement are linked together and can be assessed through employee surveys.

Eight dimensions 1. Leadership is key as it will direct the level of understanding of employees, and the degree to which they ‘‘sign up’’ to an organization’s values and mission. A particularly strong or charismatic leader is likely to have a positive influence on TQM and HRM and, following on from this, employees’ job involvement. 2. Empowerment can be linked to job satisfaction, as well as motivation and loyalty of employees to their employers. It can also be linked to the provision of resources, authority

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and responsibility for the benefit of employees, which as a result should empower them and have a positive influence on the level of their job involvement. 3. Teamwork needs to be effectively facilitated and can results in more positive employee attitudes, and in turn job involvement. 4. Organizational communication also takes into account the degree of ‘‘sign up’’ of employees, as it looks at the level and success of internal communication and information. 5. Customer focus should not necessarily be important purely for service organizations, but all firms. If the aim of customer satisfaction is aligned with job success, then involvement will also be aligned with it. 6. Reward and recognition is of course linked to motivation through salary, bonuses, benefits, pensions and a whole range of performance measures. Less tangible motivators such as the recognition of work will also positively influence job involvement. 7. Employee participation is linked to empowerment and teamworking, but also focuses on the self-esteem an employee has and how they rank their own skill levels and success within an organization. If all these are managed to produce positive results, this should yield positive job involvement for individuals. 8. Training and development is perhaps the most important nexus where HRM, TQM and job involvement come together. It is also one of the most difficult as training programs need to be challenging yet rewarding, rigorous yet relevant.

Relationships The above eight measures were used in a survey of employees at various levels in six semiconductor manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Cutting through the statistical analysis of the surveys, it was clear that the most important results came from the relationships between the eight dimensions and the three governing factors of HRM, TQM and job involvement: B

Empowerment was found to be the key driver for employee involvement, with teamwork, customer focus, communication and reward and recognition also highly involved in the engagement process. This tends to suggest that a production unit framework with a large degree of autonomy is the best model to follow for electronics firms.

B

Communication was key as long as it was directed vertically and horizontally within the organization, while customer focus did contribute to employee engagement, backing up established TQM theory.

B

Weak relationships with job engagement were found in leadership with serious repercussions for TQM, while a weak relationship with employee participation was also discovered.

B

Perhaps surprisingly, training and development also had a weak relationship with job engagement, which is perhaps explained by the short-term view of training, and long-term programs may produce better results.

‘‘ Empowerment was found to be the key driver for employee involvement, with teamwork, customer focus, communication and reward and recognition also highly involved in the engagement process. ’’

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Application Aside from the academic implications of such a study into the relationship between TQM, HRM and employee engagement, the practical implications are that a formalized, coordinated TQM/HRM program should be initiated, starting with all new employees and continuously generated for all employees through the lifetime of their involvement with the organization. Furthermore, it should be noted and followed through that strategies involving empowerment, customer focus, teamwork, communication recognition will have the greatest effect, and such policies will lead to competitive advantage and reduced churn of employees. Interdisciplinary research is becoming more and more prevalent in the academic, and merging areas such as TQM and HRM can yield positive results for professors and practitioners alike.

Comment Keywords: Human resource management, Total quality management, Employee involvement, Malaysia

The article ‘‘HRM and TQM: association with job involvement’’, by Ool Keng Boon et al. (Personnel Review, Volume 26 Number 6 (2007), pp. 939-62) is an enlightening look into TQM and HRM practices on the ground in Malaysia. Of particular interest is the spread of the survey in six companies in the same industry and the homogeneity of the results. Much more work could be done in this area, particularly in other industries in the manufacturing and service sectors.

Reference Boon, O.K., Arumugam, V., Safa, M.S. and Bakar, N.A. (2007), ‘‘HRM and TQM: association with job involvement’’, Personnel Review, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 939-62.

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Viewpoint Ac-Count-able HR Alison Ward

oes today’s HR professional perform as an equal member of the organisation’s strategic executive team?. The ‘‘personnel’’ profession has taken decades to shake off its post-war ‘‘welfare’’ shackles. Its evolution into the industrial relations specialists of the 1970s and the administrator of flexible benefits and HR databases in the 1980s and 1990s left a question mark as to its strategic positioning in the information rich twenty-first century. The Ulrich Model, with its divisions of focus between Centres of Excellence, Service Centres and HR Business Partners, has helped develop the concept of an HR role focused on the business. Yet the true potential of a strategic HR function remains some way off.

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Alison Ward is the Managing Director of The Hard and Soft Company, Newbury, UK, which specialises in the assessment and development of Strategic HR Business Partners. She can be contacted at: Alison.Ward@Hardand SoftCompany.Com

Why is that? When we reflect on business leaders who have experienced fast track careers – one thing tends to be a common trait. They rely on having accurate data and management information with which to make strategic decisions, measure progress and specify targets for change. Such leaders use numbers to give impetus to their messages. Such an approach should be equally relevant to the human resources leader. Yet today’s HR business partners typically does not focus on such indicators to develop strategy and strengthen their messages. The HR speakers at this year’s CIPD Conference made limited references to links between HR interventions and measurable business contribution. HR meetings tend to consist of conversations about HR systems and processes rather than prioritising the strategic initiatives that will make a measurable impact on the business goals. The reason for this gap is understandable. Typically, people who have entered the HR profession have done so because of their strength in working with people, not data. The data oriented were directed towards professions like engineering or accountancy. In earlier days, having an interest in people and the ability to build rapport, was a key to success in HR. In the role of the strategic HR Business Partner – people skills remain relevant, but they are not central to the identification of strategic changes. Having worked in the non-commercial ‘‘personnel department’’ during their careers, the majority of HR people do not know how to read management and financial reports. They do not understand terms like ‘‘opportunity cost‘‘ or ‘‘return on investment‘‘ and cannot write a compelling business case. Such knowledge gaps can be embarrassing when a HR professional is already working at a senior level in the organisation. But until they highlight these gaps, HR cannot take the necessary steps to address them. Some organisations are taking action to address this knowledge gap by bringing in HR leaders from commercial parts of the business. This, however, does not resolve the problem because the strategic HR business partner needs to combine the world of business and HR techniques in order to achieve

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success. Figure 1 depicts how a business and a HR approach should be combined. On the one hand the HR Professional must have an understanding of the various HR techniques and how they influence human behaviour. On the other hand they must thoroughly understand their client’s business and the impact that employees make on that business. Combining these two knowledge areas and, using core business indicators, the HR Business Partner is able to prioritise activities and demonstrate measurable progress in business performance. An example of the approach of a strategic HR function is highlighted within one well-known, high tech multinational. During the previous three years HR has facilitated an increase in pan-European employee engagement levels by an average of 5 percent each year. ‘‘So what’’, one might say – as might the executive team – if the story finished there. The difference here was - by HR having worked closely with the core business indicators - it was possible to prove a direct correlation between employee engagement levels and business performance. Aligning the employee engagement levels to customer satisfaction results showed a 72 percent correlation factor between the two. Even more importantly – aligning the employee engagement level to financial performance gave a 68 percent correlation level. Further research demonstrated that the increases in customer satisfaction and financial performance followed the increases in employee engagement. In this example, HR has direct evidence of how, using quantitively measured HR interventions, it was possible to significantly increase bottom line performance and longer term customer loyalty. Such an example provides the key to the twenty-first century HR business partner – one that has a close handle on the key business indicators and is able to measurably demonstrate the results of their initiatives. Being able to do this means that the HR professional can gain tremendous satisfaction in knowing exactly how they have contributed to business performance. So how will you start to perform the role of the information rich HR business partner? Ask your clients ‘‘How can I add value to your division’s performance? How should I measure my contribution?’’. Ensure that someone in the HR team is capable of performing the responsibilities of a HR business analyst or subcontract these responsibilities to another department to perform on HR’s behalf. Forge close relationships with the information rich finance and marketing leaders - who can help point you in the right direction. Figure 2 Figure 1 The business oriented HR approach

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Figure 2 People dimensions

Keywords: Human resource strategies, Productivity rate, Management information systems, Organizational change, Employee involvement

provides an example of some information sources that might be used to help shape the HR strategic agenda – when reviewed at a departmental or workforce level. The future of the strategic HR business partner lies in his or her ability to understand the business and identify the key measures of performance relevant to the organisation. Business insight combined with HR expertise will lead to measurable increases in business performance. Such a focus will enable the HR professional to comfortably take their place as an equal member of the organisation’s strategic executive team.

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Does the board know whether it is the money, or the love? Employee motivation in the Greek public sector

ost people have completed one or more surveys in their lifetime about their happiness at work. Are you paid enough? Are you rewarded for your achievements? Do you enjoy your work? These are pretty simple enough questions, which we are all used to answering. If you were asked what motivates you more, money, or enjoyment of the job, would you be able to answer so quickly? And do you know if your employer would be able to guess your answers?

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If your employer does not know what motivates you to turn up every day, how can they expect you to stay? Maybe they are offering you more money but what you want is more creativity in your job. Or vice versa, maybe your job is wonderfully creative but you get paid peanuts. Dimitris Manolopoulos has conducted a survey from a sample of public sector organisations in Greece, trying to answer that very question: Does the board know whether it is the money, or the love?

