Tag Archives: employee engagement

Help! My Employees are playing GAMES at Work

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I recently wrote about Using Games, Sims and Virtual Worlds at Work that gave some pretty stiff stats on how many of your employees are playing games on their smartphones and computers at work.

With that being said, why not incorporate games into product development, employee engagement, and utilize technology to drive it home?

Here’s a little video I put together that gives a few great examples of using GAMES to create comraidere and engagement in the workplace.

What has your experience been when incorporating these types of EE tools at work? I’d love to know.

For more information on these companies: Wizard Studios and Go Game Office

Photo Credit: Above and Beyond KM

Engagement – it’s not just a buzz word

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Employee disengagement is stealing from your company. Each disengaged employee can cost you thousands of dollars a year due to employee turnover, lack of productivity, and absenteeism - or worse, presenteeism. How does disengagement lead to all these things? Let’s take a look.

According to the What’s Working survey from the consulting company Mercer, 50% of employees are not happy at their jobs. 32% of workers are considering leaving their jobs. And if they do leave, that means significant costs to your organization.

First, there are the costs of exit interviews, administrative functions related to termination, and separation/severance pay. Then there are vacancy costs. Finally, there are the costs involved in searching for a new employee and the additional costs of training said new employee.

In an article in the Financial Edge, Annie Mueller explains that even an $8/hour employee can cost a company up to $3,500 in turnover expenses. And the more employee turnover you have, the more these costs will add up.

Another cost that comes from turnover? Lack of productivity. Research has shown that even after a new employee has been hired and trained, it takes time for them to reach the productivity level that their predecessor had. And that means that you might be paying them more than they are earning.

Business advisor William G. Bliss describes that in the first month, productivity is only at 25% – meaning a loss of 75% of the employee’s salary. Within one to three months, productivity will reach 50%. Not until three to five months will an employee reach 100% productivity, finally earning 100% of their salary.

Earlier we talked about the What’s Working survey which found that 50% of employees are unhappy, but only 32% are considering leaving. So what about the other 18%? Those employees are costing you money too, through absenteeism and presenteeism. The health research firm Oxygen Plan Corporation found that stress costs employers $4,888 per employee per year due to absenteeism and health costs. That adds up to a total US economic impact of $400 billion. But not all disengaged employees call out sick a lot. Presenteeism, when an employee is at work but isn’t productive, can cost you even more – and is much more difficult to track.

Where does turnover come from? Simple, it stems from having disengaged employees who are not happy with their jobs. The first step to reducing disengagement in your organization recognizing the problem. What does disengagement look like in your organization? Who is disengaged? Once you start having these discussions you can start investigating the various tools to improve this between rewards, hiring practices and technology, or altering management practices.

Reducing disengagement is not impossible, you just need to start!

Photo Credit: HRHandbook

Author of today’s guest post:

Sean Glass is the co-founder of EmployInsight, a HR technology company that helps enterprise customers use emotional and cognitive resources in their hiring. Before EmployInsight, he was a co-founder of HigherOne which went public in 2010. In addition, he is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Masters in Applied Positive Psychology Program (MAPP) and attended Yale University as an undergraduate. Follow Employ Insight on Twitter.

Now that we’re mobile, what’s your PMC?

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I’ve been doing a lot of research lately as to what companies are doing in the way of staying engaged with their employees and customers, especially now that we’re all mobile.

Most of what I have been reading is that though companies are realizing their employees and customers are already online, they are not quite sure how to incorporate it into their culture.

While I was visiting my family back in Alabama, I noticed my daughter kept getting texts from her boss as to her availability to work, times and so-forth. I realized that getting on the text band wagon at work could be both a useful and annoying tool.

It gives immediate access to recipients and could be used to stay continually engaged with mobile employees who are out in the field, changes in shift updates (as in the case of my daughter) and if one used a little creativity they could easily alleviate costs and headaches by going mobile.

The way we communicate is evolving. Here are a few new stats:

  • 94% of Gen Y own cell phones
  • 6.5 Trillion SMS (short message services – text, mobile, web) messages were sent in 2010
  • 8,000,000,000,000 Text messages will be sent in 2012
  • In 2012 more time will be spent accessing the internet via mobile than the computer

I think something to keep in mind  is staying true to your company’s culture and where it’s headed. And also looking at the demographics of your employees (millennials, boomers, etc.).

I know that email is so 2010 and I personally get so many emails I can hardly sift through them. I prefer texting over emails and phone calls. In fact, I wish I could change my voice mail to say “This is Susan. Please hang up and send me a text.”

So what is your Preferred Method of Communication?

Top 10: Cheat Sheet for the C-Suite

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Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with managers and leaders who all had their own unique style.  If the job of being a leader was easy there wouldn’t be 67,269 books written on the topic.  Leader or company perfection is non-existent.  There is no Nirvana in Corporate America — that’s why it’s called work!  Simply put, leaders have to know their business and know people.

The below points are based on personal observations and unsolicited feedback from colleagues throughout my career.  My goal was to take a realistic and common sense approach without exaggerated jargon.  Translation:  Almostanyone can condition themselves to be an efficient leader.

1. Don’t do surveys to measure employee engagement.  Employees won’t believe that they’re confidential (even if they are) nor will they give you honest feedback.

2. Don’t create new policies just because of one negative employee experience.  Deal with the (negative) employee individually but creating policies based on “what if” scenarios quickly contributes toward a discontented workforce.

3. Real employee engagement requires action from you, all managers and HR.  Engagement is not a project that you work on and then put to bed.  Engagement should be treated as a verb — a conditioned action that is continual and ongoing throughout the entire organization.

4. When you hire talented people, trust and empower them to do their jobs.  You don’t have to be involved in every project nor do you need periodic updates, unless they need your support.  This type of micro managing sends a message that you don’t trust your employees’ abilities.

