Category: Talent Management

Posted on

The structure to ensuring the right Employee Experience

In the recent weeks I had many conversation with other companies as well as some vendors and consultancies of HR and Experience (Technology). The conversations were manyfold – around payroll, around onboarding, which technologies best to use and how to utilize which technology best. All of these conversations were very insightful and I hope my conversation partners felt the same. There is always a lot that I take out of such conversations – always a big chance to learn new ways, new things, or even new obstacles that I haven’t faced yet and how to get over them. I have unfortunately not always sufficient time to have as many conversations as I want – but truly enjoy each and every one of them.

Now, across most of these conversations in the recent weeks there was one topic that stood out for me, but I believe also for my conversation partners: the team structure to ensure the right Employee Experience.

At some point in almost all of these conversations, the question comes up “Do you report into HR or Technology?” or “Are you on the HR or the Technology side of the business?” – my answer is always the same: Both. My team might have one solid reporting line, but it has at least one dotted as well. But I believe it doesn’t really matter. Important is that it is focused and oriented at both, HR and Technology. – and so is my team, built as HR and Technology Experts. 

My believe is that even more tomorrow than today, HR and Technology need to come closer together. An HR professional without Technology background and knowledge will not come far in our digital (HR) world, and a Technology expert without HR background will not be too sought after either. The actual power lies in smartly combining these two capabilities.

All future HR processes or solutions should be digital first, and for it to be digital you must have the right Technology capability – and the best is if that same capability also knows the what and why of “why you are actually designing and deploying this process/ technology” – what is the purpose , the ultimate goal and reason behind it. And you can only build that with both capabilities hand-in-hand. 

But not only that is important, in the end, it is not about deploying a technology solution to enable a process. It is about deploying a supportive, non-distracting, simple to use Experience for all employees, so that it is actually used and can deliver on the promise you made, deliver on why you actually built it in the first place. Only then it is a win, or as Josh Bersin put it in a recent fireside chat at #WDRising: “If they don’t use your process or technology, it is your problem to solve.”

And because of all of the above, I believe that from latest today onwards, there is no space anymore for an HR IT department. Why? – because it by structure decouples HR and IT, it calls it even out separately. Therefore, it won’t be integrated – as much as you could argue now that it is about proper demand management, and consulting of the HR IT colleagues to the HR colleagues, as much I would tell you: Yeah, that was semi-successful in the past. In today’s world, it is all about Employee Experience and about delivering an integrated, seamless, simple and high quality Experience. And the only way you can do that is if you have an Employee Experience Organization that actually strategizes, designs, develops and deploys as ONE. An integrated  team of HR and Technology experts that focus on this every day, jointly – and can focus on very specific Experiences like “join” or “career” or “rewards” as an integrated team of cross-capability experts. 

If you don’t have your structure set up like this today, go there, do it, you won’t regret it. Important note though: Maybe your current teams are not up for such approach, that could very well be – but then the question is: Is it the right talent? What I am certain of is that if you build such an integrated team, you will attract highly capable talents and you will raise their future employability as they are set up for the future. The future of Digital Employee Experience.

Posted on

Embed digital transformation to invest in human relations

These days it is not that fancy anymore to call oneself HR or Human Resources. But in the end, we are still about the humans, about the employees, and I believe that this is something that should not be out of fashion at any time. Regardless what the discussion is about AI, about Automation, or about Outsourcing – people will be people and need to have a human connection – especially to HR. As you have read in one of my last posts “Do we need to rethink HR“, employees have spoken and the statistics say that the HR Experience Score has a big influence on the overall engagement and retention. This is something we should not deny. But at the same time, we must continue to bring the HR function into the 21st century and digitize the hell out of it. Is this a paradox? – No, I don’t think so and will tell you why.