What’s the difference? Motivation at work is generally devised into two segments: extrinsic motivators, and intrinsic motivators. As the lexicology would lead you to believe, the extrinsic motivators are concerned with the external factors affecting you, such as salary, working conditions, job security etc. Intrinsic motivators are factors such as opportunities for creativity, opportunities to use your initiative, and how you perceive the ‘‘importance’’ of your work in the outside world. Literature has generally been concerned with the private sector, and while intrinsic motivators bear relevance, the overall perception is that it is the cold hard cash that makes people come into work every morning, and the board know it. So why is Manolopoulos bothering, you may ask? Well it turns out that the literature has come mostly from economically advanced countries, i.e. the USA and UK. What about countries that are operating a more intermediate-level economy? And where is the literature about the public sector and what motivates those employees? Manolopoulos is trying to discover whether the same facts are true about these situations as they are in the private sectors of the USA and UK.

The survey of satisfaction The author surveyed employees from three large public sector organisations in Greece, namely Public Power Corporation, Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company, and Hellenic Aerospace Industry. Surveys were given out to 1,000 employees in total, of varying demographics. The majority of respondents were well educated, male, and married. In total, 454 surveys were deemed usable.

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The respondents were asked to rate 12 statements in relation to how they felt about their motivation at work. They could rate from 4 ¼ strongly agree, to 1 ¼ strongly disagree, and the statements were as follows: B

In relation to the effort I devote to my work, my position, my prior working experience and educational background, the relevant wages in the private sector and the economic situation of the country, I consider to have a fair wage.

B

Our organisation has introduced performance related pay schemes.

B

The management makes any possible effort to create a collaborative work environment, to build relationships of trust and mutual understanding among employees, to rely on open and honest communication and to share knowledge and information in all directions.

B

The organisation has set clear criteria for promotions, based on meritocracy and transparent procedures.

B

The norm in our organisation is that employment is protected.

B

The management cares about the health and safety of employees. It provides adequate and up to date IT support and infrastructure. It respects the individual characteristics of employees’ personality and encourages their development.

B

Your employment requires different specialized skills and you obtain ongoing feedback indicating success in their accomplishment.

B

My job is creative and produces something meaningful.

B

Your employment provides you the opportunity to ‘‘make a difference’’ to society.

B

Work evaluation is based on explicit performance evaluation criteria. Performance evaluation forms include the roles and responsibilities of employees, the extent of achievement to per-determined targets and the quality of final deliverables. Evaluations are fair and constructive. Good evaluation has a positive impact on career advancement and/or pay raise of employees.

B

The organisation encourages the participation of employees in seminars, workshops and conferences.

B

The organisation provides employees the freedom in deciding how to carry out their work and encourages them to take initiatives.

What do they think we think? The results, as with any survey, showed a number of trends, but in the main it was established that in the Greek public sector, extrinsic rewards such as salary and job security were more motivating than intrinsic rewards, like the opportunity to be creative and ‘‘make a difference’’. This backs up the existing literature and supports a theory that public sector companies expect employees to be motivated in much the same way private sector employees are. The results of this survey do not show us what is important to people in their job – it shows us what their employers think motivates them in their job. The fact that the results for advancement and feedback on specialised skills and creativity were so low indicates that the company perceives these things are not important to their workers, otherwise they would be offering them as a means of an incentive. As well as this survey showing that companies in the Greek public sector do not provide as many intrinsic motivators as extrinsic, the survey showed some surprising trends that one perhaps may not have expected. Judging by these results, there seems to be a difference in the promotional opportunities between men and women. This is nothing to do with what the survey set out to establish, however it begs for more in-depth research and follow up. The survey also showed that men feel they have clearer incentives from their managers than women, and that better educated employees have more intrinsic motivators available to them. There was a trend for the

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married employees to overemphasize the extrinsic awards, and that there were different motivational preferences across the age groups.

Keywords: Greece, Motivation (psychology), Performance management, Job satisfaction, Public sector organizations

Comment This review is based on ‘‘An evaluation of employee motivation in the extended public sector in Greece’’ by Dimitris Manolopoulos. The article is quite robust and goes into a lot of detail about the methodology, which will not be of interest to most senior managers; however the outcomes of the study are very interesting, especially to those studying motivation in the public sector or in Greece.

Reference Manolopoulos, D. (2008), ‘‘An evaluation of employee motivation in the extended public sector in Greece’’, Employee Relations, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 63-85.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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Keeping employees in Indian call centres How to address poor rates of retention

ver the past decade, India has become a serious resource for outsourced talent for organizations all over the world. Thanks to low costs, language skills, technical education and a supportive government in India, the offshore market is growing by 60 percent per year, with the BPO/ITES sector showing the largest area of growth. With this exponential rise, however, have come HR difficulties.

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Talent management and employee retention have become big concerns in organizations all over the world, but the BPO/ITES sector in India is particularly affected by low retention rates and high staff turnover. Though there is a ready supply of entry level employees, middle and senior managers are relatively difficult to find, and thus poaching is increasingly common. There is also a high incidence of people leaving new jobs after only three months, meaning a huge waste of training resources: The present rate of attrition in the sector is between 30 and 35 percent. Given that manpower demand is expected to continue to surge over the next five years, companies will be facing major financial loss in recruitment, brand identity and performance if they fail to address these central HR issues. Jyotsna Bhatnagar of the Management Development Institute in Sukhrali, India, has conducted research into staff retention in the BPO/ITES sector, with useful conclusions to both the HR manager and the business academic. Employee engagement is difficult to create as it is in many ways emotional and based on intangible factors, but Bhatnagar agrees with many business theorists that it is central to keeping hold of staff. It is in fact so important, that many argue it is the primary maker or breaker when it comes to the bottom line. Employee engagement involves giving your workforce a sense of participation, freedom and trust. It differs from motivation and job involvement, and is something that is felt at three levels: the emotional, the cognitive and the physical. If an employee feels engaged on all of these levels, that is to say they fell they have meaningful relationships with peers and co-workers and are aware of their specific mission and role, they are more likely to produce good work and stay with the company. This is because perceptions of the workplace have been shown to directly influence both the quality of work output and retention, and thus firms must seek to create a work experience that is difficult for competitors – and thus poachers – to imitate. There are various processes and benefits that can be put in place to increase the likeliness of engagement, including work-life balance programs, flexitime, telecommuting, compressed workweeks, reward programs and performance management systems. Beyond this, it is the duty of the manager to create an environment whereby each employee feels valued, motivated and involved. They should have the sense that that they belong and can continue to learn. Managers should expect positive answers to questions such as ‘‘Do I know what is expected of me at work?’’ and ‘‘At work do I have opportunity to do what I do best every day?’’ Bhatnagar’s study took the answers to 272 sets of questionnaires completed between 2005 and 2006 in the four BPO/ITES organizations falling in the National Capital Region of India. The average age was 24, the average education was an undergraduate degree and the

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‘‘ Managers should expect positive answers to questions such as ‘Do I know what is expected of me at work?’ ’’

gender split among respondents was 42 percent female and 58 percent male. In addition, data from 72 exit interviews were analysed for reasons for attrition. The results show that the highest attrition rate is recorded as soon as they join in after training. Keeping a member of staff for the first six months is the biggest challenge – at present 60 percent of people joining the industry can be expected to leave within six months. To start to address this problem, companies should be careful to hire only employees who fit their longer-term needs, and should work on employee engagement and thus retention from day one. Committed employees are 87 percent less likely to resign, yet at the moment organizational culture scores as the most important cause of attrition. Employees call for a higher frequency and greater clarity of communication to help improve the overall work culture. The second of the reasons for poor retention was career planning and incentives, and third was organizational support, covering role clarity, adequate training, infrastructure support and vision alignment. Employees are feeling little sense of an available career path, and reported that working in a call centre was thus viewed negatively both personally and socially. To feel more engaged, they responded that they need to be provided with more of a challenging domain and more technical work. Indeed, exciting work came top of five retention factors, which was followed by career growth, working with great people, fair pay and having supportive management. This research, then, offers practical implications for the Indian BPO/ITES sector by suggesting several HR interventions that may increase retention. HR managers must work on the psychological engagement of their employees, and should think about introducing mentors as one way of doing this. Organizations must come to see their employees as wealth-creators, recognizing that success is impossible without them. The research may also lead to further investigation and theoretical underpinnings for employee engagement. Suggested areas of research include investigation into the different types of BPO/ITES organizations and correlation studies of employee engagement and exit interviews to find out whether those with low engagement scores are the ones who end up leaving.

Comment This is a review of ‘‘Talent management strategy of employee engagement in Indian ITES employees: key to retention’’ by Jyotsna Bhatnagar. Keywords: Human resource management, Retention, India, employees

The paper notes the huge increase in outsourcing call centres to India but also the high rates of attrition. Seeking to address this problem, it provides the results of research into employee retention in the Indian BPO/ITES sector. The paper offers the three top reasons for attrition as well as five areas to work on in order to encourage staff to stay, most of which are based around employee engagement, a term which is explained and discussed. Finally, the paper provides starting points for future research.

Reference Bhatnagar, J. (2007), ‘‘Talent management strategy of employee engagement in Indian ITES employees: key to retention’’, Employee Relations, Vol. 29 No. 6, pp. 640-63.

