With employers failing to get cut-through with traditional notions of what engages employees, Human Capital Magazine’s Chief Editor, Iain Hopkins, recently interviewed ‘Employee Activated Engagement’ expert Ian Hutchinson, Chief Engagement Officer of LifebyDesign.com.au, who says it’s time for a fresh take on engagement.

In Part 1 of this interview Ian Hutchinson answered questions from Human Capital Magazine such as:

What is the problem with existing models of engagement?

You mention the top-down approach – what’s the alternative?

Now, Part 2 continues:

Human Capital: What are Life by Design’s ‘7 Key Motivational Engagement Drivers’?

Ian Hutchinson: We’ve boiled it down to seven key drivers, which we present as a set of cards (Engagement Driver Card System). Each card has a key word on it (Leadership, Purpose, Reward, Opportunity, Relationships, Job Fulfilment and Work Life Balance). Simplifying it down to seven means that right across the organisation you can have this simple, but powerful conversation around what drives people. People leaders can then understand that there are seven things that engage and motivate their people, but everyone is going to be different in terms of the order of what those are.

For individual employees, they can see there are seven key motivators that really drive them at work. When talking to employees we call them motivators; when talking to HR or people leaders we call them engagement drivers – but they are basically the same thing. One is employee centric, the other is employer centric. Employees are happy to discuss what motivates them – we present them with seven, and ask them to pick their top three for the next 12 months.

HC: So they can be used to kick-start a conversation?

IH: Absolutely. This is engagement 101. The reason most people leaders don’t do that is because they don’t have the tools, skills or resources. They think they are not psychologists or coaches or counsellors, and in the past they’ve been burnt by sitting down with employees and asking, ‘what do you want moving forward?’ Fifty per cent of them won’t know, and the other 50% will probably have a crack at it and will probably get it wrong, thinking it’s either money or opportunity, and it could be some of the other drivers.

HC: Does this approach make it more difficult for managers to manage everyone’s expectations?

IH: It should be happening anyway. Everyone in my team is motivated by a different set of drivers. To get the most out of everyone it’s important to know what everyone’s top motivational drivers are. Once you’ve uncovered what the top three are, it’s a matter of keeping on top of them with development plans (PEP). That’s why we’ve created www.meCentral.com, with a dashboard that managers can use simply and easily to keep track of their team. It’s almost counter-intuitive that you think it takes more work, but actually a 15-minute coffee chat can save you weeks of time.

MeCentral.com is a whole platform to help employees take responsibility with career development, work-life balance, personal finances and other key areas such as motivational drivers. The people leader has a simple window that they can look into showing what the employees’ top motivators are and what the employee believes they would like to do about it, and how they are ranking (in a simple traffic light system). It’s all about employee activated engagement (EAE).

HC: So is it an urban myth that HR is responsible for engagement?

IH: A lot of traditional companies will point to HR because they do the research, so they think HR should know what the problems are and how to fix them. We would say that everyone is responsible for engagement. HR is responsible, sure, for doing an organisational engagement plan(OEP) ; but what’s more effective are leaders being responsible for doing team engagement plans (TEP); and what’s even more effective is getting employees responsible for their own engagement plans (PEP).

For the full PDF copy of this interview email us at info@LifebyDesign.com.au

Add to the discussion!

Please leave your comments, thoughts and questions below

With employers failing to get cut-through with traditional notions of what engages employees, Human Capital Magazines Chief Editor, Iain Hopkins, recently interviewed ‘Employee Activated Engagement’ expert Ian Hutchinson, Chief Engagement Officer of LifebyDesign.com.au, who says it’s time for a fresh take on engagement.

Human Capital: In your view what is the problem with existing models of engagement?

Ian Hutchinson: A lot of organisations have been plugging away, doing their engagement research every year, but many organisations spend 80% of their time on the research and only 20% on the implementation.

Many are getting frustrated – they’re trying to do the right thing but aren’t really getting cut-through. We’re slipping down the global engagement rankings because a lot of organisations are trying to do the same old, same old and using the umbrella approach, the concept that one-size-fits-all. It hasn’t really ever worked. HR has been limited with time and budget, and therefore that’s the only paradigm seen: we’ve done our research, let’s put in some broad brushstroke umbrella solutions where the weak points are, and hope that’s going to keep the tribe relatively satisfied. That’s the top-down approach.

Organisations also tend to shower people with benefits and gifts in a mad hope to try to engage and motivate them, and what that’s done is create this whinge entitlement culture, where employees are becoming conditioned to doing more with less, but what are you going to give me to relieve my pain? By giving them more and more benefits it creates this spoilt whinge entitlement culture – what are you going to give me next Christmas? It actually disenfranchises them; it’s like an only child, the more you do for them, in the hope to show your love, the more you just create a spoilt brat.

