by admin | Dec 6, 2022 | Human Resources
Employee engagement and experience is at the core of what most Human Resources professionals do on a daily basis. From hiring to succession planning, HR is first and foremost focused on recruiting and retaining top talent. Keeping those talented people engaged in their work is key to achieving positive business outcomes.
Recently, speakers at the 2022 HR Exchange Network Employee Engagement and Experience online event shared their best advice, telling lessons, and hard-won battle stories. Discover the most unforgettable quote on employee engagement and experience from each session:
Putting Belonging in DEI
“What belonging means for us is how you make people feel included, valued. How proud do they feel being part of our brand? How connected are we regardless of where we are and how safe we feel working in this organization.” –Gayatheri Silvakumer, Chief HR and Talent Officer, APAC, McCann Worldgroup
What’s Next in Employee Experience?
“We’re building in the mobile application – push notifications that say, ‘Have you thought about this role?’ We look at potential lateral moves for skillsets. It sends reminders, bits of news. We’re sharing our commitment to ESG with people.”-Graeme Poules, People Director, Employee Experience and Operations, Bupa
Cloud Solutions for Efficiency in Employee Engagement
“Newer cloud solutions are much easier to integrate, so you can choose a strategy where you’ll be implementing the best solution for the best purpose. It’s much easier in the cloud than on premises, for sure.”-Frederik Skyggebjerg, Head of Solution Consulting for APAC at Unit4
Employee Engagement Is Change Management
“What transformation really does is put a lot of strain on engagement. It is a fact. This is not unfamiliar to all of us. But an HR leader like me, who is experiencing this, there are employees who are feeling overwhelmed, confused, sometimes disconnected, angry. I would also like to highlight the fact that with COVID, all that the world has faced over the past couple of years, the threshold for the employee to take stress has really gone down. There are a lot of studies available that fatigue sets in much faster. Coupled with transformation, it hits employees. Could the Great Resignation be happening because there is continuous change?” –Trupti Mohan, Vice President HR Asia-Pacific, Fresenius Medical Care
Add the Joy
“I really, really believe the future of work should be purpose-led and fun. I don’t think it should be a chore, where people wake up on a Monday morning dreading it. It should be something they’re really excited about as well.”-Sharenya S. Kumar, former General Manager Employee Experience, Crown Resorts
Equip HR Teams for Success with a Digital-First Approach
“Digital-first means we can be more inclusive and intentional on how we work. It lets us stay focused on great outcomes…Everyone may be remote, working in different places and time zones, yet communication and collaboration are the lifeblood of any successful company.”-Meiyea Neo, HR Director, Zendesk
Know the Difference Between GBS and Shared Services
“[Global Business Services] is more integrated. It’s an advanced version of the shared service model. It’s evolved from new demands that have come up as the world has gotten more global and organizations have gotten more global. It’s truly a more global model. Shared services can be more regional, country-based, or multinational based.”-Eithne Freeney, Employee Experience Sales Manager ANZ, ServiceNow
Importance of Recognition
“When I feel validated at work, I can take my hand and tap my shoulder and say, ‘I added value today,’ because I belong to an organization that is creating the most amazing change in the workforce. Having that belonging and having that understanding of where you are in the workforce is really the heart-centered way of how an organization operates. That is what people are saying and asking for in our organizations.” –Shereen Williams, Director People and Culture Technology & Innovation at Standard Chartered
Slow and Steady Wins
“I can’t stress this enough, and I’m sure I have many allies in the HR community, who may be on this call and may have influenced stakeholders, that any focus on culture and engagement takes time. You really need to focus and chip away if you’re going to see a consistent change.” –David Monti, Senior Manager Culture and Engagement, Transport for NSW
Look Within for Strength
“As we all know, the competition for talent is fiercer than ever, post COVID-19. So, the talent you’re looking for is likely already in your organization. It’s just a case of finding it by aligning the skills of your integral workforce to the work required rather than aligning the individual to the problem.” –Chris Broadway, Technology Sales Manager, PeopleScout
By Francesca Di Meglio
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
by admin | Nov 28, 2022 | Human Resources
Human Resources management is always evolving. Over the years, it has become a more prominent part of every business because it is principally responsible for recruiting and retaining the talent that allows the organization to achieve goals and flourish.