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What is happening on the inside? The business case for promoting employee wellbeing

Good companies are paying attention to employee engagement Businesses are starting to come to terms with the reality that employee engagement is not the same as employee satisfaction; satisfaction is the minimum required, engagement brings a person to life, unleashing their talents and delivering measurably improved performance. What once might have been considered ‘‘fluffy’’ or ‘‘out there’’ has become much more main stream. Research conducted by Towers Perrin-ISR for Human Resources magazine of 50 financial services companies has put the cost for just these firms at $1 billion per year in lost productivity. It is an eye-catching number, and one that can be multiplied many, many times if it was to be scaled up for the global economy. .

Some firms are ahead of the game in taking on this issue. They are often the ones known simply as ‘‘good employers’’; the ones that firmly believe that being a good employer makes good business sense. At UK-based supermarket group Sainsbury’s employee engagement strategies have become embedded within the company’s DNA. Sainsbury’s works with market research specialists ORC International and produces a rolling ‘‘Colleague Engagement Index’’. The process began in 2001 and is not an exercise in lip service. Survey finding are reviewed by a colleague council and a management team who use the findings as the basis for change and introducing positive initiatives. Reported results within Sainsbury’s include improvements overall to corporate culture. Specific, measurable improvements include a 5 percent improvement on the dimension ‘‘My manager cares about how satisfied I am in my job’’ in the 2007 survey results when compared with the 2006 scores. For many businesses a quote from management thinker Peter Drucker is apt ‘‘So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to do work’’. It seems like Sainsbury’s is on the case. Remaining in the UK, a YouGov benchmarking study that interviewed 40,000 people from different industries and with a broad range of job titles against the criteria of motivation, commitment and advocacy found that only 51 percent felt fully engaged with their company and 48 percent said they felt both loyal and engaged. Many managers reading this article may believe even these low numbers to be high. There is an opportunity to do much better. It requires work to enable people to:

DOI 10.1108/09670730810869510

B

feel pride in their organization;

B

have the basis to plan a long stay with the company;

B

have clarity about what they do;

B

understand how their role fits within, and benefits the organization; and

B

how much encouragement we get.

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‘‘ At UK-based supermarket group Sainsbury’s employee engagement strategies have become embedded within the company’s DNA. ’’

Employee engagement as a topic is undergoing a renaissance, yet the factors that need work would be familiar to our grandparents.

The inner work life A more humanistic approach to understanding organizations emerged after the Second World War, some would say earlier, yet new research by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer published in Harvard Business Review still has a ring of freshness around it. They highlight the need to understand what employees are thinking and feeling from their work and connect this closely with effectiveness in managing people. It strikes a chord with research traditions old and more recent, but still has much that is new to say as it maps employee reactions to workplace events to work performance. As workday events occur, good or bad, employee motivation and performance will be a factor of the dual processes of ‘‘perceptions’’ (sense making about workday events) and ‘‘emotions’’ (reactions to workday events). These break down as follows. Perceptions B

The work – meaning and value; what needs to be done.

B

The self – role in team, project and organization; capability/ confidence; value.

B

The team.

B

The organization.

Emotions B

Happiness.

B

Pride, warmth, love.

B

Sadness.

B

Anger, frustration.

B

Fear.

Motivation for work B

What to do.

B

Whether to do it.

B

How to do it.

B

When to do it.

They have discovered that:

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B

Most managers do not realize how powerful the effects of inner work life can be on performance – and certainly are not in tune with the inner work lives of their people.

B

That work gets done when people have good days (intuitively it makes sense, yet it has been the subject of debate).

B

When people’s best days are compared with their worst days, the most important differentiator was their ability to make progress at work.

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‘‘ It should be noted that burnout can and does occur as a result of employee engagement. ’’

This new slant on the world of work is in its infancy, but may hold the key to performance better than any other.

Motivating people to innovate As we have seen, people have good days and bad days and managers are able to do a lot about it if they choose to. The issue becomes magnified once we turn our minds to the subject of innovation. Innovation only happens when individual people come up with creative ideas, whether alone or in groups, then are motivated to discuss them with colleagues, promote them, modify them and see that they make it through new product development evaluator processes. Such action needs the right sort of conditions. It is obvious when written on the page, but the link between employee wellbeing and innovativeness needs to be understood. On the one hand job demands can promote burnout which clearly will have a negative effect on innovativeness, on the other hand appropriate job resources can reduce burnout, improve work engagement and have a positive impact on innovativeness. It should be noted that burnout can and does occur as a result of employee engagement. Sometimes our best people go down. It is the case for wellbeing that needs to be understood, and this goes back to appropriate resourcing. It needs a holistic approach and vigilance. Engaging employees and fostering their wellbeing appeals to the humanity in every manager – or should. The emerging business case in its favour is becoming overwhelming.

Comment ‘‘Rules of engagement’’ by Peter Crush writing in Human Resources has a breathless feel but makes good points, backed up by survey data. It is helpful in making the business case for employee engagement.

Keywords: Employee involvement, Job satisfaction, Motivation (psychology), Employee attitudes

‘‘Inner work life: understanding the subtext of business performance’’ by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in Harvard Business Review represents a great leap forward in humanistic understanding of performance. ‘‘A review of employee wellbeing and innovativeness: an opportunity for a mutual benefit’’ by Hannele Huhtala and Marjo-Riitta Parzefall in Creativity and Innovation Management is dogged in proving its point and produces a succinct model of the interrelations in ensuring employee wellbeing in the innovation process that makes sense.

References Amabile, T.M. and Kramer, S.J. (2007), ‘‘Inner work life: understanding the subtext of business performance’’, Harvard Business Review, May, pp. 72-83, ISSN 0017-8012. Crush, P. (2007), ‘‘Rules of engagement’’, Human Resources, October, pp. 40-2, ISSN 0964-8380. Huhtala, H. and Parzefall, M.-R. (2007), ‘‘A review of employee well-being and innovativeness: an opportunity for mutual benefit’’, Creativity and Innovation Management, September, pp. 299-306, ISSN 0963-1690.

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Viewpoint Employee engagement – completely Patrick Townsend and Joan Gebhardt

nce upon a time – in the not too distant past – competitors with the ability to reach the same customer base were limited in number and, for the most part, services and products were so straightforward that processes to produce them could be defined by senior managers. All that the majority of people on the payroll had to do was follow the prescribed procedures. Or be fired.

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The world has changed. The ability to efficiently transport manufactured goods of all sizes and shapes to far-away lands and, thanks to the internet, the ability for services to reach around the world from a single physical site, has multiplied the number of competitors for virtually every product or service many times over. In addition, the sophistication necessary to take advantage of appropriate hardware and software and the speed of change have complicated things. Management needs all the help it can get. To thrive, an organization needs to find a way to take advantage of all available brainpower. That can best be done by engaging folks who already have detailed knowledge of the organization’s operations: the people on the payroll. All of them. Forget pilot programs. Forget subsets of employee committees. In today’s fast-moving world, to turn to a subset of the employees and ask for input while ignoring the thoughts and abilities of the rest of the organization is indefensible.

Welcome to 100 percent employee involvement Engaging employees, however, requires more than a call to action. A stirring speech in which the CEO declares that ‘‘our employees are our most valuable asset’’ has to be followed by the answer to a simple question: Where do I go with a new idea? The answer to that determines how change is accomplished. If a senior management team is serious about changing the rules on how change is brought about, employees need to know the new rules. Without a structure and specific instructions on new procedures and the allocation of power, employees will conclude that nothing has changed. Admittedly, to define and provide any approach will require a leap of faith of some magnitude for most managers. A hop of hope will not be sufficient. An approach that makes it possible to link employee engagement and empowerment (an old-fashioned, but useful word) with leadership and measurement is the best guarantor of success. That is what the quality revolution sought to do. Admittedly, over the last ten or so years, the concept of ‘‘quality’’ has suffered considerably in the eyes of business executives. Tom Peters once summed up the problem by saying that quality efforts tended to be all passion and no system or all system and no passion, when what was necessary was a balance of the two. A successful approach – no matter under what banner – combines both rational and emotional elements. The reason is obvious: All humans exhibit both rational and emotional

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behavior so, in order to truly engage them, an organization must reach out to them on both levels. An approach that builds on trust combined with system achieves that goal. Let’s call it a ‘‘complete quality process’’. On the surface, a complete quality process (CQP) has drawbacks: B

The seven CQP components (see below) sound routine. The power of the approach lies in doing them all at once and in the specific ways in which each component is defined and implemented. As is so often the case, the value of the idea lies in the details.

B

It is impossible to concentrate power at the top. A well-documented CQP will generate so much activity that it will be virtually impossible for managers (at any level) to micro-manage improvement activities.

B

If a CQP attempt fails, the failure is most likely due to actions of the senior management team. This can be embarrassing, to say the least.

