Think back to previous Halloween evenings. Your neighborhood is filled with princesses, witches, ghosts, and superheroes going door-to-door collecting ‘treats’. Very quickly there’s information ‘on the street’ that there are full-sized candy bars at the Smiths’ house; homemade cookies at the Andersons’ house; oranges at the Holmes’ home; and pencils at the Jones’. Many kids start prioritizing which houses they will go to depending on the ‘treat’ they will or will not get. All the homes had good intentions, but some fell way short of meeting the trick-or-treaters’ expectations. The same holds true for many organization’s recognition efforts. 
        
Here’s a short, Halloween-themed assessment on real life recognition efforts I have seen in my nearly 20 years of consulting. For each scenario, determine if it was a ‘trick or treat’ specifically in regard to effective recognition practices:

1. Water popsicles were given out during shift to show appreciation for all the extra effort despite unusually high temperatures and humidity in the shop. BUT, the first day a number of employees passed. The second day EVERYONE participated because both sugar and sugar-free popsicles were made available.
Trick or Treat? 

Remember - in effective recognition, one size does not fit all.

2. Employees were thrilled with the special, free barbeque lunch served by management. There were lots of favorable comments after about the pork, sauce selections, baked beans, coleslaw, and cornbread BUT employees struggled to answer a basic question – Why are we celebrating?

Trick or Treat?

Remember – be specific as to what you are recognizing otherwise it may not be repeated.

3. A supervisor gave each project team member a colorful recognition certificate for completing the special project on time and under budget. One of the eight team members looked disappointed. The supervisor found out that he/she misspelled the employee’s names on their certificate.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember - little things mean a lot in showing appreciation!

4. A supervisor purchased ‘blank’ thank you cards and wrote personalized notes to each employee when they wanted to reinforce a specific employee behavior or result.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember – most people value personalized recognition and appreciation significantly more than generic thanks.

5. Customer feedback on an exception service recovery effort was received. The supervisor delayed communicating the feedback and recognizing the employee for two weeks – until their next scheduled staff meeting.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember – timeliness increases the perceived value of recognition.

Effective recognition is one of the key processes organizations can use to strengthen, reinforce, or increase the probability of a specific action, behavior, or result occurring. Recognition shows appreciation and thanks through non-financial means – unlike rewards which are financially based. When employees feel they have made sacrifices, put in extra effort, solved problems, and delivered results but nobody says anything, it can be perceived that ‘it just doesn’t matter.’  And, when employees feel it doesn’t matter, many will stop doing it or doing it consistently well.   

Would more effective recognition lift the ‘spirits’ in your organization?  

Have you ever heard or thought – “we can’t work in the same company.” Things just aren’t done consistently between work-groups, departments, shifts, locations, etc. – especially when it comes to people-related activities surrounding performance management. 

Leaders have different strengths, weaknesses, behaviors and personalities, so it is natural they approach performance management differently. But, all employees need to see some consistent application of both formal and informal rules for important performance activities including:

• Reinforcing good behavior and performance
• Enhancing average behavior and performance
• Correcting poor behavior and performance
• Disciplining unacceptable behavior and performance

A best practice we developed in my roles as Start-up and then Operations General Manager in a Fortune 50 corporation was a weekly ACT meeting.  Its’ focus was 100% on taking action to drive Accountability, Consistency, and Trust. This standing meeting was mandatory for anyone who had the privilege of supervising others – no exceptions. The format was a simple round-table discussion. 

First, each leader was asked to answer two sets of questions:

1. Who should we make sure to thank for their extra effort, performance, or values-based behavior this week?  Why?  (Then ALL leaders reinforced, over the next several days, by stopping - showing sincere appreciation – and reinforcing).
2. Who should we be aware of that is being corrected or disciplined?  Why?

And then, a final exercise was done where one specific policy or procedure in the employee handbook was reviewed by the on-site HR specialist.  This helped create a common interpretation and execution.

What we initially found, through healthy dialog and debate, were that leaders had lots of different tolerance levels, ignored, or made excuses for certain employee behavior and performance.  These inconsistencies created perceived favoritism, trust issues, and eroded relationships.  And, they all negatively affected performance. 

