The Workplace Engagement Solution

by David Harder

  When I ran staffing operations in past roles, consultants would come to me upset and with the conviction that they had the right candidate for one of our positions but, alas, another candidate was offered the job. I would typically just laugh and say, “They hired a family member.” At other times I might say, “When he called to tell me they hired the least likely best candidate, maybe the last one added to hit the quota, he just said, ‘There was something about her’ or some such nonsense.” Without thinking, they were picking a family member. How many of us came from healthy, fully functional, loving, and smart families? How many of us come from families that role modeled what it means to have a great career? Though there are quite a few, they are not the norm. We typically go with how we were raised. We do what our tribe did. I was a little kid when Lady Bird Johnson was promoting a program to clean up and beautify America. Our rather mean school-teacher was standing in front of our classroom screeching, “When you see trash by the side of road what do you think of?” A kid in the back of the room said, “Home.” We tend to go with home. We go with what makes us comfortable

  Employee engagement begins with how well we attract, select, and hire talent. Organizations routinely spend fortunes filling jobs, but they don’t think to invest in training their hiring managers to give masterful interviews, to make more skilled decisions, and to provide highly effective onboarding. Many hire employees based on characteristics that have nothing to do with the job at hand. This lack of thinking continues, and the reason it goes on is that top leadership is divorced from upholding their standards as employers.

  Timothy Wilson, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, states, “You’re faced with around 11 million pieces of information at any given moment. The brain can only process about 40 of those bits of information and so it creates shortcuts and uses past knowledge to make assumptions.”1

  Harvard University researcher Mahzarin Banaji distills the point:

  Most of us believe that we are ethical and unbiased. We imagine we’re good decision makers, able to objectively size up a candidate or a venture deal and reach a fair and rational conclusion that’s in our, and our organization’s, best interests. But more than two decades of research confirms that, in reality, most of us fall woefully short of our inflated self-perception.2

  When a hiring manager interviews, assesses, and eventually hires new talent without any formal skill training, we must work doubly hard to build engagement in our organizations, and we unknowingly whittle down our most optimal futures. One of the central new revolutions in talent acquisition is big data and artificial intelligence. We are reaching the stage in which technology will be able to predict the candidate that is going to be the most successful in a job. The emerging technology introduces the possibility of cutting through bias and filters so that we can more effectively find the candidate most likely to succeed. Can big data become the solution for prejudice and diversity? Well, one thing is clear: it will not happen until we produce greater awareness in our managers.

  Train your managers! Give them the tools to make better decisions. For relatively modest up-front costs, you will save fortunes in mismatched talent, turnover, and other engagement challenges. Give your managers the resources to evaluate candidates before the interview. Assessment instruments can give them important insights and reveal nuances about candidates. Even the smallest employer can purchase an assessment from Amazon or other providers. Also bring other managers or colleagues into the interviewing process as appropriate. Several points of view can be quite helpful in making gains and avoiding mistakes in building the bench strength of your organization.

  Skills for Tomorrow

  In the modern change-driven workplace, there are several new skills we ought to be looking for in all candidates. First, find people who have a strong ability to grow relationships and a track record of active learning. Look for those able to sell their ideas and concepts to others. They will demonstrate a natural curiosity about other people’s needs and expectations. They are enthusiastic networkers and connectors. They see the big picture and can make a good case for people to work together. They keep track of where the world is headed. To them, active, continuous learning represents the keys to the future. They are constantly searching for new information that is relevant to their lives and their work. They take responsibility for their actions and never blame others. Their word is golden. They don’t engage in negative gossip. They know how to make friends. They build support systems naturally. Many have strong sales and presentation skills. They are receptive to feedback. They praise others generously and accept praise graciously. These are often the very workers that will teach and inspire other employees to change. Many will become great mentors who will sustain, strengthen, and grow your culture.

  The last war for talent was at its peak between 2004 and 2007. As we go back to war, the game has changed so thoroughly that we need to revolutionize virtually every aspect of finding and onboarding talent. Ten years ago, our definition of right fit was very different than it is today. We fixated on such fading things as loyalty and long-term commitment. Today, we need a more sophisticated and far more candid treatment of right fit in any setting. It starts by acknowledging that things will be quite different from our past best practices.

  The New Fit

  The very notion of what right fit means needs to be completely transformed. Quite simply, employers that continue to operate with the notion of requiring loyalty in return for temporal jobs are not living in reality. In fact, this myth very often begins a cynical facade with employees acting as if they expect to be there for decades. Our old definitions of what right fit looks like must be traded in for a revolution in hiring practices and a new context for employment. What is the new context? Strength through diversity, and by that we are implying much more than a cross-section of race and gender. We must pursue diverse personalities and points of view. The underlying common thread doesn’t need to be extraordinarily complicated. Recall that I have already mentioned that at Inspired Work, we only hire brilliant and loving people. Those two standards have more than served us well, but they also leave room for diverse skill sets, backgrounds, ethnicities, and age groups.

