The ‘Downturn Dilemma’: Increasing performance with a reduced budget
June 22nd, 2010
By Chris Hopkins, MD
Cuts needn’t dent employee engagement levels if you communicate with care
The so-called ‘downturn dilemma’ is actually a perennial HR headache. How do you boost engagement and performance levels and get your organization competition fit, when your recruitment, and learning and development (L&D) budgets are constantly being squeezed?
There’s additional pressure now admittedly. Fast-changing policies from the new coalition government, and the likelihood of higher costs, further spending reductions and job cuts to come, not to mention the volatile economic environment, mean UK businesses really are going to have to achieve more with less in the coming year. Recent research by training company Thales found that while 79% of businesses sensibly stated employee engagement is a top priority at board level to get them through the on-going recession, 44% also said cost-cutting would take precedence over investment in L&D. Not surprisingly Thales found that companies continuing to invest in their people are recovering faster than those who’ve slashed their budgets to nothing. So how do you fill the gap between cuts and improved performance?
My immediate advice is to budget smarter, and promote your existing L&D provisions with more ingenuity and gusto. My experience when reviewing employee opinions of their employers is that many staff members don’t understand the full extent of the rewards, benefits and L&D provisions on offer to them anyway. Clear, timely communication of your reward, wellbeing and L&D policies can reassure existing employees that there are genuine opportunities for them, so long as they deliver performance now.
If you have honed down the workforce you’re likely to have retained a core of your best talent. That’s a great place to start. Prioritize your spending to leverage the skills of these promising people. Communicate creatively to keep people motivated and on-message. Telling your teams they’re the best, inspiring them with good news stories, and empowering them to drive the company forward needn’t cost very much. Also it pays to clearly signpost the career opportunities that will come to those who stay loyal to you.
Ask yourselves an important question: While the board is pre-occupied with efficiency and performance management, who is focusing on keeping the company vision, values and culture on track? Often the simple act of communicating regularly and clearly with employees can keep people engaged and motivated, even in the toughest of times.
The waiting game - keeping people engaged while negotiations drag on
May 13th, 2010
By Chris Hopkins, MD
‘Sort It Out You Clowns’ screamed the Daily Star’s headline on 11 May, five days after the General Election failed to deliver a clear winner to govern the UK. For a country unfamiliar with the long, drawn-out process required to form a coalition government, it’s not surprising that the red-tops were reflecting a growing sense of distrust as the hours and days of cross-party negotiations ticked by. The rolling news coverage of talks proved frustrating for both the press and the British public. After all it’s the 21st Century and we’re accustomed to web news, tweets and emails spelling things out clearly and instantly in modern life. We like hard facts delivered immediately, not prolonged bouts of uncertainty.
In business, just as in politics, people like to be kept in the loop when it comes to slowly emerging information that will affect them personally. In the workplace this is when the rumour mill kicks in, stirring up distrust and disengagement. Parallels can be usefully drawn between the predicament of a Hung Parliament and boardroom dramas unfolding. When hammering out a merger or acquisition, selling a business, or putting a redundancy or contingency programme in place, CEOs and their teams should never forget their duty to keep updating frontline staff and wider stakeholders, or they will lose the faith of the workforce.
It’s expected that engagement levels will drop when change is on the cards simply because uncertainty, fear and confusion creep in. But if communication is very carefully managed these problems can be contained. Of course negotiations behind closed doors will be necessary, but communication strategies can also be put in place to ensure candid updates about the status and progress of change.
It’s vital that employees have repeated opportunities to hear directly from the decision-makers at the top of the organisation. Leaders and comms teams should help employees understand the benefits of proposed changes for themselves and for the business as a whole, and a channel for feedback should be made available and publicised well from the start. A little reassurance of why things are happening can go a long way. Feeling left in the dark gets nobody’s vote.
Will your talent jump ship when the going gets good?
November 19th, 2009
Since the UK finally admitted that it was in the grips of a recession in January this year, your top talent has been battening down the hatches and biding its time… waiting for the moment the market finally starts to show signs of improvement before upping sticks and moving on.
In a recent survey conducted by the CIPD, 34 per cent of respondents admitted that whilst job security concerns are forcing people to stay put at present, they plan to make a move to pastures new in as little as a year’s time.
The recession has been hard on everyone, and whilst a proportion of the workforce have lost their jobs entirely through a rash of redundancy, those left standing are expected to do more work for less money to compensate for their erstwhile colleagues and help the business survive the storm. This has led to a league of incredibly talented, yet incredibly disgruntled, employees who are keen to take their new skills and place them elsewhere at the very first opportunity.
