Quality Service Marketing

Employee Engagement Today (and Tomorrow)

I was recently asked to speak to a management group. When told the topic was “How to Engage Employee’s in Today’s Economy,” I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. It’s a popular subject these days, but seriously, how is engaging people now any different than engaging them in good times?

I’m not talking about HR-focused firms looking for new ways to better engage their employees. What gets me are those companies for whom employee engagement is a totally new concept. You know the ones where “our people are our greatest asset” is mere rhetoric (by the company) and wishful thinking (by the employees).

These companies are primarily interested in learning about engagement because they’re looking for a quick fix. But when it comes to effectively engaging employees – by means of a workplace that fosters open communications, trust, respect, and leadership – there is no instant remedy. As they’ll learn when the economy improves and their employee turnover rate soars.

Ever the optimist, however, I figure better late than never … maybe this time they’ll learn.

New Workshop on Internal Branding and Internal Marketing

I’m really excited to be developing a new program with my colleague and internal branding expert, Debra Semans. We’re presenting Internal Branding and Internal Marketing: Strategic Integration for Market Leadership as part of AMA’s Spotlight Forum series (an “intense day focused on topics confronting marketers today”) in Houston on November 13, 2009.

Note: An earlier post comparing & contrasting internal marketing with internal branding is one of my most frequently visited posts in the five years I’ve been blogging.

In this new workshop, Debra and I will share insights and tips on how to make internal branding and internal marketing work respectively. We’ll also cover how elements of each can be integrated to better engage employees - the “face” of your brand and organization - to meet marketing and organizational goals.

The more I work on the program’s content, the more I realize how timely this topic is for marketing, HR, and business leaders dealing with these challenging times. It’s also an untimely topic in the sense that both internal marketing and internal branding should not be treated as the “strategy du jour.” Successful companies have been applying these approaches all along as an integral part of their organization culture and operations, not just an interim campaign.

Hope you’ll be able to join Debra and me in Houston in a few weeks for this exciting new learning event!

Just in Time for Boss's Day: How to Be a Better Boss

In honor of National Boss Day (Oct. 16, 2009), I’m delighted to feature this interview with Allison O’Neill, author of The Boss Benchmark and blog about how to be a better boss.

QSM: It’s unlikely a person in management aspires to be a bad boss (at least I hope that’s the case for most managers!). So why do you think there are so many bad bosses out there?

Allison: I think it’s because they kind of get swallowed up by the role – they are so busy doing, they don’t see the bigger picture. They don’t get to see themselves from the perspective their staff do. Often there are things staff feel left out of/want to know more about but the boss doesn’t pick up on this, so the team are excluded. Some bosses have a bad attitude and refuse to believe they could ever be wrong about anything (!) and that doesn’t sit well with the team! Others might be quite unapproachable, so the workers are not comfortable discussing things with them, so communication is very lacking.

Overall I think it’s the inability to step back and evaluate themselves really truthfully. It’s also not realizing that they need to be continuously growing and learning (many times a day) and not being afraid to say “I was wrong” – workers trust you when you are that humble and unafraid of honesty.

QSM: Other than learning from examples in the workplace (what to do + what NOT to do when in a supervisory position), what advice do you give most often to someone who’s a first-time boss? 

Allison: Your #1 key responsibility is to see the big picture of yourself as a boss – evaluate everything you do as if you are a third party who is watching and see if you find yourself thinking “that guy is acting like a prat!”. Ask yourself EVERYDAY how you could have been a better boss today – keeping a notebook of your thoughts on this would be good.

QSM:  What do you advise someone who’s been around for a while and wants to become a better boss?

Allison: Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you are the boss (and may have been one for quite some time) that ‘you have made it’ and that you have all the skills required. You need to keep your eyes open constantly for opportunities to learn, change and develop – especially if you’ve been a boss for ages as the workplace is constantly changing – bosses need to be aware of different things/have different skills than they did even 5 yrs ago.

QSM: What are your suggestions for observing National Boss’s Day for employees fortunate to work for a great boss?

Allison: Tell them you think they do a good job – and explain why – be specific!

QSM: And for employees whose current boss is in need of serious help?

Allison: Buy them a copy of my book!

QSM: LOL … Anything that will help develop a better boss is appreciated. Thanks, Allison!

Back-to-Work and Back-to-School for Service Leaders

Ever notice how workplace rhythms change with the seasons? Corporate offices seem to slow down in Summer when the majority of folks take vacation. It’s the same in those organizations that adjust work schedules to offer “summer hours” – extended hours Monday-Thursday to allow for half-days on Friday. It even sounds quieter with less phone calls and e-mail (especially on Fridays).

Nonetheless, work gets done (perhaps because it is quieter?) … and then the pace picks up again in Fall.

This back-to-work mindset goes hand-in-hand with back-to-school time. So it’s a good time to consider your professional development plans for the fall.

If you’re looking for quality professional development, here are two programs I strongly recommend:

• The 20th Annual Compete Through Service Symposium, Nov. 4-6, 2009, Phoenix AZ. This is the leading program for managers and executives who want to improve service strategy and delivery.
• Internal Branding & Internal Marketing: Strategic Integration for Market Leadership, Nov. 13, 2009, Houston TX. This is a new AMA program that I’m excited to develop and present with my colleague & internal branding, Debra Semans.

Employee Engagement Gets a Big Boost from the UK: The MacLeod Review

I’m back from my brief blog break and wanted to share these links to a major new employee engagement report recently released by the UK.

Amazing: a major government commissions an independent report on employee engagement’s impact on business practice, and then it provides open access to the information! The official report is titled Engaging for Success: Enhancing Performance through Employee Engagement by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke.

