employee engagement – Page 8

February 5, 2020June 29, 2023

Pay equity doesn’t mean paying the same for everyone

In 2018, 40 states put through legislation on pay equity practices.

There is no shortage of laws that give all people the right to be free from discrimination in compensation, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VIl of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and Title I of the ADA Act of 1990.

Pay equity is a critical issue for our time. It’s proven to drive profits for companies that support it. So why is it taking legislation to get companies to move towards a more fair and equitable pay system?

Perhaps it’s the misperception that pay equity means treating everyone the same way. But equal doesn’t mean fair. The goal of pay equity is not to treat everyone the same — it’s actually just the opposite. You can treat people fairly and still treat them differently. Factors such as educational background, tenure, skill, quality of work, etc., are all variables that can, and should, be factored into the mix. But, biases based on personal attributes, such as race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and more, are variables that should not affect pay.

Pay equity is equal pay for work of equal value. It is also used to describe pay comparisons where there is no unexplained difference pay, and that is not the result of defensible and legitimate factors. Therefore, pay inequity is any difference in pay that is unexplained, or not the result of defensible and legitimate factors.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report for 2018, which benchmarks 149 countries on their progress toward gender parity, the US ranked No. 51 in the world. We can do better. By comparison, Iceland, Norway and Sweden occupy the top three spots. And, although many countries have achieved important milestones toward gender parity, much still needs to be done.

Pay equity includes total compensation — including overtime pay, bonuses, stock grants, profit sharing and bonus plans, and yes, life insurance, PTO and holiday pay, travel allowances, reimbursement for travel expenses. However, we need to remember all the processes that result in a worker paycheck, including promotions, performance reviews, merit raises, access to the CEO and representation on the leadership team since they all can impact pay differences over time.

And, while individual organizations have their own formulas for fair and equitable compensation, everyone will benefit by evaluating pay equity in the broader ecosystem. Solving pay equity comes from organizations and their leaders who take ownership of culture, pay programs and total rewards.

The first step is for organizations to be willing to take a look at their own data and processes. And then be willing to acknowledge it if there are issues around pay equity and work to solve for it. Some may desire to make their process and findings public inside their companies, and then share the plan to monitor it regularly to ensure continued pay equity.

Here are three things to get started:

Analyze average pay of people within an organization to find patterns. Start by role-to-role comparisons, then group to group, the protected classes.
Evaluate the hiring processes to ascertain diversity of teams and the ways in which your process results in a wide range of candidates.
Evaluate the processes which reward, promote, and give feedback to your workforce. Are they equitable or did the majority of raises go to one gender, racial, or age group?

To solve for pay equity issues we must look closely at representation. We need more women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community in leadership positions such as on corporate boards. According to Heidrick & Struggles, men hold 93 percent of the CEO positions in U.S. companies. Further research from ISS Analytics found that the percentage of female directors is just 24 percent in the United States.

Total rewards programs include anything that signals to the employee that they are important. The most effective total rewards programs are enacted through the lens of inclusion and take into consideration representation from under represented groups.

It’s also critical to be transparent as to how rewards are given out and how employees can navigate the system. Today, most employees do not have any idea how their pay packages are put together. An organization’s goal is transparency so that people understand how to navigate the culture and achieve their potential at work, which affords them the chance to have a great life.

For example, ACIPCO, an international provider of clean energy technology and services, provides quarterly profit sharing, an on-site health care facility and rewards workers for good tips/suggestions. They also give access to the company plane and yacht when employees need it — and this is not based on hierarchy, everyone gets access. It’s no wonder that they consistently land on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and, in an industry where turnover is 80- to 100 percent, they have less than .05 percent a year.

Starbucks offers free Spotify premium and free online classes at Arizona State University and, of course, free coffee. Netflix offers one-year parental leave and Salesforce.com provides commuter benefits, educational reimbursement, refinancing of student debt and 24-hour travel assistance.

Because of the impact on culture, customers, and on the regulatory environment, it’s vitally important that attention to this comes from the C-suite, not just from HR. The critical role for HR is to observe, rebuild systems, make sure the data is accurate and challenge the C-suite and the existing ways of doing things to be the champion of the people experience.

Here are the takeaways:

Don’t shy away from the issue of pay equity. Embrace its importance and build processes around the issue rather than waiting for federal or state laws to dictate what you need to do.
Analyze and understand current plans that are in place. If a woman or minority is disadvantaged from the start of employment, that’s a problem that will grow exponentially.
Consistently look at and monitor the process, review it and test it.
Assess gaps from these measurements and make changes accordingly.
Institute transparency between employees and leadership so that you’re setting the narrative and telling your own story rather than allowing social sharing to drive it and derail it.

In short, paying people fairly is a great idea for many reasons and a great business practice. Don’t be afraid to look at your own pay equity issues. It’s better to be in the know.

The result is a boost in reputation, the ability to recruit the best talent and to provide employees the ability to maximize their contributions to the organization.

January 30, 2020June 29, 2023

By the numbers: How employee engagement is trending

Engaging employees is a struggle for many employers, despite the many practical or trendy solutions that different thought leaders and advisers suggest. Workforce is spending the month of February collecting old and new articles about employee engagement in one place. Meanwhile, the Human Capital Media research department gathered data to explore why engagement matters and how many employees are disengaged.

Also in By the Numbers: Employee Mental Health

Also in By the Numbers: Public Sector Employees

January 29, 2020June 29, 2023

Cultures of cohesion connect employees with engagement

It’s time employers stop focusing on employee engagement and start focusing on cohesion, according to Troy Hall, chief strategy officer for South Carolina Federal Credit Union.

“More often than not, leaders fail to embrace the type of culture that places an emphasis on the employee,” said Hall. “When organizations claim employees are their greatest assets, one would expect to experience the type of thinking and see actions that correlate to that end.

“Far too often that is not the case because leadership has been taught for the past two decades to put profit before people.”

