Employee Engagement Cuts Attrition Rates In Half

Why bother with employee engagement? Sometimes a question is so big, it's nice to break it down into a single, simple example rather than try for the 'big picture approach'.

Hence the reason for this blog. 

I've had the opportunity to work with an employee population over a number of years and see what effect engagement has in a number of different areas - one of which is staff turnover.

Conventional wisdom says that the more engaged a person is within a company, then the less likely they are to leave, and whilst this is true, that's not the whole picture. What is also often omitted from these discussions is that some attrition is actually desirable within an organisation for a multitude of reasons beyond the scope of this particular blog.

So let's take a first look at our population and break it down into some typical 'quartiles' - except in this case we're also going to break out the totally disengaged folks. Those that simply do not participate in any of the people metrics we can gather (and in this case sixteen different measures where used).

Without getting too geeky here, the chart below shows the number people in each engagement quartile - if you imagine a scale of 0 to 100, with the most engaged people scoring 100 - then there are on 38 people in the 75-100 band and 9,770 in the lower 25.

This may come as a surprise to some, but it's a fairly typical pattern. The 38 at the top of this distribution are the 'superstars' of engagement, the culture ambassadors, brand fanatics, cheerleaders and motivators that exist in all organisations and have huge impact on morale (you may know one or two in your company).

Typically, between 5-15% of any organisation are disengaged. They are the people who will tell you (should you ask) that they simply want to come into work and do their job, they don't want their contribution to exceed their role, or gain promotion. This should never be read as a 'happiness' indicator, but accepting that they cannot be more engaged is an unacceptable conclusion. The challenge is in the amount of effort that is needed.

For the sake of statistical stability, and to take some of the 'emotional' interpretation out of this - we'll divide up our population in four (almost) equal quartiles, while keeping our disengaged population separate - and see what happens to each of these groups over two years.

And this is where things get interesting.

In the very first quarter, attrition is four times greater in the completely disengaged group. Although the rest of the population is approximately the same, there is a noticeably higher attrition rate in the lowest engagement quartile too (but no where near as significant).

By the end of year one, the disengaged group attrition is approximately double that of the rest of the employee population, and after two years that pattern is consistent. The chart clearly shows that the more engaged people are, the less likely they are to leave the company - but the significant finding is that even the smallest amount of engagement is enough to halve the attrition rate.

Let's try and quantify this - there are a number of studies that analyse the cost of employees leaving, and the associated recruitment costs. I'm going to use this one by Oxford Economics, published in HR Review last year. It takes into account cost of lost output and recruitment costs and calculates a cost of £30,614 per employee. There are many less conservative estimates which place recruitment costs at between 30-50% of salary, but let's think about that for a moment.

The charts show that zero levels of engagement lead to twice the attrition. Move the engagement needle just one notch, and that problem can be addressed. More importantly that £30,614 cost can be avoided.

1,467 people in this sample were completely disengaged. In the first quarter of this analysis 107 of these left the company. Do the math: 107x£30k = £3.2m.

Stop and think about that for one moment. We know that even the slightest amount of engagement will halve the number of people leaving. Half the number of people leaving = £1.6m.

Not paying attention to employee engagement? Maybe it's time to start.

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Geek Note: The relationship between engagement and attrition shows a strong negative Pearson correlation coefficient of -0.61, Kendall's Tau of -0.75 and Spearman's Rho is -0.85.

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Employee Engagement and Innovation

Here in the UK, the government is pushing hard to spend vast amounts of money on a new high speed rail link (known as HS2) to reduce the time in which people can travel from London to Birmingham, and then eventually to Leeds and Manchester.

Successive obstacles are learning to increased costs and more delays, not least of which are public concerns about the plans.

I also have a problem with HS2. 

Not with building more infrastructure for transport, but simply because it's depressing to read about the boring train types that are being planned, and envision the outcome.

I grew up with a 1354mph aircraft that flew nearly 800mph faster than the latest Boeing Dreamliner, and a space ship that could fly into space with seven people, do cool stuff and then fly back home to do it all over again. 

(Try explaining to kids that humans used to be able to fly twice as fast as a bullet in large groups, but not any more).

200 years ago we started the rail network with steam, 100 years ago there was electric, and then diesel. 50 years ago In Japan the 200mph Shinkansen started to run followed by the TGV in France. 30 years ago Magnetic Levitation trains emerged, carrying passengers at over 270mph by monorail in Germany and more conventionally in Shanghai.

Current fastest? In China there's a train that travels at 302mph, which is pretty cool.

In Britain? We're going to reach.....wait for it......225mph - but only in certain small sections. Which is just great - it's really nice to be copying what other countries have - and it's safe to be behind the curve.

That's the secret of success isn't it? Incremental upgrades. Playing safe. Avoiding risk. Please everyone all the time.

Bollocks.