  During the course of interviews and evaluations, we need to make every attempt to define what is motivating each candidate. Why do they want the job? What are their expectations? What drives them? The answers give us critical information and lends critical objectivity to how we populate our organizations. Ditch the loyalty and try these new employee types on for size.

  The “Born to Do Its”

  Every one of us has the capacity to find the work that comes to us most naturally and powerfully. It is the work that brings meaning and purpose to our lives. The “born to do it” workers have a core purpose that doesn’t change. However, they consistently reinvent the way they deliver work as the world changes around them. These are the individuals that bring unique gifts to the organization, and that produce innovation and change when needed. They are not particularly loyal to their employer, but they are loyal to their particular gifts. Grow them or lose them. Identify this through their narrative as well as how they answer questions such as:

  • Do you have a unique gift? If so, how would you describe it?

  • What do you want to accomplish in your career?

  • If we were to hire you, what would be the ideal way to package and use this gift of yours?

  These individuals provide the foundation for their employer’s brand.

  The “Grew Into Its”

  The rate of change today indicates that we can literally grow into another person rather quickly. A growth-oriented individual takes a job to accelerate their learning and to become more valuable. This person will regularly outgrow what they do and how they do it. The “grew into it” individuals are creative, ambitious, and adaptable.

  I previously mentioned working with a large bank in the early 1990s. They were breaking down and thousands of employees were coming thro
ugh our Inspired Work programs. The chief human resources officer asked for a meeting. She opened it with the question, “What is our biggest human capital problem?” I responded, “It has already taken place. The consulting firm working with the CEO has introduced one alienating concept after another. As a result, your creative and adaptive employees are gone. They pulled out their Rolodex and started calling friends. They said, ‘Get me out of here. This isn’t fun anymore.’ The rest are hanging on for dear life.”

  Creative and adaptive professionals course through all of our “fit” types. These are the very people you want to treat so well that they stay and help everyone else change also. “Grew into its” use the enormous rivers of information to grow quickly. Their knowledge doubles every few years.

  A few questions to get at this:

  • How did you get from point A, your graduation, to point B, today?

  • You seem to be eager to learn. What do you want to learn next?

  • How would you bring this commitment to continuous learning to our team?

  “Grew into its” are the individuals who bring growth and innovation to workplaces.

  The “On My Ways”

  When someone defines what they truly want to do in the world, it can trigger the realization that this doesn’t align with the individual’s current job. Some of my colleagues would call this a “lily pad” employee. Many employers are afraid that if they help someone realize their purpose, the individual will simply walk out the door. That might be true to a degree in the traditionally disengaged workplace. But, when we make it safe for our employees to discuss their true ambitions, we are also given the very information that allows us to be more supportive of them as we leverage what they bring to the table. This kind of culture also helps us identify individuals that are actively pushing disengagement.

  Give these “on my ways” the room to work towards their dreams. Help them connect their progress at your organization to the progress they need to see in the big picture. If you do, your organization will become known as one that supports people and their growth, wherever that may lead. People desire and respect such employers.

  A few questions for these types:

  • Why do you want this job?

  • How does this position fit into your long-term career plans?

  • What do you really want to do with your life?

  • Let’s get this out on the table: if this is where you are headed, how could this opportunity give you the fuel to get there?

  This worker represents the bread and butter of the workplace and often brings great value.

  Some managers take “on my ways” and set up the circumstances for future aspirations to manifest without them having to move on out. I know a learning and development executive who works for one of media’s most iconic organizations. Every year, she hires a new assistant. On the first day she tells them, “You have one year to either promote up to a new position or leave the company.” Although this is a pretty bold, even frightening, proposition, the organization is filled with producers, directors, managers, and creative professionals who began their careers in that assistant job. Consider how this expectation likely changes their engagement level on the first day. We need more of this—creating environments with such high expectations and genuine opportunities that our people excel and push themselves beyond their own perceived limits.

  The “Happy With What I’ve Gots”

  These employees tend to be loyal no matter the circumstances. They require our acknowledgement and praise. They are reliable and dedicated. Often, they are the individuals who take on projects without asking. They love routine, and they don’t generally desire or pursue change. Unfortunately, these are often the workers who are shown the door during periods of downsizing. This sizeable portion of the work-force will need the guidance and mentoring to move with change, build institutional knowledge, and become more aware of the critical need to build the courage skills. But they are also solid in many ways.

  A few questions for these folks:

  • You spent 16 years at your last company. Why did you stay and what did you contribute while you were there?