A “cohesion culture” is a work environment where employees have a sense of belonging, understand their value and commit to both self and desired organizational outcomes, he said.

Hall has spent 14 years working with the South Carolina Federal Credit Union’s leadership team to create a cohesion culture. He does it through an approach he calls the talent retention model, which he describes in his book “Cohesion Culture: Proven Principles to Retain Your Top Talent.”

“Cohesion is a causal phenomenon, engagement is not,” said Hall. “When cohesion is present, it has a positive impact on performance. Cohesive team members produce better results. Cohesion can be measured, engagement cannot.”

Engagement is an arrangement to do something with a specified period of time, he added.

“We think of engagement as leading to commitment, loyalty and going the extra mile. In fact, the type of engagement that leaders seek is fueled through cohesion.”

Today’s workforce requires transformative leaders who value people beyond the courting process, said Hall.

“Employees want to work in an environment that makes them feel like they belong, have value and can commit to both personal and corporate desired outcomes,” he added.

Hall’s strategies have worked, leading the credit union to be named one of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in 2019 and 2020. In 2017, it earned a No. 2 ranking on a national list of best credit unions to work from Credit Union Journal and Best Companies Group, which identified companies that have excelled in creating quality workplaces for employees.

Employees offered praise for the financial institution, citing its “fantastic” 401(k), time-off policies, an option that offers free health care, management’s ability to “keep things fun and keep motivation high” and how “they make you feel special, appreciated and give lots of opportunities to grow.”

Hall shares his organization’s success stories and methodologies with others’ top management and HR directors worldwide to help transform their cultures and retain top talent.

The war for talent must transcend merely attracting talent to focusing on retention strategies, said Hall.

“With 63 percent of the current workforce seeking opportunities for advancement or new roles, employers will need to focus on retaining that talent or it will become a revolving door between acquisition and retention,” said Hall.

It costs 25 percent of the employee’s salary to replace the organizational intelligence that walks out the door, Hall said.

Hall’s doctoral dissertation at Regent University in global leadership and entrepreneurship focused on group dynamics and cohesion.

“My assertion to focus on retention is based upon what we are seeing as trends in the marketplace and understanding how to create a culture that is self-fulfilling and sustainable,” he said.

It is critical for CEOs to lead the charge for talent retention, said Hall. His boss, Credit Union CEO Scott Woods is a prime example.

“CEOs who are self-aware inspire a cohesive spirit within their company and align individual wants, desires and goals to those of the organization,” Hall said.

The smallest of actions can have a ripple effect, said Hall.

“A misplaced comment or the unexplained absence of the CEO from a major organizational endeavor sends confusing signals,” he said. “It is up the CEO to ensure the leadership team is on board with the culture and that they work in tandem to represent one voice.”

Aligning employee goals to organizational goals maximizes the bottom line, said Hall.

Within the cohesion process, the element of commitment is more aptly fulfilled with leaders who support employee development first, then move toward organizational goals, said Hall.

January 29, 2020June 29, 2023

Engaging a remote workforce requires some down-home hospitality

employee communication, hearing, talk, schedules

Out of sight and out of mind is far from the truth when it comes to maintaining engagement among a remote workforce.

Today’s business culture is much more open to hiring remote workers as it expands the playing field for hiring new top talent, allows for more flexibility in schedules and in turn creates a better work-life balance for employees. Working remotely has increased by 103 percent since 2005.

Currently, 3.7 million employees work remotely (2.5 percent of the workforce) at least half the time. However, this can make maintaining high employee engagement and retention rates a bit tricky due to the common feeling of isolation among remote workers.

Jason Patel, founder of Transizion, a college and career prep company, said that starting with the onboarding process is key and that it is best to treat onboarding as if they were in-office employees.

“It’s important to set the tone from the start, that remote employees are just as appreciated as office employees. If that tone is set in the culture, it will percolate,” Patel said in an email statement.

Maintaining a productive and successful remote team culture requires a strong communication line. Communication tools such as Slack, Workplace or Zoom make it easier for remote teams to communicate and feel as though they aren’t missing out on important information, meetings or celebrations. They should feel like they are in the office alongside everyone else, voicing their opinions, sharing their ideas and actively contributing to the conversations.

Making sure to include remote employees in meetings and scheduling regular check-ins is also vital for creating an inclusive environment and tracking progress, according to Carlos Castelán, managing director of business management consulting firm The Navio Group. If remote employees aren’t provided with clear expectations and direction, it can be easy to feel like they are stranded on an island. Those who work remotely need to feel a sense of purpose in order to stay motivated and passionate about the company’s goals. “One of the hardest parts of staying motivated as a remote worker is fully grasping how your contributions fit into the overall picture and mission,” Castelán said.

Although emails, phone calls, video calls and text messages are convenient, Deb Boelkes, founder of leadership development firm Business World Rising, suggests taking it a step further and planning in-person meetups as a best practice if the budget permits. Whether in the form of large company events or small team-bonding outings, it is essential to build a sense of camaraderie as this can be an obstacle for those who don’t see their co-workers five days a week.

Boelkes also recommends scheduling weekly team calls to update everyone on individual and team progress, asking and offering help, brainstorming approaches and recognizing major accomplishments and successes. “Really knowing each other and meeting face-to-face helps build trust. Try to meet in person at least occasionally,” Boelkes said in an email statement. “Otherwise use video conferencing technology whenever possible. Team members need to know the other members on the team, what they are doing, and how they can help each other.”

Gamification has also become more popular in today’s business culture as it creates a sense of collaboration, cooperation and a competitive edge to everyday work responsibilities. Gamification applies game-playing elements to nongame environments, which can be used as a tactic to encourage engagement in a fun way.

This can be implemented into the recruitment or onboarding and training processes as well to increase retention rates. According to a 2019 TalentLMS study, 61 percent of the 900 employees surveyed said they receive training with gamification. Some 83 percent of those who received gamified training claimed to feel more motivated, and 61 percent of those who did not receive gamified training said they felt bored and unproductive.