No longer merely an administrative department, Human Resources professionals align talent management and hiring decisions with business objectives. They are welcome in the C-suite, and their reach continues to expand beyond overseeing hiring, benefits, and company regulations.
Talent Management
Talent management refers to the strategy of HR. In other words, this role is about recruiting the right talent, getting them onboarded, retaining them, and helping them grow their careers. This is at the core of an HR professional’s duties. However, much goes into the process of finding and retaining top talent. It requires aplomb, creative thinking, and relationship building.
Recruiting and Talent Acquisition
The first step in Human Resources is recruiting and talent acquisition. It is the job of HR professionals to find top talent by looking either internally or externally, conducting interviews and tests, and negotiating compensation and benefits. Creating a positive workplace culture and offering compensation and benefits packages, along with perks, that entice job applicants and win over top talent are among the tasks at hand.
Compensation and Benefits
Obviously, a big part of the work that HR professionals conduct is managing compensation and benefits. This task includes determining the value of different people in different roles and seeking benefits like health insurance, retirement savings, loan forgiveness, paid time off (PTO), sick days, mental health days, and more.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Employee engagement and experience cover a vast array of efforts to ensure people are happy enough at work to stay. Getting employees to focus on work, harness their creative powers, and fulfill their obligations to their teams is a major component of HR’s role.
This task requires demonstrating gratitude, helping bring out the best in employees, and making job satisfaction a priority. It could include hosting the holiday party, taking feedback from employees and responding with corresponding action, or creating an atmosphere fertile for collaboration.
Learning and Development
HR often oversees all training from onboarding and orientation to learning opportunities designed for career growth or skills development. Learning and development has become paramount as organizations make themselves future ready and try to win the war for talent. Many job applicants and employees are looking for employers to help them gain skills and become fit for promotion or more attractive in the job market.
Succession Planning
Creating talent pipelines, both internal and external, is the goal of Human Resources. An important role the department plays in organizations is ensuring consistent leadership without gaps. Succession planning, the strategy for replacing leaders as they leave and creating mentorship and preparation for passing the baton, is vital to any organization’s success.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In the modern workplace, HR professionals must spearhead efforts to build a diverse team and then ensure these different individuals unite and gain a sense of belonging that fosters collegiality. Included in this role is closing pay and opportunity gaps. The responsibility is great. It may require providing training, communication, and persistence. Keeping the topic front of mind and demonstrating need to leadership are also big parts of DEI efforts.
Mental Health and Wellness
Increasingly employees expect Human Resources to demonstrate empathy and care for individuals by providing access to mental healthcare, helping them relieve stress, and promote better work-life balance through policies and regulations. This task has meant that many HR professionals are educating themselves, considering new benefits for employees, and guiding managers and leaders to connect on a deeper, more personal level with employees.
Expansion of Human Resources Management
Human Resources is no longer an administrative task or an arm of a company’s executives. In the modern workplace, HR professionals are builders of community. They connect with employees, nurture relationships with them, and constantly work to improve the employee experience both to recruit and retain top talent. HR leaders are now essential to the C-suite, and align their talent management efforts with those of the business’ overarching goals.
By Francesca Di Meglio
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
by admin | Nov 14, 2022 | Human Resources
First came the pandemic, which was followed by The Great Resignation and the labor shortage, and now quiet quitting. Employers are challenged to attract and retain employees among all these upheavals, keep them engaged, and maintain a psychologically safe work environment.
Higher wages, hiring bonuses, increased benefits packages all sound like possible solutions. If your current retention strategy is not having the impact you want, it’s time to think beyond traditional financial incentives. Consider exploring emotional compensation, which Michael Lee Stallard, cofounder and president of E Pluribus Partners, a think tank and consultancy, believes will be increasingly important and valued by employees.
Emotional compensation is based on meeting seven universal human needs that allow people to thrive at work. They are respect, recognition, meaning, belonging, autonomy, personal growth, and progress. Stallard says that the resulting sense of connection from having these needs met engenders positive emotions and makes us feel connected to our work and our colleagues. Developing this connection dramatically increases an organization’s chance of retaining employees.