International businesswoman Margaret Heffernan once said, “for good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, and debate.”  I would add that these same key elements are needed for creating a high performance organization with Accountability, Consistency, and Trust (ACT).

During my workshop last month at the Construction Education Institute, we discussed one of the biggest challenges in cultural change – aligning and coaching new required/desired behaviors of both employees and leaders.  Alignment is critical because it helps answer a basic question for each employee – here’s the impact you and your behavior have on the business. Bottom line – what you do and how you do it really does matter!

Common alignment issues include:

• Aligned behavior not routinely reinforced.  Many times this can lead to people believing it’s not important to continue to do a specific behavior. In addition, immediacy teaches the correlation between the positive reinforcement and new, desired behavior.  Research indicates to change a new behavior into a habit requires 17-21 times of reinforcement.  

• Inconsistent behavior not coached in a timely manner.  Consistency teaches predictability, creates trust and helps eliminate stress and confusion.  When behavior exceptions become the general rule - the ‘accepted or perceived way we do things here’ (culture) gets very fuzzy.  Fuzziness creates a loss of clarity.  Clarity is the first step in personal accountability.        
• Misaligned behavior tolerated too long. Procrastination or lack of pro-activity can set a precedent and provide for extended debates and arguments that it ‘was or use to be okay’.  Rationalizing misaligned behaviors by making excuses only allows the behavior and perceptions to continue. In addition, a leader’s overall effectiveness can be called into question by other direct reports, peers, and upper management when misaligned behavior is tolerated too long.
  
• Unacceptable behavior consumes too much time.  It absolutely takes time to properly address prolonged or blatant unacceptable behavior.  But it is important to remember, that in most cases, if a leader has already effectively explained the behavior  the employee is expected to improve, coached them on ways to improve, and allowed time for the employee to make improvement then most issues will not get to this stage.

Here are five key skills that can help you better align behavior: 

1. Dealing with differences of opinion 
2. Giving and accepting feedback
3. Creating mutual responsibility in accountability (between supervisor and employee)
4. Coaching for reinforcement, enhancement, correction, and discipline
5. Using positive reinforcement (research shows the ideal praise/criticism ratio for maximum performance is nearly 6 to 1)

Most leaders know these skills are important but struggle to properly allocate the necessary time to consistently execute them. Also, some leaders are misguided and think these skills are nice to have but not needed to be successful.  

Have your leaders mastered all five skills?  If not, then your culture has unnecessary waste, performance inefficiencies, and loses of human creativity & capability.    
       
Author Jim Collins once said, “Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99% alignment.”  Don’t make behavior alignment a last resort performance remedy.

If you would like to leverage some practical techniques in these five skills, then let’s connect! 

(Part 5 of a 5-part Series)

Here are more lessons learned from my eight years helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. We leveraged internal best practices by:

1. Using 6 Sigma methodologies to determine statistical correlations.  6 Sigma was being used throughout the corporation to drive improvement. So, we used it too on our engagement journey. Examples included: a) Production supervisors who provided effective performance feedback; made employees feel appreciated; and solicited and valued employees' opinions and ideas had 50 percentage point or more differences in engagement than their counterparts; and b) Supervisors who were on a specific job longer, had lower supervisor to employee ratios, and used team leads had significantly higher engagement.

2. Holding monthly Engagement Exchanges.  These global conference calls had leaders whose division or facility had high engagement and/or significant year over year improve highlight tactical and practical actions they had taken. Each session was kicked off by a high-ranking executive and then passed on to middle and first line managers for more detailed discussions. Each session was recorded for future reference.

3. Hosting an annual Global Engagement Conference.  At first, everyone thought they were different due to the country they operated in, product or service they provided, function they administered, or makeup of staff. But, the conference helped people quickly discover they had much in common on this engagement journey. Networking exploded. New relationships and benchmarking started. And, the mix of people attending the conference shifted from primary HR professionals to HR and Operation professionals.  The agenda was usually 80-90% internal and 10-20% external expertise. We had over 300 people attend these global conferences.