“Whatever you do with office employees is what you should be doing for remote employees. If anything, you should be more disciplined and clear when working with remote employees,” Patel said. “There are far too few touch points between you and the remote employee, which means there are plenty of intersections for miscommunication. That’s why agendas, metrics, and goal and mission articulation are so important. Make it seem as if they are in the office with you.”

January 28, 2020June 29, 2023

Creating a healthy workplace culture can increase employee engagement

Michael O’Malley, co-author of “Organizations for People,” spoke with Workforce to discuss the best (and worst) practices when it comes to structuring a healthy workplace culture to maintain high employee engagement.

Workforce: What inspired “Organizations for People”?

Michael O’Malley: It came about because I had heard so many ugly stories about workplace issues. I wanted to write an anecdote to that, that there were companies out there that were quite different, and people should know about them. I wanted to provide some social science to provide some context. I also wanted to put principles behind what these companies do so people aren’t just trying to mimic the practices, but what they really should be thinking about is what these practices afford these companies to do.

Workforce: What are some best practices when it comes to creating a healthy workplace culture and maintaining high employee engagement?

O’Malley: It starts with the premise that there are institutional rules, like the foundation of the workplace is mutual respect and that that’s enforced so that there are certain ways of behaving that are acceptable and ways that are unacceptable, and that those are widely known. It’s not only a general attitude that you have toward one another, but it carries over to incidences of respect. So, you show up for meetings on time, you respond to people’s questions and you’re helpful — all of those kinds of interpersonal rules that enhance the pleasure of the workplace. It starts with basic rules of respect and values.

The companies that I visited tend to put the employees at the center of their organization and that means that there’s a lot of employee involvement. I can’t say there’s complete transparency, but there is significant transparency on how the company is doing and there’s general openness about news, events and finances and so forth about what’s going on in the company. When decisions are made, employees are fundamentally a part of that decision process.

There are lots of principles, but one other one that I thought was important was they foster this sort of sense of abundance that the employer has their backs and that the processes are fair. If one opportunity, for instance a career advancement, passes them by, they know that there will be other opportunities that will come along because their employer is working with them to find what they’re passionate about, what they want to do and is willing to readily move people across the organization into other roles and will put money into training them. A lot of these companies actually allow people to do internships in other departments or shadow people in other departments. So, rather than have this aggressive competitiveness for things that are in short supply, there is this feeling that through training, growth and ample career opportunity, you can actually take pleasure in other people’s successes because you know that the company is working if you work. I think that this notion of abundance is very important in these companies.

Workforce: Why is this a challenge for many organizations?

O’Malley: I think it’s because a lot of what these companies do seems unbusinesslike and risky from an organizational point of view. I think they are slightly afraid of trying out things that are a little bit different and may seem odd in business settings that people have grown accustomed to. So, these places are oddities, they do things that other places don’t do and I think the challenge is for people to break away from this strict notion of “this is the way it’s done” and to try something that’s a little bit different.

Maybe it’s a fear of looking a little bit foolish by trying something that may not work. I have to say that not everything that these companies do does work, but there is a very high tolerance internally for trying things and if it doesn’t work, then learning from those experiences and modifying their approach. Over time people become acclimated to these different ways and are very patient with one another in trying out things that are new. I think the fear really has to do with outmoded conceptions about what the workplace should look like.

Workforce: What organizations have you come across that you think are doing it right?

O’Malley: A lot of the companies in my sample are private companies, so they’re not really beholden to shareholders. But, Instructure, a technology company in Salt Lake City, was different because they’re a public company that creates learning platforms for higher educational and corporate institutions. They have a nice combination of being a very kind and caring organization, but at the same time they seem to have a very aggressive culture, in a good way — they want to win in the marketplace. They have managed this fine line of maintaining a culture that is genuine and pleasurable and at the same time going about their work without denying themselves the usual life satisfactions with friends and family. I think Instructure does it very well. Finding that balance between market aggressiveness and getting results, but at the same time innovation, is difficult to do but I’ve seen them do it.

Another company that has done it well that comes to mind is Pure Insurance, a premium property casualty insurer outside of New York. They, too, have instilled this sentiment that they want to be the best, they want to do things their way, differently, but at the same time have maintained this sense of belonging and all the things that people want like — belonging, autonomy, growth and self-confidence in their abilities.

So, those are two companies that I think people should visit and see how they manage these two worlds. There is this conception that kindness means soft and that isn’t it. Kindness means that you want people to fulfill their potential. So, one of the principles behind all of these companies, but certainly in Pure Insurance and Instructure, is that we want you to live a satisfying life, we want you to do what you want to do and we want you to be as good as you can be. A part of that caring is helping people to improve and become better people.

Workforce: What is the difference in approaches between private and publicly traded companies when it comes to maintaining a healthy workplace culture?

O’Malley: What happens is that, with a public company, people get overwhelmed by the financials — that most of what is communicated is financially-oriented — so a lot of times the rewards really are for revenue growth, profits and so forth.

I think that privately held companies often have the founder-owners who have started the company — not only with a market idea but with an idea about values in what a company should be — and those values carry through on the organization. All the companies that I visited in the book started with founders who had very definite ideas about what companies should do and what they should afford people who work within their companies, so they are very value-rich places to work. I can tell you that the profit isn’t the purpose of these organizations. I think they all have very caring and charismatic leaders who actually wanted the company to be formed with certain principles and values in mind. Sometimes with public companies, the longer they’ve been around, the bigger they get, the further they get from those principles that they had at their inception.

Workforce: How does this differ with a remote workforce?

O’Malley: TCG, which is an information technology consultancy in Washington, D.C., and Intuitive, which is an engineering consultancy in Huntsville, Alabama, are both consultancies, so a lot of people are out of the office most of the time. First of all, they have recurring staff meetings that bring people back in the home office occasionally, or sometimes they can be online meetings. Another company is Concord Hospitality in Raleigh, North Carolina. They have properties all over the place, so they have routines that people abide by, but they do a lot of things in parallel or take time to do things collectively.

