Elearning blog: Learning re-imagined

New Aberdeen Group Research Finds Powerful Connection Between Training, Employee Engagement, Employee Performance and Organizational Success

We are pleased to bring you a guest blog post today from Mollie Lombardi, Research Director, Human Capital Management, at Aberdeen Group. She has surveyed and interviewed thousands of end-users to better understand the key challenges facing today’s HR and talent management leaders, as well as uncover the Best-in-Class strategies, capabilities, tools and technologies they are using to address those challenges.  She has written and spoken about a wide variety of HCM topics including strategic talent management, workforce planning, employee engagement, talent acquisition and learning, as well as the use of emerging technologies.

By Mollie Lombardi

Employee engagement is a topic I’ve been researching, writing and speaking about for over a decade.  It’s a seemingly perpetual human capital buzz word that has been at the core of countless projects, technologies and imitative, often with mixed results.  Some people may be sick of the buzzwords, but there’s a reason I’m still talking about it.  And that is because engagement, as I and my research here at Aberdeen have defined it, is all about alignment.  It’s all about how you tap into the skills, desires and motivations of an individual and align them with what the business needs to achieve its goals, with the intent to achieve more for individuals and the organization.  Companies today are looking to engagement as a powerful lever to power growth, agility and innovation.

Just a few weeks ago I published a research study of over 400 organizations called The Engagement / Performance Equation.  In it, I describe the powerful connection between employee engagement, and employee (and in turn organizational) performance.  Best-in-Class organizations, those with the highest levels of engagement, individual performance, and retention of key talent also saw almost double the acceptance rate of first choice candidates when hiring, twice the ability to fill leadership roles internally, and three and a half times greater year-over-year improvement in both customer retention and revenue per Full Time Equivalent (FTE).  So if engagement is so powerful, if it can be this kind of silver bullet to boost results, what can your organization do to harness it? 

When it comes to delivering engagement and performance, this process starts with goals - both setting them and managing them on an ongoing basis. The top capability overall among Best-in-Class organizations was simply agreement on performance goals between the manager and employee, cited by 88% (as compared to 77% of all others).  But where the top performers really differentiate themselves is in the capability to provide ongoing, informal feedback on progress against those goals - something Best-in-Class companies are 66% more likely to do (83% vs. 50%).

This type of ongoing communication isn't just a happy accident for these top performers either. While some managers have innate skills or dispositions that help them be more engaging leaders that instinctively give great feedback, others may struggle mightily with the concept. There is still often a "code of silence" among managers who hesitate to ask for help gaining the skills they need to engage and manage the performance of their teams. But this gap must be addressed so that managers are given the skills they need to play an active role in improving the alignment of their team and team members with organizational strategy.  So it should come as no surprise that Best-in-Class companies are 81% more likely to provide managers with training and tools on strategies for engaging employees (56% vs. 31%), and 24% more likely to train managers and supervisors to deliver effective performance reviews (57% vs. 46%). Giving better feedback, helping team members set proper goals, and the ability to track and communicate progress are things that can be learned. Companies that want Best-in-Class performance need to consider how they are supporting managers with the tools and training required for setting and managing the right goals that will deliver results.

Engagement and performance truly go hand in hand. Organizations that can balance that equation, and tap into the skills of their managers and leaders to make engagement a reality will be the ones that will seize competitive advantage.

 

 

Want to Close the Employee Engagement Gap? Offer Growth and Learning Opportunities

By Shawn Hunter

There's an old adage that goes like this: you take the job for the money, stay for the people, and leave because of your boss.  If we believe this is true, then it becomes more about the quality of relationship, environment, and fulfilling expectations (the job actually reflects the brochure), than managing precisely what people do, how they do it, etc.

So why is it that organizations have such highly refined analytics about when and how to interact with customers and prospects to maintain the highest revenue uplift and retention rate?  Companies invest enormous sums to understand exactly when to place a deft customer service phone call, or extend a sweetened interest rate, or include that 'bonus VIP' service - all to raise customer retention and revenue.  We employ neuroscience and psycho-graphic profiling to understand motivating factors in buying behaviors (did you know grocery stores use slow ambient music to seduce you into staying longer and buying more?) - and yet, many companies still operate in a command-and-control fashion with their people, treating them more as instruments.

In Closing the Engagement Gap, by Julie Gebauer and Don Lowman, they argue that one of the keys (there are five) to heightened engagement is to offer continuous learning and intellectual development opportunities.  In one example, at EMC's R&D facility in China, the general manager understood that professional growth and camaraderie were big motivating factors and created both formal and informal learning, networking, and socializing activities.  Consider the inverse effect - years ago EMC opened a technical facility in India and immediately offshored/insourced the more rudimentary and mundane tasks that the U.S. engineers didn't want.  You can guess the Indian engineers were frustrated, annoyed, and characteristically weren't so inclined to give any discretionary effort to their work.