While the burden of the success of a CQP is on management, there are ample ways to demonstrate leadership and contribute to success through empowerment (aligning authority with responsibility), trusting employees, and saying thank you. And among the results that can be expected from the successful implementation of a CQP are increased profits, increased productivity, increased morale, and decreased turnover. As for the basics, the seven CQP components are familiar: 1. Top management commitment. 2. Leadership. 3. 100 percent employee involvement – with a structure. 4. Communications. 5. Training. 6. Measurement. 7. Recognition, gratitude and celebration. All of these impact and encourage – in different ways – employee engagement. The primary vehicle for employee engagement is the third CQP component: 100 percent employee involvement – with a structure. Typically this is by creating a network of teams – with every person on the payroll being on at least one team (typical name: quality team) from the outset of the process. Each team has a trained team leader, with the common beginning point being the hierarchical senior. In following years, employees who want to exhibit or hone their leadership skills can fill those roles. Part of the top management commitment is empowering the teams, giving them authority equal to their responsibility. Translation: if a team is going to be blamed for the sub-optimal results of a particular sequence, they have the authority to make the needed improvements. Such an understanding helps to insure that the employees stay tightly focused on their own work areas. There will also have to be a comprehensive – also a top management commitment responsibility – tracking system for quality teams to notify the organization of its improvements, to ask for help when needed, and to keep track of progress to insure that conflicts are not introduced, even if done in all good faith. Communications and training are included in the CQP components because they make it attractive and possible for employees to become engaged and to stay engaged. Recognition, gratitude and celebration are crucial acts of leadership that demonstrate the leaders’ willingness to touch their subordinates on an emotional plane while keeping the rational in mind. Thank you is especially critical. If a person has contributed to the future of the company, he or she deserves the feeling that comes when being thanked, the recognition that his or her efforts are appreciated. (In addition, if a person ‘‘hears’’ the thank

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you, there is a strong possibility that he or she will soon think of another improvement.) Linking the thank you to the results in the tracking system makes the thank you sincere. No quality process would be truly complete without measurement. A CQP is truly complete because it is structured to include the possibility of employing all the other quality tools. Quite simply, Six Sigma, Lean, Taguchi, ISO, Kaizen, etc. are the subsets; CQP is the superset. Every organization faces the issues included in the CQP. The question is: Will the organization take a unified approach? Will they use the talents of everyone on the payroll? True, a CQP takes concentration and time: surprisingly little time. The authors of this article have led the definition, implementation, and maintenance of two highly successful CQP efforts. The elapsed time between the decision to pursue this option and a fully implemented system with measurable, bottom-line benefits was eight months in one instance and six months in the other. And the improvement in morale was equally striking. The employees of virtually every organization in the world refer to their place of work as ‘‘my company’’ when they are at home. Taking advantage of that natural feeling of ownership by extending trust and empowerment to all employees and giving them the means to be engaged in the continual improvement of everything the organization does is in the best interest of the employer, the employees, and their customers.

About ASQ and the authors The American Society for Quality (ASQ) offers guidance on how to avoid overlooking employees as a valuable resource in the ‘‘Learn about quality’’ section of its web site, www. asq.org The ‘‘People create quality’’ subsection has resources and information on change management, teams, leadership, employee empowerment and involvement, and more. Keywords: Empowerment, Employee involvement

Patrick Townsend and Joan Gebhardt are the authors of The Executive Guide to Understanding and Implementing Employee Engagement Programs: Expand Production Capacity, Increase Revenue, and Save Jobs, published by ASQ Quality Press.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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Making HR count How to validate a ‘‘soft’’ function through employee-engagement strategy

ate Feather is an HR professional at PeopleMetrics, Philadelphia. In her article, ‘‘Helping HR to measure up: arming the ‘soft’ function with hard metrics’’, she establishes how HR, typically viewed as a discipline which does not operate within traditional business practices of measurement and corporate strategy, can and should be embraced as an asset in holistic business management.

K

The defining idea Feather presents is that, by introducing practical concepts of measurement of employee engagement, and using the results to target improvements in efforts and retention, HR can be an invaluable tool in running a successful business. The adage that satisfied employees work harder is taken and developed in ways that can be practically applied to the workplace. The first problem arises in working out precisely what can be measured, and how. The article identifies a four step process by which employee engagement can be identified, measured, encouraged and then re-measured.

Step 1 – measuring behavioural and emotional outcomes The term ‘‘employee-engagement’’ can be defined in several ways, depending on the priorities companies place on employee satisfaction; however, it is defined here as ‘‘a combination of both functional and emotional behaviors and attitudes’’. The idea is that a company must create some kind of emotional link with its employees in order to generate and sustain more practical levels of loyalty, retention and performance. To paraphrase, an employee who is ‘‘engaged’’ demonstrates positive traits in the following categories: B

retention (a desire to stay with the organization);

B

effort (a desire to provide more than is absolutely required);

B

advocacy (the voluntary promotion of the company as a good place to work);

B

passion (a positive emotional connection to the company).

These categories are aspects that the first step in the four-step process of HR measurement strategy attempts to quantify. A study by PeopleMetricss, which examined more than 5,000 employees across a range of organizations, revealed that, as a trend, the larger Fortune 500 companies had much less success with employee retention (50 percent less) than those in the top quartile; also, it demonstrated that ‘‘high performing employees were twice as engaged as their low performing counterparts’’.

Step 2 – creating meaningful outcomes from research Each organization needs to identify precisely the ‘‘people outcomes’’ that are most valuable to its operations; in other words, what it is that its employees contribute most to the business. The article uses two examples:

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‘‘ The author here warns against simply identifying low performing areas that are less consequential to productivity or functionality. Instead, efforts should be focussed on poorly performing areas that have a high impact on the business’s operations. ’’

1. A global brewery was analysed regarding its most important employee-driven competency: this proved to be sales. HR managed to prove quantifiably the link between employee engagement in the sales force and the number of barrels sold. 2. A UK call center provided an obvious example of the effects of an engaged workforce against the success of its calling operation. HR proved that a happier employee led directly to an increased number of calls answered. The conclusion reached is that an employee-engagement strategy implemented by HR can substantially and positively affect an organization’s productivity.

Step 3 – focussing engagement on high-impact/low performing areas This step involves quantifying and proving the positive effects of HR involvement on the workforce. The author here warns against simply identifying low performing areas that are less consequential to productivity or functionality. Instead, efforts should be focussed on poorly performing areas that have a high impact on the business’s operations. Also, it is important to identify the correct engagement drivers: for example, compensation, surprisingly, is rarely an effective driver. Instead, employees (depending on their respective sector) most often cite factors such as job satisfaction, working conditions and recognition from employers. To elaborate this point, two more case studies were undertaken: 1. A hospital system found through HR research that the key engagement driver was the ‘‘culture of caring’’. Physicians, nurses and carers interviewed painted a picture of a workforce most concerned with quality of patient-care; as a result, HR concentrated its efforts in making their hospital the carer of choice in the community, focussing primarily on the quality of its patient-care. 2. By contrast, employees of a banking system reveal a driver of recognition of service. Employees of a regional US bank cited three main aspects of the job that were of importance to them: a commitment to delivering exceptional service; rewarding and recognizing employees’ contributions; and feeling fairly compensated. The bank’s HR department consequently developed a system of employee evaluation and recognition, in which an employee is nominated for a quarterly award based on their behavior and results.

Step 4 – re-measuring to assess success The final step involves a re-measurement of employee engagement, following on the analysis and implementation of HR policies to encourage workforce productivity. The author returns to the results of the previous examples:

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B

Having identified patient-care as a key driver, the hospital system implemented a plan to significantly improve perceptions of caring during a 12-month period. After this time, a survey conducted by HR revealed that engagement increased by 10 and 8 points, and favorable views of the caring culture also increased significantly.

B

The bank conducted a similar survey amongst employees having targeted the key engagement driver of service, recognition and compensation. All these areas of

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‘‘ It may be an unusual concept to many organizations to consider creating an emotional connection to its employees (it may also be unusual to the employees themselves), but it is in their best interests to engender such basic human sentiments as loyalty, fairness and fulfilment. ’’

engagement showed significant improvement in a short period, as did the perception of leadership’s commitment to retaining top talent in the organization.

Conclusion Such focused and quantifiable HR practices go a long way to demonstrating how this ‘‘soft’’ business function can be applied in a very effective manner. It should be the responsibility of HR to help impact the success and productivity of an organization, and Feather demonstrates how new and applied measurement techniques can be utilized to achieve precisely that goal. It may be an unusual concept to many organizations to consider creating an emotional connection to its employees (it may also be unusual to the employees themselves), but it is in their best interests to engender such basic human sentiments as loyalty, fairness and fulfilment. The consequences, as shown in the examples provided, can only be beneficial to all parties concerned.

Comment Keywords: Employee development, Human resource management, Human resource management research

This review is of ‘‘Helping HR to measure up: arming the ‘soft’ function with hard metrics’’ by Kate Feather, director of PeopleMetrics, an HR company passed in Philadelphia, PA, USA. The article is concise, well written, and convincing in the case it puts forward. It argues that HR can and should perform an important function of analysis, measurement and participation in the working lives of a company’s employees, in order to increase productivity and maximize human capital.

Reference Feather, K. (2008), ‘‘Helping HR to measure up: arming the ‘soft’ function with hard metrics’’, Strategic HR Review, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 28-33, ISBN 1475-4398.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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Feeling valued is the best motivation Perks and pay incentives cannot beat feeling needed

Introduction Employees who work hard, produce results and provide excellent customer service are just what every employer wants. But what motivates employees to treat their jobs as more than just a daily grind that pays the rent and buys the groceries? If employers could only answer that question accurately they would be well on the way to creating the confident, committed workforce that is every HR officer’s dream.