For instance, every month TCG has some kind of charity drive that a committee of employees select, and the company will make a donation to that charity, but everyone will volunteer for a day.

For Concord Hospitality they’ll have charity week at all of their properties where people are dedicating time and resources to charities in their local environment but everybody is doing it the same week, same time throughout their properties. Additionally, every month Concord prints a poster-sized agenda for all of their properties that show everything happening that month. Consistency, routines and doing things in parallel are things that help remote workforces.

Workforce: Do you think organizations should come up with an alternative name for their staff, rather than use the term employee?

O’Malley: Yes. I don’t think any of the places I visited refer to employees as “employees.” They actually view that as a subservient relationship and they want a culture that’s more even, where there’s open, two-way communication. They want people to act independently and “employees” sort of has this dependency that they want to discourage.

The Motley Fool, an investment advisory house, they call each other “fools.” People at Patagonia are “patagoniacs.” I think this does two things; it fosters a bond that I think “employee” doesn’t have, but it also denotes a relationship with each other and the company that is more egalitarian, which is what these companies want.

Workforce: What are some goals that organizations should keep in mind while structuring or restructuring a healthy workplace culture? What would you advise them to do?

O’Malley: When you want to change a culture, you have to look at the people who behave consistently with that culture or who, through feedback, are able to change the way that they approach their behaviors in the workplace. Sometimes I think companies are slow to purge the negative out of the workplace, but I do think you have to have people who are in tune with the culture, and sometimes there are cohorts within organizations that just aren’t. Then, I would probably reestablish things with a new set of values and then actually change the way you hire and socialize, so you change the way you introduce people to the company. I would do that in either case. In either case, the thing you want to communicate from the start is that you have certain performance expectations of people, but you also have certain expectations about how they conduct themselves when they’re in the office. That starts with how you select people. You want not only people who are technically proficient but people who share the values of the organization.

Workforce: What are some common business fables that you have come across that you think are important for organizations to know as untrue?

O’Malley: There’s a fable that being compassionate or empathetic will interfere with people’s business judgment and that somehow they will be led astray by their emotions. To me, that’s a fable because you make wiser and better judgments when you have a sounder perspective of the situation, and that really involves understanding the emotional tenor of the situation. This concept of business objectivity is a falsehood. We would have better, wiser managers if they allowed themselves to entertain a broader range of information, including emotional information.

January 23, 2020June 29, 2023

5 ways leaders ruin employee engagement

Employee engagement levels are woefully low. The latest Gallup data shows only 34 percent of employees are actively engaged in their work.

That means more than half of all employees are not engaged in their work, and 13 percent are actively disengaged, according to the survey.

These are troubling numbers given the proven benefits that employee engagement brings to a business, which include higher share prices, greater customer loyalty, lower turnover, easier recruiting and a host of other desirable business outcomes.

The good news in this story is that HR is not to blame. While HR leaders may be responsible for overseeing benefits programs, gathering employee engagement survey results, and rolling out employee programs and campaigns, they are not the ones who actually move the needle on engagement.

Studies consistently find that employee engagement hinges entirely on the way leaders lead and the kind of culture they create, said Patrick Kulesa, global head of employee research for Willis Towers Watson in New York. “The numbers show that how leaders inspire people with their strategy and mission determines whether employees will be engaged,” Kulesa said.

The problem is that leaders rarely take responsibility for employee engagement. They see it as a people issue, so they assume HR will fix whatever is broken. This is one of many mistakes leaders make when it comes to engagement.

Here are some of the other mistakes leaders make that damage employee engagement and how they can do better.

Leaders assume company perks will make a difference. Offering free coffee, half-day summer Fridays and other creature comforts may deliver short-term positive vibes from overworked employees. But if you aren’t also addressing the core problems in your culture — like a lack of acknowledgement for work well done, managers who can’t be trusted or limited opportunities for development — no amount of free snacks will solve your employee engagement problems, Kulesa said.
Leaders talk, but they don’t listen. “Employees don’t need to be told what to do. They need to be encouraged to trust their instincts,” said Kevin Hancock, CEO of Hancock Lumber in Casco, Maine and and author of The Seventh Power. Hancock learned this lesson after acquiring a rare voice disorder in 2010 that made it difficult for him to speak. To protect his voice, whenever anyone asked him a question, he responded with, “What do you think is the right answer?” He wasn’t trying to improve engagement, but that’s what happened. Over the course of a year, engagement levels rose as employees gained confidence in their ideas and became more innovative and invested in their work. It made him realize the power of distributed leadership, and giving everyone a voice.
Leaders think employees should serve the business, not the other way around. When business leaders make financial performance the most important factor in every decision, employees become slaves to business outcomes. “But what if you rethink the purpose of work?” Hancock said. When leaders prioritize improving the lives of employees, improved employee engagement is the natural result. That leads to better performance, higher revenues and other business benefits that every leader wants, he said. “When the company exists to serve the employees, it creates a stronger company and a better future for everyone.”
Leaders focus on numbers, not outcomes. When leaders only care about achieving the right employee engagement score, they lose focus on the ultimate goal, said Jim MacLennan, founder of Maker Turtle, a digital transformation consulting firm, and author of “Don’t Think So Much.” “Once they reach the target metric they move on to something else.” That makes employees cynical about their motives and can cause any short-term improvements to quickly sag. Instead, he suggested using employee engagement surveys to identify the biggest problem in your culture, then to spend the year solving it. “Keep it simple and define what ‘better’ looks like so it doesn’t get diluted,” MacLennan said. Once you see improvements, move on to the next thing. When leaders focus on outcomes rather than metrics, continuous improvement becomes part of the way things are done.
They mistake surveys for conversations. If you want engagement to improve, leaders have to actually talk to employees, listen to their needs and build a corporate culture that inspires trust and respect. “You can’t do that with a survey,” MacLennan said. “Once you wade in and start having conversations, you’ll be amazed at what you learn.”

