To Ravin Jesuthasan, continued high unemployment in America isn’t just about tough times for jobless workers. Jesuthasan, global practice leader for talent management at consulting firm Towers Watson & Co., says it’s also about bias and missed business opportunities.
Workforce Management: Are companies dismissing the unemployed in their hiring decisions?
Ravin Jesuthasan: There’s this belief that there’s all this talent out there given our [9.2 percent] unemployment rate, and that we can get world-class talent for any position. Unfortunately, the best person, in the minds of many organizations means someone who is still employed. There is a belief that anyone who has been laid off, for whatever reason, is not of the caliber of the talent that is still working—which is a real myth.
WM: Why is it a myth?
Jesuthasan: Companies made a number of major decisions about what work to keep within their organizations during the course of this recession. They made decisions like ‘I’m not going to have an in-house accounting function, because I can outsource it to Poland.’ In those instances, jobs were eliminated because whole functions were eliminated. So the caliber or performance of the individual had nothing to do with their job being eliminated. The other reason this is a myth is the belief that most companies have robust and rigorous approaches for differentiating performance and identifying lesser-performing talent. In fact, at many organizations, the process can be highly politicized.
WM: Do companies miss out when they frown on the unemployed?
Jesuthasan: With any inefficiency in a market, there is the potential for arbitrage. At some point, as the economy starts to recover, someone’s going to say, ‘Look! We’re struggling to fill some of these jobs. We’re having to pay a huge premium to get people who are employed at other companies to move. Let’s take a good look at folks who maybe are not employed. Am I going to pay the accountant who’s still employed 40 percent more than the last guy who did the job, because that’s what it’s going to take for him to move? Or am I going to hire an unemployed accountant who is just as capable for, in many cases, less than I was paying the previous guy?’
WM: Is that 40 percent figure realistic?
Jesuthasan: It might be a slight overstatement. But you are starting to see the premium get ratcheted up. Our last global workforce survey, at the end of 2010, pointed to a profound shift toward a focus on security and compensation. In the past, when we asked this survey, people were much more focused on, ‘can I grow, can I advance, can I acquire new skills?’ Unless they are unhappy, employees today are going to demand a premium to move and give up the security of their current positions.
WM: What should companies do with respect to hiring the unemployed?
Jesuthasan: Ensure that they give them an equal opportunity. Get their résumé looked at with the same rigor as someone who is employed. Give them an opportunity to be interviewed.
Workforce Management, August 2011, p. 41 — Subscribe Now!
Avoid Culture Shock When Rewarding International Employees
Few stories better illustrate the importance of cultural understanding in creating employee recognition programs than the one business school associate professor Karen Walch likes to share with her students. It’s a tale of good intentions gone awry involving a U.S. technology firm in Hong Kong and a little red envelope that destroyed morale.
In 2000, shortly after going public, the company decided to reward its Singapore employees by giving everyone a hong bao—a slim, red envelope containing money that is given to mark a happy occasion, in this case Chinese New Year. The plan was to give each employee a nominal amount that was the equivalent of 4 Singapore dollars. The firm’s executives thought it was a culturally meaningful gesture—and it was, but not in the way they had intended. The number four connotes death in many Asian cultures. The employees were mortified.
The firm’s executives thought it was a culturally meaningful gesture—and it was, but not in the way they had intended. The number four connotes death in many Asian cultures. The employees were mortified.
“They couldn’t figure out why management would do that,” says Walch, who teaches at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona. She heard the story from a former student who worked at the company. “Morale was destroyed, employees started coming in late, they became disengaged.”
Things got worse when the management team—two were American and one was British—tried to remedy the situation by reissuing the packets with SG$8. The employees read that as “double death,” she says. Morale never rallied. Eventually, the dot-com bubble burst and the company folded.
While no one blames the ominous number for the firm’s demise, Walch says that you can’t underestimate the importance of people’s belief systems. The snafu could have been avoided if the managers had simply consulted with local employees beforehand. When properly executed, such employee recognition programs and rewards can go a long way in inspiring employees, especially during difficult economic times, says Tom McMullen, vice president and U.S. reward practice leader at Hay Group, a global management consulting firm in Philadelphia.
According to a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management and the employee engagement consulting firm Globoforce, 80 percent of 745 organizations surveyed have some kind of recognition program. “Anytime there’s a dip in the economy, like after 9/11,” McMullen says, “we see a spike of interest in nonfinancial recognition programs.”
But developing an effective program can be a challenge for any company, especially for multinational employers that must take into consideration a diversity of cultural values. According to the study, 84 percent of respondents identified “managing multiple cultures” in the workplace as a significant challenge.
That’s what Gary Beckstrand, vice president of research and assessment services for O.C. Tanner, discovered when he and a team of consultants conducted focus groups in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
The Salt Lake City-based rewards and recognition firm wanted to learn which type of recognition drives employee engagement in different cultures.
“We had the quantitative info but didn’t understand the nuances or the whys,” Beckstrand says, referring to a 2008 study conducted for the firm then called Towers Perrin, which showed that recognition correlates to high employee engagement across cultures. “We found a lot of clients are not real familiar with cultural issues when it comes to the programs they’re rolling out and communicating, and we wanted to help them ensure success.”