Let’s look at each of these universal needs with a focus on what managers can do. Since they work closely with their team on a daily basis, they are well positioned to take action. There are so many things that leaders in organizations can do to create a culture of respect. It starts, of course, with living the values. Beyond that:
Show Interest
Precisely, show your current staff the kind of interest you took in them when you were recruiting them to join your organization regardless of their tenure or how well you think you know them. Ask sincere, open-ended questions and listen carefully to their responses. You will probably be amazed at what you learn.\
Ask Their Opinion
Since they are closest to the work, ask about possible solutions to real problems. Listen to their answers and give feedback. If you can’t adopt their idea, let them know the business reasons why. If you can use it, give them credit publicly and if possible, reward them too. Being asked lets employees know you value their knowledge and intelligence.
Recognition
One of the simplest things a manager can do to express employee appreciation and recognition is to say thank you—and it costs nothing to do so. With all the hand wringing over employees quitting their jobs, employee recognition should be paramount on every manager’s task list.
Let them know their work matters. Let people know often how much value they and their work bring to your organization. Let them know they make a difference. Send personal, handwritten notes. You’d be surprised how powerful that can be. Silence, on the other hand, can send a negative message—that the work and the worker has no value.
Meaning
We all want to do work that matters—that has a purpose. Every employee wants to feel a connection to their organization’s mission and values.
Explain where they fit. Let each employee know how their work fits into the work of your department, and how the department’s work fits into the organization’s strategic goals, mission, and values. For example, describe to support staff, like procurement or accounting, how their work supports the sales and engineering departments, which bring in the organization’s revenue.
Talk more about why you do certain things in your department. It can make a big difference if people know not just that some tasks must be done but why those tasks are significant to the big picture.
Belonging
Make room for light-hearted fun in the workplace. When people are having fun, they are happier, friendlier and open, fostering workplace friendships. Workplace friendships taps into the basic need for a sense of belonging and removes any feeling of being in competition with coworkers.
Light-hearted fun has such a positive impact on productivity, engagement and retention. It lets employees know that they belong—belong to a team and an organization that values their emotional well-being. It also unleashes creativity, which can result in higher productivity.
Autonomy
Autonomy and flexibility are critical for retaining staff, especially now. In this world of virtual work, autonomy allows for a degree of control over one’s working conditions and processes. It includes the flexibility of where work and when is performed. Managers must examine what work hours, scheduling, and patterns are best for individuals and their teams; how work is organized and accomplished; and how flexibility impacts productivity and outcomes to meet the needs of all.
Employees must still be accountable to get the work accomplished and be available for meetings, calls, and other collaborative efforts.
Assuming you can offer your employees more autonomy, listen to them and understand their needs. One thing we learned during the pandemic: If employees are treated in a supportive and humane way, productivity doesn’t suffer.
Personal Growth
Employees want the opportunity to learn and grow. It’s one reason cited for them leaving their jobs. And it’s so much easier to recruit internally than externally, especially in tight labor markets.
Create a Learning Culture
Encourage your employees to be lifelong learners. It starts by modeling lifelong learning behaviors, such as sharing podcasts, TedTalks, and YouTube videos. Consider developing a resource library including books, articles, webcasts, podcasts, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Encourage employees to contribute to this resource and to share the things they are learning. It will keep them engaged and expand their professional and personal interests.
Progress
You’ve made growth opportunities available to your employees, but how do you know if progress is being made? Follow up with an employee once they’ve taken advantage of an opportunity. Ask them what they’ve learned, what needs clarification, if others might benefit, and how they might apply what they learned.
Such questions and feedback provide managers an opportunity to consider new assignments, projects, or tasks—perhaps a growth assignment—that could help prepare the employee for future roles with the organization, a way for an employee to progress.
Of course, employees must take responsibility for their growth and progress, but managers guide them through this journey and help set realistic career goals.
According to Gallup, employee engagement has declined for the first time in more than a decade, from 36% engaged employees in 2020 to 34% in 2021—and now 32% in 2022. What better time for organizations to focus on how to create the connections people want and organizations need?
By Cornelia Gamlem and Barbara Mitchell
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
by admin | Nov 8, 2022 | Hot Topics, Human Resources
“What gets recognized gets reinforced, and what gets reinforced gets repeated.”