January 15, 2020June 29, 2023

How to Build an Employee Engagement Road Map

Road maps are a form of content that will help you navigate key areas of people management. Road maps focus on the changing terrain of employee engagement. This guide offers a step-by-step process for creating a measurable engagement strategy that will deliver results.

Most of your employees are probably not engaged and it’s hurting your bottom line.

But don’t feel bad. Almost every company is in the same boat.

Despite years of talking about the importance of employee engagement to hiring, retention and productivity, only 34 percent of employees are engaged, according to data from Gallup. Worse, 13 percent of employees are actively disengaged. “The numbers have improved over the last decade, but not as much as we want,” said Jim Harter, chief workplace scientist for Gallup.

The good news is that employee engagement can be improved if companies focus on the right things. Harter has seen dozens of organizations across industries increase engagement levels when they implement targeted strategies and stick with them over time. “Change happens incrementally but it does happen,” he said.

When it does, the payoff is clear. Gallup research shows organizations with high levels of employee engagement achieve better earnings-per-share, and see substantially better customer engagement, higher productivity, better retention, fewer accidents and higher profitability.

The trick is understanding who has the power to influence employee engagement, and what they can do to generate change, said Jill Christensen, employee engagement consultant and author of “If Not You, Who? Cracking the Code of Employee Disengagement.”

“Poor engagement is not HR’s fault,” she said. Employee engagement is regularly blamed on HR because it is a “people problem,” but in fact, it is entirely shaped by the actions of senior leaders. They define the culture, the mission and the attitude in any organization, and their actions determine how employees respond. “Senior leaders need to drive the employee engagement journey from the start,” she said. “If they don’t it will fail.”

HR should be involved. HR still needs to plan, implement and measure employee engagement strategies — but senior leaders need to be the voices of the program to make it work. It’s a collaboration, and this road map provides a framework for how senior leaders and HR can work together to make engagement happen.

PART 1: MAKE A PLAN

Get leaders on board. Leaders will never independently take ownership of engagement, so HR has to pull them in. Harter suggests sharing data linking employee engagement to business performance to pique their interest, then showing them how their words and actions impact outcomes.

Ask employees what they think. If you want to identify your engagement issues, you have to listen to what employees are saying, said Amanda Popiela, researcher with The Conference Board. “Continuous listening strategies are key to understanding engagement.” Along with reviewing annual survey results, she suggests conducting periodic pulse surveys, hosting employee focus groups, monitoring social media posts, and talking to employee teams about what they love about working for your organization, and what needs to change.

Please Watch: Voting on the Clock Works as an Employee Engagement Tool

Identify skill gaps. Most leaders and managers are never taught good coaching skills, like how to give feedback, build trust or manage conflict, all of which is key to driving employee engagement. So management training has to be part of the plan. Look for content that is quick and easy to access and let managers know they will be expected to use it.

Set realistic goals and expectations. If you want to foster change you have to hold managers accountable, Christensen said. She suggested setting a goal to increase engagement levels by a specific amount in one year then tying those results to performance reviews. “That’s how you make culture change happen.”

PART 2: START ENGAGING

Make employee engagement part of every conversation. Define specific communication steps for managers and leaders to integrate engagement into their talking points. These might include discussing engagement issues in every team meeting, sharing engagement strategies in town hall events, and having weekly one-on-ones with team members to identify their specific concerns or needs. “You need to tell them exactly what to do or they won’t do it,” Christensen warned.

Keep employees up to date. Employees want to feel like they have a voice and that their opinions matter, so keep them in the loop. Report employee engagement survey results, share your action plans to address specific problems, and keep them up to date on progress. “Exceptional communication is an important part of employee engagement,” Harter said.

Teach managers to coach. Managers are busy and will often skip training to focus on the next deadline. So you have to make it easy to access, immediately relevant and a clear priority, Popiela said. One way to do that is to get senior leadership involved. Popiela recently worked with a financial services company whose CEO posts a monthly webcast discussing one tip for managers on how to improve engagement. “Managers know what they should be doing, but they don’t always do it,” she said. These short, thought-provoking webcasts make them stop and think about what they could do better.

Deal with the disengaged. When teams have toxic, negative or disruptive members, no amount of coaching will make a difference. “These employees can be toxic,” Christensen said. And it’s up to managers to deal with them. They need to be ready to have these difficult conversations, set clear performance goals, and fire people who refuse to change. A lot of managers ignore toxic employees because they don’t have the skills to deal with them, but the consequences of this approach can be severe, she said. “When leaders don’t take action with these employees, it will breed disengagement in everyone around them.”

PART 3: MEASURE RESULTS

Conduct annual survey results. The annual employee survey is the best baseline measure of engagement and proof that your efforts are working. Remember, even small shifts are a good sign. “Change takes time,” Harter said. But companies that stick with it can achieve dramatic and sustainable change over a few years.

Please read: How Dog-Friendly Policies Can Improve Company Culture and Employee Engagement

Conduct pulse surveys. Short pulse surveys that sample a percentage of the employee population, or ask everyone a few questions, can give you a sense of progress and help you see what’s working (or not). But don’t overdo it, and don’t use surveys to replace real conversations.

Check your eNPS. Employers can now use NPS to measure employee engagement. The one-question survey tells you how likely your staff members are to recommend your company as a place to work on a scale from 0 to 10. “It’s a simple way to gauge engagement,” Christensen said. And it can be a quick easy way to demonstrate results.

Share the data. Any time you survey employees you have to share the results, otherwise it could actually make things worse. Report engagement levels to the entire company, celebrate big successes and share what you plan to do next, Popiela said. Then discuss the data with executives, drawing connections where possible between engagement and productivity, retention, and business performance. “It’s important to show them the ‘so what’ of improved engagement,” she said. “Especially when it effects the bottom line.”