O.C. Tanner made some interesting discoveries. In India, it learned that great importance is placed on awards and certificates that brandish a company’s logo. “It was important in every country, but especially there,” Beckstrand says. “There are so many workers in India that anything they can do to stand out is helpful.”
While certificates are appreciated in most cultures, in India they must detail the employees’ accomplishment so they understand exactly why they are being recognized, he says. “It can’t say ‘gold award.’ They want to know what they accomplished. In North America certificates are more general. In India you want make sure it’s detailed because that certificate will go into their file and if they were to interview at a new job, they will take it to the interview.”
Beckstrand and his team also discovered that using native languages for rewards is critical, especially in Asia where fluency in English is expected. “There is a pride factor that employees know English,” says Christina Chau, manager of research services at O.C. Tanner. “They wouldn’t complain or ask for help if they didn’t understand something because they don’t want to admit that to their managers. So they just won’t use the materials. We need to help our clients understand the importance of translation. People accept things easier in their own language.”
The team also learned that clocks or watches, popular gifts in the U.S. for employees celebrating a workplace anniversary, are taboo in Asian countries because timepieces are reminders of mortality. In France, O.C. Tanner learned that workers tend to scoff at effusive gratitude and view thank you notes with skepticism.
“They say that American employers give recognition too often,” Chau says. “They don’t appreciate thank you cards with smiley faces. Or when we send an email that always say thanks at the end. It’s not sincere if it’s given for every little thing.”
In India, where wages are low, household items that most Westerners take for granted, like toasters and microwaves, are coveted. But Chau says that, “in the U.K. no one wanted a toaster.”
Globoforce, the consulting firm based in Southborough, Massachusetts, and Dublin, Ireland, believes strongly in the local touch when it comes to global recognition programs. Employees’ desire for culturally familiar rewards is the driving force behind the Exchange Global Rewards program, Globoforce’s online catalog of merchandise, services, entertainment and charity options. Employees of client companies can pick rewards from a variety of local vendors and establishments.
“The rewards must be 100 percent street level local,” says Derek Irvine, Globoforce’s vice president, client strategy and consulting. “Our motto is: ‘Think global, thank local.’ It’s so easy to say but the challenge is in the execution. Here’s where many companies make a mistake. They think recognition comes in a box and can be shipped anywhere. But it’s a personal moment that will vary vastly whether we are in Singapore or Sydney or San Francisco.”
In China, treats from high-end bakeries that can be shared with loved ones are in great demand, as are air filters to help with the high pollution levels, Irvine says. In India, where a gift certificate from a Western retailer would do little to satisfy a woman’s fashion needs, vouchers from local clothing stores are much preferred.
Globoforce works with local reward providers and solicits feedback from employees in the area to determine the most valued items, a departure from the “headquarters knows best” approach that companies have traditionally taken.
“Culture is the new strategic advantage and companies are seeing that,” Irvine says.
“They ask us how employee recognition can build a culture that unifies all the employees around a golden thread vision. We tell them that rewards must be directly linked to the values of the organization. Then you start to create this ripple effect of reinforcing your company’s culture around the world.”
But achieving such cultural understanding requires practice and thoughtfulness, says Walch, the Thunderbird professor who trains executives to think and behave globally.
“Most of the time we are unconscious of how deep our cultural preferences are,” she says. “It comes down to the brain. We’ve been acculturated in what we value. But our brains are very elastic, and we can be reprogrammed with some reflection.”
She says she believes companies are finally beginning to see the value in embracing and understanding cultural differences. “People used to think you could read a book on a plane and learn how to bow properly or when to shake hands,” she says. “It goes beyond that. It’s neurological. It’s about training yourself to think differently. It takes mindfulness to perform in these multicultural settings.”
Workforce Management Online, August 2011 — Register Now!
A Culture of Proactive Employees Will Let the Boss Know if His Fly is Unzipped
I t’s happened to just about everyone: a piece of spinach in between your teeth; a co-worker walks into your office with his fly open; a sheet of toilet paper drags behind your manager’s shoe. These situations can be embarrassing even if caught quickly, but when someone doesn’t step in and reveal what’s wrong, the damage only gets worse.
While it might seem strange, the same concept applies to the relationship between management and its employees. There are many managers whose rigid leadership style unintentionally forces its workers to be passive, powerless and sometimes even spiteful. As a result, the proverbial fly of the business comes unzipped, communication is stifled and employees intentionally go out of their way to avoid helping their manager fix the problem.
In the workplace, the issues that arise are usually not as obvious as toilet paper on the shoe. They are much more subtle. There are employees who call in sick when they are not, and ones who intentionally sabotage projects. Their “revenge” is typically not dramatic but together these things can make a huge difference on a company’s bottom line.
In theory, every manager wants employees to anticipate and react quickly to problems. They want people who are unafraid to speak up and take the initiative to get things done. They want the high levels of productivity that lead to better financial performance for the company.