HC: You mention the top-down approach – what’s the alternative?

Ian Hutchinson: The approach should be bottom-up. That’s the approach where everyone is an individual, and broad brushstroke initiatives don’t always work. Instead of doing organisational engagement plans (OEP), we need to do personal engagement plans (PEP) and get individual employees responsible for understanding what engages and motivates them.

This is psychologically one of the major obstacles and problems of why engagement hasn’t worked: employees know what they don’t want – that’s easy for them to work out – but few know what they do want. If employees don’t know what motivates and engages them, HR and managers have bucklies. Not only that, if employees don’t know what they want, the default driver usually becomes ‘give me more money’, which is the most expensive and ineffective way of trying to engage and motivate people.

What we’ve found is 70% of engagement can be improved by individual employees themselves – they’re just not aware of it yet.

Part 2 of this interview will be published in future blogs, but for the full PDF copy of this interview email us at info@LifebyDesign.com.au

Add to the discussion!

Please leave your comments, thoughts and questions below

Employee engagement research can be a waste of time and money if you don’t understand the pitfalls.

So what’s wrong with traditional employee engagement research?

Problematic Assumption #1

Taking the general common denominator approach to engagement results will improve research scores

Flaw #1

Only focussing on umbrella engagement solutions or Organisational Engagement Plans (OEP) can help some employees but not all.

Example:

An organisation’s engagement research suggests generally Leadership, Opportunity and Relationships need to be improved throughout the culture and therefore initiatives are put in place. This approach may be a useful starting point for some employees in general. But what if your top talent is motivated by the Job Fulfilment, Reward and Work Life Balance drivers and these factors are not getting satisfied?

Improvement Strategy  #1

One solution doesn’t fit everyone, so focus more on individual engagement solutions – PEP (especially for key talent) more than global organisational engagement strategies.

Strategy:

Use the Engagement Driver Card System (EDCS) or platforms such as meCentral.com  for Personal Engagement Plans (PEP) and Team Engagement Plans (TEP)

Problematic Assumption #2

Focus on the weakest scoring areas in the engagement research to improve research scores

Flaw  #2

Just because an organisational area isn’t scoring well doesn’t mean it is an important motivational driver to individual employees.

Example:

An organisation doesn’t have a strong purpose beyond just making money. So they invest time and money into improving the ‘Purpose’ driver (see the book ‘People Glue’ for a more detailed description of each of the engagement drivers). The reality may be that purpose just isn’t that important to most employees, even though it isn’t scoring well. So why waste time and money on this driver?

Improvement Strategy  #2

Understand first what is important to employees before implementing misguided strategies.

Strategy:

Use the Engagement Driver Card System (EDCS) or platforms such as meCentral.com for Personal Engagement Plans (PEP) and Team Engagement Plans (TEP). meCentral.com also has motivational check ins, that quickly identify the most important drivers to focus on so each employee can improve their own engagement.

I don’t know anyone who likes performance reviews – they have become an annual pain in the backside for most employees and managers.

 When performance reviews are not done well they can become a waste of time for everyone.

Road Map

Traditional performance reviews are very employer-centric. They focus on cascading organisational goals down to an employee’s role in achieving specific requirements for the business. Performance reviews are like a road map, “Get from A to B. Now what milestones have you met and how far along the road have you got?” The result, a smack or a carrot.

Typically Performance Reviews  lack any discussions around the ‘rocket fuel’ used to get the individual along the road map.

Rocket Fuel

Almost every time, the missing link in a performance review is what ‘rocket fuel’ is being used for the employee along the road map? Understanding your peoples’ top motivators and helping fulfil them is this rocket fuel and vital to performance.

Map x Fuel = Performance

We need to reboot our thinking on performance reviews and super charge them with a motivational element.

The flaw in performance reviews is the motivational aspect – the missing rocket fuel. Traditional performance reviews are old school. What is needed for effective achievement of targets and the improvement of engagement are ‘Motivational Performance Reviews’ (MPRs) which have a Personal Engagement Plan (PEP)  or ‘Stay Interview’ component blended in with them.

Question: How do we make performance reviews really improve performance?

