What makes your employees highly engaged?

This infographic I came across on LinkedIn is rather self-explanatory so I'll save an introduction.

Click on the image to enlarge

What I do find interesting however is the bottom statistic, knowing what is expected of them at work, which is the only element shown as being almost identical between engaged and disengaged employees.

When you contrast that against the highly engaged experiences - talking about progress, encouraging development and praising work there is a clear pattern. It's not so much about the 'what' but instead the 'how' and 'why' that can really help drive engagement when talking about management direction. Do employees still need to know what's expected of them? Yes of course they do but if you want highly engaged employees you'll need to deliver much more than that. 

I also took note of the phrase They have a best friend at work. This puzzled me a little bit however in my quick search for the original image source was not able to find further information. I can only think this refers to having a trusted friend in the colloquial sense. 

My final thought is some of these statements are almost truisms such as Their manager cares about them however even so there were a number of respondents who clearly answered in the negative. It would be fascinating to take a deeper look at some of these respondents and cross reference answers against other data points. Are these 'lone-wolf 'engaged employees who plough their own destiny or just unavoidable statistical deviations? Without knowing more background on these numbers I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps I'll have a new perspective in a few years when I have run through number of new engagement pieces both individual and organisational. 

Post Ulrich HR?

This post is a link to Lucy Adams' article titled Kissing goodbye to traditional Ulrich - Next Generation HR Organisation Design.

This enjoyable read takes the core elements of the Ulrich model then explores and projects them against current HR trends and observations. 

What I particularly like about this post is that apart from being bit a bit tongue in cheek, it's also slightly controversial. There are a number of elements I agree with such as the argument HR advisory work needs to be more than a transnational service. 

It's easy to answer a technical question, push out a contract or read out a policy paragraph, however it's not until an HR Advisor considers these items in the context of the people, culture and organisation they are actually value adding. I believe managers and staff often come to HR for advice because they need a trusted and informed or different perspective beyond the obvious - if it was obvious they probably wouldn't be calling.

Other items I'd like to challenge such as when Lucy states that "But most critically, we forgot the fact that when a line manager is asking about a policy - they are not actually asking about a policy - but how to get round it!". For me good policies are about best a practice framework for presumed situations and are built upon justifiable fundamentals, aligned with an organisations culture (and legislature where relevant). Perhaps Lucy was just making a generalisation of a few, however I would argue that her statement a surface level assessment. In my experience, most of the time managers of the disposition that Lucy describes don't really just seek to get around policies. Rather they either have a conceptual disagreement with what the policy is trying to achieve or the policy itself is a troubled answer to the unique situation at hand. One then has to ask, is the policy really meeting its purpose? It's rare that I've come across a manager that doesn't genuinely have the interests of the organisation at heart - the goal often remains the same, it's the perspectives, philosophies and values that change.      

  

That being said however I am aligned on Lucy's comment on trust:  

...any of us who have had to draft interminable employment policies recognise that this comes at a cost – to our capacity to focus on building the capabilities of line managers. I am often brought in to provide fresh challenge and ideas for HR teams. Whilst they like the innovation, they equally are concerned about their ability to deliver as their managers “wouldn’t do it”. They may be right but this means we are stuck in this vicious cycle where - we don’t trust managers to manage - we therefore produce rules and processes that make them do it - we spend our time enforcing and monitoring the process to make sure they have – which means we don’t have the time to develop their capability – so we don’t trust them to manage – and so on ….

Some of the most enjoyable HR memories I have is where a manager who I once worked closely with develops new levels of confidence and capabilities due to our joint learnings and experiences. It's important to remember we hire managers to manage, sometimes this can get lost in the noise of a busy HR practitioners' schedule or desire to craft the perfect policy. 

The Conflict Paradox

At a Disrupt HR conference I was introduced to a really stimulating concept about the idea of the 'Conflict Paradox' by one of the speakers, Sandra Walden Pearson. Sandra kindly referred me onto this article which discusses the paradox a bit more as part of a short book review.

The Conflict Paradox - Seven Dilemmas at the Core of Disputes, Bernard Mayer

The idea here is that Bernard identifies seven paradoxes that frame how people tend to compose their approaches to different situations. The assumed general consensus being that one needs to be on a articular side of the fence with one of these elements.

1. Competition and Cooperation
2. Optimism and Realism
3. Avoidance and Engagement
4. Principle and Compromise
5. Emotions and Logic
6. Neutrality and Advocacy
7. Community and Autonomy

On the outset, each of these items appear polar opposites and mutually exclusive. What I found really interesting however is that Bernard does not describe them as contradictions at all but rather "codependent realities".  

This all builds off the concept of moving from a win-lose scenario to a win-win scenario where experienced negotiators are able to intellectually manage both of these elements at the same time.

As HR professionals we are often provided with situations where we appear to be presented with conflicting elements. Take for instance a flexible work arrangement, where one party is seeking flexibility in work patterns while the other wants to maintain productivity as per standardised norms. From one point of view these a contradictory, however as HR professionals we know that flexibility is an excellent avenue to actually boost productivity. A 2013 Ernst & Young report on The role of women in unlocking Australia's productivity potential is a great paper discussing flexibility.

It's interesting to consider situations were particularly skilled practitioners would be able to both identify and then capitalise on both of these codependents in order to achieve a net gain for both sides. Obvious examples come up around considerations with enterprise bargaining for instance where employers and unions can be firmly pushing their relative position built on the foundations of one of these elements (competition, principle, advocacy...)

I'll have to save a more detailed review for when I have had the chance to read further. In the meantime it's interesting to consider how one can manage complex situations by challenging the conception that it needs even be a win-loss scenario - make it a win-win.