If the 80/20 Pareto principle is true, then here is a HR/employee engagement challenge?!

[Muralidharan Chennai India]

It has been proven time and again, in practice and theory that the 80/20 Pareto principle is mostly true, to whatsoever thing in life you could extrapolate it to...... 80 % of your revenues comes from 20% of your clients...... you spend 20% of time on the most productive things... and the remaining 80% of time on chores.......

Here is the challenge then for recruitment and HR pro's..... If only 20% of your people are going to perform above par, and the remaining 80% are going to hover at average or sub-average, then how do we refine our recruitment strategies and hiring so that atleast 1 in 5 hires at any level are fitments in the top 20%.... Hmm... i would say a really tough call.....

Even tougher would be to strategize and implement an engagement and performance improvement plan to push as many of those in the 80% to the 20%..... Going by what Jack 'the gut' Welch oft stated, your bottom 20% (or was it 1o%), has in any case to be weeded out...

The humongous HR challenge is to create a decisive engagement for the remaining 50% lot, which is engaged, but unable to perform/excel for reasons to be figured out....

Unfortunately, this 50% or 60% are given much lesser attention, while most of the time is spent by management and HR in singing hosannahs of the top 20%........

I would feel that HR would rather focus more on the middle 60%, and make them more engaged to create a winning organisation...... Your top 20% would anycase perform... and retaining them would be a huge challenge...... do whatever, some of that top 20% would go, and you cannot stop it.... and you want the bottom 10 - 20% to go.....

So spend a chunk of HR time in focussing on the middle 50%...... That is a crucial learning, if we have to take it that the Pareto principle is indeed true in HR/recruitment/people management as welll.......

May i request the EE community to comment, agree/disagree, discuss ideas on this?

[Susan Raleigh]

I find a number of the comments made "right on the money" with regards to the handling of the various levels of employees; in particular, I agree with Venka that the different generations have different motivations, especially in terms of their interest in staying in a position or organization. However, after many years in HR, the one factor I find most critical is that knowledge leads to involvement. By this I mean, employees and managers who know not only the organization-wide processes critical to their work but also the how and what is needed to successfully work within each process are more likely to stay engaged and seek out more information. Obviously, the top 20% will aggressively seek out the right contacts to develop this insider knowledge, but the middle 70% usually only learn this when the right contact contacts them and explains how to work the system. Frode's regular communications with his employees is a good way to encourage this sort of networking; another approach that can be very effective is to invite representatives from key departments to small group meetings, such as staff meetings, small enough, and hopefully communal enough that hesitant employees feel safe in asking questions and establishing the contact. Internal networking is empowerment, and empowerment is a major factor in an employee's engagement, and therefore success, in accomplishing the work.

[Frode Heimen]

The top 20 % is easy to motivate, give them a thank you and a greeting each day and they are happy.
The next 70 % need more focus, more training, more coaching and will be able to improve, at least 20 % of them :)
The bottom 10 % is always in the danger zone. You need to get out of that zone fast not to be replaced. But remember, what is the minimum expected production rate? If the bottom 10 % is better than this, well no worries. You can not replace someone meeting the minimum standard. But you might want to rise your minimum standard if it is to easy to pass.

I have a scheduled talk with my employees 1 hour each month. I usually talk to 3-4 people each Tuesday-Thursday. I look at the results, I sit next to them working with them, listening in on calls etc. And we talk about their results, if they are happy, I rate the work happiness from 1-10 and already after two months of this follow up talk, it increases. And we always try to focus on one or two areas to improve, if you fail to improve and are whitin the bottom 10 % you are in the danger zone. But the results are clear - spending so much time on the employees provides better results in 1-2 months. And almost everybody manage to improve the first 3-4 months, as it is natural in human beings to try hard to improve.

[Craig Althof]

I think I'll lean more toward the broader interpretation of 80 / 20 and it is a "for better or worse" proposition. Of course, we're talking generalities here....
The top 20% quality issues generate 80% of your cost of quality.
Your top 20% performers may produce 80% of your results.
The "bottom 20%" (THAT sounds ugly!) may cause HR 80% of their headaches.
I use my top 20% of my talents 80% of the time. The other 20% of my time is spent doing stuff I hate and may not be good at (LESSON--even fully engaged, I may have my "off" periods)
I have a top 20% favorite song styles I listen to 80% of the time, and the bottom 20% is where rap etc belongs (ugh-sorry)

Issue-if you focus 80% of your time on the problematic 20%, there is a negative effect on the top 20%. We all crave attention!
Also, if all we focus on is developing our team's "weaknesses" to an acceptable level of competency, and pay no attention to managing to their strengths, those strengths will soon wither up like an unused muscle.

Deming preached NO QUOTAS or grading on the curve. What if you had a classroom of brilliant straight-A caliber students? OK...it could conceivably happen....but that would mean a proportion of really bright students would fail. That is why I think Welch was all wet in that one regard at least.

Just for discussion!

I just remembered-quite some time ago I did a blog post on what I just described-competency-based development.

If you bring up a weakness to an acceptable level of competency through extra attention / training, but ignore the person's strengths, those strengths will gravitate down toward the "acceptable level of competency" due to neglect and lack of use.

The result? Flatline. Not good medically, not good organizationally.

[Muralidharan Chennai India]

Hi Venka
Thanks for your time and feedback.
Look forward to more thoughts-sharing.
Best Regards
Murali

[Muralidharan Chennai India]

Hi Lisa
Thanks for the time taken.... I thoroughly appreciate the content you have written, and sure it throws some pointers for me to think and carry forward....
Thanks again
Murali

[Lisa Sansom]

I don't think the 80/20 rule applies the way you take it to mean. I don't think it means that 20% will perform above par, but rather that, as an HR practitioner, 20% of your employees will take up 80% of your time.

Speaking from an employee engagement point of view, let's consider three different categories of employees: green, yellow and red. The green employees are wholly engaged - say the top 20% you are talking about. The yellow employees are middling - not entirely engaged, but not actively disengaged either. This would be your middle 60%. The red employees - the bottom 20% - are actively disengaged, worse than "presenteeism" - these employees are detrimental to the organization.

From this point of view, I agree that the bottom 20% simply need to be managed out so that they will either fit better with another organization (which benefits both) or at least destroy a competitor. :-)

However, given that the bottom 20% tends to take up 80% of an HR person's time and energy, now we see the problem. That HR person *should* be spending that 80% on the yellow group - yes, I'm suggesting the yellow, and not the green, group.

Here's the reasoning: the green group is already engaged - they don't need you. They are self-motivated and moving ahead freely and actively. An HR person will only get in the way. But the yellow group needs help, and without positive intervention, could be influenced by the 20% that is the red group.

So I think we are aligned.

All the best with your continued work in this field!

- Lisa Sansom (www.lvsconsulting.com)

[Venka Reddy]

Dear Murali

Good Insights and very innovative!

Truely impressed with your analysis and perspectives on Employee Engagement.

I personally feel HR needs to use "different strokes for different folks". I mean the HR Demographics needs to be categorised as Baby Boomers; Generation X; and Generation Y as each category gets motivated by different set of career anchors which needs to be addressed with different types of Employee Engagement Initiatives in any organisation.

Similarly, the challenge of any Employee Enagagement initiative mainly depends upon "How can we engage the majority?" Also these initiatives have to be seen from "Birds Eye View" by the employees.

Eager to see more fruitfull discussion happening on this topic.

With Regards - Venka Reddy | Mumbai