4. Creating and celebrating the Chairman’s Engagement Award. This non-financial recognition and reinforcement was given to individual divisions and facilities for reaching engagement milestones (best-in-class, most improved, etc.). Awards (banners and trophies) were presented to winners, based on size of organization/facility and function they performed (service, marketing, operations, distribution). Extensive ‘internal press’ was given to winners through our corporate media channels. Note: at the time there were only two other Chairman’s awards – one for quality and one for safety.

5. Partnering in research studies with our survey provider.  One study compared some key performance metrics in our independent dealer branches. When we compared the engagement levels of the top 25% of branches in the study to the bottom 25% of branches, we found highly engaged branches: a) out-performed their counterparts by meeting or exceeding quarterly financial targets 40% more often; b) had 60% lower technician related rework; and c) 3 times fewer accidents. This information was then broadly shared.

How are you capturing and leveraging internal best practices to drive and sustain high levels of employee engagement?

I hope this five-part series has given you new ideas and food for thought to support your organization’s employee engagement journey. I am passionate about sharing my experience and consulting with my clients to help drive and sustain their culture and employee engagement. How can I help you? Let’s start a dialog to discuss your efforts and how I might be able to help. Please contact my Business Manager Michele Lucia at Michele@BrianGareauInc.com or 1.214.543.0844 to set up a call.  Always remember – Employee Engagement is a contact sport!     

(Part 4 of a 5-part Series)

Here are more lessons learned from my eight years helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. These lessons focus on the formal measurement of employee engagement. We found engagement had to be measured:

1. As a key component of a larger process.  Research strongly indicates that measuring employee opinions ‘without’ any timely feedback on what was said or tangible actions taken, creates morale issues and increased ineffectiveness. In fact, internally we found more than 15 points higher engagement for employees who received timely feedback on survey results versus those who did not and more than 30 points higher engagement when employees saw managers take action on the survey results.

2. As a major contributor NOT sole contributor to performance improvement.  So, we conducted a global Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) that measured key strategic factors including: quality, safety, velocity, change, leadership, and engagement. This allowed us to analyze if statistical relationships and trends existed between key strategic success factors.  Each functional area (safety, quality, etc.) worked with internal and external resources to design high level survey questions that would drive high-level trends and follow-up dialog. Most functional areas asked less than five questions on our EOS.

3. By correlation versus causation.  We debated and researched this issue for several years. At the end, we concluded that when important business measurements (e.g. quality, safety, scrap, rework, attrition) were trending favorably so was engagement. We found the opposite was also true. We also stopped trying to determine if there was an absolute cause and effect with engagement. Instead we worked on creating engaging behaviors to complement our systems, processes, and philosophies of how to do business.

4. Both activities and outcomes.  Our activities were some of the key tactics that helped us achieve our desired outcomes. We tracked and monitored activities such as leaders: opening their survey results on-line; soliciting employees’ reaction and ideas to improve results; creating action plans; and completing action items. But we also measured the correlation between engagement and other key business metrics.  We found many favorable correlations between increased engagement and decreased attrition and absenteeism; improved quality and safety, increased implementation of LEAN principles; and a decline in union grievances.   

5. Consistently, so leaders who were trying to ‘game the measurement system’ had to be coached.  A few of our 7000+ leaders who received survey results tried to shift numbers in a desired direction – even though those numbers may not have reflected reality. Many tactics are mild and overt, but some are not.  Four common ‘gaming’ techniques we found were:

• selective timing of morale-boosting events (just before survey)
• withholding perceived negative news/actions until after the survey
• leading the witness, by asking questions in a manner that suggested the leader’s desired answer before taking the survey 
• trying to influence the survey rating scale. Some leaders told employees “a neutral score was bad” or “only the highest rating score counted”.

How does your employee engagement process ‘measure up’? 

Tomorrow - Lessons learned on Leveraging Success on An Employee Engagement Journey. 

(Part 3 of a 5-part Series)

Here are lessons learned on tackling limiting beliefs (from both leaders and employees) about employee engagement. They are based on my eight years of helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. These beliefs created non-productive behaviors and waste. Each had to be pro-actively tackled.   

