Global Roundtable II
The Future of Employee Engagement
Now that we’ve established that Employee Engagement isn’t a passing fad or the business buzzword-du-jour, what is the future of this two-way effort by organizations to engage their employees who, in turn, have a choice about their level of engagement to offer their employer? The future of engagement through communication served as the topic for a panel of four specialists whose careers revolve around motivating employees and connecting them positively with their organization. The panelists include:
John Madia, global leader, human resources, at Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich. 
Victoria Brown, director, Stromberg Consulting, London
Mark Hornung, senior vice president, Bernard Hodes Group, a talent solutions provider, New York
Amanda Kowal Kenyon, director, Stromberg Consulting, New York-
What does employee engagement mean to you today?
How do you envision it changing in, say, 5 to 10 years?
As the war for talent continues to escalate, what new strategies are companies using in employee engagement to help them win that talent war? What new tools or mechanisms will they tap in the future to help them?
How are companies effectively engaging different generations at work to play to their individual strengths?
Will permitting employees more and more flexibility in their work schedules, their employee benefits, and their career paths continue in the future?
As more companies become global organizations, how will they engage their global workforces?
How are companies engaging potential and new employees today and how will this change in the future, if at all?
Q: What does employee engagement mean to you today?
John Madia: In business terms, employee engagement means our ability to attract and retain the best employees by fully engaging their heads and hearts. Yes, we need very qualified and innovative engineers and employees in marketing, sales, R&D, etc. However, we also need to capture their hearts and establish Dow as the company they choose to work for. Today, this represents an opportunity with much to be done, but we have senior leaders who are very interested and involved in driving employee engagement across the globe.
Victoria Brown: At Stromberg Consulting, we define employee engagement as the combination of the employee’s intellectual connection and emotional commitment to his or her job, brand or company, that together drive behavior.
We work to understand all of the different “drivers” of engagement within an organization, from the pay and benefits to the brand, and bring these together for maximum impact. Employee engagement isn’t just about recruitment and retention; it is also about the results they deliver while they’re working for you.
Mark Hornung: The classic definition of engagement is the amount of discretionary effort the worker devotes to the job (i.e., effort over and above that necessary to successfully complete a task) and the amount of discretionary time the worker gives (i.e., going beyond “9 to 5”). Surely, engagement is really about an emotional attachment to an employer, how much the worker identifies with the organization. Since that is nearly impossible to measure in any scientific way, assessing effort and time is probably as good as is possible.
Q: How do you envision it changing in, say, 5 to 10 years?
Madia: We think employees will use the "heart" more and more in determining who they work for and where they work. We want employees (current, future and alums) to demand this because only the best companies will develop the programs and policies to appeal to this dimension in the future.
Brown: A few forces are colliding to create an interesting shift in employee engagement. I agree with John that a focus on emotional attachment will continue to grow. New technology has made it that much easier to give employees the information they need. Now it’s about building identity, belonging and social networks at work.
The general movement toward positive psychology also is significant. This focus on the positive in individuals and organizations changes the way in which we work to engage employees. [See the “Voice of Influence” interview with Buckingham for an interesting discussion on this.]
Third, we agree with Mark that the demographic shifts will have an impact. In 10 years, our workforce will be significantly older. Already, one of our clients has seen the average age of his workforce increase to over 40 from 36 in just the last few years and he expects this trend to continue. Flexibility will become like technology is today – an integral part of the way we run our businesses.
Hornung: As the baby boomers retire, the definition of engagement will shift to reflect the attitudes of Gen X workers and millennials (AKA Gen Y). Gen X was the first cohort raised in dual-income households or by single parents. They saw their parents devote years, sometimes decades, to large corporations only to be laid off in the downsizing frenzy of the early ‘80s. The result is that Gen X is very independent, skeptical about employers’ motives and focused on making sure that whatever job they hold will enhance their marketability in the labor marketplace. So, while boomers might routinely put in 10- or 12-hour days, Gen X workers and millennials want more of a work-life balance. They will put in extra hours when the job requires it, but then expect to show up a little late the next day, or take an extra long lunch. So discretionary time may not be as pronounced in 5 to 10 years.
Madia: We have begun a very serious track of understanding engagement within Dow and where we can improve. If we do a great job of engaging our current base of employees, it certainly will be a powerful mechanism to attract and engage our future employees. In addition, we have created an HR "Marketing" role to really drive employee satisfaction and engagement into the businesses and functions.