Here are two great sources that summarize this important new report:

• David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network (where I first learned about the report)
• Lee Smith, employee communications specialist and British blogger.

(Thanks, guys!)

Free Seminar: "Recovering from the Recession Hangover"

Bon Mot Communications is offering a free audio seminar with a great title: Recovering from the Recession Hangover: 5 Strategies to Get Your Team Back on Track with Solution Focused Leadership. It’s scheduled for Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 2 PM EST, and registration is limited, so I wanted to let you know about it now.

I’m a big fan of the Solution Focused approach since I learned about it a number of years ago from my colleague, Alan Kay. That’s why I’m excited about attending this seminar.

I know business tends to slow down in the summer, so it’s a great time to invest an hour and learn about solution focused leadership.

Who is More Engaged: Nonprofit or Forprofit Employees?

An interesting question that I’m finding is a challenge to answer. My initial presumption was nonprofit staff would be more engaged because their work is mission-driven. However, I’ve also known nonprofit employees who are minimally engaged because their workplace situation turned out to be negative. So I started a quest to find research on nonprofit employment engagement and discovered there’s not much out there.

What I was able to find came from Gallup, and it surprised me. Jessica Tyler, Practice Manager in Employee Engagement, shared comparative data from Gallup’s global database with results showing employees in the nonprofit segment were actually less “engaged” and slightly more “actively disengaged” than employees in the overall database.

Commenting on this, Gallup consultant Bill McEwen noted: “It certainly appears that the employees of not-for-profit organizations, while perhaps attracted by a strong sense of mission, are often less (rather than more) engaged than the average employee. Of course, this varies by organization … as some of them are super in recognizing and energizing those who work for them, while others may pay great attention to their mission and relatively little attention to the people called upon to fulfill it.”

As Jessica aptly noted: “Connecting to the mission is just one of the [many] critical elements involved in a person or team’s engagement.” But it’s clearly not enough.

[Thanks, Jessica and Bill, for your help with this post.]

Special request

While most employee engagement research seems to include the healthcare and government sectors, I haven’t found data on other nonprofits that include social & human services, arts & cultural organizations, professional associations, education, and membership-based organizations. If you’re aware of any, please let me know.

Blog Milestone & Motivational Quote

This is truly a special week as it marks my 4th anniversary of blogging and my 250th post! Thanks to all my blog readers and fellow bloggers for your continued support and inspiration.

It’s time to refresh this blog’s looks, and I’m excited to announce my blog redesign is in the works and should be ready soon.

To honor the start of my 5th year blogging about internal marketing & communications, I chose to quote Frances Hesselbein about the underlying elements of an engaged workplace.

“Our behavior as well as our words build a climate of trust, a climate of respect, and a climate where mission, values, and equal access permeate the organization.

That is how we build the healthy, inclusive, and embracing relationships that unleash the human spirit. We can dismiss this as soft management and soft talk, but I challenge us to measure the performance of a team whose work is underscored by trust, civility, and good manners against a team where mistrust, disrespect, and lack of consideration are the rule of the day. No contest. Spirit, motivation, respect, and appreciation win every time. Dispirited, unmotivated, unappreciated workers cannot compete in a highly competitive world.”

This excerpt is from her 1992 book Hesselbein on Leadership, and her message is as relevant as ever.

Great Business Resources

It's back to business now that the holidays are over. Here's a list of some great resources that I compiled over the past month to share with you.

Professional Development
The 23rd Annual Services Leadership Institute, March 9-11, 2009, presented by the Center for Services Leadership.

HR and Communications e-letters
Keeping the People - with insight on how "best" employers are leading in tough times.

The Corporate Communicator - Bon Mot Communications'free e-zine "helping corporate communicators do more with less." Subscribers are invited to attend a free teleseminar/webinar, "Communicating Confidence in an Era of Low Trust," on February 17, 2009. Learn more about this topic from Bon Mot's white paper, The Low Trust Epidemic: Why It Matters and What Communicators Can Do About It.

Nonprofit Management
Realistic and refreshing advice about surviving these challenging times from nonprofit leader Jan Masaoka.

New blogs that are worth reading
Marketing Mindset by Frank Haas, a long time colleague and friend of mine.

The Business of Service by Scott Miller.

Customer Management
Check out Becky Carroll's blog post series from Nov. 17th, 18th, and 19th, covering the recent Customers First Conference.

Where is the "Human" in Human Resources?

Tina Hamilton, founder & CEO of hireVision (an HR and hiring management firm) and a colleague of mine, asked the question, “Does the ‘human’ in Human Resources still exist?”

She’s worried about “the emotional element of HR. The empathetic approach to dealing with employees as living people versus machines that we control and maneuver to produce our goods and services.”  Her concern is based on what she sees as “an epidemic of HR professionals being desensitized.”

Tina attributes part of this epidemic to the required attention to regulatory compliance and monitoring of a growing assortment of labor laws. Part of it also comes from years of HR downsizing and/or outsourcing with technology filling in the gaps. (Have an HR issue? Call the HR Hotline: press 1 for payroll … press 2 for employee benefits … press 3 for employee relations … )

It’s good that someone in HR is asking about the “human” element in human resources. I also think this question needs to be addressed at the executive level. After all, it’s the leadership of an organization that is ultimately responsible for its human resources, not just the HR staff.

If top management really cares about its employees, it will enable the HR staff and all managers to treat the company’s employees as humanly as possible – with dignity and respect for them as real people with real concerns, not unfeeling minions.