The Challenge for HR

The evidence indicates that for it to be successful, leaders have to champion and line managers have to lead engagement. But the HR profession and HR practitioners have a vital role to play. As Jackie Orme, the Chief Executive of CIPD emphasised to us, a key challenge for the profession was to ensure that employee engagement ‘gets put on the table’ in companies and organisations.
“HR can’t manufacture engagement, but we have a key role in helping companies develop the kind of organisational culture where engagement can thrive, and ensuring that managers have the skills to make engagement a reality.” According to CIPD’s recent discussion paper An HR Director’s Guide to Employee Engagement (June 2009) HR professionals needed both to recognise the importance of engagement and ensure access to a wide range of tools and techniques to facilitate line management effectiveness at engagement.
At the same time, engagement underlines the importance of HR engaging with business strategy and goals, as well as ensuring that wider HR policies and practices which impact on engagement, such as training and development, are in place. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, there is a danger that HR can get separated from people issues such as engagement. “When business executives talk about HR, they focus on things like reward and benefits, performance evaluations, and HR operating efficiency. But when these same executives talk about people issues, they focus on strategic challenges such as talent management, workforce productivity and leadership development.”134
Many respondents to this review pointed to the strategic opportunity that employee engagement represented for HR to re-establish the profession at the heart of business and organisational success, rather than being viewed as a cost centre or administrative function.

Employee satisfaction

Why measure employee satisfaction?
Many organisations conduct regular employee satisfaction surveys. They are based on the premise that happy, enthusiastic employees will perform more effectively on behalf of the employer than employees who are alienated from the organisation's objectives. So if areas are found where employees are not satisfied, initiatives can be taken to address the areas of dissatisfaction. This should provide benefits in the areas of
• Employee retention
• Sickness / unauthorised absence level
• Employee performance
• Product / service quality
• Customer satisfaction
• Market share
• Profit
So an effort to improve employee satisfaction should lead to an improvement in the quality of your products or services; customer satisfaction and, for commercial organisations, a competitive advantage, increased market share and improved profit.
By conducting employee satisfaction surveys, you send a message to employees that their views are of interest to management. This can affect their perceptions to some degree, and it is most important to remember that it creates expectations. Employees might conclude that management wouldn't ask about working conditions if they weren't willing to consider improving them. If the employee satisfaction surveys show dissatisfaction about working conditions, however, and you do nothing about them, and then after a year has gone by further employee satisfaction surveys come out asking about working conditions, the employees' perception of your attitude toward them and the surveys process will dramatically change. Typically, the response rate will diminish and the cynicism of the responses will increase.
This incidental effect of running employee satisfaction surveys must not be overlooked but it is not the main purpose of the survey, whose role is as a diagnostic tool, not part of the treatment.
Satisfaction = Performance?
The link between employee satisfaction and employee performance is not as direct as we intuitively assume and many "key" satisfaction measures seem to have little link with either individual job performance or corporate performance. One can imagine some people being very satisfied with a job in which they seldom had to do anything but their contentment clearly wouldn't lead to high individual or corporate performance.
Measures usually referred to under the headings "commitment" or "engagement" do seem to correlate with performance, though. If your objective is to improve employee performance, we can help you to measure and then target for improvement the employee satisfaction survey measures which seem to be performance-related.
What's in a name
When you conduct research to discover how your employees feel about your organisation and their situation in it, we prefer to call them employee satisfaction surveys.
Employee
Instead of employee, you may choose to say staff, provided there is no one in your organisation who might feel excluded from that group.
Satisfaction
The traditional word was attitude, and an employer who wanted to hear from employees conducted an employee attitude survey. In these times, perhaps under the influence of the USA, the word attitude has acquired negative connotations, and it now seems inadvisable to suggest that our employees might have "an attitude". Another popular option is opinion, which seems harmlessly accurate, but we still prefer satisfaction. You are probably concerned that your customers should be satisfied with the goods or services you deliver. You expect your employees to be concerned about customer satisfaction too.
You would probably agree that your employees are most likely to be successful in delivering customer satisfaction if they are themselves satisfied with their lot. So we advise that you take as much interest in employee satisfaction as you do in customer satisfaction, and call the surveys employee satisfaction surveys.

Employee Motivation

Ten tips for questionnaires on employee motivation
1. What is the 'primary aim' of your company?
Your employees may be more motivated if they understand the primary aim of your business. Ask questions to establish how clear they are about your company's principles, priorities and mission.
2. What obstacles stop employees performing to best effect?
Questionnaires on employee motivation should include questions about what employees are tolerating in their work and home lives. The company can eliminate practices that zap motivation.
3. What really motivates your staff?
It is often assumed that all people are motivated by the same things. Actually we are motivated by a whole range of factors. Include questions to elicit what really motivates employees, including learning about their values. Are they motivated by financial rewards, status, praise and acknowledgment, competition, job security, public recognition, fear, perfectionism, results...
4. Do employees feel empowered?
Do your employees feel they have job descriptions that give them some autonomy and allow them to find their own solutions or are they given a list of tasks to perform and simply told what to do?
5. Are there any recent changes in the company that might have affected motivation?
If your company has made redundancies, imposed a recruitment freeze or lost a number of key people this will have an effect on motivation. Collect information from employees about their fears, thoughts and concerns relating to these events. Even if they are unfounded, treat them with respect and honesty.
6. What are the patterns of motivation in your company?
Who is most motivated and why? What lessons can you learn from patches of high and low motivation in your company?
7. Are employee goals and company goals aligned?
First, the company needs to establish how it wants individuals to spend their time based on what is most valuable. Secondly this needs to be compared with how individuals actually spend their time. You may find employees are highly motivated but about the "wrong" priorities.
8. How do employees feel about the company?
Do they feel safe, loyal, valued and taken care of? Or do they feel taken advantage of, dispensable and invisible? Ask them what would improve their loyalty and commitment.
9. How involved are employees in company development?
Do they feel listened to and heard? Are they consulted? And, if they are consulted, are their opinions taken seriously? Are there regular opportunities for them to give feedback?
10. Is the company's internal image consistent with its external one?
Your company may present itself to the world as the 'caring airline', 'the forward thinking technology company' or the 'family hotel chain'. Your employees would have been influenced, and their expectations set, to this image when they joined your company. If you do not mirror this image within your company in the way you treat employees you may notice motivation problems. Find out what the disparity is between the employees image of the company from the outside and from the inside.
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what makes you most influential in HR