So why is it that some leaders have the ability to make it happen and others fail? It all comes down to whether leaders are flexible enough to allow their employees to be proactive.
What is flexible leadership? A highly flexible manager aims to satisfy mutual needs—constantly looking for opportunities for employees to grow and develop, which in turn helps managers achieve their goals.
This type of manager has the ability to see others’ needs as at least as important as their own, serving as the foundation to building trust between the manager and the employee.
At this point, some managers may think, “What if my needs are more important than everyone else’s?” If they believe this, they should not expect to be seen as a flexible leader or have the trust of their employees.
Other managers may think that their own needs are the same as the organization’s needs. The reality is quite different: The organization’s needs cannot be satisfied unless employees’ needs are met. Therefore, employee needs are, at the very least, as important as the leader’s.
In a recent study in Great Britain by management consultants Chartered Management Institute, it was revealed that 61 percent of employees felt their boss was unapproachable. Consequently, 1 in 4 spent time worrying about making decisions at work, 1 in 3 have lost respect for their boss, and 1 in 10 cover up mistakes they’ve made from their managers. Statistics like this hinder workers from being proactive and translate into huge economic consequences.
Managers need to be aware of whether they have a culture of employees who are willing to let the boss know when “his fly is unzipped.”
In other words, are employees willing to disagree with management? Will they engage in a discussion and assert their opinion? Are they comfortable enough to bring difficult issues and concerns to their leader’s attention?
Inflexible leaders may view these things as negative and feel as though workers are questioning their authority. However, in the right context, these are actually signs of respect for the company and they help allow employees to take responsibility for their own actions.
Managers should recognize that encouraging behaviors such as rewarding others, giving praise and providing helpful advice are important in building strong trust-based relationships, and these actions should not be seen as soft or a sign of weakness.
At the most fundamental level, it is vital for managers to recognize that strong levels of engagement and performance are observed in workplaces where there are high levels of trust and flexibility. For this reason, managers should ensure that they are optimizing their own performance through the use of encouragement, understanding and warmth.
Remember, without proactive employees, management problems are far worse than being “that guy” who’s unaware of the piece of spinach lodged between his teeth. But, hey, even that’s pretty bad.
Workforce Management Online, August 2011 — Register Now!
Solving the Diversity Puzzle
Lecturing employees about diversity is one thing, but some companies are taking training a step further. Strategies include engaging employees in teamwork exercises and having workers simulate disabilities.
In July, Jennifer Vena decided to talk with colleagues about Tourette’s syndrome after watching video clips of American Idol contestant James Durbin and public speaker Marc Elliot, both of whom have the neurological disorder known for causing motor and vocal tics.
It’s the latest in a string of topics advanced by Vena since she decided a year ago to add one item about diversity to her team’s monthly meeting agenda. “It is really each individual making a commitment to demonstrate inclusiveness in his or her daily actions that will make a difference,” says Vena, a senior consultant at Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a private company that manages employer-provided child care centers.
Vena’s self-imposed monthly commitment is part of an initiative known as One Thing introduced last year by Bright Horizons. The brainchild of the company’s diversity council, One Thing challenges employees to take one action that fosters workplace diversity and inclusion. More than 600 employees have submitted One Thing commitments. Other employees have vowed to take new co-workers to lunch so they feel welcomed or to read books to learn about other dimensions of diversity.
“It’s an evolution of the way we’re doing the work,” says Dan Henry, Bright Horizons’ chief human resources officer and co-chair of the diversity council. “There is only so much training you can do in this space. At some point, it has to come down to what people do.”
Bright Horizons isn’t the only company whose diversity practices are evolving. Increasingly, companies are supplementing lectures with activities ranging from simulating deafness to using case studies that hone skills for navigating complex situations. The goal: to create better managers, not simply more sensitive ones.
“Companies are offering courses on how to be an effective team member, conflict resolution, cultural agility,” says Quinetta Roberson, a management professor at Villanova University’s School of Business who has researched diversity trends. “They’re giving people an openness to experience where people can deal in various contexts with various people, where people have the tools to navigate in any context.”
Beyond guilt trips
The National Training Laboratories of Bethel, Maine, which is now called the NTL Institute, determined more than a decade ago that “practice by doing” is second only to “teaching others” as the most effective way of learning. But only in recent years has diversity training transitioned away from side shows and guilt trips to skill-building, such as resolving conflict and providing developmental feedback to subordinates with whom managers have little in common.
“People learn more by doing,” says Ondra Berry, co-founder of training firm Guardian Quest. “We can recite experiences from our lives blow-by-blow because we remember more when we’re actively involved, especially when it has made an impact on us.” NV Energy Inc., which provides electricity to 2.4 million customers throughout Nevada, hired Guardian Quest for three days of training four times per year.
The sessions are about teamwork as much as they are about diversity. In one, a line of people must navigate under chairs and around other obstacles, communicating only through taps and touches. In another, the group must figure out how to pass everyone through a spider web of ropes.