  • Please tell me what you are doing to grow your skills and your network.

  • What are the most valuable skills you have learned in the past few years?

  Remember we want segments of our talent to bring stability to the workplace. The “happy with what I’ve gots” provide this naturally. However, we must be keenly focused today more than ever before on hiring individuals that understand the need for change and continuous learning.

  Employer Brand, Culture, and Tribe

  For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings have been conditioned to look for, belong to, and live by the rules of their tribe. Tribal alignment is embedded in our DNA. As a result, it is useless to try to run any organization without developing a strong tribal ethos, which by modern definition is known as our employer brand.

  Fortune magazine’s 2015 “100 Best Places to Work” studied employers who had consistently remained on the list for more than 10 years and found these employment role models to have one common ingredient: they foster strong and rewarding relationships among their workers.3 It’s not so much about the perks themselves. The reason many employers provide high-quality dining is that eating together builds relationships. Going to the gym together helps employees bond with one another.

  Strong relationships within an organization represent one of the fundamental muscles of engagement. Strong employer brands are developed through these strong relationships that consequently build engagement, unity, support, innovation, performance, learning, and growth. We have observed the phenomenon in our own engagement processes. When intact team members discover each other anew, they also become more engaged with their work and their customers.

  What happens when we don’t take the initiative to build the brand? We will mostly get people who view work as “just a job.” BMW hires driving enthusiasts. Southwest Airlines hires “fun.” Apple hires creative mastery. But it is useless to pursue employer branding unless the organization is willing to walk the talk. Any real employer branding initiative must be rooted in truth and authenticity. We buy products, employers, and services through faith. Without consistency, there is no faith. Without truth there is no consistency.

  Here are a few elements that nourish any successful employer brand.

  1. The tribe is thoroughly defined and communicates with such transparency that outsiders looking in get a full sense of what it is like to work there.

  2. The brand is based in truth so that leaders and employees can support it without adopting inauthentic and temporary behavior.

  3. The organization is continually improving its efforts in pre-boarding, on-boarding, developing, and retaining employees.

  4. The employer brand is developed by all leaders and consequently embraced by everyone in charge.

  5. The brand attracts the very people who fit into the tribe.

  America’s best workers look for organizations that deserve their faith. They look for organizations that pique their interest. They research the hell out of them. The rest—the individuals who are still rooted in survival and predictability—will blindly walk in the door and engage in the dance of mediocrity. So spend the time and effort to do right by your employer brand. Employees win, new candidates win, and the organization also wins.

  The Great Pre-Boarding Failure

  As we will discuss in the interview excerpts that appear later in this chapter, pre-boarding and on-boarding workers have become tony business processes. But the vast majority of employers are doing a terrible job of presenting their brand and creating goodwill during the hiring process. Many of my individual clients are looking for new jobs and they bring back war stories that are simply jaw-dropping. One senior executive with solid skills applied to and interviewed with 11 organizations. He made it to the final rounds with five of the companies. One got back to him with an offer. The others di
dn’t send notes or return calls. In two cases, he had invested about 10 hours of interview time and only found out later that he didn’t move forward because he called the recruiter. In another case, a senior executive was rounding up offers. The one she most wanted led to a verbal offer from the man who would have been her boss. She accepted the position and never heard from him again.

  As you will hear from our many talent management executives, these are not unusual stories. Speak to virtually anyone who has gone through the interview experience in the last five years, and he or she will give you the name of the many companies whose treatment lacked even a modicum of respect and perhaps only one or two organizations that provided a superior experience, whether or not they got the job. These impressions are lasting and create a word-of-mouth reputation that ranges from positive to poisonous. For those candidates who do get hired, know that they will be bringing those bad experiences with them into their early days of employment. So much wasted opportunity.

  Employer brands rely on an underpinning of professionalism and respect throughout the hiring process. Without kindness and consideration, we dilute, weaken, and corrupt our employer brands. A good engagement philosophy is based on the premise that employers treat their workers with the same degree of respect with which they treat their customers, and that means potential customers as well, which all candidates are before they get hired. Talent acquisition isn’t much of an honorable profession if we find ourselves treating people like cattle.

  Predictive Analytics

  The well-known story of the Boston Red Sox has become a big shot across the bow of the talent acquisition profession. In early 2013, the team was coming off of a disastrous season, so bad that sold-out games became a thing of the past. Ownership had shed $270 million worth of payroll by trading superstars such as Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett to the Los Angeles Dodgers. General manager Ben Cherington could have easily gone after more superstar players, but instead he used predictive analytics to identify unheralded players like slugging first baseman Mike Napoli, outfielder Shane Victorino, backup catcher David Ross, and relief pitcher Koji Uehara.4