Digital Mindset First

In today’s world, Digital is not only a hype or something that your IT department needs but what the whole company needs (I know, I am not the first one to call this out): a Digital Mindset first. And of course, who is better positioned to lead that change on something that is important for the whole company and each and every employee than HR?! – well, indeed, no one. But before you can actually do that, can actually be there, you have to yourself not only understand what Digital Mindset means, but also how to operationalize it daily in your day-to-day activities. Live it to share and teach it. Today, I don’t want to go into the company-wide enablement, but more into the HR focus of it.

Let’s start with a definition – what is Digital Mindset? – “A digital mindset is a set of attitudes and behaviors that enable people and organizations to see how data, algorithms, and AI open up new possibilities and to chart a path for success in a business landscape increasingly dominated by data-intensive and intelligent technologies.” (HBR article “Developing a Digital Mindset“). 

Why is it important to be Digital Mindset First?

It is for sure not easy to transform into such mindset, but it is important – in fact, I believe there is no way any HR role can be successful in the coming decade without a digital mindset first. We must be more agile and more data-savvy, must utilize more of all the information we have to provide a superior experience in all aspects of HR. In this, it doesn’t matter if you are in Operations, CoE or Business Partnering. The direction and focus might differ, but the foundational digital mindset is required in each and every aspect:

  • Business Partners need to be digital first to lead their functions into the digital first mindset and century. They need to showcase how this works in practice to “win-over” the function and make it happen. But they also need it in the ever changing and more complex HR world – without data-savviness, business partnering won’t be able to solve for the talent shortages, retention and hiring issues we slowly face (that’s right – I don’t think that what we feel and see now is in any way shape or form transitory. It will get worse with every year now.)
  • CoEs need to be digital first to move the talent practices of today into the digital age. With so much data and possibilities at hand, they need to analyze, understand and act quickly to adapt any practice to make it work better for the overall performance of the company. May that be in rewards, performance or engagement or any other talent practice
  • And last but not least, Operations – here I see even more need to be digital mindset first. Operations requires today still the biggest number of HR employees and so this area will itself feel the talent shortage heavily. To mitigate that, automation and smart datagraphs are required to reduce the manual work and requirements for “more” employees. At the same time, Operations sits at the heart of process and technology reengineering – and this by itself requires heavy digital mindset first utilization. And last, but not least, to stay true to the human relation and to “do” Employee Relationship Management, you need time and resources. Resources you will only get once you have automated the core HR Operations activities.

It will continue to stay true that HR won’t be allowed to “play” anywhere else on the enterprise agenda until the basics work flawless. You can throw resources at these foundational activities or you can be digital mindset first and find smart ways to automate, digitize and utilize artificial intelligence and like that create space for your HR Operations employees to invest in human relations and be Employee Relationship Managers. 

So what often is seen as the death of human interactions and the dehuminization of the organization in fact can and should lead to the opposite. A richer and more impactful relationship management which leads to increased engagement and performance. Digital mindset first and human relations are not opposites, but they need each other to be fully impactful in the HR function of the next decade. 

Posted on

Employee Relationship Management

I have started my train of thought in my last post referencing that we might need to reconsider what HR stands for and how we as HR best support the success of our companies. I believe we need to take a bit of a sharp turn. In recent years we have reduced our headcount and the higher the ratio of employees to HR was, the better it was – as it meant lower costs for the overall company. But this is not really where the value of HR lies. We are a back-office function, but one that needs to be more than just „service and forget“.

Understanding Marcus Buckinghams‘s research, we have a much higher share in achieving engagement and retention than what we give ourselves credit for. Employees demand us – and not really for solving their specific small administration issues – but for trust, as coach and as partner. Not only senior management, but every employee.

Now, how do we do this? – as I wrote, I don‘t think that the solution is to get back into the HR generalist ancient times, but we need to listen to our employees and the needs they have. Not because we are „Human“ Resources and it is expected, but to make sure our companies can perform and grow. Trust in HR is according to research a very important aspect of an engaged employee. This builds the business case and clearly lays out that HR needs to be more than a pure anonymous service function.