January 14, 2020June 29, 2023

Workplace Initiatives Helping to Fight Opioid Epidemic

In the months after John Hindman lost his son to a heroin overdose in 2016, he discovered that he was not alone in his grief. As word of the tragedy spread among his colleagues at Leidos, a defense, aviation and health tech firm, many came forward to share their stories of loved ones struggling with addiction. He was so overwhelmed by the breadth of the problem that he wrote to his CEO challenging him to do something about it.

In a lengthy email titled “A Father’s Request” Hindman told Leidos CEO Roger Krone about his son Sean, who died at age 30, and his struggles with opioid addiction and later, heroin. He wrote of his grief and explained that many other employees face similar challenges, either dealing with their own addictions or those of loved ones. A few weeks later Krone replied. Hindman said his exact words were, “You broke me down. We’re all in.”

“I’ve worked here since 1985 and I never knew how many people were impacted by this epidemic,” Hindman said. “I felt that Leidos’ leadership had no idea of what was happening within the company. I realized that I needed to communicate this within Leidos, not with criticism but with honesty.”

The email launched not only a companywide initiative to combat the opioid epidemic, but also a national movement among business leaders to raise awareness and provide resources to their workforces and communities. The Reston, Virginia-based company distributed a CEO pledge to end opioid addiction that 60 corporate leaders around the country have signed so far.

Leidos, which employs 33,000 people worldwide, also held town hall meetings to gauge the extent of the problem and launched an internal public awareness initiative. It also reexamined its benefits and began looking at ways to better control the prescribing of opioids.

Opioid addiction has ravaged communities across the country. The misuse of these drugs is also a contributing factor in heroin addiction. In 2017, more than 70,000 people in the U.S. died from a drug overdose, a record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Opioids, which are a risk factor for heroin use, were involved in the majority of those deaths. This has a direct effect on the workplace, impacting health care costs, productivity, absenteeism and recruiting. Employers in states such as West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky have been particularly hard hit, as have those in the construction, trucking and manufacturing industries.

Given that two-thirds of those who are addicted to opioids are in the workforce and that many get their prescriptions through their employers, corporate leaders have found themselves on the front lines of a public health crisis. According to a report by the Society of Actuaries, the prescription opioid epidemic cost the economy $179.4 billion in 2018. This includes $60.4 billion in health care costs and $26.5 billion in lost productivity.

Many employers are finding innovative ways to fight the problem, from public awareness campaigns to offering treatment programs to managing prescription opioids to seeking alternatives to pain pills.

“This is something we’re all coming to grips with,” said Lorraine M. Martin, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “Issues in our community will end up in the workplace. This is the first year that opioid deaths eclipsed deaths by car crashes. That’s a big alarm bell. It’s tricky because most people become addicted to drugs that have been prescribed to them and many get those prescriptions through their employer.”

While 75 percent of U.S. employers have been directly affected by opioids, only 17 percent feel extremely well prepared to deal with the issue, according to a survey by the National Safety Council. More than a third have experienced absenteeism or impaired worker performance and have had an overdose, arrest or injury because of opioid use, they survey found.

“I think we’re all at different places on this journey,” Martin said. “In areas that are hard hit employers have put in place programs that address recovery. Others still don’t understand that this is happening in their workforce or the role that they can play in fighting it. It’s important that employers understand how it affects their bottom line. The numbers are startling. Various industries and employers saw it quicker and some have taken very creative actions.”

One employer that saw firsthand how a regional opioid crisis also affected its workforce was Belden, a manufacturer in Richmond, Indiana. In 2016 the company was facing a labor shortage and having a hard time finding qualified applicants. About 1 in 10 applicants failed their drug test, so the company developed a novel approach to the problem. In 2018, Belden began offering drug treatment to those who failed their drug screening with a promise of a job if they successfully complete the program. The program, called Pathways to Employment, was so successful that the company launched it at its New York and Pennsylvania locations a year later.

“The program has grown to 30 in Richmond,” said Ellen Drazen, corporate communications manager at Belden. “Our locations in Syracuse and Washington (Pennsylvania) were chosen because they were seeing a similar impact on hiring due to the opioid epidemic.”

Belden has also signed the CEO pledge launched by Krone at Leidos.

In other parts of the country, business coalitions are taking collective action to address the problem.

In Kentucky, which has the fourth highest drug overdose rate in the country, a group of employers launched the Opioid Response Program for Businesses, which helps companies develop policies that support recovery, such as addressing the stigma around addiction. The program is run by the Kentucky Chamber Workforce Center.

“Stigma is one the most profound obstacles in dealing with this problem,” said Natalie Middaugh, a project coordinator at the Kentuckiana Health Collaborative, a nonprofit organization focused on improving health care delivery in Louisville and southern Indiana. “We need to help employers understand that addiction is a chronic disease and not a moral failing or a criminal issue.”

The collaborative joined the effort in 2017 after a significant spike in overdose deaths. In February of that year, Louisville emergency services handled 43 overdoses in one day.

“That was a huge turning point,” Middaugh said. “It’s a community health issue and a business issue, but there is also genuine concern about employees and their families.”

In the past five years, large employers have made a number of changes in their benefits plans in response to the opioid crisis, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation 2019 “Employer Health Benefits” survey. Forty percent launched or revised an employee assistance program in response to the opioid crisis, nearly a quarter modified their health plans to incorporate step therapy for opioid use, 38 percent provided additional health information to employees, 8 percent required employees with high opioid use to obtain prescriptions from only one provider, 21 percent asked their insurer or PBM to increase monitoring of opioid use, and 2 percent increased the number of substance abuse providers in their networks.

The National Business Group on Health and a number of regional employer coalitions recommend working with health plans and pharmacy benefit managers to develop benefit plans that feature safeguards such as limiting coverage for certain prescriptions to small quantities.

Managing opioid prescriptions was a top priority for Leidos, which in 2018 began restricting prescriptions on long acting opioids, such as morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl, and limiting short-acting opioids to seven days. The most common drugs involved in prescription opioid deaths are methadone, oxycodone and hydrocodone. Leidos worked with its pharmacy benefit manager ExpressScripts to implement the changes, according to Karen Kanjian, director of corporate benefits.

