Engagement In My Dreams

Last night I had a dream about meeting two Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) from two separate companies. We were at an airport bar waiting out a lengthy flight delay while fortifying our bodies with the local brew. On my right was the CHRO from a company called Ideal, Inc. They were very successful as a B2B service provider, but they were not very flashy in marketing or employment branding. They had good profit margins, although not close to the highest in the industry, probably because they believed in overstaffing projects. Their customer retention was at 93% annually, which was the envy of their competition. They favored hiring applicants with specialized degrees and at least a year of experience in the business. Because of their overstaffing philosophy, newcomers were able to join an established team of experienced employees on actual projects. The team members’ performance was partly based on how well they developed the new employee over the first two years. Then, the new employee was given more leadership responsibilities and the task of supporting another team that offered different services. In this way the employee collaborated with more staff, learned about other services, and potentially brought back ideas to his or her home team. Another characteristic at Ideal was that 90% of employees had customer facing duties. Indeed, employee performance ratings were also partly determined by customers’ ratings from 360 feedback surveys and their responses to phone discussions with team leaders about delivery.

I was intrigued as I grabbed the last of the pub mix, so I asked the Ideal, Inc.’s CHRO about how they maintained employee engagement.

The CHRO smiled and said “Engagement just happens. We don’t worry about creating it. Our employees meet challenges from our customers as well as facing challenges from internal changes in technology, delivery and so forth. In HR I try to foster our leaders’ two-way communication with employees about these challenges. If HR helps leaders and employees collaborate to solve problems and eliminate frustrations, then the company’s performance improves and the employees know that they are the key to making it happen. Engagement is a byproduct of getting good employees—ones who love what they do—to partner with democratic-style leaders who see themselves as working for their employees. We occasionally arrange lunches or happy hours to celebrate achievements or sometimes to let off steam about what we do, but helping people do their job is our engagement strategy.”

At this point in the conversation, the CHRO on my left nearly dropped a full glass of IPA. This was a CHRO from a different B2B service provider called AveragCo.

"Wow. That is not my experience as a CHRO at AveragCo. As a company we are always looking to make our employees have fun at work, balance their personal lives with work duties, and promote our brand. You know, half-day Fridays, contests, giveaways. I guess we have to, really. I mean our engagement scores are high, but I never feel as if our employees are excited by what we do. We have more layers at AveragCo, and less than half of our employees are customer facing. They get their performance ratings from objectives that are cascaded down from the top. That seems like a good idea, but employees complain that the measures we use are at a level too high to indicate good or bad employee performance. Like today, I had a guy complain about his rating because the customer he works with was the first to transition to new software we provided from a new third party supplier. He worked like a dog tracking issues and bugs, but he had no power to make our supplier move more quickly to make the fixes. Naturally, this customer gave us some lousy ratings, which means this employee got a lousy rating. The only recognition we provide is through bonuses, so he felt punished for working twice as hard. Lucky for us the job market is so horrible, huh?”

Now it was the Ideal Inc. CHRO who nearly spilled the suds.

“Well, no wonder you have to worry about engagement at your company! If your employees feel stuck in their jobs, they are powerless to improve performance, and they are de-motivated by the company’s performance process, then of course they will unplug.”

The AveragCO CHRO shrugged and said, “Well, we have a different hiring philosophy than you do. We hire young, smart people and work them hard until they decide they have had enough. It keeps our salaries lower, and our profit margins higher. I know it sounds a bit cruel, but sometimes a business strategy does not focus on developing talent.”

“Wait, a minute,” said the Ideal, Inc CHRO. “I thought you said that you were constantly working to engage your workforce? And you just said that you were lucky that the job market isn’t better. What is the ROI for your engagement strategy, if you can call it that?”

I cringed a bit. I didn’t want to have an HR bar brawl emerge in front of my eyes, especially as I was in the middle of the two of them. Luckily, the AveragCo CHRO seemed to ponder the words as if never really thinking about it before.

“Hmm. ROI on engagement. Well, we use a survey that has been researched by the vendor. High engagement corresponded with higher profit, higher revenue, and better performance. So, we just worry about keeping our engagement scores as high as possible.”

There was a pause and a sip of beer (still no more pub mix) before we heard more about AveragCo.

“It is funny, isn’t it? We actually feel that our turnover is not high enough! Yet, the only thing that our leaders come to HR about is improving engagement. For us, that is mostly about intention to stay, because this is the easiest correlation for us to make within HR. We know that higher engagement is associated with lower turnover, but… you’re right. That’s not our problem. Energy level, collaboration, performance… those are our problems.”

The Ideal CHRO then said something that really stuck with me.

“Maybe you are engaging people the wrong way. The fun and the work/life balance might promote staying at the company, but it is probably taking away from being absorbed in one’s work. We’ve got this guy in our office who genuinely loves his work—forgets what time of day it is, always looking to help other employees, always thinking that there must be a better way for us to get things done. I asked him why he does these things. He said the work is something that fits what he does well and what he likes to do. Plus, his boss trusts that he is going to make good decisions that help the company succeed. He said it’s like everyone is a leader at different times, and everyone is a follower at different times. When he comes up with an idea that will save time or create a new service, his boss becomes the follower who helps make that idea a reality. Then, his boss becomes the leader again by setting up tests to see if the idea should be adopted or discarded. They are completely aligned on the same goal, so there is no need for formal ‘you do what I say to do’ leadership.”

“But how can HR make that happen?” asked my new friend from AveragCo.

“We hired a good fit for the job, but also a good fit for what the job would become in the future. We developed our leaders to change the way that they lead. Leadership, at Ideal, is about sharing information and decision making. The leader’s job is to foster teamwork, encourage new directions, and help individuals play their roles… and to change those roles when an opportunity pops up. Think of the Beatles, right? John Lennon formed the band and was the leader, but he brought in Paul McCartney because it made the band better. He let everyone write songs and use different instruments. He was completely open to new possibilities, some of which he would not have chosen.”

“John Lennon hated ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’ you know,” I proudly pointed out, feeling good to add such value to this conversation. I grabbed at the pub mix the bartender just placed in front of me.

"My point is,” continued our Ideal spokesperson, “if you want to have the best band in the world, then you bring in good people, you trust them, and you partner with them to accomplish your shared goal. If you want to improve organizational performance, you do the same thing. The goals you set for your employees and the sharing of leadership to help them succeed will create employee engagement and make your company more… Ideal like.”

That’s when I woke up, still tasting the salty peanuts and spicy snacks. I wonder if the AveragCo will become more Ideal, or if only in my dreams.
This content is protected by the 1976 Copyright Protection Act of the United States of America. The proper citation for this blog is as follows: Mastrangelo, P. M. (date posted). Title of Post. The First Domino, available at http://the-first-domino.blogspot.com. This post is not intended to represent any person or organization other than Paul M. Mastrangelo.