The idea of Employee Relationship Management (ERM)

But how do we do this? How can we be such a partner and coach to employees without going back to the HR generalist times? And how can we build a business case that makes economic sense and delivers more value than it costs? – my answer is Employee Relationship Management. We need to build out a new process of Employee Relationship Management.

Despite the naming, this process would not be a mirror of Customer Relationship Management, but with a similar intent. We would treat our employees as individuals that we need to serve and keep as engaged members of our organization. We don‘t want to sell them anything but we want to make sure they feel that they get from this relationship everything they came for while making sure that they stay engaged and committed to the company’s purpose and goals. It is proactive engagement management. And this can‘t be a telephone number or a chat or an AI – this needs to be a human connection and relation that we need to build. The basic idea is that this human connection would provide a trusted partner to the employee, taking care of the employee and its requirements of (career) development, connection and point of contact for this employee in case of any issues or concerns.

It is though not anything that should be seen as transactional or as rolling back self-services. Only an organized and structured self service offering will enable the financial playing field to make such ERM happen. 

The structure of ERM

So how would this look like? – It is despite the rolling back metaphors actually the next evolution of the shared service model. If you want to build such support in today‘s environment you need to make it human and efficient at the same time. It needs to be built with scale in mind. Therefore, I would not roll back anything you have in your GBS environment and continue heavily with self service and automation – and at the same time take a hard turn.

Build up an infrastructure for an Employee Relationship Management system that can hold all relevant information about your employees from career aspirations, specific future thoughts and coaching needs – similar like a CRM, but more of a Talent Management System on drugs. Next, transform your Tier 1 Service into one area that continues to take regular service calls in case self service doesn‘t work – and a second area that is actually significantly more senior, but also with language capabilities and on top with coaching capabilities. These Employee Relationship Managers will proactively reach out to their population to have check ins, coaching sessions, career conversations – to support the People Manager but also as a trusted partner for the employee that stays with the employee throughout its company-journey. 


This is of course only a rough draft of how I am envisioning the future model and I will provide more details in one of my next posts. But what do you think about ERM? Do you have something like this already in place? Have you considered it? Or do you feel that it is not adding any value?

Posted on

Do we need to rethink HR?

I had the pleasure of visiting ADPReThink last week and enjoyed a fantastic presentation by Marcus Buckingham from the ADP Research Institute. You can find his research here. He has shared his latest research about employee sentiment, engagement,  performance and retention. The new twist that I haven‘t seen before is that he also assessed an HR Experience Score which was really interesting to see and understand. I will leave it to you to read more details about it here.

The interesting outcome is that this HR Experience Score is ver strongly related to Engagement and retention – in fact, 51% of the variance of HR Experience can be explained by Engagement. This means that we are much more important as a function than we probably give us credit for. I find this an amazing finding while at the same time it makes me pause and look back to what we did with our function in the recent years.

The problem

We basically reduced ourselves into an operational arm that focuses on efficiency and effectiveness in delivering HR services and a business partnering arm that partners with senior leaders to review and define (people) strategy as well as help managers bringing this strategy into practice. – ok, we also have the CoE arm, but this one plays anyway behind the scenes and a regular employee only sees the results of this through the HR services and the business partnering.

But…what Marcus found is that in fact, employees want more than just services delivered. They look for much more in HR – and if they don‘t get this, the HR Experience is low and with it Engagement and retention. Employees want support from HR, want to have a trusted partner in HR, someone that cares about their career, well-being, performance and progress – outside the direct work environment that is manager controlled. Wow, employees want an HR person that knows and cares about them. Now that I write it, it is not so absurd. But still – did anyone consider this in recent years?