“Our part in this as benefits people is to look at what we’re doing in our programs, and we know that the frontline of defense is our PBM,” she said. “They see claims coming in real time and they have access to data, such as which doctors are prescribing and how much are they prescribing.”

Leidos also plans to work with dentists, who often prescribe opioids for procedures such as pulling wisdom teeth.

“My husband had a tooth pulled and got six weeks worth of pain pills that he never finished,” said Heather Misicko, a benefits consultant at Leidos.

A 2018 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a link between use of opioids after tooth extraction and long-term use. With 3.5 million wisdom tooth extractions performed each year, that’s a lot of pain medication sitting in people’s medicine cabinets, according to Meg Moynihan, director of strategic marketing at Stericycle. Safe disposal of medications is an important part of addressing opioid addiction, she said.

“Because these drugs are prescribed by doctors for legitimate medical conditions people don’t think of them as a risk,” Moynihan said. “I lock the liquor cabinet but I never thought of locking the medicine cabinet. Having medications lying around makes them more accessible to friends of children, housekeepers and visitors, particularly during open houses when selling a home. It takes less than 30 days to develop an addiction.”

In fact, 20 percent of Americans hold on to their prescription medications because they don’t know what to do with them, and 1 in 10 have offered or given their unused prescription drugs to friends or family members for either medical or recreational use, according to a 2019 study conducted by Stericycle. The company offers envelopes that can be mailed to the company anonymously for safe disposal.

In September, Stericycle and the National Safety Council released a free online toolkit to help employers develop and implement policies and programs that support opioid addiction recovery. It includes sample policies, employee presentations, white papers, videos and other materials designed to support a drug-free and recovery friendly workplace, according to Martin.

The toolkit recommends using the NSC substance abuse cost calculator, which takes into account location, industry and number of employees, to determine the economic impact of drug abuse. After that it lays out a 12-month plan for developing and implementing an opioid policy, from education to communication to vetting the policy with legal counsel.

The NSC also recommends working with health care plans to ensure that mental and behavioral health services are covered, encouraging annual screenings for substance abuse, making sure that alternative pain management treatments, such as non-opioid medications, acupuncture, and chiropractic and physical and occupational therapy are covered, and providing or enhancing EAP services.

“If you don’t know where to start, go to the toolkit,” Martin said. “We advise employers to look at their own health care benefits and to look into alternative medicines. Opioids are not always the best drug for managing pain. Also, make sure to have naloxone in all your facilities. It should be in every workplace and office.”

Naloxone is a medication, either in the form of an injection or a nasal spray, that can stop the effects of an opioid overdose. Before implementing a workplace naloxone program Martin suggests consulting with an attorney to make sure it complies with federal, state and local regulations and training employees on how to spot and respond to an overdose.

While there are many tools and approaches to tackling opioid addiction in the workplace, Hindman said that the most important factor is having company leaders who are committed to the effort. While not every company has the resources of a Leidos, employers are in a unique position to make a difference, he said.

“A third of all addicts are functioning in society, which means that they are in the workplace,” Hindman said. “It’s very hard for the working world to come to grips with this problem. It boils down to a company’s core values. You need to commit it to paper and use it as a platform to attract talent and not treat it as rhetoric. The problem exists broadly and deeply in society and since you’re reaching into society for the employees you need, it makes sense to invest in solving it.”

January 9, 2020June 29, 2023

Remote Work May Be Helping Women Overcome Traditional Office Barriers

Remote work sits at the intersection of many urgent issues that impact how we live and work today.

The demand for flexible work options has been driven by outside factors such as the housing crisis and the rising costs of living across major cities, the growing gig economy, and even longer and increasingly more stressful commutes by car or public transportation.

Meanwhile, advances in technology and cloud capabilities have made it easier for employees to work outside of the traditional office environment. The result is that an estimated 23 percent of the U.S. workforce now works remotely at least part of the time — a number expected to reach 50 percent this year.

With 40 percent of our employee population working virtually, my company, Ultimate Software, set out to study the state of remote work and how this growing trend is impacting the experience of fellow remote and in-office workers alike. We surveyed 1,000 U.S. employees nationwide, all of whom work for a company that has a mix of remote and in-office employees. What we found was quite unexpected.

Counter to the common narrative of remote workers as isolated and overlooked, the majority of them — and, surprisingly, women in particular — seem to be thriving when working outside of the traditional office setting. The data suggest that flexible work options may actually be helping women overcome barriers such as access to career growth and work-life balance.

These findings come at a time when our nation is grappling with important conversations surrounding equal pay, the #MeToo movement and how women are treated in the workplace. It’s important for business leaders and HR teams to pay attention to what women’s experiences tell us about improvements that still need to be made in traditional office settings.

Women Who Work Remotely Are Thriving

The prevailing media narrative around remote workers is that they are isolated, as they often miss out on in-office benefits, including team collaboration, company culture or access to HR. At worst, there’s a myth that remote workers are overlooked when it comes to career growth — out of sight, out of mind. But our survey data paint a different picture, particularly when you compare men’s and women’s experiences.

For example, our research found that women who work remotely were twice as likely to report proactively leveraging HR to resolve issues, when compared with in-office women. This gap did not exist between in-office men and remote men. Meanwhile, women who work from home were also more likely to feel confident that HR understands their needs and concerns — 67 percent agree or strongly agree that HR is aware of their needs, versus 57 percent of in-office women. Men tended to be even more confident — 73 percent of in-office and 72 percent of remote male workers agree or strongly agree.

This stronger connection with HR could be benefiting remote women workers’ overall career growth. They were the most likely to report a promotion in the last year, eclipsing men in either work environment: 57 percent of remote women reported being promoted in the last year, compared with 35 percent of in-office women, 51 percent of male remote workers, and 43 percent of male in-office workers. These women were also significantly more likely than in-office women to report room for growth in their current roles (80 percent of remote women versus 60 percent of in-office women).