Answer: Make them ‘Motivational’ Performance Reviews

Accumulated Benefits

So bring Performance Reviews to life and start doing ‘Motivational Performance Reviews’ (MPR) simply and easily with any of these motivational engagement tools:

• Personal Engagement Plans (PEP) or Stay interviews
• Engagement Driver Card System (EDCS)
• meCentral.com

The accumulated benefits are that they all overlap synergistically creating the outcome of a more engaged, motivated, performing and productive workforce.  As mentioned previously, they can take as little as 15 minutes to do.

The issue is, they are easy to do, but they are easier not to do. Considering the difference they can make, what will you choose?

Well, it depends on the individual … Enter Personal Engagement Plans (PEP).

 If employers don’t know what engages and motivates their people, then they can’t effectively engage them.  As everyone is different, we need to take the “workforce of one” philosophy and treat employees as individuals, not as a team or as an organisation.

 PEP’s are by far the most effective way to engage and motivate people simply and easily – hands down!

Personal Engagement Plan (PEP) Case study

 Take for example Sally – her manager Mike had a Personal Engagement Plan (PEP) coffee chat with her using the Engagement Drivers Card System (EDCS). In 15 minutes, just by identifying her top 3 motivational engagement drivers, Mike was able to make some small adjustments in team responsibilities that put a smile back on Sally’s face!

 Out of the 7 drivers, Sally’s top motivators were Job Fulfilment, Leadership and Opportunity. Mike discovered that Sally enjoyed detailed work, like proof reading and enjoyed being involved with company promotional literature. Mike’s assistant, who normally handled these things, was drained by these activities, and didn’t really have time for them anyway.

The Win-Win

Mike gave these projects to Sally, which gave her more job fulfillment, and she felt rewarded doing something she was good at and liked. With Mike’s encouragement she also had some opportunities to join meetings that involved promotional issues.

Mike also found out that being kept informed and appreciated was important to Sally and he found it easy to let her know when relevant meetings were coming up and also to appreciate the work that she was doing. All of her top motivator scores went up as did her job satisfaction, productivity and engagement!

 Doing a PEP can take as little as 15 minutes to do with tools such as an Engagement Driver Card System (EDCS). PEP’s can even be automated with motivation and engagement systems such as meCentral.com.

 Simple Tips – To Get Started

• Organise a casual  15-30 min coffee chat PEP with one of your team.
• Explore why they like working with the organisation
• See if you can together identify their top 3 motivators (engagement drivers)
• Ask them questions. What would need to change for each motivator to be improved for them?
• Create a Personal Engagement Plan (PEP) using tools such as Engagement Driver Card System (EDCS) or meCentral.com
• Schedule another check-in for 3-6 months’ time
• You’ll be amazed at the outcomes
• Why not schedule one for each of your team now – then you can create an effective Team Engagement Plan (TEP)?

]]> http://lifebydesign.com.au/engage/2012/01/the-power-of-knowing-what-really-engages-individuals/feed/ 3 http://lifebydesign.com.au/engage/2012/01/the-hr-insanity-test/ http://lifebydesign.com.au/engage/2012/01/the-hr-insanity-test/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:48:12 +0000 Ian http://lifebydesign.com.au/engage/?p=962 The HR Insanity Test

Sick of doing engagement research, then trying to implement engagement and retention strategies? Frustrated you’re not getting the productivity and performance impact you had hoped for that would make you an HR Hero?

We have all heard it before – insanity is doing the same things time and time again, but hoping for different results.

Perhaps it’s time to re-think employee engagement and have a paradigm shift. Perhaps we need to stop doing the ineffective old and start doing the revolutionary new.

Continually Flogging a Dead Horse Won’t Make You an HR Hero!

If struggling and being dissatisfied with your current employee engagement results isn’t your cup of tea, then you might like to consider flipping your approach and rebooting the thinking of those around you on employee engagement.

Sure we are all increasingly busy and time poor, so any new approach needs to be simple and easy.

Maybe you have already started to hear about Employee Activated Engagement (EAE). EAE is the self-responsible approach to employee engagement and motivating employees simply and easily. EAE is the key to maximising workforce potential and it takes only a 2% time investment.

Employee Activated Engagement

The fact is many employees know what disengages them (what they don’t want). However, few know what really motivates them (what they do want). If employees don’t know what truly engages them, it is virtually impossible to sustainably engage them and the default driver becomes “Give me more money!”

So Employee Activated Engagement (EAE) intelligently helps employees take responsibility for their own engagement by getting clarity around what motivates them and what they can control themselves. This self-leadership approach reverses the ‘whinge entitlement culture’ and ensures individuals get clarity, and therefore more personal autonomy and control.

 70% of Engagement Can Be Employee-Driven

The good news is that 70% of engagement can be improved by the employee themselves – it’s just that most aren’t aware of it yet!