Carolyne Sharp attended the training after changing jobs involuntarily as part of a reorganization at NV Energy. She was unhappy because she had been transferred from a power plant, where she liked her co-workers, to the corporate office, where she would be working in purchasing and contracts.
“After I took the training, I was fired up,” Sharp says. “I found my voice. I wasn’t afraid to say something anymore. The true me came out again.”
Since, she has won five awards for her efforts to expand the number of minority suppliers, holds regular reunions for her training cohorts and organizes an annual companywide event to honor veterans.
The earliest forms of diversity education arose soon after President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order in 1961 that required federal contractors to “take affirmative action” to avert discrimination based on race or national origin. By 1963, government contractors such as Western Electric provided two days of lectures and discussions about prejudice to leaders of all their locations.
During the 1970s when the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gained the power to bring lawsuits against private companies, training sessions proliferated to help employers avoid litigation. These compliance sessions evolved in the 1990s into training that used broader definitions of diversity, including factors such as sexual orientation, religion, communication styles and tenure.
Now, companies are increasingly looking for quantifiable returns on their investment. They’re tracking employee engagement to see whether the training translates into higher scores and looking at 360-degree evaluations to see whether managers gained skills.
“The expectation is more than a good experience,” says Michael Hyter, president of diversity consultant Global Novations. “It’s real, measurable learning. It’s a measurable outcome. There is a specific skill that ought to be obvious for the investment that we’re making in this person’s development experience.”
Hyter says that he holds his firm to a different standard than he did a decade ago, emphasizing to clients how his firm’s training builds competencies and enhances employee engagement.
In one instance, a client had become alarmed about turnover among women of color. Hyter’s firm conducted a cultural audit, which suggested managers were weak at providing developmental feedback across the board, not only to women of color. The firm identified competencies, trained managers and embedded behavior into 360-degree evaluations every 90 days. Within 18 months, turnover decreased and more women and minorities had risen within the organization.
“If we talked 10 years ago, I would have said we gave 5,000 people diversity training and left, and they loved it,” Hyter says. “But nothing much would have changed. There was no real measurable change in behavior or skills.” Nowadays, he asks specifically what outcome clients seek and looks at what skills drive those results.
In 2010, 68 percent of the member organizations surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management indicated that they have practices in place to address workplace diversity compared with 76 percent of organizations surveyed in 2005. But of companies with diversity practices, 71 percent say they provide training compared with 67 percent in 2005.
“The organizations that were really invested in diversity and inclusion work before the recession hit remain so,” says Eric Peterson, SHRM’s manager of diversity and inclusion. “Those who were getting started, it was an easy cut to make when they needed to cut back.”
Making an investment
Sodexo Inc. is among the companies that have invested years of time and money into diversity strategy. The food and facilities-management services company offers multiple diversity workshops available to everyone from cashiers to members of the C-suite, invites outside speakers to lead sessions at its annual diversity conference and offers webinars available anytime from any location.
“We use every opportunity we can to spark people’s interest and seed a desire to learn more,” says Betsy Silva Hernandez, Sodexo’s senior director of diversity, learning and consulting.
Managers attend a full-day diversity workshop, facilitated by a cohort of external trainers, within six month of joining the company. There, managers learn about their role in building an inclusive workplace, reflect on their own views of diversity and explore situations that they may encounter. One scenario presents a white male voicing resentment based on his perception of reverse discrimination.
“It gives them an opportunity to talk about the issues in a safe place—what they feel are going to be their challenges—and an opportunity to talk about what they can better do to lead in this space,” Hernandez says.
Managers can opt to attend 15 Diversity Learning Labs, follow-up sessions that range from 90 minutes to three hours offered throughout the year. Topics include gender, sexual orientation, cross-cultural communication and disabilities. A recent lab simulated working with disabilities. For one hour, participants lived with a disability. One employee wore special earplugs that blocked all sound, another temporarily lost vision, while someone else spent time in a wheelchair.
“We want it to be interactive,” Hernandez says. “We look at 90 percent interaction and 10 percent sharing information and raising awareness.”
John Friedman, director of public relations for Sodexo, gave up his sense of hearing during the lab. He went with a colleague to a place that was “100 percent familiar, where we’d been to 100 times in our own building,” he says. “It was a markedly different experience and profoundly humbling.”
Eight years ago, Sodexo also began conducting an annual diversity and business summit, a place where it tests new learning labs on such topics as generational differences. Each year, the full-day event is held in a different region, with area managers invited to attend with North American president and CEO George Chavel and his executive team.
As diversity has become ingrained into business strategies, Chavel and other chief executives are immersing themselves in their companies’ initiatives. Their involvement underscores the organizational commitment to diversity.
Consider, for example, Mark Wagar, president and CEO of Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the New York City-based subsidiary of WellPoint Inc. In 2008, the company introduced the Empire Diversity Council to serve as an advisory body to its senior-management team. Wagar then launched a “community ambassador program” in which members of employee resource groups help identify ways of better serving their own demographic.
When Asian employees formed a resource group last year, they asked Wagar to serve as executive sponsor because, he says, “of my activism.” A self-described “giant Dutchman,” Wagar agreed and is working with members on a business plan detailing employee education and customer research goals.
