Employee Engagement. Engagement is at the root of the performance you are getting from your people.

And the other side of that coin is Disengagement.  A disengaged staff member will not be a good ambassador for your company.  A disengaged worker will not be firing on all cylinders. They may even be adversly affecting the morale of others.

During periods of uncertainty – when the fear or the realities of the economic downturn and even redundancy are present - your workforce may start to withdraw into themselves and concentrate on their concerns and feelings of insecurity rather than the job in hand.  And this is just the time you need them to put in the extra effort.  At times like this, it is even more important to rally your troops and focus on the positives.

If your workforce are engaged they are working harder and smarter to make your company thrive. They care. They have a pride in what they do. They want to be part of a success story. Your success story.

By recognising and adjusting the balance towards greater engagement you will get a better return on your biggest investment – your people. Further to this, your workforce will feel empowered at being asked to contribute their opinions and feedback.  In turn, this leads to greater trust and loyalty.

The bottom line is that Business Culture drives Engagement. And Engagement is the engine that powers People Performance.

But how do you do it?  How do you harness the power of your workforce to be fully engaged in your business objectives?

Well, you have to measure engagement before you can begin to try and improve it.

Have a  look at our Employee Engagement Census Overview to find out more.

You want your churn rate go through the roof

The truth is that the norm means you are no different from your competitors, no better, probably worse, bland and forgetable.

• Why spend time training your workforce to do a better job?
• Creating a productive and happy workforce is not possible
• Why nuture their talents?
• Why give them incentives to stay?
• Your churn rates are high, but that’s normal, right?

The best way to keep that churn rate at a nice high number is to not listen to your workforce.

You don’t want your workforce to learn, grow and perform

Investing in people is a waste of time. The training versus retaining costs too much. It’s much better to be cost effective and get the cheapest labour possible. It’s okay if your people leave every 6 months, that’s what training is for, right?

You want your competitors to head hunt your best talent

Google, LinkedIn, FaceBook are just a few examples of how the internet has made it all too easy for your competitors to find your talent. There is absolutely nothing stopping someone else contacting your best talent – the people that you have spent precious time and money nuturing.

Have you given your people great reasons to stay? No? Perhaps it would be a good idea to stick Employee For Sale signs up (or speak to a friendly person who could help).

You don’t really want your business to be successful

Your business is doing fine at the moment. The people at the top are doing a grand job. You can deal with it when it is time to find their successors. Really. You’ve got it all in hand. Just post a job ad and bingo, problem solved.

You want to maintain an expensive paper driven system

You’ve had a paper based solution since the company started. It may be slow and expensive, but you believe it works as well as it could. Handwritten or Word document files get locked away and forgotten. There’s no way for the information to communicate. Informed decisions cannot be made. It’s all great!

You believe technology can’t solve your problems

Sticking to something familiar is easy even if it means it is no longer effective. Change is everything and this doesn’t just apply to technology. If you fail to adopt new ways of working, you risk losing out. But you’re fine with that, right?

Excellent support is a myth

Everyone talks about bad support experiences:

• waiting on hold for too long
• wrong recommendations and fixes
• difficult communication
• apologetic support staff
• predicatable support scripts that society is now accustomed to.

You feel this is a good excuse to not implement a technology. Surely all Performance Management services are the same?

Perhaps you should test drive the Get Driven experience?

You want to waste your valuable time

Performance Management Systems include some great time saving features:

• automated workflow
• online access
• automated notifications (emails)
• built in writing assistants
• 360 degree automation
• access to complete data, quickly.

It’s so much easier for you (although not any of your employees) to keep trotting along doing things in the same old slow and inefficient way.

As a business you do not want to improve your bottom line

A Performance Management System can save your organisation cash, dinero, moolah. Yes, money:

• increased productivity
• improved employee retention
• compensation optimisation
• cost effective training

Saving lots of money is definitely not a good reason to consider a Performance Management System. There must be some sort of trick or a con. (Guess again …)

You don’t want a Performance Management System to be implemented in weeks

A Performance Management System can be implemented in weeks, in your own environment or in a secure external (hosted ondemand) location. It’s too easy to let the professionals do the hard work while you sit back in awe and amazement.

It’s so much easier for you (not anyone else) to keep trotting along doing things in the same old slow and inefficient way.

There is another way…

Get performing quickly and with style, let the experts show you how easy it could be.

Lets have a look at some recent news articles from the BBC:

• Skill drive to boost workforce
• Most London firms hiring overseas
• Half of new jobs go to migrants
• London skills shortage worsening
• Many graduates lack soft skills

From the above articles, apparently there is a skills shortage in London, yet it has the highest unemployment rate!  This leads to companies hiring overseas.

The young generation are investing thousands into a higher education, but graduating with incomplete (yet essential) skills.

The government is on a mission to provide 7 million training places to increase literacy and numeracy standards.  It has been argued that this points to failure in the education system.