Brown: One strategy that companies increasingly use involves the notion of 360-degree communications and branding. Previously, the marketing department sent one message about the brand to customers while human resources sent another to potential recruits, internal communications sent yet another to current employees and public affairs might employ a slightly different version of the same messages to shareholders and other stakeholders. The alignment and integration of communications and the brand experience will continue to grow so that the best companies will offer a seamless inside-outside messaging and brand experience. This will help companies not just win the recruitment war but also engage their current employees.
The use of blogs, wikis, etc., means we can convert passive company intranets into truly engaging tools that can enable the entire organization to stay connected through conversation and meaningful dialogue. For example, an Atlanta-based telecommunications company created an employee discussion forum called the Bottom Line. It lets employees post suggestions and comments on how to improve current processes, enhance products or services and provide general comments about the business environment. This is valuable because the ideas are coming from employees who are on the front lines, working directly with the customer. The site allows readers to rate each suggestion (on a scale of 1 to 5) and post their own replies and comments. The suggestions are referenced in monthly, companywide communications.
Hornung: The big buzz in staffing now is employer branding. The relationship between an employer and its employees determines its reputation in the labor marketplace and, by extension, its desirability. Relatively unknown employers and those perceived to have poor employer brands will suffer in the war for talent. Since there will be (and are) more jobs than qualified workers to fill them, workers will be able to pick and choose their positions much more so than ever before. This is a paradigm shift that the vast majority of boomer managers and executives don’t understand since we came of age when people queued up for jobs.
Employers that truly do “walk the talk” (e.g., Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, SAS Institute, Google, Wegman’s, et al.) reap the reward in talent pipelines full of people clamoring to get in. By design or luck, they have created environments where employees are truly valued and rewarded (not just executives). Because of the transparency around employment created by the Internet, lofty-sounding corporate mission statements don’t fool people. New tools that will help authentic employers of choice will be user-oriented, e.g., blogs, social-networking sites like MySpace, mobile text messaging, interactive games and videos that engage prospective employees in a rich dialogue. Each of these has its risks, but employers must shake off traditional views of recruiting and retention and use the new-media communications tools their employees and prospective employees use.
Amanda Kowal Kenyon: Many new realities have emerged in the workplace in the past decade, including technology to facilitate work production and socialization; advanced metrics for productivity; changing family structures, including the 83 percent of workers in nontraditional family arrangements while working in a traditional workplace; different generational needs and a pending talent shortage, most notably in the 35-to-45 age group and often for key management positions. Many companies still operate with the traditional model that hasn’t kept pace with the times. Those organizations that develop a more modern workplace that aligns with new realities are likely to be the most desirable workplaces for top talent.
Brown: An interesting debate has arisen between those who, increasingly, are interested in exploring and understanding generational differences and the implications of this for how we approach employee engagement and those who argue that, fundamentally, we all have the same human needs at work. For instance, the work of David Sirota, co-author of The Enthusiastic Employee, is an example of this latter viewpoint. In this book, he argues that three basic goals exist for people at work: to be treated fairly and equitably; to secure a sense of achievement at work; and to gain a sense of camaraderie and working well together as a team.
The answer probably involves a bit of both. Our work shows that employees of all ages, dispositions, professions and locations have some common needs. They want their work viewed as meaningful, they want to be treated fairly and they want to feel valued, among other things, but how organizations meet those needs can and should vary by generation. Instead, communications and other engagement activities are usually segmented by hierarchy (senior managers get different perks than junior staff), location (head office gets different communication than the field) or job type (office workers are inundated with communications while manufacturing workers may be deprived). Internal communicators could learn a lot from the sophisticated, almost one-to-one marketing approaches developed to engage external consumers and stakeholders. At Delta Air Lines, intranet content is role-specific based on user log in. Flight attendants who log in to the intranet see different content than gate agents or pilots. This feature enables internal communications to target specific content to specific roles.
Hornung: Many employers encourage and host intramural blogs (e.g., Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Google, et al.). One is setting up an internal “MySpace” where employees will post their profiles that include photographs, personal interests and extensive background information as well as their current job and qualifications. As employers go to more of a contingent workforce model, such communities will be vital for keeping talent available; they ensure a viable, positive relationship between the employer and the worker.
Hornung: Flexibility in schedules and working arrangements will be driven not only by generational preferences but also by social issues such as traffic congestion, electronic security and privacy and counter-terrorism. Just as consumers today want more control over their choices, employees want control over their rewards. Younger workers may want or need only minimal medical coverage while older workers will want more substantial protection. Conversely, younger workers may look for employers that offer on-site or subsidized child care while older workers may need elder care instead.