Reconsider what HR is about

This epiphany let me reconsider how we should think about HR and how we should reconsider the actual tasks we want HR delivering – and HOW we deliver these tasks. Don‘t get me wrong, I don‘t want to turn time back to the heavily staffed HR department of generalists. I still believe that these times are over. But I believe we need to reconsider a new role in our set-up. We should one more time look at other functions how they treat and care for their stakeholders, their consumers, their customers. The one that comes to my mind particularly here is sales and how they care about their customers and prospects.

ERM – Employee Relationship Management

We should install a new process of Employee Relationship Management. A process where we are not reactively delivering a service that an employee wants or has a need for, like requiring a verification letter or an update to their personal data, but a process that is part pro-active and mainly future focused. A process where we as HR create a relationship with our employees built on trust and common goals. Different from what we built in the past, we need to be again a function with a face, a function with a clear go to person for each employee. And this person should be a familiar name to the employee – and not the „next agent that is available“.
We need to change our approach and approachability. But not through installing local, F2F HR generalists that are again available for each and everything an employee wants – but something new, something different in line with our current aspiration as I believe this is a twist and not a reinvention of what we have been doing. I will talk about it more in my next post. – but what are your thoughts?

Posted on

Be invisible

With all what is going on and with everything said for 2018 and 2019 about the importance of HR and the HR agenda, let’s pause for a minute and reflect: What is important, what needs to be done – and what is HR’s job?

Don’t get me wrong, I am in full alignment with what e.g. Josh is saying about 2019. I believe that he is right and we do have some serious issues to tackle around productivity as well as around wage stagnation and income inequality. And who would disagree with the changing nature of skills requirements (which is actually always true – as the economy is changing constantly, constantly new skills are required. The only thing that changes is “which” skills are in need). I would not disagree. Where I though believe we need to be careful is to say that this is HR’s work to do.

Who is accountable for leadership and people management?

I am a proud HR practitioner, but I am also a strong believer about HR being a true back-office function. And I am not talking about HR Admin – I am talking about the core topics of Talent Management more wider People Management. Yes, HR needs to set the agenda, tone and strategy when it comes to these topics, but HR is not the one to own or execute this. It is each and every People Manager, starting with the CEO and not stopping before the last People Manager in the organization. HR is there to support, educate, coach – but not to own and execute the People Agenda. This is often mis-understood – and I know that we as HR professionals feel more important and proud if we actually are at the fore-front of these topics. But we are a small function and cannot and should not own these topics. It is for us to be the invisible master-minds and conductors of the People Agenda, with the emphasise on “invisible”. Let’s not be in the way, let’s not be too visible, but lead from behind.

Be invisible

Leading from behind also means to me to not be in the way, but to enable the People Agenda. Let’s not come up with new policies or police our People Managers how to be People Managers – coach and enable them to do the right things the right way because they understand and believe, not because they “have to”. No one likes HR policies – not even HR, and so let’s do away with them as much as possible. And also, let’s stop being the People police and hand this over to our People Managers. Only if they own the People Agenda, HR can be successful. This is what we need to do, this is what will make us successful and will make the organization successful. And so, as much as I agree with our core topics for 2019, let’s be clear: It is on us to enable and coach, but not to own these topics. We and with us the organization will only be successful if each and every People Managers owns these topics and holds them true every day.

Posted on

What's on for HR in 2019

A new year has started – it is still fresh, and so let’s look at it from the perspective of HR. I know, I am not the first one to do so, but have my fair opinion to share.

2018 as a year in not only HR but our global economy was a difficult one – but all in all successful. It was though already impacted by recession signs and negative policies (e.g. tariffs, beginning trade wars, etc.). 2019 will see, I am certain, unfortunately much more of this. The US will move on further with their “America first” policy, and important countries like Brazil and Italy with their new right-wing governments will have another hit at our economy. Also, the current economic upswing is already lasting for almost 10 years. This is a crazy long time, so let’s get ready for a correction.

