Research over the last 10 years has consistently confirmed that employee engagement is related to both the willingness of employees to make an extra effort to do their work as well as possible and also to their desire to stay with their employer through thick and thin. Research has also shown that financial performance is positively impacted by employee engagement.  The real question for executives is this: What are the optimal levers for driving employee engagement and can organizations actually “manage” employee engagement?

In today’s webcast, John Gibbons, Senior Research Advisor, at The Conference Board will summarize ground-breaking research over the last three years on this topic. Central to this research has been development of a global, culture-neutral instrument that measures employee engagement and, in addition, measures key drivers of employee engagement.

JP Miller, PhD, CEO of Louis Allen Worldwide, will overview the findings his firm has uncovered through their extensive international research into the leadership and management practices that drive engagement. By looking at cross-cultural data sets, LAW has identified different strategies that can be applied in different situations. Insights into what are likely to be effective strategies emerge from their findings.

HCI members we hope you’ll post your comments, insights and questions below, and start or join a related discussion group at www.humancapitalist.org

HCI members ask:

from Pamela- I am interested in engaging Millenials and wonder if there were any insights in the research about the engagement of young workers.

Danny asks- How do you define trustworthy in this study: Inspriing Trust (being trustworthy) or Beign Trusting?

Keeping employees engaged-for many talent decision-makers, this is a foremost challenge as they continue to operate in a world of re-organization, layoffs and uncertainty. Studies have shown that employee engagement and commitment to their employer can have a direct correlation to retention, productivity, and, ultimately, core business value.
In today’s economy, how do you honestly assess your employees’ needs and their perception of the company? Have they become dis-engaged due to recent activity? How do you identify the issues and improve relationships in a real, lasting manner? In this session, we will cover an honest, objective approach to getting to the answers-an approach that is driven by The Employment Value Proposition (EVP).

Webcast presenters Mitzi Adwell, Talent Strategy Practice Leader at The Newman Group and Mike Beamish EVP at Volkswagen AG, will show you how EVP (a concept that is commonly associated with candidate perception and recruiting), affects talent retention and engagement.  Discover how a focused EVP assessment can help reveal critical employee needs, values and issues that are frequently hidden within the company culture.  You’ll hear examples of EVP in action, including a recent effort with Volkswagen Group of America, an intiative that dramatically improved retention and employee engagement.

HCI members, we look forward to your comments on:
How does EVP affect your relationship with candidates and employees alike?

How can you define, quantify and act on it?
What are the EVP concerns that influence the way your existing employees view your organization?

How does that influence the value they provide to the company? How do you re-recruit your critical internal talent?
To re-focus your EVP, how do you understand what employees really think about your company? What does it take to truly influence that perception?
Case in point-Volkwagen Group of America: How did this automotive sales leader discover employee EVP challenges, and how did it address them to dramatically streamline and improve its facility re-location effort? A great example of employment-engagement in action.

Hope you’ll start or join a related discussion group at www.humancapitalist.org about practical processes to better understand and engage talent in these turbulent times.
 

When you think of your most experienced talent, often its the individuals who face imminent retirement. What can your organization do to leverage the experience, enthusiasm and dedication of these contributors-and make it a win-win situation for your organization?   Recognize contributions as your talent takes a bow so they come back for an encore…

HCI members we hope you’ll share your insights and questions with each other and our webcast presenters John Furcon and Chantel Sheaks below…

Tue, Oct 28 2008 / 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET

You may have heard the expression “truth in advertising.”  Our webcast today, “Lessons in Achieving Business Strength…One Touchpoint at a Time”  also me recall a wise comment I heard once, that “cynicism comes from behaviors not matching espoused values.”  

Today’s webcast presenter, Jon Kaupla, provides insights on how the best companies develop “on-brand behaviors” throughout the talent life cycle.  HCI members, we look forward to hearing your experiences, questions, comments, and ideas…

There’s a particularly poignant picture today in the New York Times showing a shot of the Lehman office in London.  For those of us in human capital, there is little as heartbreaking as the process of downsizing. We know that at times it’s a business necessity, but no one who has endured a layoff situation– as administrator of it or the targeted employee– comes away unscathed.

(photo by Kevin Coombs/Reuters).  The question for those of us in the surviving organization– what to do about keeping and motivating the remaining employees?  How can we keep them focused on the corporate initiatives and dissuade them from polishing their resumes?

Wayne Cascio, professor of management at the University of Colorado  sums it up nicely: “Often the first casualty in a downsizing is employee morale…(those who survive) are looking for signals, and they want to know how they are going to be better off.  They want to know if they have a future.”

Here at HCI in the strategy community we talk often about how retaining high performing employees is the most cost effective way to strengthen our organizations.  Besides open and honest communication, how can we manage this during a period of layoffs or restructuring?  Let’s start a discussion and share some best practices!

HCM professionals– let’s move away from dollars and cents for a minute.  Many of us just don’t have any cushioning left in our budgets.

Gas prices are soaring. The mortgage industry is in crisis. Your sales figures may not reflect it yet, but now more than ever you are keeping an eye on your bottom line. How will your company deliver on revenue and profit goals while continuing to attract and retain one of your company’s greatest assets– high performing sales people? In a contracting economy, top line growth (and consequently the earnings opportunity of sales people) is increasingly at risk. This is the first step in a vicious cycle where declining revenues result in lower compensation levels for sales people which increases the turnover of these sales people which in turn results in decreased sales.

Top sales people realize the high demand for their skills among companies seeking to reverse negative revenue trends and may present a retention - and business - risk if not attended to properly. Current research suggests that companies are increasingly taking the initiative to develop innovative solutions to meet this critical challenge. Frequently, these solutions fall outside the sales incentive plan and leverage alternative currencies that sales people value. Stockton Colt, author of The Sales Compensation Handbook says it well when he points out that “sales compensation is rarely the sole solution to problems with sales performance.”

The Human Capital Institute is pleased to bring you some creative answers in a free webcast led by Tom Knight, Partner of Axiom Consulting Group LLC. Join us for an informative and interactive hour, to examine an alternative framework that can be used to develop winning solutions that reduce the threat of sales turnover and under-performance.