-Unknown
In today’s ultra-competitive work environment, the companies with the winning edge are the ones that have the best-trained and well-skilled staff. However, even the best employees cannot perform well (or may even jump ship) when they are not motivated enough. Praise and recognition provide the kind of positive experience that can increase employees’ morale, motivation and engagement, and renew their commitment to their organization. This is why employee praise and recognition in the workplace has to be an innate part of any company’s culture.
What is Employee Recognition?
Employee recognition is the acknowledgment of a company’s staff for exemplary performance. It is the timely informal or formal acknowledgement of a person’s behavior, effort, or business result that supports the organization’s goals and values and exceeds normal expectations.
Why Employee Recognition Matters
One of the biggest motivators for employees is to be held in high esteem by their peers. The best way of earning this respect is to be acknowledged for being good at what they do.
An increasing number of businesses are becoming proponents of mutual recognition, claiming that asking colleagues to praise each other helps to create a genuine atmosphere of positivity and fuels a sense of belonging and purpose. Employees thrive off acknowledgement and praise. Especially in the age of hybrid and remote work, it is not uncommon to experience feelings of isolation, so knowing that your co-workers appreciate you and value your input can help to effectively combat this.
But don’t just take our word for it – there’s plenty of data to back up the value of employee recognition programs.
One of the benefits of recognition and praise is that it helps create employee engagement. Workers won’t be engaged if they feel like nobody cares. A manager who praises is one who’s paying attention to the work and the worker. That personalized attention is crucial for the creation of an emotional bond between employees and the organization. And the strength of that bond, in turn, is behind higher productivity, lower turnover, fewer mistakes and accidents, and ultimately, higher profits.
Another benefit of employee recognition and praise in the workplace is that it can be the foundation of cultivating a culture of self-improvement. One of the best methods for staff recognition is to provide them with opportunities to learn and make themselves better at what they do. To take it a step further, it is also ideal to incentivize learning – reward those who have taken the time to focus on self-improvement.
There are countless ways to put employee recognition in the workplace into action; however, it all begins with company culture. A winning employee recognition program starts with having a company culture that advocates appreciation for top performers. This can be the foundation for solid staff engagement, continuous employee development, and an integral part of the company’s retention strategy for the future.
by admin | Sep 20, 2022 | Hot Topics, Human Resources
By all accounts, the United States is likely heading into a recession. Already, the country experienced two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product (GDP), which is a red flag.
Other signs include inflation, the cooling down of venture capitalist’s investment, a declining stock market, and varying interest rates. However, a strong job market persists, which throws off the usual domino effect, according to CNBC. Still, how people feel about their financial prospects matters, too.
Most Human Resources leaders are preparing for the worst. A recession is marked by an extended downturn in the economy, layoffs, unemployment, and lower consumer spending. For HR, recessions are magnified because they usually face the downsizing of their own department and the need to layoff talent, make due with less, and face the obvious consequences, which include having to constrict budget and lose talent pipelines for succession.
Therefore, Human Resources is usually keen on recession-proofing their business, and many have begun to do just that. Here are some ways to prepare for the coming storm:
Stick to the Budget
The pandemic made employees rethink their lives and shift their priorities. As a result, many were willing to leave the workforce unless employers transformed how they worked. The consequence was the Great Resignation. Whether one likes or hates that title, there is no question that the phenomenon of people quitting and a resulting labor shortage, which is also dependent on changing demographics, are real.
HR responded with signing bonuses and hefty pay raises. They plussed perks and benefits. With an oncoming recession, however, some of these tools for attracting talent must be curtailed or flat out stopped. Those with the future in mind are cutting back and avoiding risk when developing budgets.
Prioritize Employee Engagement and Experience
Smart Human Resources leaders recognize that the pandemic earned them their seat among C-suite executives. Business leaders are well aware that the talent churning out the work is vital to their success.
In many ways, employee engagement and experience is even more important in a recession. If there are layoffs, the people who remain become paramount. At the same time, they are likely overworked and stressed by the economy, not to mention the prospects of their organization. HR should step in and show gratitude and do what it can to keep up morale. Writing thank you cards and lending an ear are affordable ways to connect with workers.
Be Transparent
Transparency is of the utmost importance during a recession. Obviously, organizations keep their plans for layoffs under wraps until the last minute. However, they should be able to offer honesty to the employees who remain.