Career paths always have been difficult to manage. Most organizations require excellent individual contributors to move into management in order to advance, where many of them fail. Smart employers are developing parallel career paths that allow individual contributors to continue in their specialty and advance (as mentors, for example) or switch to management.
Kowal Kenyon: Progressive companies are exploring ways to change workplace structures and dynamics to better align with the modern condition. They are employing technology to assist socialization when workers are virtual; challenging the need for extensive face time since advanced measures of productivity are available; transforming the career ladder to enable a varied career path; considering how “mass customization” could apply to careers; and thinking about “career sustainability” rather than focusing solely on work-life balance or flexibility. The idea of flexibility may be a solution for today until organizations determine an entirely new way of working available to all workers.
Q: As more companies become global organizations, how will they engage their global workforces?
Madia: Flexible work arrangements and programs, in general, are being employed locally more frequently to ensure we truly are driving satisfaction and engagement.
Brown: Our national or geographic culture plays a more profound influence on our habits and behaviors than the corporate culture to which we belong. This certainly applies to activities and practices for increasing employee engagement. Often, we see well-meaning interventions from corporate headquarters in the U.S. designed to rouse employee enthusiasm that have the opposite effect. We need to steer away from clichéd national stereotyping while also respecting the cultural diversity that does exist. One practice that best-in-class companies use engages a network of local ambassadors or quasi-communicators who help influence and road-test potential plans, even the wording and translations of communications to ensure an effective approach.
In addition, such new technology as podcasts and blogs allows CEOs and senior leaders to speak directly with their people “anytime, anyplace, anywhere.” Still, no substitute exists for the relationship between employees and their immediate supervisor. Employees like hearing the overarching strategic messages from senior leaders, but they prefer that their direct manager help interpret “what does this mean to my job.”
We encourage clients to focus on language. While the official business language for many global companies is English, it often is the second or even third language for vast numbers of employees. We believe communications are more effective at engaging employees when delivered in their native language, wherever feasible.
Hornung: “One size fits all” definitely does not work for engagement. Different cultures create different expectations among workers, and economic conditions affect how workers perceive employment generally and their current jobs specifically. Engagement needs to be tuned to the local culture and workforce.
I once worked with a high-tech company with a huge manufacturing facility in Malaysia. “Engagement” there consisted of making sure the local chieftain (pengulu) approved of your workplace. If the pengulu liked you and your company, his people would gladly work there. If not, no one showed up for work. We would stage elaborate annual banquets for the pengulus from the surrounding villages to gain their favor. It sounds primitive, but to the Malays, it was part of their social contract. They trusted the pengulu to watch out for them and their individual welfare; in return, they would work wherever he directed. We initially tried hiring in the marketplace with a traditional U.S. approach – applications, interviews and hiring the most qualified. We got very few applicants. Once we got hip to the way things worked, we had hundreds of people working in a very short time.
Madia: We’re listening more. It is a very global marketplace. We are being more and more transparent with employees and entertaining more suggestions that help them balance their work-life considerations.
Brown: Providing a compelling, yet realistic, portrayal is important if companies are to minimize the classic post-honeymoon dip when employees become significantly disengaged after the first few months. Companies are putting more effort into communicating the whole employee-value proposition, including the intangible benefits of working with the company. Some research suggests that Gen X and Gen Y employees favor different factors than baby boomers, including work-life balance and flexibility policies, the chance to do creative work and the company's corporate social-responsibility philosophy and record. These sorts of things need to be communicated alongside the basic “pay and rations.” Using Web-based video to preview what the work is actually like and featuring real employees is another trend we think will continue to grow.
Hornung: Employers are beginning to cultivate cadres of brand ambassadors who push marginally engaged employees toward more full engagement. These “word of mouth” efforts consist of briefing the ambassadors about key messages to be communicated and giving them resources to help aid discussions (e.g., tips for conversation starters, meeting or event theme ideas, setting up “idea boards” in common areas, online communities). These efforts must be as “organic” as possible and avoid being too slick or managed too tightly.
Offering greater flexibility in structuring work also engages workers better. PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, allows women to take several years off to raise young children and then return once the kids are in elementary school. This not only reduces turnover among women (albeit with a gap), but also attracts women job candidates. Such flexibility requires governance built into the policies for these work practices. Most employers do not thoroughly think through their policies for flex time or telecommuting and run into trouble when employees abuse the policy or a manager does not actively manage the situation. The people at Cisco Systems have a saying I love: “Go slow to go fast.” It means to take the time to plan out completely what you need to do, but then execute on it instantaneously. In today’s frenetic world, many employers forget the first step.
