Yes, Virginia, Better Workplaces Really Do Exist

By Leigh Branham SPHR

My coauthor, Mark Hirschfeld, and I spent the last two years writing Re-Engage: How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Employee Engagement in Extraordinary Times (McGraw-Hill, 2010). It is highly evidenced-based study of employee engagement. We are proud to say Re-Engage is, in fact, the most comprehensive employee engagement study ever conducted in terms of the number and diversity of employers--supported by 2.1 million employee surveys from 10,000 organizations, two-thirds of which have less than 1,000 employees.

The confidential surveys were completed by employees whose companies entered Best-Places-to-Work competitions held from 2004 through 2009 in 45 U.S. cities, with data collected by third party research firm, Quantum Workplace, Omaha, Nebraska and sponsored by American Cities Business Journals, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Re-Engage tells inspiring stories from the employers with employee engagement survey results in the upper one percent--Quality Living, Inc., Winchester Hospital, Nalley Automotive, Rackspace Hosting, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Gaylord Hotels. These special workplaces scored high on the six Universal Engagement Drivers that we identified:

1. Trustworthy and Inspiring Senior Leadership
2. Managers Who Align and Engage
3. A Culture of Effective Teamwork, not “We vs. They”
4. Job Enrichment and Professional Growth
5. Valuing of Employee Contributions
6. Commitment to Employee Well-Being

We also provide readers the opportunity to rate their own employers on the six universal engagement drivers and their own self-engagement via a self-scoring web survey (www.re-engagebook.com). In each of the chapters dedicated to these six drivers readers will find practical how-to advice and best practices categorized within the challenges of organizational size, generational diversity, and economic downturn.

Not surprisingly, companies scoring in the top quartile of competing companies had 74% positive comments, while those scoring in the second quartile had 59% positive comments, those in the 3rd quartile had 40% positive comments, and 4th quartile employers had only 17% positive comments. In reading more than 200,000 survey comments, Mark and I identified some key themes in what employees are saying they need to be more engaged at work:

§ "Senior Leaders, Engagement Starts With You!"
For at least the last decade the conventional wisdom has been that "people leave managers, not companies." All too many senior leaders took this as license to delegate responsibility for employee engagement initiatives to middle managers and supervisors. Although direct managers are still extremely important to the engagement process, our recent data clearly show that senior leaders are the prime movers--setting the tone and shaping the culture. We recommend that senior leaders who want "Best-Place Employer" status for their organizations take the lead by setting a direction that employees believe in, dumping outmoded command-and-control mindsets, tapping the ideas of employees, eliminating "we-they" distinctions, forgoing excessive perks and bonuses, and holding managers accountable for treating people right.

§ "What Motivates Us Is Changing—Try to Keep Up!"
We cite 27 studies conducted over the last 20 years showing that more engaged workforces are more productive workforces. However, as times and economic conditions change, employees' perceptions of what's important changes as well. Just in the last eight years, since 9/11, Enron, the entry of Millennials into the workforce, the decline in company-paid health benefits, and the financial collapse of 2008 all have combined to effect changes in worker expectations. Employees are voicing their concerns that their employers are less concerned about their general well-being, more far more concerned about their job security, and more cynical about leaders, especially on the issue of caring more about the welfare of the organization than their own self-interests. We propose specific ways to deal with these concerns in ways that restore trust and the feeling of being cared for--practices that the Best-Places are using to stay abreast of employee expectations and remain the winning workplaces they are.

§ "Give...and We'll Give Back!"
Regarding benefits, there has been a dramatic shift among winning employers. Among other things, they are helping employees take greater responsibility for their own health in a way that also lets them know the company cares. In doing so they are reducing unnecessary health care claims and more effectively managing costs. Our finding is that enlightened employers are showing the way--shining the light on one “cure” for our health care crisis! We tell the compelling stories of winning workplaces that implementing progressive strategies reduce health care costs, improve communication with employees about changes in benefits, and take a more “whole person” approach—one that benefits both employee and employer alike.

