Cross-posted from http://abhishekmittal.com
Many a times, I find that HR folks rush too fast to make employee engagement metrics a part of KPIs or balanced scorecards. The idea is that there should be a “carrot” to ensure that managers take accountability for their people, otherwise they won’t spend time on open dialogue with their teams and co-create action plans for improvement in engagement levels. I was recently asked if the carrot and stick ap…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on November 6, 2009 at 2:30am —
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Cross-posted from
http://abhishekmittal.com
Towers Perrin (disclaimer: my employer) has released a
new paper discussing Employee Engagement in conjunction with Employee Well-Being. Employee Well-Being has been defined as a combination of 3 important aspects of an employee’s working life:
Physical Health: healt…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on October 27, 2009 at 9:45am —
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I am a consumer too. I consume a lot of services like banking, telecom, insurance, retail shopping, medical etc. When I look back and think what draws me repeatedly to some service providers, I realize it's not usually the product. The product is almost similar. Price could play a role, but "search" costs are high. Product and pricing are mere hygiene factors - necessary to keep you in the game. What brings me back is "People".
Ultimately, all service organizations are "people businesses". Thin…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on September 27, 2009 at 11:09pm —
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Employee motivation is one of the key components of employee engagement. Employees who are motivated are willing to invest discretionary effort to go above and beyond the call of duty. They are more likely to go the extra mile to help the organization succeed.
There are a variety of ways in which companies and managers seek to motivate their employees. Some of these succeed and some don't. I thought it will be a good idea to jot down a few basic principles or broad themes you should keep in min…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on September 23, 2009 at 10:00am —
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So, the question is simple - "Who are you hiring as your next HR leader?"
As I meet more & more people, I find lesser & lesser instances of "business" people in the HR departments. There are very few cases of line managers making a lateral entry into HR. So, the HR team remains composed of a group of people exposed mostly to HR and administrative processes. Business leaders are always asking for more 'value' from the HR teams and often have unmet expectations around HR's alignment with…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on September 22, 2009 at 11:30pm —
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I just realized this morning that my blog has been featured on
Alltop - an aggregator of top content on different subjects from around the world. I have been featured in the
Human Resources section, which has been the main focus of this blog in recent times.
I take a bow and thank you all for making this happen. Thank you for visiting my blog repeatedly, sharing your thoughts and giv…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on August 26, 2009 at 9:54pm —
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How often have you heard business leaders wishing that their Human Resources team was more strategic? I have heard that several times and felt that on a number of occassions through unsaid words. Leaders wish that HR departments are more strategic in their focus, rather than being overly pre-occupied by administrative and transactional tasks. Leaders, today, want their HR team to create business value, instead of having ‘compliance’, ‘adherence’ and ‘tasks’ as their top KPIs or KRAs.
But, when…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on August 26, 2009 at 9:52pm —
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I have often come across HR leaders who ask
"Are we ready for employee engagement?" Many HR practitioners feel that they should be initiating an employee engagement program only when their HR systems / processes reach certain maturity levels. The fear, of course, is the fear of failure. The fear is "What if the results are bad? And they are likely to be bad, because we are not 'there' yet."
As far as I am concerned, it is never too early to measure & manage employee engagement. Emplo…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on August 7, 2009 at 9:00am —
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There are plenty of research papers and articles which demonstrate the value of Employee Engagement for organizations. Here is
something that I had penned a while back for Deccan Herald (a leading newspaper in India).
Many of these research pieces are propreitary or done for specific clients by consulting firms. Hence, I have been hunting for "open source" infor…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on July 28, 2009 at 3:47am —
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Cross-posted from
my blog
As you would have noticed from most of my writings, I often find that 'change' programs and Employee Engagement initiatives fail as a result of poor follow-up on research findings. Organizations, with or without the help of consultants, are able to design great diagnostic tools to measure the right issues. Using analytics, they are able to…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on July 7, 2009 at 2:43am —
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After having worked with multiple organizations across multiple geographies on Employee Engagement programs, there is still an interesting debate I have with clients, colleagues, friends and HR practitioners.
The question is
“Do we need to focus exclusively on workgroup-level engagement or focus on enterprise-level systems / processes first?”
Some feel that workgroup engagement is paramount,
…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on June 26, 2009 at 7:18am —
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Cross-posted from my blog:
The current environment poses significant challenges to organizations across the globe. Employees are suffering too. Employees face a fair amount of confusion about their companies’ goals & strategy and at a micro-level, confusion about their own job roles. There are heightened concerns over job security & compensation. I could go one with…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on June 25, 2009 at 8:10pm —
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Cross posted from
my blog:
Despite what happens to the business environment, smart leaders always understand the importance of employee engagement. In an upswing, engaged employees help an organization leverage the positive environment and deliver incremental returns. In a bad business environment, the engaged employees are the best source of innovations and ideas on how to do bes…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on June 18, 2009 at 11:38pm —
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Don Lowman wrote a couple of interesting posts
“The Power of Thank You” and
“Expressing Informed Admiration”. I know that there is a general consensus that recognition is a powerful motivator, but I feel it is quite an under-utilized tool in the people-managers’ toolkit. Managers and leaders sometimes have a tendency to get so “busy” in daily…
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Added by Abhishek Mittal on March 5, 2009 at 8:42pm —
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