Any business that desires success needs to shatter expectations with something amazing. Something new and incredible that captures the imagination. Too many companies complain about a lack of innovation without encouraging it, daring to take risks or listening to 'left field' ideas of their employees.

When was the last time your company captured YOUR imagination? What was the last thing you did to build passion in your teams?

How can you expect engaged employees if you don't fire imagination with what you do? 

So what should HS2 be like? 

How about a nuclear powered zero emission magnetic monorail with passenger pods travelling at 760mph? I want to get from London to Birmingham in 8 minutes, not 40. I want the UK to have some ambition!

Invent that. Make something that changes the world, create a technology that can be exported to every part of the planet. The population will rally behind that.

Or how about building on the Victorian idea of a pneumatic dispatch tube like +Elon Musk with the Hyperloop concept? 

Please. Anything but the same old boring stuff.

We put a man on the moon in 8 years. But it's taken five years of 'debate' on HS2 and nothing has yet been done. Tragic.

Don't settle for 'dull' at work. Inspire engagement in your workforce by aiming high, leveraging passion, capturing expertise, and doing something amazing.

Focus on plans that speak to the heart and the head. Use your imagination and those of everyone around you to do things that wow.

Nobody woke up this morning and said, "I know, let's do something mediocre today".


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Seven Ways To Improve Minion Engagement

One great thing about having lots of children is the guilt free pleasure of watching all the kids movies - which are usually much better than 'grown up' films.

As stated in several previous articles, it's hard for me to watch a movie without analysing management style - which in the case of the lead character in Despicable Me is just exemplary.......

In case you missed this excellent movie, Gru is an evil super villian with a horde of minions set on committing (and sometimes solving) various criminal acts.

In order to achieve success, he has hundreds of marginally uncontrollable minions who don't necessarily do the right things (sound familiar?)

Nonetheless they always work hard, innovate, complete seemingly impossible tasks, and enjoy themselves in the process. 

Without them Gru would never succeed in achieving his goals.

I would argue this is due to the high level of employee engagement demonstrated in the organisation, and would offer the following seven examples as proof:

1. Set Clear Direction And Explain Your Goals

There's never any doubt about the focus of the team. The goals are set clearly, and although the deadlines are tight there is absolute transparency with regards to the end goal - even if that end goal is stealing the moon by first stealing a shrink ray.

2. Celebrate Success Together & Give Credit

The word 'we' is used often - never 'me'. We stole the Times Square Jumbotron. We have had a great year. We will have a party. Great success calls for celebration, goals and rewards are shared at all levels.

3. Never Stop Employees Having Fun

The minions cannot help but enjoy their work - naturally mischievous, they find things to enjoy even during the most mundane of tasks. Simple pleasures cause laughter and everyones day passes faster because of it. The goals are achieved, but their enjoyment of life is not seen as an inhibitor to success - but rather a sign of a highly integrated, functional team.

4. Be Appreciative Of Failed Innovation

It is unlikely that one of your staff is going to present you with a fart gun today, but if they did would you be impressed with their innovation, or furious at them for not focusing on the task at hand? 

In the movie, a simple misunderstanding about a dart gun requirement produces an unexpected result  - but lessons are learned, and it eventually becomes useful. 

Most importantly, failure is appreciated as a learning experience.

5. Ensure Adequate Staffing

There are no shortage of hands to help complete the work. In fact having a few extra bodies helps a great deal when things start to go wrong - and that excess of resource allows for new creations. 

Extra resource ensures a high quality of work and confidence that the job can get done. When too many minions go missing in the second movie, all kinds of disasters occur and everything starts to go wrong.

6. Really Delegate Responsibility

Gru cannot do it all. He is clearly the leader, but together with a highly skilled middle manager (Dr. Nefario) - he hands out clear tasks and steps back. 

He is never guilty of micro-managing and only comes to help when it becomes apparent that he can provide resource, advice or clarification to ensure success. His door is always open, and if no-one comes to visit, he takes the time to go and see what's happening.

7. Listen To Concerns And Take Action

When minions notice things going wrong - the departure of a respected manager, a reduction in staff, missing children and so on - Gru takes notice. He doesn't spend time questioning motive or accusing them of wasting his time. 

As a consequence, lines of communication remain open and problems are not hidden from senior management.

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If you follow these steps, not only will your own employees become more engaged, they will be more productive, your business will be more profitable, and everyone will be happy....

(now turn up your speakers and play this clip)

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HR Hunger Games

I was lucky enough to participate in the HR Directors Business Summit in Birmingham earlier this week, and I had a great time learning from the many speakers and interacting with the delegates - if you didn't make it this year, here are a few of my takeaways from the event.....

Generalisations and prejudice are close cousins and should be avoided

It set my teeth on edge every time somebody introduced the idea of 'Millennial' behaviour, as +Mervyn Dinnen remarked during our HRD spotlight with +Perry Timms and Peter Reilly - if we all started making generalisations about women, black people, old people, gay people, muslims or disabled people we'd quite rightly be shouted off the stage - so why is it appropriate to group people into convenient age brackets for HR purposes?