Here are some false limiting beliefs on engagement we had to address:  Engagement was only:

1. Measurable in a survey.  We taught leaders to stop, look, and listen for everyday things that could indicate if there was engagement or disengagement. For example, do team members consistently arrive right at shift start and leave as soon as the clock strikes quitting time? Are employees applying for jobs outside your team? Do employees physically attend meetings but mentally disconnect by not paying attention or participating?   

2. About money.  Both external research and our own internal research found that there were two major sets of factors for engagement. The first were rational – things like competitive wages and benefits, a safe place to work, tools, and basic training. These had to be done first.  But, then it was critical to move on to the emotional elements which centered on caring, credibility, and trust. Leaders showed these attributes by: soliciting employee ideas; coaching for performance; participating in career discussions; and showing genuine interest in building a professional, positive relationship.  Research by the Corporate Leadership Council summed it up best – “while competitive compensation and benefit packages are crucial to attract and retain talent, other drivers of engagement are far more effective in driving discretionary effort.”

3. Leaders’ responsibility.  We constantly reinforced the fact that there can’t be any spectators in an engaged, high performing organization.  Everyone (executives, leaders, and employees) had an important role to play.  To assist this principle, we encouraged divisions, facilities, and teams to:  a) clarity and set expectations on what engaged and disengaged behavior actually looked like; b) help employees understand what’s in it for them (WIIFT) when they were engaged and c) reinforce engaged behavior and pro-actively coach and address disengaged behaviors.

4. Adding more things to do.  Initially many leaders complained they were already too busy to add more ‘on their plate’.  We used a 1960’s Motown hit – ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do’ – to reinforce it was more about the ‘how’.  For example: Leaders needed to communicate with their employees. So, rebalancing and doing a little more listening and less talking was engaging.  It was also more engaging and productive to effectively delegate more and dump responsibilities less. Even a simple thing like walking from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ in an office, factory, or distribution center was more engaging to look up, make eye contact, and acknowledge people than bury your head in a paper report or electronic screen.

What limiting beliefs about engagement are delaying your organization from maximizing performance?  What choices need to be re-evaluated?

Tomorrow - Lessons learned on Measurement on An Employee Engagement Journey

(Part 2 of a 5-part Series)

Here are four key lessons learned on change from helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. During that eight-year time-frame we went from 1 out of 2 of our 90,000+ employees being engaged to more than 4 out 5. We also saw higher performance and successfully weathered “The Great Recession.”

A true employee engagement journey requires change in:

1. Culture – the accepted or perceived way we do things here.  Change has two major sets of barriers - obstacles and objections. Obstacles are easy to see and identify. People typically articulate obstacles by saying something like, “I can’t make that change because you have not done or provided ______” (fill in the blank). Obstacles are usually tangible things like time, resources, training, documentation, etc. Responsibility is solely placed on another leader or process owner to fix these obstacles before change can proceed.  People try to maintain their current behaviors until the perfect solution and ‘all’ obstacles are eliminated.

Objections, on the other hand, are less overt. They are typically exhibited – not by words but by attitude and behavior that send the strong message – “I don’t want to change the way I currently do it.”  It’s here where personal beliefs, priorities, authority, and behavior are challenged. Objectives are powerful - can wreck change initiatives – and create distractions & execution waste.

Real culture change for employee engagement takes place when organizations pro-actively address those individuals (employees and leaders) who only superficially embrace the desired change. It’s when desired engagement behaviors are no longer optional, nice to do, or only done when it’s convenient. 
      
2. Strategic intent of employee survey.  We decided to play more ‘offense’ and use the employee survey to help determine leading indicators to drive higher performance. In the past, we had played more defense and used the survey to simply identify warning signs or evaluate programs/initiatives. Clear expectations were also set for leaders to open their survey results on-line; share high-level results with employees; solicit feedback; document an action plan; and execute action items in a timely manner. These actions were measured with a simple interim Pulse survey.  

