DIAMOND RINGS NOT NEEDED

The gurus have spoken.

These days, employee engagement is down.  Way down.  Gallup says only 30 percent of workersare motivated; Bain, that engagement is lowest in the customer-contact tiers of the company.

Of course, blame is everywhere.  At leaders, for wearing rose-tinted glasses (McKinsey’s organizational health index).  At the lack of emotional bonding between employees and work.  And at the lack of “walking the talk” among senior executives.

No one agrees on the solution.  “Engagement cascades from the top,” trumpets one org health scientist.  Middle managers should have the tools and wherewithal to shape engagement, insists another.  Teams are the answer, claims yet another expert.

Why not do two simple things:  Ask – and listen well?  We’ve found employees are more than willing to share opinions and ideas … 

If. They. Know. They’ll. Be. Listened. To. 

Believe it or not, many care … and actively want to improve wherever they “live” for 40+ hours a week.  One of our recent information sessions, for example, gathered 75+ percent response, great insights, and lots of volunteers for a discretionary, extra-hours-after-work program.

But a caveat:  When you ask, then it’s incumbent to tell.  Share the findings, whether at a high or expansive level.  Have groups of workers examine the data and draw some conclusions … and remedies.  Or assign the task to frontline supervisors and teams.  You’ll find that kind of participation reaps not only engagement but also is much less expensive than the traditional diamond solutions.

PSSST ... DID YOU HEAR ... ?

In most places, the grapevine works overtime – though its practitioners might not.

It’s human nature to gossip and complain, agree most psychologists.  Yet what’s not so humane are the times that management either doesn’t know or ignores the issues.

And if frequent enough, those bitches and moans just might lead to anonymous reviews on glassdoor.com, to workplace incivility, higher absenteeism (and lower productivity), and retention issues.  Not to mention legal actions.

New software provider Memo has it solved (it thinks).  It’s designed an anonymous e-forum to vent – and yes, management reads and responds.  Major employers like Amazon and Deloitte have subscribed.  Later this year (pre-IPO), Memo will launch tools that collect data on employee sentiment, moderate comments, and engage with workers.

Which is where we, as marketers and communicators, gotta step in.  Software that interacts with employees?  Seriously.  How about leaders who share issues, validate that problems are real and that solutions are in the works? 

Today, working for companies with a purpose is more than a candidate request.  Balancing (or blending, the word we prefer) work-life demands is not just the fervent wish of millennials.  And transparency, very soon we predict, will be mandated by potential new hires.  And why not?  Those companies with the highest morale and greatest collegiality, research shows, are also those where employees can respectfully complain.

Where is your company on the kvetch scale?

FRIENDS, WITH BENEFITS

Umpty-ump research studies tell us it’s good to have friends at work.  Social scientists – academic and commercial types – tick off the reasons; friends …

• Act as antidotes to declining employee engagement
• Provide relief from stress (eight out of ten of us suffer from it)
• Bond through a common sense of purpose
• Improve productivity and profitability
• Help with employee retention.

Yet few of these seers tell how, exactly, to find buddies in the 8 to 5 maelstrom.  There are some pretty obvious no-nos, like senior-senior manager with his/her staff member. 

And then there’s the matter of trust.  These days, the sharing of lives and values, somehow, seems risky.  Employment is not necessarily secure, and it feels better to carefully find those with whom to bond.  Besides, separating work and life is a good thing to do.

On the other hand, psychologists point out, we’re social animals, in social institutions.  So if leaders set the stage for appropriate camaraderie, the culture becomes that much stronger and its workforce, more resistant to outside forces. 

Puzzled?  The answer just could be part of orientation, onboarding, new hire initiation or whatever it’s called.  Right now, companies like Hyatt are assigning buddies to just arrived employees, individuals who will help with insights and questions.  That kind of match depends on (we hope) some rigorous screening and assessment, working to fit diverse peoples together for a longer-term relationship.  It sure helps when a tenured someone helps out a newbie, with no strings attached.

Now that’s what we call friends, with benefits.

MARATHONING IS GOOD FOR YOU ...

We can’t wait to dig into the second season of “Orange is the New Black.”

And according to Netflix (a blame-worthy originator of the trend), 61 percent of its subscribers admit to similar yearnings for serial sessions.

Practicing binge-viewing is simple:  Download or stream TV seasons from your favorite purveyor, and watch for two to three hours.  And despite Newton Minow’s criticisms of the tube as a vast wasteland, a number of psychological professionals claim it’s no longer just a dreadful self-indulgence.

Think about their reasons:

• It’s a social experience (i.e., we usually watch with others)
• We watch one show, much like the way we’d read a top-flight novel … in sessions.
• The shows are actually good.  [Okay, okay:  We know folks who don’t like Breaking Bad.  But who could argue with House of Cards?  Or Mad Men?  Or … ?]
• It’s our selection, one not fueled by advertising or specific time slots.

In our heart of hearts, though, we wish one thing:  That we could transfer the experience of eyeballing the screen to eyeballing a book.  Our volunteering experiences with grade-schoolers have uncovered some incredulous-to-us issues with reading, even spelling out words.  It’s not just limited to kids either.  About half of US adults can’t peruse an eighth-grade level book.

Those stats impact everything we do.  The question then becomes, “how do we best entice employees and consumers and other constituencies to not only keep up with and understand our messages, but also actively enjoy the experiences?”  Ideas more than welcome at cbyd.co.