The Employee Engagement Network

Derek Irvine

Derek Irvine's Blog (33)

Hard Work + Long Hours ≠ Employee Engagement

A report out of the UK reveals how thinly stretched the employee/employer contract is becoming as the effects of the recession linger in organizations. The study from the Hay Group highlights that a large majority of employees are choosing to work longer hours, often without pay, to get the job done after teams have been decimated by layoffs. Some would hail these examples of increase… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on December 7, 2009 at 2:00pm — 5 Comments

Strengths, Weaknesses, Ignored: How You're Recognized Affects Engagement

I think we all generally agree that engaged employees are a powerful force for delivering company success. I think we all also agree that you cannot force employees to engage. You can, however, create work environments and cultures in which employees want to engage and give their best. So what can you to create such an engaging culture or environment? Gallup research released earlier th… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on December 1, 2009 at 4:06pm — No Comments

Systems of Engagement

Last month the Hay Group issued guidelines for “Engaging and Enabling Employees for Company Success” in Workspan magazine, the publication of WorldatWork. “Retaining top talent is a key concern in good times and bad, given the importance of these employees tContinue

Added by Derek Irvine on November 30, 2009 at 10:35am — No Comments

Employee Engagement Call to Action (courtesy of David Zinger)

In my last post, I mentioned what I think of as David Zinger’s call to action on employee engagement: “Employee engagement is an experience to be lived not a problem to be solved.” So what does living employee engagement look like from David’s point… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on November 30, 2009 at 10:32am — No Comments

100+ Years of Employee Engagement

In the last few months, employee engagement has been derided by some as nothing more than the latest industry buzzword or HR bandwagon that everyone is rushing to jump on as the as the as the savior of employee loyalty and productivity from the recession. What these pundits miss is two truisms about employee engagement summarized well in this Personnel Today arContinue

Added by Derek Irvine on November 24, 2009 at 3:46pm — No Comments

Master Change, Master Engagement

What are the key factors for employee engagement? I and others have written at length on this topic. I believe one key factor for employee engagement is creating an environment in which employees want to engage through strategic appreciation of employee efforts. But there are many factors that feed a truly engaging environment. Recent researchContinue

Added by Derek Irvine on November 16, 2009 at 1:15pm — 1 Comment

Building Alignment and Engagement into 2010 Planning

Watson Wyatt Worldwide and WorldatWork recently issued their 2009/2010 US Strategic Rewards Report: Looking toward Recovery – Realigning Rewards and Re-Engaging Employees. The report evaluates the impact of the workforce-based actions of the recession on companies’ ability to emerge in a competitive position and able to retain top-performers in the recovery. Three key findings were: 1) Organizational restructuring ha… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on October 15, 2009 at 8:15am — 2 Comments

Putting a Value on Engagement

Not as comprehensive or definitive as The Value and ROI in Employee Recognition research, The Economics of Engagement out of the Human Capital Institute and the Enterprise Engagement Alliance offers several interesting points on engagement, if not the practical step… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on October 7, 2009 at 3:00pm — 7 Comments

Want Engagement? Hold Your Managers Responsible!

In a recent article in BusinessWeek, Michelle Conlin wrote well on the link between employee engagement and the bottom line, citing examples from Campbell Soup, Best Buy and JC Penney. But it’s her final point, based on an example from Stryker, a medical technology company, that is… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on September 9, 2009 at 9:20am — 16 Comments

Science PROVES Carrots Are Rotten and Sticks Are Broken

I just watched a terrific presentation by Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko and Free Agent Nation (and coming in December, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us). Succinctly and humorously, Da… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on September 5, 2009 at 9:04am — 3 Comments

Who’s Responsible for Your Engagement?

Who is responsible for employee engagement? Knee-jerk reaction – HR. But what happens when the HR person responsible for engagement is no longer engaged? In this sad post, Venting HR Guy says: "I'm mentally done. I'm burned out. I'm crispy. Stick a monster-sized fork in me and call it a day. What do you do to cure burn out? And who's failing who here? But whose job is it to engage the guy who's in chContinue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 31, 2009 at 11:53am — 3 Comments

One More Engagement Definition * BlessingWhite

This week I wrote on the MacLeod Survey's definition of engagement, Aberdeen's recent definition and now Blessing White's. These posts have generated great discussion. Curious what the network thinks of this one... BlessingWhite’s recent advice to… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 28, 2009 at 3:50pm — 1 Comment

Achieving an Engaged Workforce * Aberdeen Reports

Continuing our look at recent industry research Aberdeen Group just issued “Beyond Satisfaction: Engaging Employees to Retain Customers.” A few interesting tidbits from the report: Following up on my comments in Monday’s post that there is no single definition for engageme… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 26, 2009 at 3:38pm — No Comments

How Do You Define Employee Engagement?