Bonuses: do they work? One suggestion might be to pay employees more for excellent results. City bankers depend on their big bonuses to fuel their ‘‘work hard, play hard’’ lifestyles, but whether much smaller bonuses are just as effective for the average employee is a debatable question. Sammer resurrects the old urban myth about the fireman who turned to arson when the fire department started paying bonuses for every emergency call-out. Whether or not there is any truth in this tale, some employers have worries that bonuses may lead to inappropriate behavior rather than improved working practices. For instance, a firm paying a flat rate per completed job to service technicians might find the technicians rushing through their work in order to complete the largest number of repairs in the least amount of time. Shoddy work, rather than the goal of good time management, could be the result. In other situations, bonuses paid for completed tasks might actually serve to reduce the creativity required to maintain a competitive edge in today’s rapidly changing world of commerce. Employees focusing solely on their pay rewards could consider completing existing orders more important than taking time out for the ‘‘thinking time’’ that does not show immediate results.

Perks and incentives If money is not the answer perhaps perks and incentives can do the job of motivating the workforce. Many firms now offer perks ranging from on-site gyms and private health insurance to extra time away from work. This can range from the odd ‘‘duvet’’ day to accommodate that ‘‘just can’t get out of bed’’ feeling to paid or unpaid sabbaticals enabling employees to take a once in a lifetime trip or to engage in volunteer work. Other companies offer childcare, telecommuting or flexible start and finish times. If the companies ranked tops in Fortune Magazine’s annual poll of the best companies to work for provided some of these perks for their employees, that would be evidence of a clear link between employers’ perks and employees’ job satisfaction, right? Wrong! Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Two of the top five companies to work for, Whole Foods and Gentech, do not provide employee perks (with the exception of telecommuting which Gentech employees are able to do). However,

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‘‘ If money is not the answer perhaps perks and incentives can do the job of motivating the workforce. Many firms now offer perks ranging from on-site gyms and private health insurance to extra time away from work. ’’

the firm ranked number 12, David Weekly Homes, does provide benefits which serve to increase employees’ perception of achieving a good work-life balance. Because some of the firms ranked most highly in terms of employee satisfaction provide lots of perks, while some offer few, if any, incentives, it is not possible to construct a clear link between job satisfaction and employer incentives. It may just be the case that some firms that are rated highly by employees, also offer non-pecuniary benefits to their staff. It is interesting to note, however, that Gentech (number two in Fortune’s list) offers telecommuting as their only extra benefit. The opportunity to work some of the time from home has been shown to be the most important perk in terms of employee satisfaction. BT, one of the pioneers of home working (the organization began offering it in 1986), has found that home workers are more efficient, take less time off sick and show excellent return rates from maternity leave. In addition, they are happier.

Valuing employees by listening to them The best incentive for employee motivation however, is not a perk at all. It is simply listening to employees, valuing their contributions and at the same time, valuing them as individuals with unique strengths and needs. MGM for example, realized that one casino was much like another for Las Vegas visitors and began emphasizing the fact that it was the employees who represented the MGM brand to the casino’s guests. Showing how much they valued their employees has, says MGM increased their profits significantly. However, some industry observers counter that it is impossible to show a direct link between increased profits and the policy of ‘‘valuing’’ employees. Nevertheless, there are other indicators that the work culture can provide measurable indications of success. In the UK the most successful companies demonstrate how they value their employees by listening to them and incorporating their suggestions into company policy. This offers employees true engagement at all levels and helps them to feel that it is ‘‘their’’ company, not just a place to work. In fact employees who work in environments where everyone’s suggestions and contributions are sought, employees feel up to ten times more valued than in companies where all ideas are generated from the top. An example from the UK is supermarket giant Sainsbury’s. Three years ago it had taken some real blows from rival grocers and profitability was down. Sainsbury’s engaged a motivation agency to help increase staff engagement. The agency, Grass Roots, created a web-based program that encouraged employees to contribute their own ideas on regeneration and offered rewards for employees who demonstrated behaviors congruent with the revitalization drive. Sainsbury’s does not hesitate to credit such employee engagement with the firm’s regeneration, although once again it may be difficult to provide empirical evidence which proves cause and effect.

A global perspective Valuing employees may be the best form of motivation in the USA and Europe but can it be employed on a global scale? Global brands strive to present a unified face to their multi-national marketplace but recent research indicates that employees from different national locations view their jobs very differently. Some of the problems in developing strategies to motivate international employees result from short term planning. Huff (2007) quotes Bruce Bolger from the Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement as saying that companies reject strategies to develop and motivate staff

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because these are seen as long-term commitments. Companies prefer to implement short-term fixes that show profits rapidly. This is confirmed by Genia Spencer from Randstad USA who suggests that firms ignore people-developing in favor of people-finding. In other words, when companies expect a high turn over, they direct their resources toward staff replacement. This policy, however does not seem to be rooted in common sense which should tell HR departments that if they spent more time making their existing employees happy, they would not have to look for new ones so often! Reuters addressed the issue of uneven employee satisfaction in different countries where it operates by rolling out an international recognition strategy. The Living FAST Recognition Program seeks to inculcate the company values of Fast, Accountable, Service and Team-focused (FAST) behaviors in all employees, regardless of location. Global programs like this allow companies to initiate inclusive strategies that still leave room for local variants. For instance, cash incentives or rewards may vary according to local cost-of-living and salary structures. Local sensitivities must also be respected. Employees in some locations could be insulted by a financial incentive, interpreting it as a bribe and therefore in such cultures, employers must find other methods of rewarding motivation and effort.

The ubiquitous youth culture One additional difficulty that many employers face is the changing expectations of today’s young graduates. Where once young employees expected to spend years in an apprenticeship role, learning from more experienced staff, today’s young educated workforce expects rapid advancement and the salary and perks that go with this. If these are not forthcoming from their initial employers, young workers do not shy away from frequent job changes, often for remunerative increases of as little as 5 percent. Another issue seems to be that young people no longer expect criticism, constructive or otherwise in the workplace. While a healthy dose of assertiveness is a good thing, and no-one would want to return to a workplace ethic of bullying, constructive advice from experienced mentors is a necessary part of staff development.

Conclusion Finding and keeping the best employees will always be an issue for employers, particularly in times of economic growth. It would seem however that showing employees they are valued by affording workers a real voice in the decision-making processes of a company is the best starting point in motivation and retention of staff. Staff incentives must be carefully considered but it seems that in terms of perks, the freedom to work at home, at least part of the time, helps to create employees who are healthy, happy and motivated. Global firms must treat all employees equally in terms of making them feel valued and listened to, but incentives may need to be varied according to cultural expectations. Young employees also need to feel valued and must be provided with a clear route to success. This might help to avoid feelings of not being valued which precipitate their frequent job changes. At the same time, structured mentoring can help to provide the guidance young employees need without invoking the feeling of being constantly criticized.

‘‘ One additional difficulty that many employers face is the changing expectations of today’s young graduates. Where once young employees expected to spend years in an apprenticeship role, learning from more experienced staff, today’s young educated workforce expects rapid advancement and the salary and perks that go with this. ’’

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Comment Keywords: Motivation (psychology), Employee involvement

This review was written incorporating information from the articles cited in the reference list. All of these were worth reading for the information presented on issues of employee motivation and interesting discussions on how different companies reward success.

References Crush, P. (2007), ‘‘Perk power (benefits)’’, Human Resources, August, pp. 41-4. Huff, C. (2007), ‘‘Special report: rewards and incentives’’, Workforce Management, Vol. 86 No. 16, pp. 25-31. Sammer, J. (2007), ‘‘Weighing pay incentives’’, HR Magazine, Vol. 52 No. 6, pp. 65-9. Whiteling, I. (2007), ‘‘A message from the frontline (promotions and incentives)’’, Marketing Week, 19 July, p. 35.

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Success begins at home Addressing the emotional engagement of your workforce

ow many of your employees have left the company in the past 12 months? How many of your competitors are reporting a healthier bottom line? How many of your customers are shopping around or, worse, deserting you? If the answer to any of these questions is more than none, then perhaps you should think about addressing the related issues of customer and employee loyalty. For making a positive change in these areas is actually more in your control than many managers and executives think.

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While senior management is busy pouring over spreadsheets of turnover, competitor products and the wider marketplace, they often overlook a more important driver to commercial success. Employee engagement – that is the emotional and physical well-being of your staff – should be the first area to look at if your business wants to improve its performance. More and more studies are focussed on the emotions of workforces, taking them seriously as a decisive factor in competitiveness. As a result, advice on training and development is constantly being tweaked, and there is much literature now available on how to get the most from your team. According to research done by Hunter and Schmidt in the late 1990s only 16 percent of people in management and executive posts are regarded as superior performers, this meaning that they are 48 percent more productive than those classes as average. Turning your poor performers – who similarly make up 16 percent of management teams – into superior ones thus becomes an attractive prospect when you consider the accompanying expected 96 percent improvement on performance. Better performing employees, of course, means better results, better staff morale and thus a reduction in attrition and recruitment costs. The difficulty is knowing how to invest time and money to bring this change about.