“If it’s a business reality that there’s lots of old white men running companies, if you don’t have old white men who are willing to speak out about this and about how it [diversity] makes richer lives and better business,” Wagar says, “it’s not going to go as fast as it otherwise would.”
Some companies also are linking diversity education to performance evaluations. Bright Horizons evaluates employees against the company’s values, known as the Heart Principles. Employees learn about this connection in diversity training they attend during their first 90 days. Among those principles: “We strengthen our organization by embracing diversity and never allowing acts of nonacceptance.”
Sodexo goes further. It ties managers’ bonuses to training, recruitment and other diversity goals. This connection provides an incentive for managers to attend additional training sessions and to encourage subordinates to do so, as well. The strategy appears to be working: In fiscal 2009, 2,900 employees participated in 85 learning labs, and the next year 6,900 attended 243 labs. Through June, Sodexo already had exceeded its 2010 attendance.
Discussions about business cases for diversity—reducing turnover-related expenses, tapping new market niches, better understanding customers—still dominate conferences.
But Caesars Entertainment Corp. is taking a novel approach. Fred Keeton, chief diversity officer of the casino operator based in Las Vegas, has developed a concept that he calls “Diverse by Design.” Many organizations assume that having a diverse workforce naturally creates better teams, but Keeton handpicks team members to ensure that the teams have what he considers to be the relevant mix.
He applies the hospitality industry’s concept of yield management to diversity, creating teams with what he considers the best mix of cognitive styles and experiences to solve thorny business problems or drive revenue.
“Every dimension is not always important to what you want to do,” says Keeton who is also vice president of finance for external affairs. “You’ve got to manage your diversity like you manage so many other things.”
He mines employee data, picking the most relevant attributes using a matrix that considers everything from thinking styles to job function, geography, cultural style and the traits traditionally thought of as diversity: race, gender or ethnicity.
Insight into cognitive styles, for example, comes from the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument survey, collected and shared with employees in diversity training conducted during their first 90 days.
Caesars uses Diverse by Design teams for only its toughest tasks. “If you have a problem that’s a really easy problem, having a lot of diversity doesn’t necessarily help you answer that problem,” Keeton says. “If you’ve got a really hairy, nasty, dirty problem that’s hard to solve, diversity becomes most potent. We call it creating the capacity to call the baby ugly because the people who created the baby aren’t going to call it ugly.”
The company piloted the first two teams in 2009 and has since formed eight other teams. One looked at ways of improving buffets. The team didn’t review the food itself, but rather proposed ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of buffet operations. A second team looked at the revenue-management systems of hotels, while another focused on whether to buy new or retain existing slot machines and what mix of games to offer.
Keeton says the results are proprietary information but the strategy is working.
Yet even after 50 years, diversity programs continue to spark debate. Sociologist Frederick Lynch, an associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, argues that diversity programs promote the notion of hiring people because of their skin color, gender or other demographic traits. He considers this tokenism.
“As I see it, we have gone from trying to make up for past discrimination to affirmative discriminations,” says Lynch, author of The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change the “White Male Workplace.” Changing demographics may lead to a “natural affirmative action,” he says.
But other experts believe diversity won’t just happen without a lot of hard work. Patti Digh, a former vice president of international and diversity programs for SHRM and co-founder of the training firm the Circle Project, voices her frustration that companies insist on developing business cases before advancing diversity, saying this demand amounts to a stalling tactic. Diversity programs no longer need to be justified, Digh says.
They’re core business tools that should be integrated across product development, marketing and communication, not thought of as a separate silo.
“In the year 2011, continuing to say, ‘We have to build a business case for diversity’ is like saying, ‘We should really look into this new Internet fad,’ ” Digh says.
Workforce Management, August 2011, pgs. 12-14, 16, 18 — Subscribe Now!
Another Odd Couple—Weight Loss and Corporate Learning
I’d run on the elliptical about half an hour. My monitor said I’d burned 350 calories.
I was in the zone where my thoughts wander as I kept trudging away trying to lose weight. Our clients were asking this tough question: “We do training—classroom and online—but after that, how do we keep it alive? Do we need periodic webcasts, briefings, short classes, more refresher modules?”
At around 40 minutes on the elliptical, the thought hit me: learning is like losing weight—it’s what the learner does outside of all the training and refreshers that’s the key to success. We can and should supply tools, but for learning to last, the student, like the dieter, must do the heaviest lifting.
At around 45 minutes, more insight: We’ve been putting too much responsibility on content delivery and knowledge reinforcement. If a key goal of organizational learning is to lead to behavioral change, we need to give leaders, managers and other team members, more daily responsibility, not just episodic learning. Coaching and tools help, but dieters and students must apply what they’ve learned to get results.
I’ve wanted to lose weight for a while. I know all the health reasons, and I’ve gotten tired of having to increasingly loosen my belt. In mid-March, I heard a dynamic speaker, Jim Karas, discussing diet and weight-loss tips. He gave me, and a group of 15 other executives, advice on what to eat, how to exercise properly, and build weights into our regimen along with cardio workouts. He had an inspirational delivery, and he offered specific tips. I realized if I could follow them, I’d lose weight, feel better and have more energy.