During economic corrections, the work of HR is a not so nice one. It is about lay-offs and cost-cutting. And as much as these topics are not sexy, it is important “how” we handle them as HR professionals. – it is our imperative to make these typical recession steps not about the recession, but about the next upswing. We are setting the stage for the next growth (or not).

(1) Be smart about cost-cutting

Very often, we are asked to cut down on all HR costs – regardless what they are. We need to be smart here and ensure that cost cutting does not hurt the long-term strategy and success of the company. Don’t cut to harsh into development of your people as they are the key to future success. Recession is the time of investment to be ready for the next upswing. This is counterintuitive, especially when you talk to your CFO – but if we in HR are not taking care about future readiness, no one will.
Recruiting is the next typical cost cutter: Hiring freeze. Don’t go there. This will hurt your employer brand and people won’t apply at your company anymore. In a recession, smart talent is more available and easier to recruit than in any other time. Keep your doors open and get the right talent in to make the next upswing (don’t wait for it to come to you, M A K E it).

(2) Utilize the opportunity to refresh (the right way)

I am sure that you had already analysed what is going well and what is not going well in your organization. But it is hard to persuade colleagues when things go well. But now the time has come to make bold moves, to change structures and re-organize, if required to transform. Let’s set this up for new success.

(3) Ensure that the tone is set in the right way

Be sure to set a positive tone throughout any action. Make sure it is not about “surviving the recession” but about “setting up for success”. It is important to keep morale and trust high in these times – especially to keep your key-talent on board. They will be the first ones to leave, keep them and place them in charge of success. The messaging is at least as important as the actual actions you take.

I strongly believe that these are our HR imperatives most likely needed for 2019. We need to understand the situation and of course support what is needed and right to do – but if we as HR are not taking care about setting up for the future, not sure who will. Recessions are huge opportunities to be even more successful. This is what needs to be understood. They are not a threat. – regardless of what others say. Let’s be the architect of the future – once again – and see 2019 as a huge opportunity.

Posted on

Integrated Talent Management – the true Value Function

Integrated Talent Management (ITM) – another buzz-word for HR, right? Another consulting topic to sell services to an organisation, right? Another attempt of HR to become more strategic, right?
Actually no – ITM, which is not new, but gains more and more traction these days, is finally bringing HR to where it needs to be – out of the way and at the same time focused on where it creates value.
The fate
In recent years, HR’s story was very much about downsizing, Shared Services, or even doing away with HR. And I would truly agree with doing away with HR if your HR people and your HR function are in any way similar to what is describe in that article. HR as a policies, compliance and control function is not obsolete, but can significantly be reduced. In fact, just mix and match with your compliance function and its ok.
The problem is that many HR functions and HR colleagues and leaders have lost the focus on the true value of HR: people and their impact on the company success. I don’t want to debate today how this has happened, but instead focusing on why HR is the true value function.  Let’s recap the resource based view of the firm where people are the true differentiator, the true competitive advantage of the firm and start from there.
The past is the future
Talent Management, and especially Integrated Talent Management is deeply rooted in that space and in that idea of people being the differentiator. And you know what – it is right. People are the main differentiator, people are what makes a company fail or be successful. People are what makes you different – and what cannot be copied or imitated by any of your competitors. And this is why we truly should focus on this competitive advantage and focus HR on making this competitive advantage even stronger.
ITM is all about that – focus all your efforts on bringing in the right Talent at the right time to the right job – and from there develop and move your Talent in the organisation slowly but steadily to utilise it to become more effective as a firm. Success is about having the right people at the right places, doing the right thing. And this right thing is also enforced by HR and its processes – Performance Management. And ITM is as much about getting people in as it is about moving people out – either when the time is right or when the Talent needs a different experience or when it in fact is no longer the right Talent. Companies change, strategies change and this impacts what kind of Talent you need. ITM does all that – and it does it very successful: Have a look here or here.
Watch out the HOW of ITM
This is where HR can create tremendous value for the company, where HR makes the difference of becoming a successful or a futureless organisation. One very important aspect of this is however, that HR should not make the same mistake it did in earlier days: Thinking and demanding that HR is the one and only department and HR people are the one and only people who can and should run ITM, should care and decide about your Talents.
HR colleagues sometimes are not trusting others and sometimes are over motivated to get a seat at the table that they want to do everything on their own, want to prove themselves and their company how great they are and what value they can bring. And this leads to actually very often the opposite: HR being in the way and not creating value. HR being wanted “away” by the rest of the organisation.
ITM needs to be and is about the organisation and its Talent, not about HR. Yes, HR is the function that needs to create an ITM backbone and needs to ensure that the organisation is on the right path. But the actual owners and drivers of ITM are all employees and our people managers. ITM is about everyday actions and everyday focus. Nothing that HR can or should do – HR needs to be out of the way so that employees and people managers can execute ITM – every day. And this not with the help of restrictive policies and hand-holding, but with creating the right environment and infrastructure so that employees and people managers can utilise the full potential of ITM.
If you will, ITM is doing away with HR – it is bringing Talent Management back in focus, and it is doing away with HR people being at the forefront of people’s topics. And by that, making HR truly strategic and positioning it where it should be: as the true value function.
 