Crucial questions need to be asked!

• Why aren’t companies investing (more) in local talent?
• Is the education system staying the same whilst the world around moves on?
• Has the education system forgotten to encourage people to learn, rather than pass tests?
• Do degrees fulfill the need of employers?
• Will the under educated really be interested in yet another literacy or numeracy course?  The education system has failed them before, will it happen again?
• Why are there so many under skilled people in the UK?
• What talents are hidden within the unemployed? How can the government, organisations, communities people ignite their passion to learn?
• The role of technology is increasingly important to facilitate learning from an organisational and personal point of view.  How are you or your organisation using technology to optimise talent?
• With talk of the future being multipational, the ability to learn on the go is increasingly important.  How flexible and open should people be when it comes to their day to day job?

We believe it is important to ask questions, without them answers will not be found!

People are core for businesses. Finding the right people is a
challenge. Knowing if the skills are available can be difficult.
Educating them is another challenge. Replacing them can be a nightmare!

And that’s just the beginning.

Succession planning for your business

Succession planning is preparing your business for staff changes.

On paper it may seem like a pretty straight forward issue to address, but in reality it’s like a very big puzzle with lots of very small pieces. The bigger your company, the more complex the challenge is. The more complex a puzzle, the more risk, potential problems and solutions it may bring.

Staff challenges you may face

You’ve got your army of staff, but how well do you know them? How prepared are you for the future?

No matter how big or small your company is, you need to address the following:

• how quickly can your company react to a resignation? or long term illness?
• who are key assets to the company, and how are you going to ensure they stay with you?
• Do you know what the career progression looks like for your employess?
• If someone moves up the ladder, who will replace them?
• Are there any skills gaps needed by your company?
• How much will it cost you if you are not prepared?

And we could go on, but we won’t.

Technology to solve the puzzle

Now, the question is, did you know that technology is extremely good at helping you out with succession planning?

Leading tools are now very capable of helping you make and informed decision, for example:

• GAP analysis of staff skills
• ability to compare staff profiles, side by side
• integration with performance management modules
• ability to search on individuals or groups and create graphical reports.

The difference, now, as users and organisations, is we now have confidence in the technology.

Changing times

Times are a’ changing. The expectations of users and businesses now consist of the following:

• We want the ability to try before we buy
• We want things easy, no technical headaches please!
• Integration should be simple.
• When a decision is made, we want it now! next month or year is too late.
• We expect quality customer support.
• Don’t underestimate the ability of the user…

This is called Software-as-a-Service or software as a subscription model.

Take Flickr for example, it’s
free to sign up and use (with limitations). The attractive point, apart
from not needing technical knowledge or hardware, is the monthly subscription cost of about $2 is hardly going to break anyones bank. The current user base for Flickr is massive.

OnDemand Learning and Performance Management

With the success of user based subscription models, it was a matter of
time before businesses had similar options. But let’s be clear, we are
not saying that you will get hosted learning and performance management
for $2 a user!

A look at the leading learning and performance management companies shows:

• SumTotal launched ResultsOnDemand
• Plateau offer Hosted and Managed services, where on demand solutions are playing their part.
• Saba are on board OnDemand  and Hosting services

In addition we have Success Factors who provide Talent and Performance management purely as a “software as a service solution” for small, medium and enterprise
companies. This is quite significant as it truly means that Talent,
Performance and Learning management is no longer just for the big guns.

Software as a service – the benefits

Whilst all these services will differ, their aims and benefits are similar:

• Rapid deployment of a learning and performance management solutions
• Ability to adapt more quickly to business demands
• Low cost of entry
• Leaves responsibility to the vendor for all the hardware, software and techincal issues.
• Allows your business to focus on what matters.

Whilst the target market for OnDemand solutions appear to be SME’s, larger corporates are known to have taken up this option whilst experiencing significant change (e.g. mergers, lack of internal resources).

Reporting on the Today Programme
on Radio 4, Stephen Cape, the BBC’s labour affairs correspondent, said
that less than a third of us are happy with our jobs, with the
unhappiest being from middle management and downwards.

Staff retention is said to be affected by this national lethargy,
with unwanted turnover at its lowest in organisations where employees
are happy.

A lot of this sounds obvious, companies with unhappy workers are
more likely to have a high turnover. A high turnover is in itself an
indication of a relatively prosperous nation; in that people have the
option to change jobs, rather than stay where they are miserable. So
maybe the fact that we moan and quit more than anyone else is because
we feel secure enough to do so in the knowledge we will find more work.

What might be slightly more surprising however is where the
responsibility lies: The report’s findings are said to lay the
responsibility for this lethargy at the feet of senior managers.

This means that turnover in the UK is no longer the sole
responsibility of the HR department! For us, this is the best news
we’ve heard. Staff retention is an issue that effects the entire
organisation and should be seen in that context.

Talk to us about this blog.