The data also indicated a continued struggle for work-life balance among in-office women in particular. They were significantly more likely to report feeling guilty about taking paid time off than any other group (42 percent of in-office women versus 28 percent of remote women, 21 percent of in-office men and 18 percent of remote men).

Have Workplace Advances Left Women Behind?

A cursory glance at these numbers tells us that remote women workers are reaping valuable benefits. If you dig even deeper into the data, another startling trend emerges. While the reported experiences of remote and in-office women varied vastly when it came to career growth and a connection with HR, men tended to report similar experiences regardless of where they worked.

Also read: Remote Employees: Out of Sight, Out of Their Minds?

In fact, the experiences of remote women were often on par with their male counterparts who worked in the office or at home, while women who work in the office lagged behind all other groups significantly. What the data make clear is that women are feeling disconnected and disadvantaged in traditional office settings.

What is the answer? Should women be working from their home offices and kitchen tables for a better chance of a promotion and supportive work environment? Obviously, this is not the solution.

It’s not women who work in traditional office settings who should be paying attention to this data — it’s the people who lead and manage them. It’s evident that, while significant advances have been made to improve the work experiences of all employees, there is still work to be done.

How Leaders Can Make a Difference

While these issues may not exist in the same form at every company, these findings can serve as a starting point for HR leaders and business executives to take a closer look at their own companies. Real change begins by asking the right questions, and these stats provide a script.

Ask yourself: How are remote workers performing relative to in-office workers at your company? Are there significant gender gaps? The answers can be quantitative or anecdotal. Look for patterns in who’s accessing HR and training opportunities, who’s getting promoted — and who isn’t — and then ask why.

Once you’ve turned inward and asked some honest questions about your workplace, the next and most important step is to ask for feedback — and then keep asking. Gather feedback from employees in a safe, supportive way, and then encourage open dialogue. Various methods may work best for your organization, from mentorship and manager one-on-one meetings to employee surveys to creating a diversity and inclusion committee.

Regardless of whether your company has a remote workforce now, the ways in which we work are changing. Employee expectations are also changing.

Leadership has a particular responsibility to ensure a company weathers these changes by supporting all employees. A workplace revolution is coming. In many ways, it’s already started. Leadership must look inward to ensure their company is on the right side of that shift.

January 8, 2020January 26, 2021

A Notorious Workplace Warning About Employee Engagement

I’ve been hitting up a neighborhood eatery for several years now.

It’s adorned with funky artwork, airs an eclectic soundtrack and offers a menu featuring everything from a burger slathered in peanut butter to a tasty rotation of hand-made sausages. One week it might be venison, the next chorizo.

No matter the encased meat of the week, the Notorious D.O.G. is my go-to item.

I always feel comfortable stopping in. Not in a “Cheers” way where Norm and Cliff anchor one end of the bar and Frasier Crane holds down the other end and everybody knows my name, but instead for its casual neighborhood vibe.

As good as the food, drink and atmosphere are, what I’ve particularly appreciated is the staff camaraderie. It’s a talented young team that with few exceptions has worked together since my initial visit. I’ve often mused that it must be hard to crack this employee roster since the faces have been familiar for so long.

I even wondered whether there was profit sharing or an employee stock ownership plan to retain the team. In an industry where turnover is regularly 60 percent-plus, they were an employee-retention oddity.

Ultimately I concluded that this team just enjoys working together. So I wasn’t all that surprised to find out that they’re cool with sharing the wealth by pooling their tips.

What a novel concept that in our “Eff you, I got mine” working world, a group of 15 or 20 people pulling for one another’s success allowed them to share the work and reap the rewards.

It was not unusual to see one of them serving one night, hosting the next and behind the bar on another visit. As a collective they have each others’ backs.

If one server has a table that requires a lot of attention, another server or busser covers for their colleague by doing the little things — refilling water glasses or taking an appetizer order even though it is not their table. The team attitude provides amazing customer service, solves problems on the fly and perhaps most importantly keeps the locals eager to return.

About six months ago, though, I noticed a change at the restaurant. Some of the funky artwork disappeared.

The music went from eclectic to predictable. The weekly Notorious D.O.G. rotation went static. And most notably familiar faces were gone.

I discovered that my favorite little eatery had changed ownership.

I get it. Change happens. For those of us who take comfort in the familiar, we need to adapt. That, or find another restaurant that serves tasty, encased meat.

Over the next couple of visits it was clear that other changes were underway. New staff members were inexperienced, which is understandable, but they also seemed indifferent to the legacy of customer service that built up over the years.

Since the staff was still pooling tips, it presented the risk of a breakdown in trust between engaged longtime servers and indifferent new people manifesting itself in an atmosphere of apathy. The delicate dance of having each others’ backs, which had served employees so well, threatened to descend into a clumsy series of missteps that frustrated all staff members and irritated patrons accustomed to a high level of service.

Building a cohesive staff is a challenge all managers face. Engaging and retaining them truly tests that person’s ability to manage people but also speaks volumes for employees’ willingness to set aside their own interests for the good of the organization.

Even in the best of economic times a mere one-third of employees say they are engaged in their work.

That means you have a whole lot of your workforce who at best are indifferent about their work and a big portion of them who couldn’t give a rat’s tail about you, the company’s goals or mission statement.

What can you do? You can gamble on an exodus and hope to rebuild what likely has become a demoralized staff or worse, an ugly, toxic mess.

Or, realize and appreciate the current camaraderie and learn the nuances of what sustains it through employee engagement.

Sure you are going to make changes. It’s your shop now. But too many bosses make change just for change’s sake. Can I toss out a cliché? Why fix what isn’t broken?

Sadly, I still don’t feel that old level of comfort. I’m probably not the lone patron who noticed a swing in the employee engagement.

Swapping out wall hangings, reprogramming music and curbing the fare might be one thing. But a slippage in service is noticeable, and it’s also notoriously bad for business.