Having worked at C2 at the Careers Group, I have had the opportunity to work with and get to know a number of Careers Advisers. This has enabled me to learn (or unlearn) a great deal about the very important subject that is ‘Careers’

The Careers Adviser cannot tell you what you should do. You could do anything you wanted! If you don’t know what you want, the careers adviser can help you think about it, (and in this role they are indispensable) but ultimately it is you who is going to have to develop your own ideas. It will probably take a lot of time and effort, but it is definitely worth the investment as choosing a career that makes you happy is arguably one of the most important choices you will ever make. As Confucius says,

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According to Daniel Pink in his book ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’ these 3 things are: Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose

Not money? I hear you ask. Surprisingly not. Experiments on both MIT students as well as People from Rural India have shown that for tasks that required rudimentary cognitive skill (i.e. not a routine mechanical task.) Increased financial incentives often lead to lower levels of performance.

Money however does play a part in motivation in the sense that people need to feel like they are being paid enough, but once people feel like they are paid a fair wage, more money seems to lead to worse results.

Very counter intuitive eh?

Autonomy

Dan Pink argues that corporate culture which values compliance, often runs counter to this. A software company Atlassian, gave their employees 1 working day every 3 months with which to use however they saw fit, and to report back after 24 hours. In just one day, numerous software bugs were fixed and a plethora of product ideas were proposed. Highly successful.

Mastery

“Why do people put so much time and effort into learning to play the guitar?” Asks Dan. “It doesn’t get them a mate or earn them any money – It doesn’t make economic sense”

Why do professionals who have paid jobs, volunteer their precious free time working on software like Linux and websites like Wikipedia? Because it’s a challenge and makes a difference, which leads to the last point.

Purpose

More and more organisations are realising the importance of having a ‘transcendent purpose’ because it helps to attract and retain talent.  When profit is prioritised over purpose, things can go askew with ‘bad products and lame services’ Organisations that are animated by a purpose (Skype and Apple are given as examples) tend to flourish.

So how does this compare with what you guessed?

The video clip is well worth watching for it’s FANTASTIC cartoon drawing. The link is below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Unfortunately,  only around half of line managers are held accountable for their teams’ engagement levels, a shame because during this time of economic hardship managers are well placed to play a key role in supporting and motivating staff who may have problems outside of work. 

Here at C2 Careers we often meet individuals who are looking to make a career change, not because they are ill-matched to their current role, but rather because either they feel that they are not appreciated within their organisation or because they have a bad relationship with their current line manager.

Managers in this way seem to be the missing link between measuring engagement and implementing engagement strategies.

How does an organisation go about engaging employees?

If not already, measure employee engagement through surveys etc. May sound like common sense but is not done in one-third of organisations.

Link engagement to business outcomes. In other words engaging employees can and does have an effect on the bottom line! These are not two independent variables, however roughly half of businesses seem to think they are. According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, barely more than 1 in 10 (of top executives and board members) say that their companies regularly take action to tackle staff with continually low engagement.

Invest in your Line Managers. These are the people in the position to drive employee engagement, give them the training to do this well. “What if executives’ bonus pay-out were dependent on achieving a certain level of employee engagement?” asks Michael Moran: CEO of Fairplace.

Have a clear communication strategy. You as a business market yourself to the outside world, why not to the inside as well? Be clear what your objectives/strategies are and have everyone clear about which direction to face. Listen to your employees also helps bring them on board. This method is specifically worth thinking about as it is a good ways of improving engagement at a low financial cost.

When we at C2 Careers deal with clients who have been made redundant from a restructuring process. we often find they are highly frustrated not necessarily because of the restructuring process itself but rather because it was carried out without any input from them. This kind of one-way-street communication can and does have a big impact on engagement, not only for those who are loosing their jobs, but also on those left behind. For an interesting article on this issue, click here

“It’s a long journey and there are no short cuts. You have to put in the resources, allow staff the time to fill in surveys and attend focus groups, do all the necessary training, coaching and communication. What’s vital is that you actually go out and act on the feedback,” according to the director of colleague engagement at Sainsbury’s: Jacki Connor. This according to her has had a palpable impact of the bottom line. “In our case, if a store is scoring well on our employee survey ‘Talkback’, it will also very likely be achieving high mystery shopping scores, which means well-run, and customer-focused stores boosting sales.” 

We look forward to seeing you there!

Does your organisation do ‘employee engagement’? Part 1

The following article (both parts 1 & 2) gets its facts, figures and some of its quotes from the following two articles

CEO’s fail behind engagement strategies

CEO’s misunderstand employee engagement

What is ‘employee engagement’ and why is it such an issue at the moment?

In a nut shell, ‘employee engagement’ means ensuring that employees are as motivated to do their job as possible.

Why is it such an issue at the moment?

