Employee Engagement
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Management In practice Measurement Strategy !e missing link As seen on screen How did you score? Temp tactics How managing your employees A look at how companies such as Sky We explain why surveys are only a means The importance of keeping short-term properly boosts productivity | Page 5 are engaging their sta! | Page 8 to an end | Page 11 workers on side | Page 13 July 2012 | business-reporter.co.uk EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT !e pursuit of happiness As Unilever’s head of employee insight, how does this man keep 140,000 workers satis!ed? Page 11 DISTRIBUTED WITHIN THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY LYONSDOWN WHICH TAKES SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENTS Business Reporter · July 2012 AN INDEPENDENT REPORT FROM LYONSDOWN, DISTRIBUTED WITH THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 2 Industry view Find us online: business-reporter.co.uk Follow us on twitter: @biznessreporter Like us: facebook.com/business-reporter Find us online: business-reporter.co.uk Growing momentum Publisher Project Manager Bradley Scheffer Tom Turnbull [email protected] [email protected] !e economic downturn may prove to be the catalyst Editor For more information on any for organisations "nally realising they cannot a#ord to Nick Martindale of our supplements please [email protected] contact us: ignore employee engagement as a business tool Telephone Production Editor 020 8349 4363 Amy Dickson Email [email protected] For years “employee engagement” was one in this supplement outline how this people who can make or break [email protected] of those phrases bandied around by HR, to has already helped to turn rhetoric such initiatives. Our feature Sub-Editor which the rest of the business felt obliged into reality at many organisations. on page 8 looks at the efforts Juliet Conway to pay lip service but would essentially There are many and varied some companies are [email protected] ignore. means of engaging employees making, while the cover Production Assistant The downturn, double-dip recession, – flexible working, effective use article explores Unilever’s Fleur Hollett depression – call it what you will – has of benefits and building a brand approach to measuring and [email protected] changed all that, however. With companies with which workers will identify improving engagement on struggling to survive, having workers and empathise are all important a global level. performing at less than 100 per cent is no aspects – but the message that No one is seriously longer an option, while job insecurity and comes through time and again suggesting that the battle to Contributors the dearth of other opportunities out there is that line managers are the create conditions in which Nick Martindale is a freelance Stephanie Sparrow has written about have made stagnating employees a real employees could reasonably journalist and editor who writes HR and business topics for more danger for many. be expected to thrive has regularly on a wide range of than two decades, both for specialist The business case for engaging been won. topics, including HR, recruitment magazines and national newspapers. employees is now undeniable; surveys For years “employee But there is a growing and the workplace, for national and consistently show those companies with feeling that businesses have business media. Virginia Matthews is a freelance engagement” was one journalist who writes on a wide higher levels of engagement are more finally made the connection Lucie Carrington is a freelance variety of HR, business, education productive, and also benefit from lower of those phrases between engaged staff and journalist specialising in education and consumer topics for the national staff turnover and absence rates. productivity, and a motivated and employment. She has been and specialist press. Suddenly, then, employee engagement bandied around by workforce and the bottom line. published in several national is all the rage. Last year David Cameron HR, to which the rest That may yet prove to be our newspapers and a wide range of Stephen Overell is a journalist, proclaimed it was a core tenet of the ticket to better economic times. commentator and consultant on specialist publications. government’s plans for both economic work and labour market affairs, and of the business felt Steve Hemsley is a business author of Inwardness: The Rise of growth and employee wellbeing, and obliged to pay lip Nick Martindale journalist specialising in marketing Meaningful Work and Losing Control subsequently launched the Engage for Editor and HR, and is editor of the REC’s Again? Power and the Quality of Success Task Force. It is due to come to service but would magazine Recruitment Matters. Working Life. fruition this autumn, and the article by co-chairs David MacLeod and Nita Clarke essentially ignore Employee Surveys telegraph-survey-hive.indd 1 6/28/2012 1:21:54 PM AN INDEPENDENT REPORT FROM LYONSDOWN, DISTRIBUTED WITH THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Business Reporter · July 2012 Find us online: business-reporter.co.uk Follow us on twitter: @biznessreporter Like us: facebook.com/business-reporter Find us online: business-reporter.co.uk Employee engagement 3 In figures Contents World in his hands page 11 Figure it out 5 Don’t get bogged down by data Elizabeth Ramirez Jump into action 8 Stephen Overell on motivating employees of leaving their work; almost a quitting their current role for quarter (23 per cent) are unsure another that offered greater In vague 9 In brief Unsure how to engage sta!? Give your tactics a makeover whether to stay or go, a report flexibility around working hours by Mercer claims. The biggest and practices, a study by BT and Sense in numbers 11 motivator for UK staff is pay, the the Employers Network for Know what you’re measuring, warns Stephanie Sparrow study found, with 61 per cent Equality and Inclusion claims. Room for improvement saying this motivated them. Greater support from employers The big debate 13 Staff working in the retail and would involve more flexible Experts go head-to-head on proposed legislation utilities sector are likely to be Blind loyalty hours, cited by 49 per cent, the least engaged in the UK, a More than one in three financial assistance with Brand view 13 study by the Institute of companies (36 per cent) has childcare (38 per cent) and more Steve Hemsley asks how we can inspire short-term workers Customer Service suggests. The hired new starters without understanding around how research by the Chartered findings were based on feedback enabling them to meet their line parental responsibilities can Society of Physiotherapy. The from customers who rated staff manager. A poll by video impact on work (25 per cent). body found staff spend two With thanks to the following organisations: for their willingness to help and interview firm Cammio.me hours 18 minutes working on found this is a common Public sector struggling smartphones and other devices, to hire occurrence for 12 per cent of on top of an average of six hours firms and 11 per cent said they Employers in the public sector 22 minutes in the workplace. did not have enough time to are finding it hard to attract and interview all the candidates they retain staff as the government’s Clocking o! would like to. cutbacks programme takes Employers are more relaxed hold. Research from the CIPD about start times in the NHS should learn from John (Chartered Institute for workplace, knowing many will Lewis Personnel and Development) work while travelling to the The NHS needs to learn from and recruitment group Hays office, according to a study by the John Lewis model of fou nd t he nu mb e r of online backup firm Mozy. The how bored they seemed. Those engaging employees by creating organisations in the sector survey found 75 per cent of working in banks were seen as the conditions in which staff can saying they had difficulty filling managers don’t mind people most engaged. be proud to work for the roles increased to 82 per cent in coming in late. But this has not organisation, according to 2012 from 66 per cent in 2011. filtered through to employees; Global engagement is rising former John Lewis chairman almost 50 per cent think their Despite the current economic Sir Stuart Hampson. Speaking A tale of two species boss values punctuality highly. conditions, staff engagement at the NHS Confederation Men and women have different around the world is on the up, conference in June, he urged leadership strengths and Employee ownership pledge according to Aon Hewitt’s global managers to give staff more organisations need to find a The government has pledged to employee engagement survey. responsibility and autonomy to balance of both if they are to be create an independent institute The report found 58 per cent of develop greater job satisfaction. successful, a study by Talent for employee ownership, employees felt they were Innovations suggests. The following recommendations engaged in 2011, compared to Firms risk losing fathers research claims men are more made by the Nuttall Review. It 56 per cent the previous year, Almost one in two fathers (46 strategic and have more of a also intends to invite submissions with particular improvement per cent) would consider personal impact on others, while from organisations with in the areas of leadership at women tend to be better established models on how to business unit level, creating a organised and demonstrate a make the concept work in positive work environment and greater degree of empathy and practice. The government will seeing relationships with respect for others. publish a formal response to the customers as rewarding. review, which highlighted a lack Beyond the call of duty of awareness and resources – as One in 3 sta! wants to quit The average worker puts in more well as regulatory concerns – as Over a third (36 per cent) of UK than two hours’ work when they barriers to employee ownership, t: 0800 294 97 87 e: employees are seriously thinking leave the office, according to in the Autumn.