The MacLeod employee engagement report (official title – “Engaging for Success: Enhancing Performance through Employee Engagement”) came out last month. While there was a quick burst of news articles and blogger response to the report, I wanted to sit back, fully digest the report and reaction to it. Common themes from comments include: (1) there’s nothing new here; (2) there are not enough concrete examples of how to build… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 24, 2009 at 9:55am — 5 Comments

Employee Engagement * WHEN Should I Measure

In my last post, I shared more tips for what to measure to determine employee engagement levels and program success. Today, I want to talk a bit about when you should measure. The timing of measurement is critical because results can be so easily manipulated depending on when you establish metrics and then measure against them. Jacqueline Kosecoff, chief executive of Prescription Soluti… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 6, 2009 at 9:15am — 3 Comments

Employee Engagement * WHAT Do I Measure?

Two common questions when it comes to measuring employee engagement are what do you measure and when do you measure it. In this post I’ll be addressing what to measure; my next post will speak to when. I’ve written before on best practices for what to measure and also have a… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 6, 2009 at 9:00am — 1 Comment

Measuring Reward Systems * Driving Change through Recognition

I am recently enamored of Steve Kerr’s new book Reward Systems: Does Yours Measure Up? Steve is currently the Chief Learning Officer at Goldman Sachs and served previously in the same position at General Electric under Jack Welch. You may be more familiar with his oft-cited article on recognition rewards:… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on August 4, 2009 at 3:56pm — No Comments

Interpreting Employee Engagement Results

Some recent research points to interesting effects of the recession on employee satisfaction and engagement. A CIPD survey found employee satisfaction has risen among UK employees since 2006, but CIPD notes, “but this could be the employee opinion survey equivalent of a fixed grin.” And HR consultancy… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on June 22, 2009 at 8:10am — 3 Comments

The Highs and Lows of Employee Engagement

The BRIC block – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – have been all over the media for a few years now for the strength and rapid growth of their economies and the perceived threat that holds for “old” economic strongholds in the U.S. and Europe. Now Brazil and India add another strength – their ability to engage and motivate their teams. Kenexa recently announced these two nations to have highest levels of employee engagement an… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on May 27, 2009 at 2:18pm — 3 Comments

Engagement on the Increase?

Several studies are reporting increased levels of engagement. The Sunday Times reported the employees at the companies that appear on the Best Companies to Work For list: “Employee engagement remained steady at 71%. Workers are still as committed and motivated as they were and some even more so. Although people are worried about job security they are not blaming their company for… Continue

Added by Derek Irvine on May 8, 2009 at 2:46pm — 4 Comments

Latest Activity

Michael Lee Stallard added a blog post
Do you ever wonder how past leaders could have missed what seems so obvious in hindsight? Sadly, most leaders live in an environment that makes them vulnerable to managerial failure. The problem lies in a little-recognized reality of leadership: iso…
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Aravind Gangadharan, Brush Read, Margaret Cernigoj and 2 more joined The Employee Engagement Network
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Terrence Seamon "Galvanize into action" is my new free e-guide for job hunters, available via the Box.net app on my LinkedIn profile
6 hours ago
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Dear Ray, Your concern is well founded. Employees look forward to surveys like they do a visit to the dentist! The Horsepower Survey, however, is an employee-focused survey to measure how rewarded employees feel about their work. It consists of sev…
7 hours ago
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Mike, I will make mention of this new group in the next newsletter. Thank you for starting this and I wish you well and all European members the best with this focus. David
8 hours ago
Jason: Good points about trust and aligning the strategic engagement with employee engagement. We need results for all. I am concerned you will lose readers due to lack of formatting on this post. I encourage you to ensure that you format your pos…
8 hours ago
Thanks for sharing this information, Roy. When I was Research Director at The Loyalty Institute, we found that the #1 driver of employee commitment was an organization's efforts to build a sense of spirit and pride. This was true in the US as well…
8 hours ago
As a survey consultant I guess that I should like the idea of conducting monthly surveys, but I am concerned that employees may feel that they are being "over surveyed." There are options, of course. An organization might randomly assign each emplo…
9 hours ago
Kelly Lefebvre, Rob Robson, Chris Hewitt and 1 more were featured
9 hours ago
This is a great read, a great story. I smiled the whole time as I read this. If this conversation is possible in your organization, then I'd say your leadership is trusted and transparent. Thanks for this story.
10 hours ago
Paul M. Mastrangelo added a blog post
I won't be wishing you "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" this December. These secular, generic salutations are popular in corporate America because they are not specific to any one religion or belief system. The business world, like America's…
11 hours ago
David Zinger Mentally engaged with the Great Wall of Saskatchewan as a metaphor for work legacy. http://bit.ly/77lwav
11 hours ago
Hello Paul: "if you want to improve productivity and reduce costs, you need to tap into human nature’s pleasure-fueled engine." I could not agree more but if we wait until after we hire someone we have waited too long. Bob
11 hours ago
A Manager shall know one's team member more than his/her mother knows him/her. Offered by Shweta Mohanty Posted by David Zinger
12 hours ago
Mike Klein Thinking about intersection of sustainability, employee involvement and political activity-things will be more interesting post-Copenhagen
12 hours ago

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