Posted on

That time of the year (again)- Performance Management (still)

Yes, that time of the year again – no, I am not talking Christmas or New Years. I am talking Performance Management – it is the time of the year again where thousands of companies demotivate their staff by still holding on to an antiquated process that – and this is a fact – just does not what it is supposed to do (or what it is named). Performance Management you would think is about managing performance of employees towards joined goals and to motivate them to bring out the best in them. However, still way too many companies are holding on to the outdated process of: Objective setting – Mid-year Review – Calibration – Year-end Review and send their employees off for a demotivated Christmas. Is your company doing the same? How do you feel after your review? – check out this post

Posted on

HR Innovation: best practice vs. best fit for HR

As laid out in my earlier post, there is an academic conversation going on about what is the right thing to do best-practice or best-fit. I have argued that both have their places and their positives and negatives. But how to think about it in the HR function specifically?
There are functions that are prone for best-practices – and these are functions that are highly regulated or live in a very stable and not changing context across organisations and geographies. These functions can most of the time just adopt a best-practice and will be successful with it. However, it won’t provide them any strategic advantage as other companies are using it as well – and it seems to be imitable.
When you think about the HR function though, there are two key differences to what I have stated above:

  • The HR function does not have a stable environment. On one hand regulations, labor laws and unions require different practices in different geographies. But in addition, not one workforce is like the other. You have big differences in the workforce mix like demographics, geographies, blue vs. white collar, research vs. production orientation, etc.
  • If you take HR seriously and if you take the resource-based view of the firm seriously (and there is no believe that we should not), HR and its practices are the key drivers and influencers of the workforce and all its attributes – and this is the key differentiator, the key competitive advantage. So why would you even think about adopting best practices and make your workforce more similar to the one of a different company? You would loose your competitive advantage. – of course you can argue that a poorly performing workforce does not have a competitive advantage and copying a competition’s practices will bring you into the same spot like them – but what do you really win by that? You are still always a step behind and won’t perform in close range.