So, how do you stop your top talent from jumping ship and taking all those valuable skills away with them? Whilst there is no fail-safe way of keeping hold of your employees, a careful mix of recognition and above all communication will ensure that whilst people are feeling the pressure of their workloads, they at least know why they are being asked to go above and beyond, that they are valued and their hard work is being acknowledged.
By communicating change and treating your employees with respect at each step of the way you are in a position to build trust, and when the job market does achieve its inevitable turnaround, the staff base you will be left with will be the loyal and actively engaged individuals who really matter and make a true difference to your organisation.
Remember, it’s never too late to communicate – the sooner you start taking better care of your talent, the better.
Brighton Rocks… but does your communications strategy?
November 4th, 2009
By Claire Briscoe, Account Manager
Your communications strategy is the key to successfully embedding your company mission, philosophy, personality, vision and values – collectively creating your employer brand – and transforming employees into engaged ‘brand champions’. The humble stick of rock is a great analogy for how you need your employee communications strategy to behave to make that work.
Like the writing that runs through rock, it shouldn’t matter where you choose to examine your communications; the brand message must prevail throughout, clearly and consistently.
Research conducted by the Global Survey of Employee Response revealed in 2006 that 82 per cent of employees agree that communications should explain the company’s vision, and 87 per cent want to be shown how they fit into the company’s vision. The important thing to remember is that employees aren’t just receptive to aligning themselves with the business vision and values at the attraction, recruitment and on-boarding stage – people always want to feel a sense of belonging, that they have an active part to play in the organisation they work for.
There are numerous opportunities to communicate with your employees every day, all of which have their own agenda, purpose or required action. These internal communication touchpoints occur at all stages of an employee’s lifecycle, at all levels of responsibility and within all areas of their daily working lives.
It is vital to make sure that the grand sum of all these different threads of communication complement one another and form part of one overarching, unified employer brand message.
Tips for delivering a unified employee communications strategy
- Tone of voice: every brand has one. Having a document which outlines the employer brand tone will act as a bible to all internal communicators to help focus messages
- Employer brand champion: make sure everyone knows who is the main port of call for all employee communications queries
- Keep communicating: to keep employees ‘on message’, you must keep up a consistent flow of communication to ensure your staff are never left in the dark
- Be careful what you say: erratic, sporadic, poorly aligned or complicated messages will confuse employees and could create anxiety. Communicate with purpose and as plainly as possible
- Be organised: structure a calendar of proposed employee messages so that you can identify any potential communication clashes well in advance and adjust your plan accordingly
- Remember why you are communicating in the first place: your message may be regarding rewards, but the primary reason you are offering rewards in the first place is to drive employee engagement and therefore improve employee productivity. Always bring communications back to their commercial roots
- Build meaning: infuse purpose and values into your communications strategy to foster a culture of enthusiastic employee participation
- Earn manager buy-in: the penetration of brand values throughout the organisation is key, and manager buy-in is essential to achieve this. Your communications strategy must empower managers as well as inform to inspire them to champion the brand to employees
Source: Living the Brand, Nicholas Ind, 2008
Retaining focus this festive season will reap rewards for 2010
October 28th, 2009
By Lee Nicholls, Account Director, Caburn Hope
It’s not just the advertisers who are willing Christmas to come earlier year after year – your employees become distracted weeks before the big day, and it is imperative that you start to plan now for that final push to achieve end of year results for your business and smooth the way to an efficient New Year.
A 2007 survey* estimated that around one third of employees – that’s approximately 9 million people – start winding down for the holidays from the 14 December, a full week and a half before the festive season officially begins. Productivity plummets, and one in three people state that they will come in late at least once during this period while one in five say they plan to throw at least one sickie.
Ironically, now is the time you should be upping communications with employees to deliver that last burst of energy before welcoming in the New Year to ensure that everything is properly in place for the next financial term. If you’re not careful, you could lose up to four weeks of productivity over the Christmas period, meaning that nearly one twelfth of the year is frittered away on festive cheer rather than bolstering your bottom line.
The important thing to remember during this period is that you cannot afford to lose sight of what needs to be achieved in 2010. Starting to position the business a full six weeks before Christmas through messages which provide clarity and direction will drive staff motivation and accelerate the work flow into the New Year. Reviewing what has gone well for the company as well as lessons learned can illustrate how the employees’ input directly corresponds with the organisation’s overall achievement.