3. Cycle time and content.  We totally redesigned our Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) by using 6 Sigma methodologies and an outside vendor. Our VOC (voice of the customer) told us they wanted changes such as: easier ways to take the survey; faster turnaround of results; ownership of every question; and support tools post survey. Over several years, we transitioned to 100% on-line; high level reports were available in one business day; every question had ownership (functional area or level of leadership); pre-populated individualized on-line PowerPoint presentations were available for each leader; and a dedicated web-based action planning tool was developed and rolled-out.

4. When success is declared.  Sustainable engagement only occurs when four things are RIGHT. Employees and leaders do the right thing (aligned to goals and values), at the right time, the right way (following desired policies, procedures, and processes), for the right reason (commitment compared to compliance).  It was not just hitting a number on the employee survey.

So are your engagement efforts:

• Addressing both obstacles and objections to change needed for high-level employee engagement?
• Playing more offense or defense with your measurement tool and survey content?

• Responding to your internal Voice of the Customer (VOC) needs and wants?
• Focused on sustainable engagement and the four Rights of Engagement?

 
Tomorrow - Lessons learned on Limiting Beliefs on An Employee Engagement Journey.

(Part 1 of a 5-part Series)

Here are five key lessons learned on how to develop a plan for Employee Engagement. These are based on helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement efforts for eight years. During that time, we went from 1 out of 2 of our 90,000+ employees being engaged to more than 4 out 5. We also saw higher performance and successfully weathered “The Great Recession.”

Employee engagement must be:

1. Considered strategic.  This allows it to remain a priority to invest time, money, and resources into it even in challenging market conditions. Employee engagement was one of the top tier strategic metrics for our Fortune 50’s People key performance indicator (KPI). We knew we could instruct employees to reach certain goals but not maximize performance without their heads (ideas), hearts (commitment), hands (physical work), and habits (consistency). That’s full engagement!
 
2. Directly aligned with the organization’s values.  The Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) we used to measure engagement directly supported our value of Excellence by supporting the fact that ‘employees had the right to express their good-faith opinions about how we could improve our own performance and the performance of the company.’ And, ‘we actively listen, respond, encourage teamwork and make decisions based on facts and data.’ Since values are the behavioral blueprint for any organization, it’s important that organizations clearly connect the dots between desired organizational values-based behaviors and engagement. 

3. Relentlessly executed.  It required sponsorship and accountable at the highest levels. One of the factors in our CEO’s executive compensation was employee engagement. Our results were also reported to the outside Board of Directors. Engagement was not an event or ‘season’ in our business year; it required deliberate efforts every day.

4. Effectively integrated.  We discovered 12 key people-related processes that informed, taught, and reinforced desired behaviors and had to be both effectively designed, monitored, and then executed by each leader. Too often organizations skip, go out of sequence, or don’t effectively execute these processes. The result is mixed signals, clarity corrosion, and waste. Employee engagement can’t survive as a stand-alone initiative. It’s an outcome of many integrated processes and supporting behaviors.

5. Must be maintained during challenging economic times.  When the Great Recession hit, our company sales dropped by more than 35%. Tough decisions had to be made including: wage freezes, layoffs, permanent cuts, temporary shutdowns, and other austerity measures. But, we didn’t stop our engagement efforts. In fact, our CEO wanted to make sure employees had an opportunity to respectfully express their opinions and feelings during all the dramatic changes, so our EOS was not cut. Our engagement did not decline during this unprecedented period. In fact, employees acknowledged more open communication, visibility of leadership and values-based decisions during this challenging time-frame. This helped us respond and rebound more quickly when business turned around.

Are your employee engagement initiatives:

• A need to do or a want to do? (Strategic value)
  
• Helping drive more specific values-based behaviors? (Alignment)
  
• Driving personal accountability? (Performance requirement)
  
• Not standing alone? (Integration)
  
• Able to be sustained in challenging economic times? (Sustainability)
  

 
Tomorrow – Lessons learned on Change on An Employee Engagement Journey

This month the Associated Press reported our nation’s homeless population had increased for the first time since 2010. According to HUD’s annual Point in Time count there are more than 550,000 homeless across our nation with nearly 35% having no access to nightly shelter. Just imagine!