I’ve lost 17 pounds so far and my goal is to lose more; how much, though, I’m keeping to myself. Losing weight involves diet and exercise. If you don’t maintain both practices, back comes the weight.
For most, it usually does. I know what I’m supposed to do, but will I keep doing it is the question. The key is ultimately not more knowledge but better habits driven by ongoing commitment and action. There are several tools that those managing their weight use and the principles are similar to those dieters use to keep the pounds off, which, by the way, requires long-term “culture” change.
• The right learning and message start the process. Karas’ presentation made me think about why I should change my habits and gave me a simple road map to follow. While he delivered a great presentation, if I didn’t take steps to follow it, there’d have been no results. Another lecture would start the process all over again but unless I actually took and maintained action myself between lectures, there’d be no continuity and no lasting results.
• Behavioral change is a daily process. I’ve made specific, clear changes in my daily routines. These include:
a. Keeping track of exercise and calories in a small journal I carry everywhere.
b. Recording what I eat and approximate calories in that same book.
c. Weighing myself daily on the same scale at the same time every day and recording the weight.
d. Discussing what I’m doing with others to keep me focused and committed and in a sense accountable to others not just me.
e. Realizing that this is a process, not just a single exercise or distinct short-term objective. That’s the reality if I want to keep the weight off not just have a temporary dip.
To organizations trying to change behavior and keep those changes in place, my advice is to deliver strong messages backed up by simple rules supported by daily ongoing practices. Think of it as a different kind of diet with the same outcome—long term and worthwhile changes.
Viewed this way, here are some tips to help learners include plans requiring them to:
a. Record what they are going to do to behave differently.
b. Every day, keep track of what they have done in line with what they have learned; this can and should take less than two minutes a day.
c. Discuss their activities and changes informally with other leaders in structured online or small group meetings, which are brief but regularly scheduled.
d. As with dieting, realize this is a process not a single exercise or distinct short-term objective.
Obviously, there are other steps, but these reflect the basic idea. It’s dieters who exercise, cut back on calories, change behavior in small increments every day and hold themselves accountable for the changes, with the right support who will lose weight and keep it off. That’s how lasting learning works, too.
Stephen Paskoff is president and CEO of Atlanta-based ELI Inc., a provider of ethics and compliance learning solutions. He can be contacted at info@eliinc.com.
The Last Word Cultural Awareness
Every week, two or three studies about lagging employee engagement cross my desk. But in analyzing this pervasive problem, rarely do the reports mention the significance of corporate culture in attracting and retaining the very best kind of talent: employees who truly fit the organization and will reinforce its values. Many people yearn to belong to an organization whose principles they share and can embrace in their daily work. And if corporate stewards tend the culture well, they can count on an engaged and committed workforce for many years to come. In fact, a survey of job seekers by the careers website Glassdoor.com found that about three-quarters rated culture just as important as salary.
Yet, many employers haven’t clearly articulated their cultural values. That’s what the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley realized a couple of years ago. To define what makes it distinctive, the school conducted focus groups and interviews with students, alumni, faculty, staff, recruiters and board members. After much discussion, administrators settled on four guiding cultural principles: Show “confidence without attitude”; be “students always” with a thirst for lifelong learning; “question the status quo”; and think “beyond yourself” by putting larger interests above your own.
The Haas School isn’t simply posting the principles on its website and classroom walls. The school is trying to weed out prospective students who aren’t a good match through application questions, recommendation letters and interviews. It also is encouraging employees to embody its principles in their work. Managers evaluate staff members on how well their behavior reflects the spirit of the Haas culture, and the school honors four employees each year whose performance best exemplifies one of the principles.
When employers try to define—or redefine—their cultures, it’s important to include workers from the top to the bottom of the organization. Even better, employers should mix it up, as the Cleveland Clinic did to create a stronger “patients first” culture of quality service along with quality medical treatment. In three-hour meetings, neurosurgeons debated the culture with cooks and parking attendants, reinforcing the point that they are all “caregivers who are in this together,” said James Merlino, the Cleveland Clinic’s chief experience office, in his presentation at a recent Conference Board event in New York. Staff members were astonished that physicians had to participate in the meetings, too; they were used to a hierarchical culture in which doctors were in a class above it all.
Once the culture is defined, razor-sharp communication becomes critical. Every employee must understand his or her role in delivering on the promise. What if some workers don’t embrace the culture? Merlino recommended a “zero tolerance” policy and cited a physician who was terminated for not providing the desired patient experience. “You have to focus on the disengaged employees who will bring down the mildly disengaged,” he said. “They’re toxic.”
Merlino realizes that the big challenge ahead will be sustaining the culture of patient service. Even employers with rock-solid cultures face that challenge. When Starbucks Corp.’s business slid and it had to lay off workers a few years ago, the company saw that employee engagement had suffered and that it needed to reinforce its people-oriented culture. It’s “renewal” program included storytelling by employees about positive customer interactions and surveys that revealed a need for more face-to-face feedback from supervisors.