By now you should know how well you anticipate the company to have performed this year, and can be passing onto staff exactly how this will affect any expected bonuses and pay increases. Telling people as soon as possible – whether it’s good news or bad – will drive motivation, build trust and foster respect. People don’t like surprises (well, definitely not the bad ones), so the sooner you can inform staff of any information that impacts on them the better.
Don’t leave it until 2010 to start talking about 2010 – put some well placed communications plans in play now for a successful year ahead.
* Teletext holidays 2007
Waiting for the green shoots to grow
October 21st, 2009
Whilst there’s plenty of talk of green shoots on the horizon, it is still important to tread cautiously with spend until we can confidently state that we are out of the clutches of this downturn. With research suggesting that it has never been more critical to look after talent, how can companies recognise employees without doing more harm than good?
Banish the cynics
Empowering employees to thank each other directly in an official way is a recognition scheme’s best weapon against cynicism in the workforce. By giving employees and line managers a stake in the process, you will go a long way to banishing rumblings about management favouritism or recognition being dependent on what employees’ futures may be.
E-cards, an intranet Wall of Fame, or simply a sincere letter from a line manager are all excellent low-cost ways to achieve this.
Change the criteria
You must remember that you will not be the only company taking tentative steps with expenditure at this time. When it’s nigh on impossible to meet sales targets, is it fair to keep this as the main criteria for bonuses? I would suggest that, as long as it’s communicated clearly, it is perfectly acceptable to ‘move the goalposts’ to make targets more achievable and relevant. It is better to reward individuals for improved efficiencies, dealing well with an increased workload or proposing a moneysaving idea for the company, rather than not being able to reward them frequently – or at all.
Practicalities
If you do nothing else, make sure recognition can be delivered quickly and make it tangible. This means employees do not need to wait for recognition and they have something real and valuable they can keep, proving they have been recognised and thanked for work well done.
For a truly effective recognition scheme, even during times of economic difficulty, be consistent and have a long-term vision for where you want it to go. Aim to embed a culture of thanks company-wide through joined-up communications and enforce a policy of absolute inclusivity – don’t allow it to become a fad.
Research source:
The Time for Employee Recognition and Reward Programs is Now, Recognition Council, 2009
Human Resources: a pointless exercise?
October 12th, 2009
By Chris Hopkins, MD
I read a rather contentious piece on Timesonline which not only alleges the demise of the HR department, but asserts that we should be happy about it.
HR teams are “the ‘people people’ who ensure that companies adhere to minimum wage requirements, rules relating to diversity, gender, sexual orientation and so on and generally try to prevent businesses being sued to death”, claims The Times. The amount of money spent on the HR function “seems to far outstrip their contribution to the world”, and the columnist has “never really understood the point of human resources departments”.
An interesting comment from a person who openly admits that he himself has never dealt with an HR department, which makes me wonder whether he is qualified to comment on this arena. But taking this argument at face value, I must disagree.
The nature of the Human Resources role has seen a steep evolution over time from a largely administrative purpose to a position which is core to a company’s failure or success. HR departments should be a key driver of employee engagement through a carefully crafted mix of communication, learning and development, benefits and reward and performance management.
Research shows that employees are far more actively engaged when they are frequently communicated with, a principle duty of the HR department. Mercer found in 2006 that when communications are viewed as excellent within a company, 74 per cent of employees are committed to their organization versus 34 per cent of employees when communications are viewed as poor.
Moreover, Gallup cites that the cost of disengagement to the economy in 2008 was between £59.4bn and £64.7bn.
The crux of the matter is that when HR gets it right, their role has true value and function through commercial thinking and proactive communications initiatives. Perhaps it’s more a case of businesses not wholly embracing the benefits and potential of human resources rather than the lack of its purpose as The Times suggests. It is my opinion that if HR departments are being called upon to prove their worth, now more than ever is the time to push the importance of measurement.
It is crucial for HR professionals – and HR suppliers such as ourselves – to provide statistics which prove that the role of human resources provides a meaningful function that generates a greater return on human capital.
Intranets – How to avoid the black hole effect
October 6th, 2009
By Chris Hopkins, MD
“But we communicated it,” said the bemused benefits manager. “It was all right there on the intranet for all to see and take-up was still disappointing.”
I’m reminded of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and poor old Arthur Dent’s house facing demolition to make way for a Hyperspace Bypass. On complaining, he learns the plans have been available for nine months in the planning office, albeit in the basement… in the dark… in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a room with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”.
It’s a comical example but the fact remains too many intranets are ‘black holes’ - impossible to navigate repositories for reams of stale content that few know is there. This is of little value to employees and provides even less ROI for the business.