5.  Encourage new ideas from the entire company — even if the ideas never come to fruition.  Employees who know their opinion is valued will be engaged.  You want employees to challenge themselves, think and take risks.  If an idea doesn’t work, explain why.  By ignoring people and discounting ideas without an explanation, you will single-handedly lock them in a silo of fear.  They’ll never speak up again for fear of being shot down and being looked upon negatively.  Trust me.

6.  Follow up skills.  They’re easy — learn them.  Don’t ignore the human beings who we call employees.

7.  Communicate — with everyone!  Employees want to be informed on company news and happenings.  Whether it’s an intranet bulletin, e-mail, newsletter, company meeting — just do it.  It’s painless and an informed employee is a positive step toward a happy employee.

8. Don’t be stingy with the “atta boys/girls” when warranted.  Salary increases and bonuses are great, but it takes 2 minutes to tell someone they’ve done a great job and costs you nothing.

9. Don’t crush someone if they make a mistake by “blacklisting” them.  Talk to them and coach them.  They’re not going to destroy the business and they’ll gain priceless experience from a productive discussion.

This last one is the most important and will rarely, if ever, be confronted in the workplace.  I’m beginning to believe that this little point is impossible to achieve simply due to human nature.

10. Leave your ego at the door. Do what’s best for the organization instead of your reputation or paycheck. When someone resigns from the company, don’t take it personally or hold a grudge. Get over yourself because no matter how good you think you are, there is always someone better.

About the Author:

Kimberly Roden is a Human Resources professional with over two decades of progressive experience with concentrations in leadership coaching, performance management and employee engagement. She believes in treating employees like adults and using creative solutions and ideas in the workplace instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach. Kimberly’s greatest accomplishment (and challenge!) in life is being a single mother to twins who are now in college. You can visit her blog, UnconventionalHR (www.unconventionalhr.com) and connect with her on Twitter as @kimberly_roden.

Are your employees afraid of you?

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My company “Aging Info USA” continues to go into corporations and provide a confidential employee “caregiving” survey. In this survey are approximately ten questions. These questions range anywhere from “are you caring for an aging loved one” to “do you feel you could discuss your caregiving challenges with your supervisor or HR department.” I’m always interested in that last one and notice that more times than not, employees are very apprehensive in discussing these issues with management.

This past week I came across an article entitled “Speak up or sneak around. Do You Tell Your Employer About Your Eldercare Duties?.” In this article they stated why most employees are reluctant to discuss these issues with their employers and how they can get help and support from management.

They say that many caregivers cut themselves off from a major source of potential stress relief by not talking about their caregiving role at the place where they spend most of their day: their workplace.

Here are some takeaways from the article.

Why we don’t talk about caregiving at work

Plenty of logical reasons motivate us to keep mum about helping mum (or dad, or a partner, or a grandparent). Not that they’re necessarily in our best interest. Example reasons:

  • Denial: Not realizing at the outset how hairy caregiving usually gets, workers believe they can juggle everything just fine, thankyouverymuch, without anyone needing to know. Except for this: Caregiving almost always keeps getting hairier.
  • Fear of being perceived as not giving 100 percent. In these times, especially, you want to look like a workhorse without distractions. * Except for this:* Life is full of distractions — and balancing acts. (Ask any working mom.)
  • Reluctance to look like a “mama’s boy” or a “daddy’s girl,” rather than a professional. The nurturing image of caregiving is at direct odds with many workplace personas. Except for this: Almost all of us have mamas, daddys, and mates. Even the federal government, in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines on best practices for dealing with caregivers, notes that it’s wrong to assume male workers don’t have significant caregiving responsibilities, or that women prefer that role.
  • Ignorance. It simply never occurs to many workers that there may be benefits to speaking up. Except for this: There are!

Why we should talk about caregiving at work:

1. Employees are more apt to help their career than hurt it.

Being frank about the demands we’re facing provides a context for why employees might seem more stressed or leave early some days. Not whining and expecting others to do all our work. But without a good explanation, colleagues may chalk absences or distractions up to laziness or plain old bad performance. We must not let family matters sabotage responsibilities entirely. But there’s little upside to pretending they don’t exist.

2. We may discover practical resources that can help ease the caregiving burden.

HR  may be able to plug employees into flextime arrangements, assistance programs (such as care provider referrals, geriatric assessments, support groups), educational programs (on, say, Alzheimer’s care or stress management), and even federally mandated family leave opportunities.

Employers should and are starting to realize that supporting caregiving employees helps them retain workers and get better work from them AND helps their bottom line.

3. Tapping into hidden crowdsourcing resources right under their nose.

Boomer caregiving has been called the new “problem that has no name” — the life-swamping issue everyone’s dealing with but nobody’s talking about. Mention “sick mom” or “dad has Alzheimer’s” and you may be surprised, and gratified, by the kindred-spirit co-workers who come forward with tips and “what I wish I’d knowns.”

4. Less stress comes with more emotional support.

Most workplaces are staffed by humans with parents and spouses (and, usually, warm hearts) of their own. Their moral support may come to mean more than you’d think. Plus there’s this: The very act of being candid removes a major stressor, the stress of being secretive.

5. Eldercare conversations ultimately help everyone.

You’re part of a vast shift in American culture. Wrestling with employees in regard to work and eldercare is a lot like the challenges once (and sometimes, still) faced by working mothers. The more we talk about the realities of the intersections of where life and work meet, the more likely we are to find solutions. And that benefits all workers and employers alike.

I believe these are crucial in maintaining a healthy workplace, especially in regard to open communication and engagement – while creating a “safe place” and an atmosphere of loyalty.