These days, more employers are promoting a culture of ethics and social responsibility, which resonates with many people disillusioned by the corporate chicanery of the past decade. But they had better be able to walk the talk—otherwise, they risk suffering long-lasting reputation damage. Just consider BP. It portrayed itself as an environmental hero, an image that was seriously undermined by the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The lesson: Define your culture, communicate it well and, above all, be sure you can live it in good times and bad. A robust culture can be the best protection against employee disengagement.
Workforce Management, July 2011, p. 42 — Subscribe Now!
HHS, Labor Survey to Ask Employers About Wellness Programs
The departments of Labor and Health and Human Services say they plan to conduct a survey that asks employers to evaluate their wellness programs.
The survey is intended to “assess the effectiveness and impact of workplace wellness programs, as well as identify best practices and lessons learned in program implementation with a particular focus on the use of incentives,” according to an HHS notice issued July 11.
The notice seeks Office of Management and Budget approval to launch the survey.
As part of the survey, 3,000 employers selected from a Dun & Bradstreet Inc. database will be contacted to assess the prevalence and types of corporate wellness programs, as well as the use of employee incentives. In addition, data collection will include employee focus groups and “wellness leaders” at four employers to provide in-depth case studies of those employers’ wellness programs.
The survey is to be completed within 18 months after OMB approval, according to HHS.
A survey last year by Hewitt Associates Inc., done before Aon Corp. purchased the consultant, found that 47 percent of employers either have or plan within the next five years to implement financial penalties on employees who do not participate in certain health improvement programs.
Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
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Marriott Hopes to Win With Facebook Game
Marriott International Inc.’s launch of its own Facebook game to attract thousands of potential employees is scoring points quickly.
The novel interactive game, called My Marriott Hotel, was born out of the mega-hospitality corporation’s quest to fill 50,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2011. And it is spreading rapidly across the globe. The game, which was officially launched June 6, had players from 58 countries within the first 48 hours, including Germany, Hungary, Malaysia and South Africa. That number grew to 99 countries in the game’s third week.
Communications consultant Jen Benz also gives the game high marks. Benz, president of San Francisco-based Benz Communications, sees such Facebook applications as the face of the future for firms.
“I think it’s unique to have an organization the size of Marriott to invest in something as dynamic as their own social media game,” Benz added. “Within the next couple of years more companies will realize social media is not an option. They have to be engaging. They will realize that there are tremendous rewards and benefits.”
Marriott’s game allows players to first manage a “virtual” hotel restaurant kitchen before moving on to other areas of hotel operations. Gamers can create their own restaurant, where they’ll buy equipment and ingredients on a budget, hire and train employees, and serve guests.
Players earn points for happy customers and lose points for poor service. Ultimately, they are rewarded when their operation turns a profit. The game can be played in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Mandarin.
My Marriott Hotel is similar in concept to the highly popular Facebook games FarmVille and CityVille, which have grown to a combined 135 million monthly active users.
Marriott, which teamed with San Francisco-based branding company Evviva Brands to create its game—is the first in the hospitality industry and one of the only companies worldwide to use gaming for talent acquisition and employer brand awareness.
However, several recent surveys show that social media in general are on the rise for company recruitment, marketing and customer engagement. According to public relations and communications firm Burson-Marsteller’s 2011 Global Social Media Check-up, 77 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies are using Twitter, 61 percent have company Facebook pages, 57 percent have YouTube channels and 36 percent have corporate blogs.
Among the Global 100, most corporate social media accounts are used for news, updates and customer service issues, while only 1 in 10 of these companies mention career information or jobs. Burson-Marsteller expects this number to grow as big employers realize the benefit of integrating social recruiting with other social media initiatives.
Marriott spent 10 months developing its Facebook game and Facebook career page. The company declined to divulge how much money went into the project.
“We worked with Evviva Brands and traveled around the world last year to spend time with our associates and talk to them about what they do outside of work, how are they using social media and how they felt about Marriott,” said Susan Strayer, senior director, global employer brand and marketing for Marriott International. “We wanted to uncover some patterns. For example, we found that in the Middle East, Facebook is the No. 1 activity outside of work. That was great fodder for us.”
Marriott, which has 129,000 employees in 70 countries, hopes its Facebook game will help the company become more competitive in regions such as Asia where there is a tight war for talent, Strayer said.
“For example, in China we struggle in the hospitality industry,” she said. “People there want their kids working in a prestigious job. They don’t realize that hospitality can be prestigious.”
While My Marriott gives players a virtual taste of jobs and opportunities, the game is not designed to be part of the company’s hiring process, Strayer said. If players are interested in working for Marriott they can click on a link that takes them to the company’s career site.
Strayer said the company is still working on its Web analytics to determine how the game is affecting brand awareness as well as how many potential employees are clicking on Marriott’s career page from the game. She said it’s too early to determine how many employees have actually been hired after playing the game.