What if one of the most special gifts you could get for Christmas was something so simple - a new pair of white athlete socks? Our friends at New York City Relief (newyorkcityrelief.org) have educated us on how critical a clean pair of socks is to a homeless person. Washing and drying socks is a challenge when you have no home and limited finances. And, if your feet get an infection then dirty socks can perpetuate the situation making it even harder to walk to get food and stay warm. NYCR’s mission includes a statement - we don’t just give a hand OUT, but we also give a hand UP. They do this by personal connection and contact. Just imagine – something as simple as a clean pair of white socks making a difference in a person’s life!

This holiday season there are many little things that we can do to make a BIG difference in people’s lives. Simple, easy to do things like a warm greeting; eye contact; an overdue visit or phone call; a handwritten note of thanks; an uninterrupted period of active listening; a few words of encouragement; or having a meal with someone who otherwise would eat alone. The list goes on and on. Just imagine the impact on an apartment complex, neighborhood, school, church, or community when people truly interacted and saw tangible actions and behaviors that said, ‘We care about you. You are important. You are valued.’

There are simple ‘game changers’ that differentiate workplaces too. When organizations lift employees UP and show genuine interest and concern for them, then in return employees give back their heads (ideas and problem-solving), hearts (commitment), hands (physical work), and habits (consistency). Countless little things make a difference. Just imagine the impact on an organization’s strategy execution, performance, customer service, and brand when employees feel:

• In the know compared to speculating or relying on your grapevine
• Ownership and accountability to deliver desired results   
• More included than excluded in discussions about change
• Relationships with their boss are made of thousands of regular actions and reactions not just monthly or quarterly scheduled appointments
• Their feedback can be unfiltered but respectful
• Active participation in meetings was expected not just merely showing up
• Their questions are answered in a timely manner and given the same level of importance as customers and shareholders
• Their opinions really matter because they were routinely asked for them, acted on, and recognized for
• Eager to be an advocate for the organization’s product, services, and workplace because they are proud to be associated with each

A small tugboat can turn a very large ship around. And, a small investment can yield a big return. Small but deliberate actions and behaviors can also turn around big things including people’s beliefs, perceptions, behaviors, and even hope.  Make a difference. Step out and do the small things well. It really matters and will make a difference. Just imagine engaging higher performance through improved business culture and more consistent in-sync employee behavior.

It was an honor to have recently spoken at AED’s Leadership Conference in California.  One of the interesting piece of research on business culture we discussed was a joint Columbia/Duke University study of 1800 CEO’s and CFO’s.  This research found:

• 92% agreed improving business culture would improve the value of their company
• Only 15% agreed their business culture was where it needed to be
• 70% agreed leaders need to spend more time on business culture

One practical application question we challenged participants with is – ‘what are your organization culture’s strengths, weaknesses, and strategic opportunities?’

It is impossible to answer the above question without measurement.  Measurement helps us identify what is helping us generate or not generate results.  It also helps us test different variables, better respond to change, and make more informed decisions.  But, really good measurement should also:

• Focus on the ‘vital few not trivial many’ factors
  
• Generate discussion (not just get filed away)
• Include timely feedback communication  
  
• Take action (for continuous improvement)
• Drive superior results

If you don’t yet have or are looking for improved business culture assessment tools that are strategically aligned and drive practical solutions, then consider our:     

• High Performance Cultural Review Process (HPC-RP) – This unique audit tool looks for evidence (physical documentation, direct observation, and/or consistent collaborated feedback) of 85 items that directly impact an organization’s culture.  Discover where there is strong alignment or inconsistencies in processes that Inform, Teach, and Reinforce the ‘way we do things here.’  Clients can be trained to do self-administration.
• High Performance Cultural Assessment Process (HPC-AP).  This next generation assessment process builds upon lessons learned from over 200 previous cultural assessments.  HPC-AP is a ‘full physical’ compared to traditional employee surveys that take a ‘pulse’.  It uses multiple data gathering techniques to better understand what employees are ‘picking up’ that cause them to think, feel, and act the way they do in your business.  Senior management is directly involved to maximize the return on this investment measurement.

Is it time to ‘press pause’ in your organization and measure a huge competitive differentiator – business culture?  Let’s chat at Brian@BrianGareauInc.com.