Due to the current economic circumstances it is often the case that 8 people are doing the job of 10 and there is a real danger in such cases of motivation plummeting and chronic disengagement setting in.

According to a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, more than eight out of 10 top executives in companies across Europe and the Middle East view disengagement as one of the three biggest threats to their business.

Today (Part 1), I will look at

1. Arguments for ‘employee engagement actually improves the bottom line.
2. Why there is so much inaction on employee engagement.

1. Do you think ‘employee engagement’ improves your bottom line or is just a pointless HR initiative?

A survey by Melcrum of 1,000 HR and corporate communications professionals found that many credited employee engagement programmes with the following benefits:

THE HARD BUSINESS BENEFITS

- More than 50% report improvements in employee retention and customer satisfaction

- 33% report higher productivity

- 28% report improvements in employee advocacy

- 27% improved status as a “great place to work”

- 27% report increased profitability

- 25% report improved absenteeism

And organisations that also advocate employee engagement  include ITV,  Fairplace, Sainsbury’s, Cass Business School, Yell, Engage Group, Dinamiks, Towers Watson and Caburn Hope.

2. Why is there so much inaction?

With over 47.7% of the HR community saying there is no executive sponsorship of engagement initiatives, 40% of organisations not linking engagement to business outcomes and 27% of organisations not even attempting to measure employee engagement, very few could deny that there is a certain inertia when it comes to the issue of employee engagement.

So why is this?

Of the 40% of organisations that have no strategy to increase employee engagement levels, the three biggest reasons given were

‘Cost is prohibitive’,

‘Leader does not understand the concept’

‘Leader is not aware of business benefits’

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Typical responses (particularly from smaller organisations) were

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Engagement is already really good here.

Employee engagement is just the flavour of the month.

There are more pressing priorities for management.

.

There is also a tendency for around three-quarters of organization management to view improving employee engagement as desirable in as far as it will improve employee satisfaction, but does not see it as having any direct effect on business performance.

In Part 2, (Will be published on Tuesday the 25^th of January) I will look at

1.  Who should be chiefly responsible for employee engagement
2.  How an organisation should go about engaging its workforce.

Such an atmosphere is unlikely to result in a productive and motivated workforce, and is a risk to organisations who neglect their staff.

So what is an organisation to do if it wants to hold onto its best people when things get better?

Well apart from the suggestions raised in the link above, one important thing an organisation can do is to continually invest in its employees. This can take the form of;

• Giving them opportunities to develop their skills
• Providing careers guidance and advice.

This can re-cultivate both employees loyalty to the organisation and their motivation by helping them to develop a clearer direction within their career, and a sense that they are valued by their organisation.

In future posts I will further explore questions surrounding how best organisations can engage their employees.

This is leading to organisations having to think of new, more cost-effective ways to train their staff. According to this recent article in Personnel Today more companies are considering providing online solutions to train and develop their staff. Interestingly, the CMI survey indicated that for 35% of workers this is their prefered method of brushing up their skills.

Online learning can be really effective because it allows employees to access support as and when they need it. Furthermore it is self-paced so you can spend as long, or little time as you like on it. A recent article in The Grapevine praised online training solutions stating that:   “The use of technology [...] gives the added benefit of real choice and flexibility for individuals in how, when and where their services are delivered.”

It can also be beneficial for organisations as costs are often lower and they can potentially offer support to large numbers of staff.

However, despite all the advantages of e-learning, will it ever completely replace other methods of training such as workshops, seminars or mentoring. It seems very unlikely. The CMI survey showed that the employees most popular type of training was receiving advice from trusted colleagues.

In reality a combination of training methods is often the most succesful. How do you prefer to receive training?

While public sector workers often have a lot to offer the private sector, this can often fail to be realized because

1. Ex public sector workers sometimes have overconfidence in how much of an asset a public sector background will be when applying to the private sector, thus it is vitally important to have a realistic idea of how they are perceived by private sector employees. 
2. A difficulty on behalf of private sector employers in accurately assessing public sector employees e.g. because of different job titles.
3. Public sector employees selling their past experience in the wrong way (listing duties and skills as opposed to competencies and transferrable skills)
4. Ex public sector workers not being able to clearly demonstrate their understanding of the commercial environment and markets the private sector organization operates in.

 Because of the ‘gap’ between the sectors it is important that ex public sector employees get practical and emotional support from their old public sector employers to be best placed to find new opportunities.

 At C2

We can help ex-public sector workers maximize their chance by,

1. Increasing their awareness of how they are seen by private sector employees.
2. Increasing their awareness of the private sector and how it is different from the public sector.
3. Helping them market their experience and skills in a way that private sector employers can relate to both at the application and interview stage.

We can also help public sector organizations offer support to their employers through our Redundancy Coaching outplacement service.

For more information about switching sectors see this recent article in the Guardian:

http://www.guardianpublic.co.uk/swapping-jobs-from-public-to-private-sector