The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

~Lord Kelvin

Myths, stereotypes and preconceived notions, some shatter and some remain; Lord Kelvin would have been much more careful about saying what he said here if he had any idea how things would pan out in the future, anyhow – coming back to our article, quite a peculiar name, wouldn’t you think? This idea came out of brainstorming session our team was having (we do a lot of that) – so the question was if you could relate people at work with airplanes, who would be which type of plane! It occurred to us that airplanes like people have a personality of their own; some are lean, mean and ready to go; while others can look like they really deserve a break.

The Unpowered (Employee)

These people primarily come to office for recreational purposes, their own or someone else’s. All show and no go as far as work is concerned – the most common reason why they are kept in the team is because they are either funny or they have the ‘right’ gossip. They take their lives and careers as a joke and others are only too happy to play along.

Defining features – Generally slower, less massive, and less expensive than other types. Mostly used to glide off a cliff, catch wind on the beach or setting useless world records!

The Propeller (Employee)

These are people who applied the ‘take life as it comes’ adage to their professional lives with not so pleasant results. They are not updated with the new technologies or best practices and are satisfied with just working as they have been working. The two most common things you will hear them say is “I’m going with the flow”, or “just riding the wave”. By the way propellers are the planes used for crop dusting too – now we’re not suggesting anything!

Defining features – They are quieter, fly at lower speeds, and have lower load capacity. However, they are significantly cheaper and much more economical than jets.

The Jet (Employee)

The ‘with it’ guys. Good at their work and conduct, they know how to soar to success – literally! They use a variety of techniques to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd, including but not limited to – being loud and intimidating, being so fast and efficient that no one can catch up, taking the ‘lesser’ aircraft types for a ride. Needless to say, Jets are expensive, oh yes!

Defining features – More powerful than a than ‘unpowered’ and ‘propeller’ types. As a consequence, they have greater weight capacity and fly faster than propeller driven aircraft. One drawback, however, is that they are noisy.

The Cargo (Employee)

This employee was made to work, and doesn’t that make everyone happy! Anything and everything that walks in the office will offload their work on them, although the opening is usually – “hey, you busy?” or “can you help me with this small little thing?” Of course later on it doesn’t remain a small little thing. While the off loader is busy relishing the break they just created for themselves, they take solace in the fact that their work will be taken care of by this Cargo Airplane of employees. No one clearly knows what drives these people – maybe they really like helping others, or maybe it’s because of their inability to say no.

Defining Features – Has greater weight capacity than any other type of aircraft, not necessarily faster. Better stress handling capability as compared to other aircraft types.

Which type are you?

Why do it?

It builds a psychological contract – A good internal communication policy helps to build a two way non verbal understanding between the employee and the employer – the employee feels valued by the employer and the employer is able to visibly display their commitment to the employees’ well-being by acknowledging that employee feedback/interaction matters to them. It is not just one of those ‘good to have’ things, it is in fact one of the ‘things to have’, if you wish to build a world class organization.

Improved work performance – Good communication practices result in better performance and better overall organizational climate. At the same time, they help bridge the gap between the employee’s need to have access to more and better information. Employee communication is commonly confused with an open door policy, while, in reality, these are two very different things. Employee communication pertains to the messages that the management communicates to, and receives from its employees. An open door policy, on the other hand, is a reflection of the attitude of the management towards its accessibility for employees.

Reduced staff turnover - Research has revealed that open communication at the workplace has a direct positive impact on employee satisfaction and morale levels, which in turn, reduces attrition levels. And if you thought that the time and money spent on communication is not justified or necessary – well, think again… Would you rather be paying three times to find replacements or take some preemptive action? Remember, the cost of replacement is not just the money that you pay to the recruiting agency there is loss of knowledge and adverse impact on morale of the people who stay behind that also has to be taken into account.

It’s branding at its best – Right from the time a candidate is interviewed for a position to the time when an employee leaves the organization; all forms of written or verbal communication that are exchanged are implicitly projecting the identity of the organization – your brand is at stake. It’s that little bit extra that you put into communication that separates the good from the best. A well planned employee communication process is internal branding working for you at no extra cost.

How to do it?

Make a communication strategy – Right from convincing the top management about the importance of internal communication and building internal alliances to facilitate efficiency of the communication process to reviewing communication initiatives to check what has worked, what hasn’t, and why not at the end of a communication cycle forms the communication strategy. It is advisable to have a structured approach to this as opposed to haphazardly trying to put across information.

Mind the medium – No single method of communication is most effective, each one of them have their own pros and cons and specific situation based usage. Communication can be usually divided into two major categories depending on their usage, which is, they can either be in a dialogue mode like one-to-one meetings or notification based like a letter or an intranet information board. Also, they can be either verbal or written; due consideration is to be taken of that fact the verbal communication can be misinterpreted and written communication can be missed or overlooked, therefore it is advisable to use the right combination of both.

Ensure Communication Clarity – If you are trying to set up a communication strategy or are in the process of revamping it, your motto should be ‘right information for the right person, at the right time and delivered in most impactful manner’. You have to make sure the message is consistent, over time and between audiences. Overtly complicated language is counterproductive to the entire exercise of communication. And make sure that wherever possible, a two way communicated is established which encourages dialogue and feedback.

Create the Aha! Moment – The Aha! Moment in communication is that time when the intended message hits home in the minds of the audience in a moment of clarity and realization. These are some of the common Aha! Moments:

• “Ah, now I get it!”
• “Now I can do something about it.”
• “That makes perfect sense.”