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MOST INFLUENCED HR FOR THIS YEAR

I HOPE ITS MORE USEFUL TO HR PEOPLE

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At a glittering ceremony at Claridge’s in London last night, HR magazine, in association with Ceridian, announced the 50 most influential thinkers and practitioners in the industry.

On receiving his certificate Fairhurst, senior vice president/ chief people officer at McDonald’s Restaurants Northern Europe, said: "I can’t emphasise how important it is to be recognised and appreciated by peers. I want to thank my brilliant team and my CEO for their support. I think it is vital that we represent the HR profession as best we can."

Clare Chapman, director-general, workforce, National Health Service, was voted number two on the most influential practitioners list – the highest rank for an HR practitioner in the public sector. Stepping up to the podium, she said: "This is a massively important time for our profession. We have huge challenges to face this year - but I look forward to seeing some really innovative practice which we can celebrate this time next year. My real hope is that we'll all use our leadership and the HR profession to secure rather than erode trust in the workplace and be proud of how we've handled the downturn".

Dave Ulrich was unable to attend the event due to prior commitments in America, but sent some words via video link. He said: "I am extremely humbled and honoured to be voted Most Influenetial for the fourth year running."

Lynda Gratton, professor of management practice at London Business School, was ranked number two in the Most Influential thinkers list, the highest place for an academic based in the UK. She said: "A major recession has made things difficult for HR – but recessions are wonderful opportunities for innovation and for well held views to be legitimised. This year has brought a much more team-centred approach to HR."

The top 30 Practitioners

1	David Fairhurst	Senior vicepresident/ chief people officer McDonald's Europe
2	Clare Chapman	Director general, Workforce National Health Service
3	Martin Tiplady	Director of HR Metropolitan Police Service
4	Imelda Walsh	HR director Sainsbury's
5	Angela O'Connor	Chief people officer National Policing Improvement Agency
6	Liane Hornsey	HR director Google
7	Vance Kearney	Vice president HR (EMEA) Oracle
8	Caroline Waters	director of people and policy BT
9	Theresa Proctor	HR director Tesco Stores
10	Richard Smelt	Group HR director Northern Rock
11	Catherine Glickman	group managing director, HR Tesco
12	Helen Giles	HR director Broadway
13	Stephen Dando	Executive vice president and chief HR officer Thomson Reuters
14	Stephen Moir	director of people, policy and law Cambridgeshire County Council (and ex-president of PPMA)
15	Ann Almeida	Group managing director, HR HSBC
16	Dave Gartenberg	HR director Microsoft UK
17	Gillian Hibberd	corporate director (people, policy and communications) Buckinghamshire County Council and president of the PPMA
18	Rachel Campbell	Head of people management KPMG
19	John Ainley	Group HR director Aviva
20	Tanith Dodge	HR director Marks & Spencer
21	Gareth Williams	HR director Diageo
22	Paula Larson	Executive vice president HR at Invensys
23	Graham White	Director of HR Westminster City Council
24	Anne Copeland	HR director Department for Children, Schools & Families
25	Kevin White	Director general for HR at the Home Office
26	Alan Walters	Vice president, HR Unilever UK & Ireland
27	Stephen Kelly	Group HR director Logica
28	Claire Thomas	Senior vice president,HR at GlaxoSmithKline
29	Madalyn Brooks	HR director, UK and Ireland Procter & Gamble
30	Hugh Mitchel	Global head of HR Royal Dutch Shell

The top 20 Thinkers

1	Dave Ulrich,	Professor of business, University of Michigan
2	Lynda Gratton,	Professor of management London Business School
3	Linda Holbeche	Director of research and policy CIPD
4	Jackie Orme	Chief executive, CIPD
5	Will Hutton	Chief executive at The Work Foundation
6	Cary Cooper	Professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University Management School
7	Rob Goffee	Professor of organisational behaviour London Business School
8	Adrian Furnham	Professor of psychology .University College London
9	Trevor Phillips	Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission
10	Duncan Brown	Director of HR business development at Institute for Employment Studies
11	Wayne Clarke	Managing partner Best Companies
12	Nick Holley	Director, HR centre of excellence Henley Business School
13	Andrew Mayo	Professor of human capital management, Middlesex University Business School
14	Paul Sparrow	Director of the centre for performance-led HR at Lancaster University Management School
15	Shaun Tyson	Emeritus professor of HR management Cranfield University
16	Richard Lambert	director general, CBI
17	David Guest	Professor of organisational psychology and HR management at King's College London
18	Brendan Barber	General secretary, Trades Union Congress
19	Maria Yapp	Chief executive, Xancam
20	Robert Peston	Business editor, BB