§ "Help Us Manage Our Differences!"
Having four distinct generations--Millennials, Xers, Boomers, and Traditionalists--in the workplace (for the first time in history!) has made teamwork, communication, and one-size-fits-all employment and management practices more difficult. Our findings--that some of the least age-diverse employers are also the most engaged--is a sobering one. It means that unless age-diverse employers are doing extraordinary things to manage generational differences and promote teamwork while treating everyone as individuals, engagement levels will erode. Among the best practices we recommend that Best-Places employers use to overcome generational differences are these: training older managers to meet Millennials halfway by giving more feedback, implementing state-of-the-art "on-boarding" practices, providing generation Xers more varied, horizontal, and/or rotational assignments to broaden their experience when their path to promotion may be blocked, promoting "reverse mentoring" of older managers in web 2.0, and encouraging collaboration and social networking while requiring more face-to-face communication.

§ "Manage Our Growth So We Don't Lose the Team-Feeling!”
Companies want and need to grow. As workplaces grow larger than 150 employees, they tend to reach a tipping point that reduces teamwork and camaraderie. Workforce population growth can have a extremely negative and unexpected impact on employee engagement, a finding that other employee engagement researchers have not reported. Why not? Because until now no other research firm has had access to a database that matches what Quantum Workplace offers--insights based on 7,000 small and medium-size employers. We present case studies that explore this dynamic and reveal how some employers have grown larger while maintaining high levels of teamwork and engagement.

§ "Give Us Hope in Times of Uncertainty!"
Employee engagement, once thought to be primarily within the control of management, can be negatively influenced by outside forces if they rise to the level of our current economic downturn. Yet, in spite of these powerful external forces, Best-Places employers have actually increased their levels of employee engagement after the "economic Pearl Harbor" of 2008, while engagement levels at most employers have dropped precipitously. The authors identify five differentiating practices that winning workplaces are using to weather the economic storm and keep employees engaged. Specific practices include: holding "50-50" meetings where the CEO responds to any and all questions, creating company blogs inviting employees to submit money-making ideas for cash rewards, confronting poor performance, refusing to eliminate recognition events and cut training budgets, and insisting that overstressed and burned-out employees take vacations.

§ "Kill the Cookie Cutter!"
Much of the challenge facing employers today involves taking the practices we describe and making them live within their workplaces. We offer a fresh approach that helps employers apply their “signature” to the engagement practices we recommend. We caution managers and executives that they should not attempt to "copycat" or "bolt on" what other employers do. Rather, they should select from among the "leading" practices we present those that best serve the unique business objectives and meet the needs of their critical talent. This approach is bolstered by in-depth studies of some of the most engaged workplaces in America. We highlight employers like Rackspace Hosting, which has developed an employment brand that not only engages current employees, but acts as a recruiting magnet for those who buy into their “fanatical service” model.

Leigh Branham is Founder and Principal of Keeping the People, Inc., Overland Park, Ks. (www.keepingthepeople.com). For more information about Re-Engage, go to http://www.re-engagebook.com/ or contact Leigh Branham at LB@keepingthepeople.com.

Quote for the Week

My favorite quote is by Ghandi:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

What are you doing to be that change today?

Kindness in the Workplace

This year I had the privilege and honor of co-chairing the 20th Annual Kindest Kansas Citian Banquet. The theme is kindness is contagious...catch it! It is a fundraiser for the STOP violence program of Synergy Services. Synergy Services provides intervention, prevention and education of family violence. Please check out the website for more information at SynergyServices.org. As I was reflecting on the event, I posed the question what does it take to be kinder at work?

This question led me straight to the dictionary. Kind according to Webster means; sympathetic, friendly, gentle, generous etc.; cordial (p. 413). What if kindness was the norm in workplaces rather than the exception?

Although I am not sure how one becomes kinder, it always start with a decision to do so. Growing up, my mom practiced kindness on a regular basis. Not only in how she dealth with dad, my two brothers and me, but also in her tenure at the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis. Mom worked in the Wire Transfer department for over 20 years. She was in contact daily with other banks, and always treated them with the utmost kindness and respect. Although not a high powered position, she used those many conversations as a way to spread kindness.

When mom retired, we heard stories as to how those other banks really missed the daily conversations with her. This story causes me to wonder, if kindness is contagious (as we saw with my mom), how does the workplace catch it?