Creating and delivering an Aha! Moment is the ultimate aim of any employee communication practice, this technique is especially effective in communicating change where you don’t want to spell the information out in clear words at first but instead provide related information and data leading the people automatically to the Aha! Moment. It also helps people to form their own understanding of the situation rather than feeling that information is being forced down on them.

The most successful organizational change programs are the ones that are supported by sound information and solid facts. Though ESS or employee satisfaction surveys have been around for a long time now, it was only recently that the “engagement” buzzword caught on, and how! Let’s take a look at the fundamental differences between engagement and satisfaction surveys and their process of administration. As you will find out, they are most definitely not the same things.

Follow up Machinery:

Brief the senior management based about the strong points and the areas of development of the organization by conducting a normative analysis of the survey results

Share the survey results with the management team and the employee via e-mail and employee meetings

Finalize on the improvement areas and create an itemized action plan based on it

Select the team responsible for implementing the action plan including team leaders and managers, providing specific training where required

Regularly track the progress of the action plan and share the information with the senior management

Pitfalls in execution:

Design and implementation pitfalls:

What do you want from the survey?

The first step of any survey is to objectively arrive at the purpose of the survey. Whether it is to prove a hypothesis, predict future behavior or assess a current scenario, it must be stated clearly and concisely beforehand.

During questionnaire design:

• Questions not aligned with the study objective in mind
• Including lengthy, biased, difficult or ambiguous questions
• Questionnaire not sufficiently reviewed before being circulated
• Pre-testing not performed, this may result in a lot of “don’t know/not sure” responses to potentially confusing or lengthy questions

During Sample selection:

• Unnecessarily increasing sample size to compensate for “less responses”; for example it is better to have 260 people responding out of 300 than 5500 out of 10000.
• Using non-probability sampling where actually probability sampling is required
• Employees not kept in the loop while selecting a sample, resulting in a feeling of resentment amongst those not included in the sample

During data Processing:

• Skipping step to save time can negatively impact the usefulness of the survey
• Counterintuitive results or impossible/inconsistent answers are not cross-checked
• Weak non-responder policy/execution can result in a flawed survey outcome

Other Pitfalls:

• Inefficient follow-up action – A loosely implemented action plan can spell complete wastage of resources as the survey will have little or no impact on the employee satisfaction, engagement or performance; the survey is thus reduced to obscure piece of information.
• Disinterested workers – The fate of a survey is majorly pre-decided by the level of interest employee’s display towards it, a survey of disinterested people cannot result in anything interesting. Therefore it is essential to take the employees into confidence by communication exercises before the commencement of the survey so as to explain the nature and scope of the survey.
• Confidentiality not ensured – Responses tend to be biased if confidentially is not expressly ensured by the survey administrators and the management, because all participants tend to select the ‘most appropriate answer’ instead of the ‘factual answer’. While communicating this it should be made clear that the purpose of the survey is not to judge the employees but to judge the factors affecting the organization.
• Unrealistic employee expectation of the survey – Employers as a rule should avoid asking question on the areas where they do not want and/or do not see any scope for change; this is not only purposeless but also tends to unnecessarily raise employee expectations eventually leading to resentment.

*THE payback is that for every 10 percent improvement in engagement, the company reaps an increase in the employee’s effort level by 6 percent, according to the Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based survey firm.

When it comes to listing factors that cause headaches for corporations today, big or small, then perhaps attrition comes out right on the top of the list. Keeping in mind the current economic scenario, here are some innovative ways to keep your employees happy and engaged without being too extravagant.


Small is Big
Surprise has a special value that cannot be compared to the biggest of raises; a gift certificate or perhaps a surprise team outing can go a long way in generating positive feelings amongst employees. To emphasize this point, consider this example:

Which is better?
1. A routine 20% corporate discount you get from a food chain (that you take for granted), or
2. A surprise gift coupon they provide as a gesture to appreciate your repeat clientele


Coach
Everybody has their share of problems, personal, professional or somewhere in between. Often times a fresh perspective on things is what is required to get past such bottlenecks. As an employer if you help employees at this level, efficiency will automatically soar, leading to better engagement and thus their loyalty towards you. Those attrition numbers would have never looked so good!


Find The Triggers
Not all people are motivated by the same things in life; what good would it be if you gift a vacation to an employee who is primarily motivated by money? Besides money, other things on this list are recognition, relationships, sense of purpose. Nevertheless the point is to find these triggers and make sure that you adopt the right treatment for the right employee.


Go Play
I know not all of us are in, umm, let’s say perfect shape; but a team sport could be anything competitive and need not necessarily be a contact sport (count paint-balling in!). Months and months of playing ‘pass the document’ and ‘who moved my coffee’ can make your employees dull and listless. Competitive sports are a liberating force where all become equal so you might just see the front line employee shout to the Manager “you need to up your game!”. Which is not always a bad thing.


Flexibility Not Rigidity
Arrangements like telecommuting, work from home and job sharing were invented for good reason and work very well with people who are serious about what they do and enjoy their work (maybe not with that new “a beer might help” kind of intern). So long as productivity does not suffer, these measures are worth trying out as certain people actually perform better this way. Let people decide how they wish to work.


Create Vision
People instinctively have a desire to know if they are headed in the right direction; reinforce that thought in the affirmative. If you are a big organization, internal career paths (vertical or lateral) could be created and communicated so that employees feel a sense of being their own master and generally not feel like being in a rut. Smaller organizations and start-ups use profit sharing incentives to the same effect.