Why Not Take the Test Now!

Why not test out the concept of EAE for yourself now with our Job Fulfilment Tool (one of the many tools within www.meCentral.com now used by over 30,000 employees)?   Even though Job Fulfilment is only one of the 7 drivers of engagement it is a key motivator for many people. This intuitive tool only takes a few minutes and 90% of individuals find they can improve their Job Fulfilment themselves.

Try out the Job Fulfilment Tool now and please let us know how you go!

The Bad News – Everyone is different, which makes engagement seem complex

The Good News – There are only 7 motivational engagement drivers to understand

The Bad News – Most employees don’t know what they want. Therefore by default money becomes their main motivator

The Good news – Once employees get clarity, 70% of engagement & motivation can be controlled and improved by the individual employee themselves

The 7 Drivers of Engagement

So what are the 7 key drivers that really matter when you talk to your people (in no particular order)?

1. LEADERSHIP

Inspiring leadership keeps people informed and appreciated. Appreciation is the quickest, cheapest and simplest way to engage people.

2. PURPOSE

The organisation has a meaningful purpose, beyond just making money, which makes a real difference. Purpose is increasingly becoming the emotional salary for many employees with 93% of engaged employees feeling that the company has a meaningful purpose.

3. REWARD

Clear links are established between employee performance and company objectives where individuals are fairly rewarded for their contributions to the company’s success. Only 12% of employees leave because of money, so for most, money is not the main motivator. Our job is to find out what is.

4. OPPORTUNITY

A culture of constant learning, full of development opportunities is created where people feel positive about their future career prospects. Many people think; what if you train your people and they leave? Well worse still is; what if you don’t train them and they stay?

5. RELATIONSHIPS

Good, positive, open and collaborative relationships exist between leaders, co-workers and teams. How well do you really know your people? Hobbies, interests, kids names, real motivations or life philosophy?

6. JOB FULFILMENT

The nature of the day-to-day work consistently energises people. When people love what they do, productivity and performance explodes.

7. WORK LIFE BALANCE

An environment exists where people’s lives outside work are supported and encouraged. What are your people’s top priorities and goals outside work?

The Sophistication is in the Simplicity

These engagement drivers are not rocket science, in fact they are quite simple as explained in Ian Hutchinson’s book People Glue and People Glue Leaders Programs.  The hardest part is having everyone throughout the organisation understand them like their A, B, C – a common dialogue.  Know these drivers, have all people leaders understand them, and you and your people are well on the way to embedding a common motivation engagement language with your culture that will boost your chances of raising engagement.

The Bad News – Most managers/people leaders are not psychologist, counsellors or coaches to help employees get clarity on what engages and motivates individuals

The Good News – All the guess work on clarity is eliminated simply and with easy-to-use systems/tools and programs.

So many organisations traditionally conduct employee engagement research to get an overall benchmark of how engaged their workforce is. Based on the findings of the research they’ll probably put in place general engagement strategies (called Organisational Engagement Plans or OEP) to try to improve the culture’s productivity and performance.

Epiphany 1:

Organisational Engagement Plans (OEP) Miss the mark!

These broad brush engagement plans are okay as a starting point, but miss the mark in being totally effective for three key reasons:

1. Effectiveness

Just because employees don’t rate a certain engagement driver highly in the research (e.g. Opportunity), doesn’t necessarily mean strategies to try and improve it should be a priority. For example, growth and development just might not be that important to most employees, so why invest a lot of time and money in strategies to improve the opportunity driver?

2. One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Broad brush strategies aren’t effective for many employees because they focus on the general common denominator or ‘average employee’, rather than specific motivational drivers for the individual. Basically one size doesn’t fit all – never has, never will

3. Limited Resources

Human Resources, due to limited time and money can only focus on a few limited strategies based on top generalised issues identified in the engagement research.

Epiphany 2:

Team Engagement Plans (TEP) Not Specific Enough!

The solution is to create a more unique engagement plan at a team level, and this is where Team Engagement Plans (TEP) can be so useful. But, as in Organisational Engagement Plans (OEP), they can be limited, because what engages the team in general may not be the same as what motivates and engages an individual within that team. Team Engagement Plans (TEP) are better than Organisational Engagement Plans (OEP), but again, one size doesn’t fit all.

Therefore the missing link to effective engagement is to first understand which engagement drivers motivate individuals the most. Only then can we start to develop strategies and solutions that uniquely engage individuals and then create a more productive and better performing team of individuals.