Obviously, they are going to be concerned for their own future, what these layoffs mean for the future of the company, and how their work life will change from this point on. Will they be doing more work to fill in for those who had been let go? Are there going to be freezes on annual raises? How grave is the situation?
Human Resources is the conduit for communication with workers. HR leaders can communicate forthrightly and encourage executives to do the same. They can set up town halls, similar to the ones they planned during the pandemic, with business leaders in their organization. This kind of approach is crisis management 101.
Be Prepared for Layoffs
Layoffs are already happening at a number of companies, including Peloton, Netflix, and Ford. Google announced a hiring freeze. So, realistic HR leaders will prepare themselves for the possibility of stalemate at best and layoffs at worst. Also, they will avoid layoff mistakes, like informing people they are being let go in a cruel way like, for example, over a group Zoom meeting. While no one wants a recession to happen, smart HR leaders are getting ready for the worst case scenarios.
By Francesca Di Meglio
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
by admin | Sep 13, 2022 | Hot Topics, Human Resources, Workplace
Many young employees from Gen Z are taking to TikTok to express their frustration about the workplace and profess their practice of quiet quitting. Essentially, they are remaining at their jobs and still receiving paychecks and benefits, but they are sticking strictly to their the job descriptions and maintaining precise schedules.
On social media, some are bragging about doing the bare minimum because of their disappointment in their employer or simply as a lifestyle choice. Some older workers are suggesting this is a result of laziness or lack of ambition. Many in Gen Z argue that they are simply doing what is expected of them contractually, and nothing more, to maintain work-life balance.
The Phenomenon of Quiet Quitting
More than 3.9 million TikTok posts (and presumably counting) have addressed this phenomenon. Many explain that quiet quitting is really about setting boundaries and improving work-life balance or fighting the proverbial man.
“You’re not quiet quitting,” says Claudia Alick in a TikTok video. “You’re just resisting being stolen from. Unfortunately, that’s how capitalism works. That’s how they make a profit. The profit comes from you not getting paid your full value.”
But some career experts and even other TikTok users suggest that young employees are playing with fire. By never going above and beyond, they are making themselves vulnerable to layoffs at a time when budget is a concern. In addition, they might rule themselves out of promotions down the road.
Emily Smith, a TikTok user, reminds people that their boss might not know all their tasks or how long it takes for them to get everything done. She suggests having a conversation about what to prioritize and how to spread out the deadlines is a better route than quiet quitting. Others suggest this practice is bad news for employers.
“Experts say any lack of motivation among a company’s youngest workers can become a troubling sign. ‘Organizations are dependent on employees doing more than a minimum,'” says Mark Royal, senior director for Korn Ferry Advisory, according to a Korn Ferry blog.
What Should HR Do?
HR leaders should investigate the phenomenon of quiet quitting to determine whether it is happening at their organization. After all, a lack of employee engagement is top of mind in Human Resources. Thirty percent of those who responded to the latest State of HR report said employee engagement and experience is their top priority.
The pandemic forced people to rethink their lifestyle and reprioritize work. For many, family, friends, and personal pursuits have replaced work in the top spot. Some say that quiet quitting is the new checking out. Regardless, the Great Resignation has shown that employers, who do not take these shifts in culture seriously, will pay in a loss of talent.
At the same time, the top consequence of the pandemic, according to the respondents of State of HR, was burnout. That may be why TikTok users are leading the charge to demand better working conditions. Certainly, HR leaders are responding with different benefits, such as unlimited PTO and zen rooms, and policies like devising rules that limit calls and emails outside of work hours.
Even Goldman Sachs, famous for its 100-hour work weeks for associates, is requiring employees to take paid time off. Salesforce is testing work weeks with no meetings. Others are experimenting with four-day work weeks, flexibility in when and where employees work, and company-wide vacation days. This experimentation is part of the transformation of work that everyone is witnessing post pandemic.
The question becomes whether quiet quitting is an afront to employers that will degrade their ability to serve customers and innovate or is simply a new way of working that puts people’s personal lives and wellbeing above everything else. Perhaps, this is just part of the cultural shift and workplace transformation the country has been experiencing since the start of the pandemic.
By Francesca Di Meglio
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