Emotional engagement Economics Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman believes that most of our economic decisions are based on the irrational – how we feel rather than how we think. Advertisers have long been aware of this: just think of the number of adverts that try to have potential customers envisage the positive emotional experience that will come with buying a product. What executives need to realize more fully is that the exact same principle applies of employees. Just as emotionally engaged customers equals better sales, emotionally engaged employees leads to better performance. To quantify this belief, research into publicly traded companies in the Gallup Organization’s database showed that in the top 25 percent of performers 45 percent of employees considered themselves engaged, whereas in the poorer performers only 22 percent of staff claimed to be so. Less engaged teams see higher staff turnover, more days off work, more errors and more customer complaints. Those who feel actively disengaged, which in the banking world for example is 13 percent, are described by Hoffman and Tschida as a poison to the whole ecosystem of the company, making it very difficult for even the best

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customer-service strategy to be put into effective operation. More engagement, however, is a leading indicator in levels of customer loyalty, and thus is a major factor in fending off competitors. So how can executives begin to work on improving emotional engagement? The first thing to do is locate the local areas of disengagement. Many companies collect data from employees and then circulate the average view, but doing this is not helpful in locating just where the most and least successful areas are. Further, taking the average view is taking as representative a workplace experience that does not actually exist. Instead, all the different teams in the company should offer feedback on whether they feel motivated, supported, engaged and satisfied, and then managers can start to work out why areas of disengagement have come to exist. Communication will be a major factor in bringing about change, and thus employees should be made to feel they can provide honest feedback without fearing negative consequence. Whether online feedback, visits from senior management, ‘‘fireside chats’’ or some other method is chosen, it is important that thought is put into making the method transparent and trusted. Indeed, regular feedback sessions should be incorporated into the working calendar: dialogue sessions and full participation will not only provide useful data but will give employees that all important sense that they are becoming more integral and involved.

The team and its leader Another central decision will be who should lead the change. Since it is the leader’s job to create and sustain an environment where employees can do their best work, it is important that the leader has the right balance of qualities. Gay Barton of HR specialist Drake New Zealand explains that ‘‘What makes a great leader is the right balance of task and relationship. Leaders with a balanced task and relationship orientation know that the team is in place to deliver results for the business. They know that work gets done through people who are motivated – who know that they are doing important work and who know their work is appreciated.’’ The right leader, then, has talents both for getting the job done and for handling people effectively with both encouragement and humility. They will also identify and communicate a unifying goal, highlighting people’s personal goals (new skills, promotion and so on) along the way in order to increase everyone’s engagement with the task. As for the team itself, there are eight personalities that make up the ideal team. Managers should be aware of them when they recruit new people into the team, and so they can predict to some extent how people will interact. NZ Business identifies this character types as the practical, the consulting personality, the driving type, the ideas person, the catalyst, the judge, the supportive type and the detail person. This eight is, of course, an ideal mix that is not always attainable. Yet whatever the team, dynamics and emotional engagement can always be improved with effective team building programs. There are a great number of these available, and investing in one will really only pay off it is well-chosen. First, a framework of what you really want to achieve for the team should be established. Does the team need to change its behaviour or merely have an occasional morale boost to keep them on a good track? Second, you should think about the different characters in the team and how they would respond. Outdoor exercises are always fun but are perhaps not such a good idea if people are unfit or non-active. Enforcing an unpopular activity may have the effect of further disengaging employees. Whichever exercise is chosen, the advice is to not to run it in-house. Staff tend to be more open with third parties, and these outside observers in turn can take up a more objective

‘‘ Turning your poor performers into superior ones becomes an attractive prospect when you consider the accompanying expected 96 percent improvement on performance. ’’

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stance. Before choosing an outside consultant, however, be sure to shop around and discuss programs that will match identified objectives, be they psychometric testing, role playing, days away or something different. The right program and continued support will provide a return on investment in the form of a more engaged and productive staff and in turn more loyal customers.

Comment This is a review of ‘‘Time for a team talk (organizational culture in small business)’’ from NZ Business, ‘‘Engaged employees equal engaged customers: to improve customer service, banks must develop and nurture enthusiastic, loyal employees’’ by Bill Hoffman and Teresa Tschida, and ‘‘How to maximize staff potential’’ by Ian Whiteling. ‘‘Time for team talk’’ considers the factors that contribute to the creation of a high-performing team. It stresses the need for a unifying goal and a leader who balances task and relationship orientation, defining the former as ‘‘ability to get the job done’’ and the later as ‘‘the ability to consistently motivate people to do their best work’’. The article identifies the eight personality types that makes up a perfect team, and then discusses some of the team building and leadership programs senior management should commit to to get the most from them. It finishes with a case study of New Zealand company Humanware. Bill Hoffman and Teresa Tschida write about the banking sector and how customer loyalty is linked to the emotional commitment of staff to their employer. They introduce the emotional economy principle, where economic decisions are based on emotions, and with findings from 332 organizations relate firm performance to employee engagement. Finally, the authors point to the importance of manager development through ‘‘onboarding’’, coaching, performance evaluation and career progression. Keywords: Team performance, Teambuilding, Training, Motivation (psychology), Employee attitudes, Organizational change

‘‘How to maximize staff potential’’ explores the training development opportunities on offer for marketing teams. It outlines the benefits of improving performance, discusses some of the techniques that can help improve staff performance and considers whether in-house or outsourced programmes are better. Whiteling argues that staff loyalty can be developed through well-chosen training and development schemes, including traditional training, motivation programs, psychometric assessment, emotional intelligence techniques and personal coaching. He also highlights the benefits of personal health coaching and continual assessment in optimizing performance.

References Hoffman, B. and Tschida, T. (2007), ‘‘Engaged employees equal engaged customers: to improve customer service, banks must develop and nurture enthusiastic, loyal employees’’, BAI Banking Strategies, May/June, pp. 25-30. NZ Business (2007), ‘‘Time for a team talk (organizational culture in small business)’’, NZ Business, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 46-9. Whiteling, I. (2007), ‘‘How to maximize staff potential’’, Marketing Week, 23 August, pp. 27-8.

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Interview with Mike Campbell, HR Director of easyJet Interview by Rachel Brown

ike Campbell joined easyJet in October 2005 as People Director. Before joining easyJet Mike worked at Wedgwood in a broad role as Director of People and Brands and Managing Director for Canada, Australia and Pan-Asia. Prior to that Mike worked for 14 years at Fujitsu in a variety of development and personnel roles across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, ending up as Chief Personnel Officer. His early career was in education and research.

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What attracted you to working in the field of HR? I spent my early years in research and really enjoyed the seminars and tutorials I was involved in delivering. I drifted across into teaching after research and got a real buzz from that, so from there, due to a combination of family reasons and financial reasons, I ended up in training delivery. I then spent some time as a training manager and ended up getting a role in what was then called personnel. I grew fairly quickly through a number of roles in personnel and spent a lot of time looking after the creative design, the brown side of the business as well as a lot of the operational side of the business, so it’s been a bit of a journey.

You delivered a session about branding during your session at the CIPD annual conference. How do HR and marketing come together? I have a very simple view about enterprises. All enterprises in my view are about demand creation – stimulating, anticipating demand out in the marketplace, and working with creative marketers or advertising people to work out best how to stimulate demand. So there’s an aspect to do with demand fulfilment, traditional things like sourcing, production, logistics, manufacturing; so how do you understand what the demand is and how do you fulfil that demand. And there’s a third aspect to do with customer intimacy, which is really about the retail stores or the websites, the primary interface with the customer where you can capture that relationship or retain that relationship. Now, in each of the three areas you don’t necessarily have to do all these things yourself; you can work with the marketers and advertisers, you can outsource production and all your logistics, you can franchise your retail stores, you can go through concessions or whatever it might be, but ultimately the core of your ability to succeed with that is about knowledge, people and brands. If you can line those things up together when you know who the best in the world at logistics provision is, you understand who the best suppliers might be, or who the best creative organization or ad agency might be, if you’ve got a clear talented group of people who are able to pull the organization behind that, you’ve got a frame of reference that’s about your brand. This ultimately helps you decide what is or isn’t fit about what your propositions to customers are; that’s the core to the business.

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Is there a difference between the employer brand of easyJet and the company brand? One of the things that I think is very important is that you’ve got an alignment between the two, because gone are the days when you can say one thing internally and a different thing externally. My own view is that everything has to be lined up. You can define us with our employer brand in the same way that you can define us with our company brand to the recipients of the brand – our customers or our current past and future employees. You’ve only got to look at the web sites that exist for the pilot community, the airline programme that we get involved in, the anecdotal information that goes through Galley FM around the airline industry about what it’s like to work for certain companies. The definers of the employer brand are in truth the employees. So what we as an HR function have to do is to make sure we truly understand what it is that employees are saying and that we also then create the platforms to ensure that what they’re saying is very positive and is absolutely consistent with what we want them to say, and is consistent with the company brand as well.

How can a strong employer brand improve levels of employee engagement? I wouldn’t be so sure as to say that employer brand improves employee engagement, but I think the two work in tandem. We’ve got an aspiration to be the best at what we do in the world; we’ve got five clear areas we’re focused on. One of these is around safety elements – as an airline it’s critical, we can’t afford to compromise these and we don’t. Operationally we’ve got to be world class in what we do. Our proposition needs to offer low cost with care and convenience. easyJet itself needs to be a great place to work because if we care for our employees they’ll care for our customers, and if you put all these things together, you’ll get a superior return on investment. Ultimately our employers have the ability to choose who they work for; we’re delighted they choose us because we’re really keen to attract and retain talented people. Our customers have a choice to choose who they fly with; we’re really pleased they choose to fly with us, and we want them to keep flying with us; and our investors have a choice about who they invest with. If we can line all those three things up we can be on the virtuous circle of employees who are very constructive and who care about the business; we will drive more customers to come back to us more often, which will drive more improvement in company performance, which drives more investment, which drives growth, which attracts more people to come and work for us.