Marriott—which is looking to fill a wide range of positions including cooks, chefs, sales and marketing staff, lifeguards, resort staff, front-desk associates and housekeepers—is targeting potential employees up to 35 years of age, Strayer said. For the younger crowd, Strayer said the Facebook game is ideal for attracting their early interest in hospitality careers.
“We have been spending a lot of time to make sure we’re equipped to pave the future of hospitality,” she said. “Even in a troubling economy, we are still recognized for our service. That’s what’s driving our growth.”
Marriott has been recognized for its customer satisfaction, and continues to earn awards as an employer. It is one of only 13 companies to have made the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list every year since it launched in 1998 and was named one of the Hottest Employers of 2010 by Bloomberg Businessweek.
Increasingly, earning those kinds of awards will require an openness to social media, experts say.
Social media networks such as Facebook help facilitate worker freedom while engaging employees in the corporate conversation, said Polly Pearson, a Boston-based consultant who advises companies on social media at work, reputation management and employment.
But, she adds, a company that launches a Facebook page and advertises games must also give employees the same freedom and capability once they are hired. Pearson calls this walking the talk.
“If a company uses social media to attract potential employees but it doesn’t allow any social media use within the company, then it has damaged its brand,” she said.
Marriott walks the talk, Strayer says. The company has social media guidelines for its associates, but doesn’t seek to squelch workers’ use of Facebook and the like. In other words, if and when successful My Marriott Hotel players actually take a job at Marriott, they don’t have to check their social networking identities at the door.
Score another point for Marriott and its cutting-edge game.
Workforce Management Online, July 2011 — Register Now!
Men Dominate MBA Enrollment in Chicago
Chicago’s business schools looking to boost female enrollment in their MBA programs need only to look to their East Coast rivals.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Harvard Business School are enrolling record percentages of women in the upcoming academic year. Women represent nearly 45 percent of the incoming MBA class at Wharton and 39 percent at Harvard, according to analysis by Poets & Quants, a website dedicated to graduate business schools.
Schools in the Chicago area generally can’t match these gains. In fact, female enrollment has been flat with the exception of DePaul University’s Kellstadt School, where women accounted for 40 percent of last year’s first-year students vs. 35 percent the year before. (Fall 2011 figures are not yet available.)
Rob Ryan, Kellstadt’s assistant dean, says the increase could be attributed to the growing number of women who have advanced to a point in their careers where an MBA has benefits.
At University of Chicago’s Booth School, women have represented 35 percent of its incoming MBA class for the past four years. Like many Chicago schools, Booth will not have figures for the 2011-12 class until later this summer. Female enrollment at University of Illinois at Chicago’s Liautaud School dropped to 33 percent in 2010 from 37 percent in 2009. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School has held steady in the 32 percent-to-33 percent range for the three years starting in 2008.
Female enrollment at Loyola University Chicago’s business school fell to 41 percent this summer from a high of 48 percent in the fall of 2008. Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School saw the number of women slip to 38 percent last fall from 39 percent the previous year.
Michael Alexander, assistant director of academic programs at Loyola’s graduate school of business, was hard-pressed to explain why the school has the highest female enrollment among its Chicago peers. “To my knowledge, nothing has been done specifically to recruit women,” he said.
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management didn’t respond to requests for enrollment data.
It’s no accident that women are making up a greater share of enrollment at Wharton and Harvard, said John Byrne, editor of Poets & Quants and a former executive editor of BusinessWeek. Women made up nearly 40 percent of Wharton’s incoming class last year and 36 percent of Harvard’s class.
“They worked very hard on it. It was a very conscious goal to get a higher percentage of women,” Byrne said. “In general, full-time business school enrollment for women remains” fairly stable.
Comparatively, more women are applying to other graduate programs such as medical and law school. Women represented 47.3 percent of applicants for the 2010-11 academic year, according to the Assn. of American Medical Colleges. At law schools, 45.7 percent of applicants admitted in 2010 were women, according to the Law School Admission Council Inc.
At the undergraduate level, women have been in the majority for years, and the U.S. Education Department projects they will account for 57 percent of four-year college students nationally by 2013.
DePaul University’s Kellstadt School is seeing more women enrolling in its master’s of science program, particularly in accounting, marketing and real estate analysis, Ryan said. “There is a younger profile in the MS programs. They are right out of (undergraduate) school.”
Filed by Lorene Yue of Crain’s Chicago Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.
Facts on U.S. Pet Owners
The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association 2011-12 National Pet Owners Survey relates these facts about U.S. pet owners:
• In 2010, U.S. pet owners spent $48.35 billion on their pets; the estimate for 2011 is $50.84 billion.
The cost of veterinary care in the United States for 2011 is estimated at $14.1 billion.
• 62 percent of American households own a pet, which equates to 72.9 million homes.
• 38.2 million households have a cat, and the total number of owned cats is 93.6 million.
• 46.3 million households have a dog, and the total number of owned dogs is 78.6 million.
• On average, dog owners spend $225 and cat owners spend $203 annually on routine veterinary visits.
Workforce Management Online, July 2011 — Register Now!