And there's the key - since everyone can exercise a discretionary choice whether to be engaged or not, what are the factors that determine employee engagement?  According to Lowman and Gebauer's Global Workforce Study, these are the top five:

1. Senior management's sincere interest in employee well-being
2. Opportunity an employee has to improve skills and capabilities
3. Organization's reputation for social responsibility
4. Opportunity an employee has to provide input into decision-making in his department
5. Organization's ability to quickly resolve customer concerns

Right there at the top - #1 and #2: strength of relationship with your boss, and opportunity for intellectual and professional growth is what drives engagement, innovation and yes, shareholder value.  And even if you’re not so hip on driving shareholder wealth, it sure makes a fun and interesting place to work.

For more expert opinion on this topic, I invite you to view our QuickTalks leadership skills training video on aligning top performers by Curt Coffman.  In his view, engagement of employees starts with changing the mindset to embrace top performers in a way which conveys that the company needs them more than they need the company.

Have you started to think this way?  If, so how has it helped?  If not, why?  I’d like to talk about it further in the comments.

Café: It’s about a conversation.

I would not be the first person to observe that companies are often like families.  Especially in organizations where employees stick around for a while, over time you begin to feel like you know the people in your workplace as well as you do your family members.  You know their strengths, weaknesses and eccentricities.  You know who has a wicked sense of humor and who has that annoying habit of bouncing their leg and shaking the conference room table (that would be me).  And you share a history of success and failure that binds you together in a shared purpose. 

One of the things that I find fascinating about SkillSoft is that this family feeling extends to our customers.  This may sound like schmaltzy marketing talk, but I think you would hear the same thing if you talked to one of our long-time customers, and there are many of those.  You would undoubtedly hear a mix of our strengths, weaknesses and our eccentricities, but in most cases, it would be wrapped in an overall tone of affection.

I’m thinking of these things because next week we’re holding Café, which is an event that really embodies SkillSoft and the bond we share with our customers.  Café stands for Client Advisory Forum Event, but the word Café feels more accurate, with its overtone of a coffee klatch.  Café has existed for about as long as SkillSoft has existed, and it has always played an extremely important role in driving the company’s direction and the products we bring to market.  Every year we have a mix of first-timers and customers who are returning for their third or fourth or fifth time. 

Café is like a big focus group in some respects.  We divide customers into groups and discuss various topics. I happen to be a big believer in focus groups because I think there is no substitute for hearing from customers in their own words.  So often companies become ensconced in their own jargon and it may be completely different from the language their customers speak.  There is only one cure for that, and it’s getting out there and hearing what they have to say, directly from their very mouths.

When I started with SkillSoft six years ago, my first day was at a Café.  I remember the day evolving the way large group events often do, with some awkward silence in the morning, and by the afternoon, opinions were flying and conversations were bubbling up on unplanned topics.  Moderators were being challenged to keep discussions within time limits and people stuck around at the close of the event to talk to their colleagues about things that were important to them.

Over the years the format has evolved a bit, and the topics have also changed.  Back then the clients were responsible for taking notes in the breakout sessions and reporting back to the larger group.  The thought was that this gave them more buy-in.  While this may have been true, some felt that it was kind of like inviting someone over to dinner and making them do the dishes.  So now a SkillSoft person keeps the notes and delivers the PowerPoint, but the intent is still to reflect what the customers have said, in their own words.

The topics are much more far ranging as well.  That first Café I attended revolved largely around which course topics SkillSoft should be developing.  In next week’s meeting we’ll talk about the evolving role of courseware, but we’ll also discuss mobile learning, social learning and the future of games and simulations.  And I’m sure there will be some topics no one anticipated.

What I remember most fondly about Cafés of the past are the evening events where we got to know each other on a more personal level.  In 2004 the Yankees and Red Sox were locked in a heated post-season battle, and we were scheduled to board a dinner cruise in the San Francisco harbor.  TVs were brought in to appease die-hard fans on both sides, and that may go down as the loudest dinner in Café history (the Red Sox broke their 86-year championship drought that year, but I’m not saying the two events are directly related). 

Another memorable night was the songwriter’s dinner in Nashville, TN.  I’m not a huge country music fan, but hearing about the inner workings of the music industry was fascinating.  And after a couple of the songs touched on topics close to our hearts, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

So perhaps this is a fitting way to kick off SkillSoft’s entry into the world of blogging.  Our hope is to extend the conversation to more people, and to keep it going throughout the year.  I’m optimistic we can do this, but it will never replace the experience of gathering in a room and listening to what people have to say, in their own words.

By: Julie Ogilvie