What makes easyJet unique in terms of corporate culture? Aside from the orange colour, the uniqueness is our people. It’s actually quite difficult to try and describe that because words mean different things to different people, and the best way of describing it is to go and experience one of our flights. You only have to see our crew working and you can see the impact they have on the people who are boarding the aircraft, the way they set the tone on board, and the way they create an experience that people want to come back to time after time after time. It’s not an expensive flight, our average price is about £40, a significant number of people can buy it for less than that, what they see is different about easyJet is that we care. We care about our customers by caring for our people.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced in your role recently? These sort of questions are really difficult because if you focus on one particular answer you belittle the other things. If you read the corporate strategist’s view of what distinguishes a business they’ll often look for the USP. The USP for easyJet is not any one thing, it’s that we do everything well. You can’t operate a high volume, low cost business without doing each piece of it really well because it’s indispensable across the network. So our aircraft has to be the best aircraft there is, we have the best people and we’ve clearly got the best customers, so by aligning all those things together, by operating our business in an efficient and effective way across everything we do, that’s what makes easyJet successful.

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If I think back to what I’d like my legacy to be in this business, I’d like to make sure that at the end of my time in easyJet we’ll be recognised as a truly European airline. There’s a lot of energy and effort going into making this a great European airline. We have institutionalised learning so we don’t keep reinventing the wheel, we build learning into our organization because as we’re growing we’ll need to continue to expand and we’ll need to continue to do things we’ve done very well.

A big issue in business today is climate change. As an airline you are part of an industry which has a huge carbon footprint. Do you think your employees are disengaged by the current press about climate change, and if so do you take any measures to combat this? I don’t think they’re disengaged at all actually; like me a lot of our employees are concerned that the press and the politicians are misleading the public a little bit. That’s not to say that airlines don’t pollute, we do, but let’s get this into perspective. If you look at carbon missions worldwide 20 per cent are caused by lighting, 18 per cent by deforestation, 10 per cent by transport generally, and less than 2 per cent by airlines.

Keywords: Human resource management, Customer service management

Separately, we still have to acknowledge that we have a responsibility for 2 per cent of carbon emissions. We are accountable for them, and our view on that is we all have responsibility to reduce these. We’re taking action to do that on a number of fronts, and one of our fronts is by our continuing investment in new aircraft. Our carbon emissions from our new aircraft are much lower than in older ones. We’re also putting more of our efforts and energies on the ground, in the air and with our people about trying to reduce carbon emissions, even down to collecting rubbish on board which can be recycled. We have a strong focus on the future and we’re investing in research and technology to make sure that the newer craft and technology that’s released in 2015 will be much more environmentally friendly.

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Abstracts A review of selected management articles from over 400 of the world’s top management publications Keywords: B&Q, Business strategy, Employee attitudes, Motivation, Retail trade, United Kingdom

Keywords: Creativity, Employee attitudes, Finland, Innovation, Motivation

Home improvement (HR at B&Q) Crabb, S., People Management, 4 October 2007, Vol. 13 No. 20, Start page: 32, No. of pages: 2 Purpose – explains why B&Q was the winner in the People Management Award 2007 category for ‘‘Improving business through engaging staff’’. Design/methodology/approach – describes the employee engagement exercise that won the award for B&Q. Findings – notes that employee engagement was part of a turnaround business strategy that also involved redundancies. Identifies ensuring that managers realise the importance of engaging staff, providing technical support and good communication, and developing an effective recognition system as playing key parts in the success of B&Q getting its staff behind its new business strategy. Originality/value – profiles an award-winning employee engagement programme. ISSN: 1358-6297 Reference: 37AA327 Enthusiasm in the development of radical innovations Sandberg, B., Creativity and Innovation Management, September 2007, Vol. 16 No. 3, Start page: 265, No. of pages: 9 Purpose – analyses how enthusiasm contributes to radical innovation and considers the factors that affects its creation and maintenance throughout the innovation process. Design/methodology/approach – identifies four drivers of enthusiasm – the behaviour of champions, the achievement of personal results, networking and business performance. Also identifies eight ‘‘gaps’’ that will decrease enthusiasm – gaps in time, help, commitment, trust, reflection, openness, results and engagement. Analyses case studies of 51 Finnish innovations and evaluates the role that enthusiasm played in their achievement. Based on this develops a model of the drivers and inhibitors of enthusiasm during an innovation project. Findings – concludes that the drivers of enthusiasm at the ideas-generation stage and the development stage of innovation are personal results, behaviour of champions and networking, and that the drivers of enthusiasm at the launch stage are personal results, business performance and networking. Concludes that the inhibitors of enthusiasm are gaps in commitment, trust, engagement and results within the company and development partners at the development stage and gaps in commitment, trust, engagement and help at the launch stage. Overall, underlines the role that enthusiasm plays in supporting innovation. Research limitations/ implications – describes the research methods. Originality/value – highlights the impact that enthusiasm has on the achievement of radical innovation. ISSN: 0963-1690 Reference: 36AY910

Keywords: Employees behaviour, Human resource management, Human resource strategies, India, Learning

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Predictors of organizational commitment in India: strategic HR roles, organizational learning capability and psychological empowerment Bhatnagar, J., The International Journal of Human Resource Management, October 2007, Vol. 18 No. 10, Start page: 1782, No. of pages: 30 Purpose – to analyse the links between strategic HR roles, psychological empowerment, organizational learning capability and organizational commitment, focusing on Indian human resource management (HRM) practices. Design/methodology/approach – seeks to establish a framework of organizational commitment, strategic HR roles, psychological empowerment and organizational learning capability and to identify to what extent these variables can predict organizational commitment. Presents a relevant literature on HRM in

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India; outlines a number of hypotheses including, among others, that organizational learning capability and organizational commitment will have a positive relationship; describes the collection of survey data from Indian managers. Findings – highlights how a positive relationship was found between strategic HR roles and organizational commitment; identifies how psychological empowerment facilitates organizational learning capabilities, leading to higher commitment. Research limitations/implications – look at the changing psychological contract and how it impacts on strategic HRM dimensions; examine how organizational commitment may affect employee engagement. Practical implications – organizations should engender psychological empowerment and emphasise learning capability. Originality – Contributes to the literature on organizational commitment. ISSN: 0958-5192 Reference: 37AA649 Keywords: Food industry, Human resource management, Organizational performance, United Kingdom

A can-do policy (organizational performance)

Keywords: Control, Information exchange, Information systems, Knowledge management, Management science, Motivation (psychology)

Motivating knowledge sharing through a knowledge management system

Harrington, S., Human Resources November 2007, Start page: 23, No. of pages: 2 Purpose – interviews Nigel Perry, HR Director at Heinz UK, about how human resource management has supported the turnaround in the company’s performance. Design/methodology/approach – quotes from the interview about the need to rebuild the brand, restructured the workforce, and developed a new performance culture. Also discusses the areas that still need to be tackled, including employee engagement. Cites indicators that the new approach has been successful. Findings – makes the link between employee performance and organizational performance, and shows how the transformation of the first has supported the achievement of the latter. Originality/value – profiles the human resource policies and strategies that have underpinned performance improvement at Heinz UK. ISSN: 0964-8380 Reference: 37AB447

King, W.R.Marks, P.V., Omega February 2008, Vol. 36 No. 1, Start page: 131, No. of pages: 16 Purpose – to investigate, and compare, the effects of supervisory control and organizational support on employees’ efforts in, and frequency of, contributing to a corporate knowledge management system (KMS). Design/methodology/approach – discusses use of KMS and factors motivating employees to share knowledge, defines supervisory control as management action to increase the likelihood of desired employee behaviour, and cites social exchange theory in positing that perceived organizational support will foster reciprocal employee support. Presents hypotheses suggesting discrete and joint relationships between supervisory control and organizational support, and knowledge-sharing frequency and effort, tests the hypotheses by questionnaire survey of 169 employees of a US federal agency, questions respondents on their supervisor’s involvement in system use, organizational help to improve performance, and system ease-of-use, appends the questionnaire, and records that 84 percent of respondents held a bachelors degree and that over 50 percent had worked at the agency for more than five years. Findings – reports that, after controlling for system usefulness and ease-of-use, supervisory control had a significant, positive influence on the frequency of contributions, that organizational support had a similar effect on effort, but finds that system usefulness and ease-of-use had greater impacts on contribution frequency and effort than organizational support. Practical implications – warns organizations not to neglect supervisory control and ensure their KMS are easy to use. Originality/value – reinforces earlier findings regarding the benefits of organizational control and support behaviours. ISSN: 0305-0483 Reference: 36BA481

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Keywords: Employee attitudes, Environmental management, Expectancy theory, Individual behaviour, Motivation (psychology), Organizational behaviour

Keywords: Employees, Empowerment, Organizations, Road transport, Social action, Transport management

