Friday 25 September 2015

Engage

This week I attended a series of talks on the subject of employee engagement, organised by Engage for Success North West.  It got me thinking about the general topic of engagement, and some of things I have tried or would like to try.  Hence this blog post.

If you've not heard of Engage for Success then I'd recommend you visit their website, and in particular check out the Infographic below, from their site, which summarises everything you need to know about why engagement is important to business.


There's been a lot written about employee engagement as a concept.  Lots of more talented bloggers than I have given their views, and I'll try to reference some here.  For a good critique of the concept then I'd recommend you read this by Rob Briner.

But for now let's pretend we all agree employee engagement is a good thing and there's evidence to support it.

I was going to abbreviate employee engagment to EE but then I've had "dealings" with that company over the years and they are most definitely NOT a good thing, at least as far as customer service goes in my experience.  So no abbreviations please.

The E4S (sorry, I can't even stick to my own rules) event had some good presentations from The Co-operative Group, United Utilities and ACAS (the excellent Peter Monaghan again).  The slides have been made available by E4S and if you want the detail you can get it there, but in particular the talk from Louise Beardmore from United Utilities got me thinking.

She talked about the employee experience influencing (possibly creating) the customer experience.  United Utilities are subscribers to this school of thought, and they're not alone.  Both Netflix and Virgin Group have received headlines about their approach to this in recent times.

There's also stuff published online about this, both in the article here and by Gemma Reucroft in her blog.  So its not a new concept, but why do so many organisations struggle with it?

If customers give an organisation what it needs (usually, but not always, money, but at the very least a continued demand for its products and/or services), and so much of what differentiates an organisation from its competitors is the intangible skills and knowledge of its employees who win new customers, ensure repeat custom and do their utmost to impress existing ones - then organisations would be foolish to ignore the employee experience as being at the heart of this.

I often compare the relationship one has with ones' employer to the relationship one has with a partner.  In fact I'll blog more about that in a future post, but for now let's imagine you're out socially and get asked if you have a partner and what are they like.  If your relationship with them is strong, you'll respond positively.  If you're going through a bad patch, you might give a very non-committal answer.  If things are genuinely poor, you might even have a moan about them.  Either way, the person you're speaking to is going to get an instant impression about your partner that will be difficult for them to shake.  They would also get an instant impression about how your partner must treat you in order for you to feel that way about your partner.  Some of these impressions may be inaccurate, but some will be very accurate and it would affect that persons' view of your partner and your relationship.

Its the same with employers.  If you're enjoying work and are treated well, you'll tell people when asked about your work.  The opposite is also true.

But look at how some organisations literally jump all over social media for customers - I've lost track of the times I have tweeted an organisation and had pretty much an instant response via Twitter, and some hours later got a total and satisfactory resolution to my problem.  That's a great customer experience, but do organisations jump all over the slightest grumble or complaint from employees in the same way?

I'm not sure they do.  But they should.

United Utilities mentioned having data on employees and their interactions and wants.  I think this is a good idea and is something I've mentioned to organisations I've worked with in the past.

If an organisation can collect stacks of data about its customers and use this in some CRM style interface / system, and tailor services and products around what that customer has said, done and tweeted - then the same ought to be possible, and desirable, for employees.  
Obviously you'd have to have a sufficient number of employees if you wanted a technical solution to this, but even with a small number of employees it ought to be possible in a more informal way.

For example most HR systems I've seen store a lot of data about employees - personal details, L&D record, leave records etc.  All of this data is relatively static, and although used for statistical purposes I haven't seen many systems, or organisations, who actively use this data to segment employees and map the employee journey in the same way they would a customer group.  And I haven't seen many HR systems that have a record of EVERY employee interaction with the organisation and that tailor services and the employee experience based on these.

Look at how Facebook has tailored adverts based on things you've clicked on.  Its like witchcraft sometimes, but the technology is there.  My entire online experience is usually tailored based on my past habits (careful...not THOSE habits).

So I think organisations could unlock a greater amount of employee engagement by focusing on the employee experience, and tailoring that to the individual employee.

Taking this line of thought further, in this scenario your line managers are your equivalent of the Twitter Customer Service teams, jumping on any employee interaction and resolving it.  And your employees are your sales team, actively selling the organisation and its products/services to customers.

Many organisations are experiencing rapid and often large-scale change.  It can be difficult to maintain employee engagement when going through change.  Perhaps if organisations looked a bit more at the employee experience, engagement might take care of itself - both for employees and for customers.