Designed and managed well, intranets are key internal assets, playing a vital part in managing the workforce’s relationship with the business at every stage of employment. Moreover, they have an important job to do in engaging employees with the company’s vision, which has been identified as a key employee need - research shows 82% feel employee communications should explain the company’s vision and 87% want to be shown how they fit into this.
Like any resource, particularly now when internal investment is closely monitored, intranets must prove their worth. So, how can businesses ensure their intranet is working hard?
• Never forget it’s for employees – identify their needs and put them at the heart of design and content. You may want to write 1,000 words on share plans but is it useful? What level of detail is appropriate? Are you catering for everyone across every stage of employment?
• Embed your vision – ensure the intranet reflects company branding, message and tone of voice – consider it a digital manifestation of your culture
• Keep it fresh – appoint multiple trusted editors across your teams working to a central brief to share the task, or consider using a wiki format on some content to enable employees to contribute and take ownership of their intranet
• Ensure it is cohesive – a consistent look and feel improves usability and makes content appear more trusted as part of a set of joined-up communications
• Don’t abandon users – if part of your intranet’s purpose is to make HR more ‘self-service’, ensure the employee is guided every step of the way. Empower them to use the intranet independently but make sure there is adequate support
• Measure it regularly - don’t just look at hits. Pay attention to visits by unique and repeat users, click throughs and time spent per page – don’t assume if they are spending a long time it’s useful, it may be impossible to understand! Build in mechanisms for feedback, either use a feedback form or simply ask users to ‘rate this content’
• Back it up – designed and written well, your intranet can do almost anything you want but unless you communicate its features and resources and embed it into your other communications, employees will not know it’s there.
Research source:
Internal and Experiential Marketing, Jack Morton, 2006.
Diversity comes alive with clever communications
September 14th, 2009
One of the greatest communications blunders of all time has got to be the often quoted Come Alive with Pepsi! campaign. After whipping up a storm in the US and taking the decision to go global, Pepsi introduced their slogan to the world at large – but sadly neglected to appreciate that when directly translated into Chinese, Come Alive with Pepsi! promises that the product will ‘Bring Your Ancestors Back from the Grave’.
Communicating with employees in an increasingly diverse work environment is equally as complex as the intricacies brought by global communications. Whilst diversity brings with it a wealth of knowledge and expertise that, if properly tapped, will make your company a commercial success, failure to employ an inclusive communications strategy will end in disengaged and disillusioned individuals. Intelligent communication is the key to engaging staff and unlocking your workforce’s unique talents.
In order to make the most of your employees you have to learn to embrace diversity rather than whitewashing over it. To be inclusive of all walks of life requires you to point out the fact that everyone is different and develop the right form of communication to address this. Whilst different people prefer to receive information in different ways, speaking in plain terms by avoiding jargon and slang is just one measure you can employ to achieve mass communications and bridge the gap between CSR for the sake of it and a wholly engaged, truly performing workforce.
Ensuring that you instil a culture of free thinking and emphasise the importance of employees as valuable individuals will drive motivation amongst staff members and help you make the most of their distinctive skills.
Mind the Gap
August 20th, 2009
Claire Briscoe, Account Manager
There appears to be a sizeable gap between what employers believe reward communication can achieve and what they are actually doing about it
A study by World at Work suggests almost 80% of employers strongly believe reward communications impact organisation effectiveness and performance. However, most organisations are not using these communications as an opportunity to reinforce possible employee influence on performance and business results. It is little surprise to find, then, that only 35% of employees actually understand how their organisation’s reward programme works.
A recent example: a good friend of mine, let’s call him James, recently read with interest about the Government’s Cycle to Work scheme. He had heard nothing officially from his employer but whispers suggested he may be eligible for the discount. It took James a full week and a half to get a firm answer from HR about whether or not this applied to him (it did) and last week he got his bike at 40% off through the scheme.
The problem is, James has fallen down the gap between employer intention and the actual reward offering. He does not associate the positive feelings about his bike with his employer’s provision for him. He, in fact, feels they were withholding something he was entitled to and rather de-motivated and disgruntled that he had to do all the legwork to get it. He feels triumphant to have ‘won’.
What a missed opportunity for the company. If they had organised their involvement with the scheme properly and communicated its availability, embedding messages about company culture and performance, they could have benefited hugely alongside James and countless other employees. When employee goodwill and positivity is more important than ever, companies must take care - miscommunication of reward can mistakenly make employers appear they are withholding benefits from employees when in fact their intentions are usually good.
Research source:
A Study on Reward Communications, World at Work, 2008