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Corporate greening through prosocial extrarole behaviours - a conceptual framework for employee motivation Ramus, C.A.Killmer, A.B.C., Business Strategy and the Environment, December 2007, Vol. 16 No. 8, Start page: 554, No. of pages: 17 Purpose – to explain how to motivate employees to engage in corporate greening initiatives. Design/methodology/approach – sees greening behaviours as pro-social behaviours intended to promote the welfare of an individual, group or organization, maintains that, at the corporate level, greening behaviour has the potential to create added value, illustrates how corporate greening behaviours are related to other employee behaviours, e.g. extra-role behaviours, and identifies four motivational drivers of extra-role behaviours, i.e. supervisory support, social norms, personal predisposition and self-efficacy. Draws on expectancy theory and behavioural intent models to extend an integrative motivation model (IMM), incorporates the four motivational drivers, depicts the framework, and lays out the associated mathematical models that link overt behaviour of developing/proposing an eco-initiative to behavioural intent to engage in an eco-initiative, pre-disposition to eco-initiatives, belief in the efficacy of the behaviour to lead to the desired outcome, motivation toward the outcome, and employee perception of organizational norms. Suggests how the framework/model can be applied in the workplace, advocates analysis of employee motivation, assessing which outcomes are important to employees and obtaining information on employee pre-disposition toward greening initiatives through questionnaires/surveys, uses expectancy-valence measures to assess employees’ belief they can both perform the task in question and that the task will lead to desired outcomes, and names models that measure/assess organizational norms. Originality/value – extends organizational and behavioural theories to the field of environmental management. ISSN: 0964-4733 Reference: 37AB444 The effects of empowerment on attitudes and performance: the role of social support and empowerment beliefs Logan, M.S.Ganster, D.C., Journal of Management Studies, December 2007, Vol. 44 No. 8, Start page: 1523, No. of pages: 28 Purpose – to evaluate an empowerment intervention designed to change employee perceptions of control and self-efficacy. Design/methodology/approach – a review of the literature of employee empowerment and its relationship with control and self-efficacy beliefs is presented to provide the basis for hypotheses relating empowerment intervention with control and self-efficacy variables. Describes the study to test the effects of an empowerment intervention among unit managers working at a large, unnamed trucking company operating in the USA and parts of Canada and Mexico designed to increase the managers’ beliefs in their personal control and self-efficacy with regard to key aspects of their jobs. Reports results of a randomized field experiment and questionnaire survey involving two groups of study subjects with one group comprising 38 employees assigned to the an intervention group and the other group comprising 30 employees assigned to a control group with no treatment (the follow-up telephone survey involved 36 out of the original 38 employees in the treatment group and 23 out of the original 30 employees in the no-treatment group). Findings – the results indicated that only those managers who felt that their supervisors were supportive reported that the intervention significantly increased their perceptions of maintenance control and impact four months after the intervention, while archival measures of unit performance and affected work attitudes were also improved by the interventions. Research limitations/implications – the research was limited by the way in which such processes as treatment diffusion and compensatory rivalry can obscure the results of this type of randomized study. Originality/value – addresses gaps in the empowerment literature by drawing attention to the importance of perceived supervisor social support when implementing organizational change and indicating the ways in which the mediating role of psychological empowerment were seen to run contrary to traditional theory. ISSN: 0022-2380 Reference: 37AC070

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Suggested reading A round-up of the best book reviews recently published by Emerald.

Keywords: Coaching, Human resource development, Motivation (psychology)

Business Coaching: Achieving Practical Results through Effective Engagement Peter Shaw and Robin LinnecarCapstone Publishing, Oxford, ISBN 978-1-84112-741-5 The authors of this book, Peter Shaw and Robin Linnecar, are experienced business coaches who can currently be found at Praesta Partners. Their belief in, and enthusiasm for, business coaching is evident in the book, in which they share practical advice to help others experience the benefits for themselves. They provide a clear explanation of what business coaching is and what it is not, how it should work from the perspective of everyone involved and how it links to positive business outcomes. Effective engagement is the key to positively impacting the business and needs to be evident in the relationships between coach and client, and coach and sponsor. Everyone needs to be engaged and to benefit in order for the business to benefit and the authors provide advice on how to achieve this. Their enthusiasm is not unbridled and a realistic tone is maintained as the authors point out the pitfalls and potential disadvantages. There are comments from coaches, clients and sponsors and real examples to show the theory in practice and maintain a practical edge throughout. The book also attempts to dispel misconceptions and myths surrounding business coaching, one being that it is a ‘‘soft’’ option. In the forward, they say: It is not cosy chats without purpose. Coaching is about focused conversations in which the individual feels both strongly supported and effectively challenged and stretched.

The book shows business coaching to be a robust and effective practice and it may be a useful tool for HR teams looking to dispel similar misconceptions in their own organizations. Topics covered in the book include: B

The impact of coaching.

B

What makes a good coach.

B

Different formats for coaching.

B

Coaching starts at the top.

B

Contexts where coaching can make a significant difference.

B

Meeting business priorities.

B

The difference between coaching and mentoring.

B

Introducing coaching programs into an organization.

B

Running coaching in your organization.

B

Coaching across international boundaries.

Reviewed by Sara Nolan, Editor, Strategic HR Review This review was originally published in Strategic HR Review, Volume 7, Issue 7, 2008.

VOL. 16 NO. 3 2008, p. 41, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0967-0734

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What’s on the web Motivation and action

www.motivaction.co.uk UK-based Motivaction provide advice to help companies design leadership, motivation and communication strategies. Looking at best practice, proven principles, practical experience and ‘‘world-class’’ thinking, they aim to work with leaders and their people to ‘‘translate business imperatives into action’’. Not as jargon-filled as it might be (though still with a little too much – ‘‘leverage’’ anyone?) their site is quick to load and well-designed with good use of photography. They focus largely on leadership issues: ‘‘Our approach is to help leaders to consider the outcomes they are seeking and think through the objective of the planned intervention before designing a programme to deliver their requirements.’’ Which makes a refreshing change. They also work closely with an advisory board and a network of associates who are all practitioners from customer-facing organisations that understand and have first hand experience of the impact of successful programmes. There is a good testimonials section on the site from a broad range of clients (including many ‘‘blue-chip’’ ones) and a really interesting rolling news section. The team-building activities have an unusual slant. All in all this is a professional site and bodes well for anyone considering using Motivaction’s services.

Mixed message

www.towersperrin.com Companies with higher levels of employee engagement outperform their competitors in terms of profitability, according to research, published in Personnel Today, from consultancy Towers Perrin. It seemed apposite therefore to look at the aforementioned company’s own web site. This took a little longer to load than we expected but has a clean, professional look; hyperlinks both within and to the outside are also on the slow side. There is some very good stuff on the site. The Global Workforce Study in particular looks interesting; it is the largest study of its kind and surveyed nearly 90,000 employees in 18 countries, focusing on what drives attraction, retention and engagement. There is much more useful information too – most of it in quite accessible language. It is a shame therefore that they are a little unclear on their own function: Towers Perrin is a professional services firm that helps organizations improve performance through effective people, risk and financial management. . .innovative solutions in the areas of human capital strategy, program design and management, and in. . .risk and capital management, reinsurance intermediary services and actuarial consulting.

Any wiser?

IES update

www.employment-studies.co.uk The institute for employment studies (IES) embraces all aspects of public employment policy and HR practice and undertakes research and consultancy for a wide range of UK and international organisations and policy bodies.

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They have a new web site with a regularly updated news section, a comprehensive publications database and much useful research including a useful section on employee engagement and the difference from employee commitment. IES HR Network members are employers in both private and public sectors. IES research is widely disseminated as reports, articles and papers. Anyone involved in HR at whatever level, should bookmark this site.

Keeping it simple

www.simply-communicate.com Employee engagement is important because it affects everything – from retention and productivity to profitability and safety. Some of the clearest explanations of the concept can be found on simply-communicate.com – a site for corporate communication professionals working in internal communication. The site, which was launched in June 2006, offers hundreds of best practice articles in communication consultancy, live event production, and the use of video in business. A quick browse found any number of good things including advice on effective leadership, running focus groups and a particularly good piece on understanding cultural differences within multi-nationals and across national frontiers. Well worth a visit – you will want to come back.

Measuring engagement

www.people-metrics.com PeopleMetrics is ‘‘a leading research firm, helping organizations engage their people’’ (both employees and customers) and uses strategic market research to help solve complex business problems. There is a comprehensive outline of their research methods on their site. Some of the industries they serve include healthcare, financial services, food and beverage, hospitality, technology and professional services. They offer both employee engagement and customer engagement services. The site is quite easy to get around and scores on the clarity front. They offer an online reporting suite offers clients real-time access to survey data. You can apparently view a live demonstration but need to phone the company (in the USA) to be able to do so! They offer a quarterly newsletter (you have to subscribe) and a number of other ways to assess their competence and capabilities.

And finally . . .

Stories can help people learn, absorb, remember and share information and ideas. Stories motivate, persuade, inform and inspire. Compelling stories have far-reaching emotional impact – and a far longer shelf-life than the dry, abstract, one-way methods of corporate communications that clutter businesses today. And stories can demonstrate what success looks and feels like, painting a clear picture of how we might need to change the way we think and do things. It might sound quirky but www.the-storytellers.com is strangely compelling. They quote Philip Pullman: ‘‘Thou shalt not’’ is soon forgotten, but ‘‘once upon a time’’ will last forever.

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