This statement clearly makes the case for best-fit. However, best-fit is expensive and also makes mistakes as you are constantly trying something new – and you can’t always win. So does HR need to be that expensive? And does that really add value? – it does not. You have to go one level deeper and have to differentiate. The fact is that your workforce is the competitive advantage – not your HR organization as a whole. But your HR organization is the key driver of that competitive advantage – so how does that work together?
When we dissect HR in its parts, then it is a combination of people, organization, technology, process, and policy. Let’s leave the people out at this point and focus on the other four. Where does the core competitive driver sit and how does it drive the competitive advantage?
Policy is at the heart and centre of the HR practice – the policy says what is done and how its done. It truly defines the HR work and the core of it – and therefore is the core driver of the competitive advantage. You should stay away from best-practices in all people influencing areas (administration vs. talent). Use proven policies in the areas of payroll or workforce administration. You do not drive workforce effectiveness through these but just efficiency. However, if efficiency is your key advantage, don’t copy here.
Process is to be seen very similar like policy. However, the influence on the competitive advantage is much lower. Still, how you operate key talent processes like talent acquisition, performance management, succession planning or learning drives your competitive advantage. And if you focus on efficiency mainly, don’t underestimate the administrative processes of payroll and workforce administration. But usually these don’t bring much return.
Organisation brings policies, processes and people together. Organisation is basically the key example where a 50:50 cooperation between best-practices and best-fit are the best. There are proven organisational concepts out there that work in general for most companies as they are sufficiently holistic. However, the detailed application to your firm, the detailed design and implementation needs to follow your very own company context.
Technology – last but not least. Technology is the oiling machinery that brings it all into execution. If you are not a high-tech company that needs to be differentiated in that field to show your abilities, there is no reason for being different, for not going with best practices. Differentiation through technology is very expensive, can easily go into a dead-end and does rarely pay off. The influence of technology (as long as we talk about current technology) to the workforce is minimal. It is a pure enabler and needs to enable the policies and processes.
This is now my guide to best-practice vs. best-fit. As you can see, it should be differentiated and both best-practice and best-fit have its place and reason for being in HR. Let me know your thoughts on twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.

Posted on

The end of Engagement surveys?

Not a long time ago, Employee Engagement Surveys were a new thing and each and every company explored it. Today, I don’t know many companies that not at least every 2-3 years run an engagement survey through their organization. And some of these organizations are actually doing something with the results – although still not all.
Some companies use the results to understand the pulse of the company, to understand what employees feel and think – and subsequently are starting initiatives to improve things. Other companies use the results also for performance management and leadership development. Both ideas and actions are not wrong, but I suggest that they are outdated – no longer valid in the way they work currently. Why?
We live in a constantly faster spinning economy, but not only the economy is spinning faster – also employees are. The young generations that just have or about to enter the workforce require a different speed, faster action taking and overall handling to keep and motivate them. Engagement surveys of the past were excellent to measure engagement, motivation, retention, satisfaction, etc. at a specific point in time. In other words, they were an excellent reactive tool. But what they are lacking is pro-activeness and ongoing information and pulse measurement. I believe that because of the changing workforce and economy such pro-activeness and such real-time understanding of workforce needs, feelings, satisfaction and ideas is key to stay successful.
Engagement surveys as we know them today are not capable of delivering against these requirements. They are too slow, too big, too heavy, to expensive…But, there is a solution. A change in tool, scope, approach is necessary as this solution is not delivering on a 100% employee scope – but it delivers on real-time assessments and feedback, ready to be immediately actioned into results. The new class of online feedback apps. Check out CultureAmp or tinypulse or cultureIQ…and many more
I believe that this is the engagement app of the future and the days of the heavy, expensive, reactive Employee Engagement Surveys are counted. Of course, these new tools need to be run different and you can no longer set up projects that deliver on engagement surveys every 2 years. Standing engagement teams are necessary, but these should be an important part of a company’s HR function anyway.
The real-time feedback that these new feedback apps enable supports HR work in many ways:
  • a real-time understanding of engagement helps you understand the health of your workforce – every day
  • feedback requests can be focused in areas where attrition is high to better understand the underlying reasons and act on them – before everyone leaves
  • real-time engagement scores can be used in manager performance and coaching sessions and are more reliable and accurate than the 2-year engagement survey cycle new HR processes, tools, organization structures, etc. can be piloted and assessed fast and without adding any complexity
  • training success on leadership can be measured focused and in a proper time-frame from the training course or coaching session a leader had
  • And many more
The Engagement Survey is dead – long live the engagement app.