You've Got Lemons . . . Time for Lemonade!

There's been a lot of recent, substantive research on the business impact of development practices and engagement issues. Many companies are noticing the findings and doing something about them.

How do I know? Check this out:

• Towers Watson's years of employee engagement research have culminated in the observation that " . . . two elements have particularly strong influence: Senior management's sincere interest in employee well-being and the opportunity an employee has for personal development of skills and abilities."
• Last week's "State of Work-Life 2010" report from World@Work indicates the top three workforce issues that their large and mid-sized survey participants will address this year are:
  • Engagement/commitment (52%)  
  • Wellness/resilience/energy (52%)
  • Career management (48%)
• One of this month's business headlines -- picked up by Yahoo! and Forbes -- was that attention, recognition and the chance to learn new skills (not money) are the key to keeping employees on board.
• 52 people signed up for my Webinar last week on "How to Make Career Development as Valuable as Other Total Rewards" for the Northern California Research Association. That's a very strong showing for our local membership. (Take it from someone who, in the last year, has had 4 people enroll for a workshop that historically attracted 30.)  

By the way, the researchers of the World@Work report noted that workload, stress and burnout were selected by survey participants as the most serious issues they faced. By undertaking engagement and career management initiatives to address those issues, companies may be focusing " . . . on symptoms rather than root causes . . ." the researchers cautioned. In fact, the researchers dismissed the reported work on engagement and career management as " . . . a tendency toward groupthink. Or . . . emphasis on what has worked in the past."

So. Let's take a minute right now for a reality check. How many of us work for companies that can reduce workload in the near future and still make the numbers? Please put your hands up!

Next, tell the truth. Have you been tempted to call in sick recently because you've just had enough (and the weather has been so great)? Would you feel better about going to work tomorrow if you knew that your boss had agreed that you were ready to lead a steering committee that would present to the CEO? Especially if you've been requesting that kind of opportunity to stretch.

Learning and growing -- most of us long for these opportunities and are energized by looking toward a more challenging, engaging future. Especially when there hasn't been much of a future to speak of for the last 24 months.

Think of your own experience. How often do you alleviate stress not by walking away but by finding a way to become more positively involved?

Every problem deserves an objective analysis followed by a detailed problem definition. (You may have fewer lemons than most, or none at all.) All I'm suggesting is that there is enough data around in 2010 that you rarely have to guess about steps to overcome stress and burnout and improve employees' willingness to invest discretionary effort to do their jobs well. Findings repeatedly indicate that it involves a combination of factors which inevitably include interesting work and developmental opportunities.

Speaking of which, isn't it time for you and your colleagues to design a development program that has measurable business outcomes this time . . . or an engagement initiative that delivers on the varied, complex dimensions defined by recent research? Neither one is a slam dunk. Learning and growing works for us, too!

Margaret O’Hanlon is founder and principal of re:Think Consulting.  She has decades of experience teaming up with clients to ensure great Human Resource ideas deliver valuable business results.  Margaret brings deep expertise in total rewards communication to the dialogue at the Café; before founding re:Think Consulting, she was a Principal in Total Rewards Communications with Towers Perrin.  Margaret earned her M.S. and Ed.S. in Instructional Technology at Indiana University.  Creative writing is one of her outside passions.

Comments

[Harrison]

Margaret,

I also looked at the the 2010 State of Work-Life survey and was a bit disappointed. It included results from just 55 companies that were predominantly large ones. To me, the sample was too small and selective to generalize from.

Don't you agree?

Harrison

[Margaret O'Hanlon]

Harrison, having done public surveys like this one, I understand how much faith and hope it takes. Faith that companies will be eager to participate, and later hope that that the ones you really want will actually participate. So, the sample size is what it is I guess, but the authors should take that into account in the way they communicate their analysis. That said, I do think the report could have been stronger in a couple of ways including the analysis of findings.

[Becky Regan]

Great post, Margaret. Thanks for sharing the Towers Watson survey and the 2010 State of Work-Life from W@W. From practical experience I have to concur that workload stress and burnout are the top three issues impacting engagement in the workplace. It's a huge issue for employers that requires attention and creative thinking to develop workable solutions. And I don't think it will change anytime soon.

Best,
Becky Regan