Epiphany 3:

Personal Engagement Plans (PEP) 100% Individualised

So what uniquely motivates and engages an employee? Well, it depends on the individual … Enter Personal Engagement Plans (PEP).

If employers don’t know what engages and motivates their people, then they can’t effectively engage them.  As everyone is different, we need to take the “workforce of one” philosophy and treat employees as individuals, not as a team or as an organisation. PEP’s are by far the most effective way to engage and motivate people simply and easily – hands down!

Now, Personal Engagement Plans (PEP) might sound harder, more time consuming and a bit of a paradigm shift, but really all people leaders should have been doing them all along anyway. Doing a PEP can take as little as 15 minutes to do with tools such as an Engagement Driver Card System (EDCS). PEP’s can even be automated with motivation and engagement systems such as meCentral.com.

Employee engagement (EE) increases performance (P), productivity (P) and profitability ($)  in organisations. EE=P+P+$

Engagement utopia would be having 100% of our employees, 100% motivated and engaged 100% of the time.  Sure, unrealistic but the ideal goal!

Generally speaking, there is a 20:60:20 engagement distribution across the average organisation. For example:

• 20% of employees are ‘toxic’ or actively disengaged.  In fact many organisations would probably be better off if these employees didn’t even turn up at work each day

• 60% of employees are ‘retained’, the complacent coaster, they haven’t yet been given a good enough reason to leave yet

• 20% of employees are ‘actively engaged’, the eager beavers, they love working in the organisation to the point where they’d probably like to buy shares in the company given the opportunity

The Underestimated Soft Skill

Employee engagement and motivation are seen as a soft skill by many people upstairs at the big table, so to make it harder and more tangible (for the bean counters) we have researched the hell out of it. Arhhh… do we all feel better now? NO!

More Research Than Implementation

Many organisations spend the majority of their time and effort (some up to 80%) on employee engagement research, but only 20% on effective engagement strategies.

Organisations are challenged and getting frustrated as many of the engagement solutions they are trying to implement to improve staff retention aren’t getting effective ‘cut through’ and improving employee engagement scores.

So why aren’t many organisations getting the improved engagement results they were hoping for?

It’s a key question …

So, please let us know which future topics are of most interest to you and we will attempt to make them a priority for you in upcoming posts.

More Insightful Issues?

Perhaps we need to uncover the answers to some probing questions such as:

• What REALLY engages individual employees? [Now answered]

• What are the top 6 barriers to effectively engaging employees? [Now answered]

• Who is really responsible for employee engagement? [Now answered]

• Why is the current traditional employee engagement research flawed? [Now answered]

• How do we reverse the whinge entitlement culture and create a self-responsible workforce?

• Is inexperienced leadership killing our cultures’ engagement & motivation?

• What works best – general Organisational Engagement Plans (OEP) or specific Personal Engagement Plans (PEP)? [Now answered]

• How do we make performance reviews engaging and motivational? [Now answered]

• Should we forget exit interviews and just focus on stay interviews?

So please post your comments and thoughts below.

Are we still trying to solve engagement by doing more of the wrong things?

From our recent ‘Obstacles to Engagement’ Research Study we identified six key challenges to effective employee engagement. You may recognise some of them:

1. Ineffective Solutions

“The engagement initiatives we have put in place aren’t getting the results we had hoped for. In fact the more we give our employees the more it seems to create a whinge entitlement culture”

2. Employee Clarity

“Most employees know what they don’t want; fewer know what really motivates and engages them.  If employees don’t know what motivates them – how am I, as their people leader, going to have any chance?”

3. Skills, Tools & Resources

“Our people leaders/managers aren’t psychologists, counsellors & coaches. They don’t have the confidence, skills or tools to have a meaningful discussion (Stay Interview) with their employees around motivation and engagement”

4. Time Poor

“We pay our people. That should motivate them. Also I’m too busy…engagement isn’t part of my KPI’s … anyway it’s a human resources issue isn’t it?”

5. Inaction

“We are not sure what the ideal engagement solutions are for our organisation. We keep procrastinating and our indecision means we haven’t really committed to any engagement initiatives yet. Yikes – it’s almost time to do our next staff engagement survey!”

6. Buy In

“We haven’t been able to get full support for employee engagement from the most important areas of the business yet”

Source: LifebyDesign.com.au “Obstacles to Engagement” Research Study 2011

Solution = Employee Activated Engagement (EAE)

The solution to all of the above engagement challenges is Employee Activated Engagement (EAE): The self-responsibility approach to engagement.

More on EAE in future posts. But in the meantime, lets get the conversation going – so please leave a reply and your thoughts below.