Till next time.

Gary

PS in other news, some VERY exciting news due imminently about the impact this blog has had and where its going in the future...watch this space!

Friday 11 September 2015

Sex

I thought that might get your attention.

It hopefully won't have escaped your attention that there has been somewhat of a media storm in the last few days about someone using LinkedIn in perhaps the way its creators didn't intend.

If you don't know what I'm on about, read THIS, to save me summarising what seems to have happened.

And then all hell has broken loose, with as many people criticising the victim as the perpetrator.

Frankly, its got a bit out of proportion now.

Look at THIS article from The Telegraph which outlines how the storm has since developed, and which highlights further unsavoury developments on both sides.

And then The Daily Mail, often considered a bastion of common sense and objectivity, entered the fray with THIS article in order to pour more oil on the burning fire.

What this tells me is that NOTHING, absolutely nothing, is safe or considered a no-go area by the media chasing a story.  The Mail article goes back ten years into the woman's past to dig up stories about parking tickets in order to justify their angle on her.  And various people have accessed Facebook comments that both parties have made about other people - presumably on private accounts.

If you haven't Googled yourself recently, I'd suggest you do.  And not just the first page either, or the second, get through pages 1-10 and see what's out there.  And then do pages 11-20.  And you're still not truly safe, because a reporter would find more.

Anyway, what about the use of LinkedIn to pass on compliments to another person?

Now, I realise I used my last blog to talk about gender imbalance in HR.  So apologies if this touches a little on the same area.

But sex sells.  Or sells newspapers at least.

The perpetrator in the LinkedIn storm says that he was merely passing on positive comments about the professional and well-photographed nature of the victim's profile picture as opposed to the poorly photographed ones presented by others, presumably.

That sound you hear is the sound of straws being clutched at.

I think the man sent the woman a compliment because he liked her picture, fancied her even.

But does that make it right?

Certainly there's enough people defending him, saying that he meant it in good faith. But it strikes me that he was trying to use LinkedIn like a dating site.  That's not to take either side, that's just how it looks to me.

As pointed out in some of the media articles, there are dating sites for professionals.  There are dating sites for non-professionals too, and I've experience of both during my phase as @Single_Man_75 and in my previous blog.  Tinder, POF, Match.com, and the more professional sites - I tried them all in that phase.  I wrote a blog about it twice a week for 18 months that was read by 4,000 people at one point.

But never did I think to use LinkedIn for that type of thing.  Twitter and Facebook, yes, but not LinkedIn. There's got to be a line.

And yet...and yet...I've had it done to me via LinkedIn.  Once someone tracked me down via LinkedIn (the only way I could be easily found apparently) to ask me out - and we did go out, but that's all I will say as that's a very sensitive (and explosive) story.  And very very recently I met someone for coffee whose opening line was "you've got a lovely profile picture on LinkedIn".

Now, isn't the latter more or less what the perpetrator did on LinkedIn this week?

I was a bit flustered because I hadn't expected it.  My profile picture is a professional one done by The Headshot Guy (freebie at a conference), which I think is a good one considering, well, you know, but never did I think someone would pay me a compliment over it.

And when they did, my reaction was initially confusion, and then vague embarrassment.  I didn't think to do what this weeks' victim did.

But if I had, I might have had the media attention myself, just a few days earlier.

I think my experience shows that the case this week isn't an isolated one.  Again though that's not to suggest its right, and maybe the victim was doing society a favour by highlighting that it does go on in the hope that making it visible stops it.

But sex does sell, so maybe an attractive profile picture does garner more views.  I don't get many on LinkedIn, and views seem to be split 50/50 men to women, but then maybe I appeal to both sexes.  Now and again I will post a picture of myself in my tight lycra trisuit on Twitter, no-one comments though but who knows what they do in the privacy of their own house?

So where does this leave us?

I think people will use LinkedIn as a substitute dating site, though I don't condone this.  Hopefully this weeks' story will prevent it happening again, because to upset people in doing so isn't good.  And as we all know in HR, its the perception of the comment, not the intention, that matters.

And you'd think a lawyer would know that better than most.

I'll leave you with the thought that there are plenty of people who would love to be paid a compliment, and would welcome it too, but who just don't get any.  You never know when you've received your last compliment, so my view is to treasure them when they do come.

Just stay on the right side of the line.

Till next time.

Gary

PS in other news, a busy period for me triathlon-wise as I've got 3 races in 21 days.  I may be tired at the end of that...