This study is no doubt valid - but trying to fit my family into it would be impossible. My 'maturist' father couldn't care less about his car, sends emails and uses an iPad every day. I'm dead centre of 'Gen X'  and loathe online meetings, use my smartphone as much as my macbook and certainly don't demonstrate disloyalty to my employers. My eldest son 'Gen Z' prefers to use Minecraft and a desktop Mac to communicate with his friends and considers Facebook something 'old' people do. 

People are people. Trying to organise them into convenient groups is the equivalent of herding cats..........

Trust the professionals to do their job

I spent much of my career in the IT and data management world, and it never ceased to amaze me how often people would come and pass judgement on huge IT projects after completing their own home network installation, or first excel data macro.

The HR world is starting to see the same kind of influence occurring, and whilst external perspective is wonderful, and adding those external to HR can strengthen perspective - make sure you walk a mile in those shoes before passing judgement.

This was illustrated to me as my taxi driver took me to the station after the event - "Do you mind if I take a different route, it will save you time, but it will take us down the side streets" - I asked him if people ever refuse his advice...."more often than you think" was the answer.

There were the two hosts for our event. Juan Señor, the Emmy nominated journalist and TV presenter acted as master of ceremonies for the daytime events - and was completely captivating with both his stage presence and ability to summarise and question the keynote speakers. 

I was left however, with the unshakable conviction that the Hunger Games host Caesar Flickerman (played by Stanley Tucci in the movie) was wholly inspired by him. A fact pointed out to me during the second day by a friend who shall remain nameless.....(you know who you are)

During the awards ceremony in the evening, Jon Culshaw was not only master of ceremonies, but kept everyone engaged (and crying with laughter) as he impersonated everyone from Tony Blair to Les Dawson. Having Barak Obama read out the description of one of the HR awards will live with me for ever.

The fact is, if you want the best job done, hire a professional. You'll get better results, gain credibility and learn a great deal. 

Stop using dumb statements to describe people

Undoubtedly the worst phrase I heard during the event was "Human Resource Asset Philosophy" - I literally had to bite my hand to stop myself interrupting the speaker. Nobody likes being described as resource or an asset.

I'm not advocating a global shift towards "Chief People Officer" or "Personnel Director" - but talk about people as people. Never resources, assets, expenses or any other phrase which brings to mind a dehumanised automaton or a machine.

As Pierre Mille of Carlsberg remarked during his presentation "Last time I checked, people were not assets - they need love. Machines just need occasional maintenance"

If you don't have an engagement program in place you are being left behind

Employment engagement, retention and rewards had it's own track this year - but I heard about it in every session and within every keynote. Some selected quotes below:

"Leaders can be the biggest barriers to engagement and bringing yourself to work" Stephen Lehane, HR Director at Alliance Boots

"Engagement and simplicity are the two big issues"

Dr. Graeme Codrington, Futurist

"We have changed to a world of employee engagement" 

David Arkless, former President of Manpower Group

"Engagement success is directly responsible for higher sales, lower absences and greater mystery shopper scores"

Tanith Dodge, Director of HR at Marks & Spencer

"Engaged, enabled or energized - what level of engagement are your employees feeling?" Isabel Collins, Director of Culture & Engagement at Astellas

If you're not taking a long hard look at your own company through the lens of culture and employee engagement, you are ignoring a movement as significant as the introduction of the motor car and the retirement of the horse and cart. Take a look at the government backed Engage For Success movement website if you're looking for inspiration.

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It's Friday as I write this blog, so in honour of what I'm sure MUST be a Gen Y behaviour started by Micah Baldwin (oops, my bad - he was born in 1971) I would recommend you 'follow friday' #FF this group of experts and further your HR knowledge.....

@Fuchsia_Blue, @MervynDinnen, @PerryTimms, @OD_Optimist, @KingfisherCoach, @HR_Gem, @Katie_Jacobs, @HRZone, @cathyab, @jododds

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Core Values - The Cowboy Way

My family were all sitting down watching a Charley Boorman 'travel the world' documentary last week, when a very young aspiring bull rider was asked about what it was like to be a cowboy. The answer he gave was....

"Stand up for yourself and others, respect your God, your country, your elders and don't tell lies to other people"

I looked for some other definitions, and found these two:

"Never cross over private fences, always speak the truth, respect your elders and respond with a yes Sir or no Ma’am"

 "If it's not true, don't say it. If it's not yours, don't take it. If it's not right, don't do it" -James Drury

Seen in another way these are value statements - they define the personal beliefs of a great many people (and not just those who wear Stetsons and ride bulls).

When you're trying to define your corporate core values, you need to understand that your employee population has some deeply held personal beliefs. 

If you want to get the best from them you should make sure that your mission statement, your values, and your methods of reinforcement align with both your business goals and the strengths of your people. 

I've seen some truly incredible examples of corporate bullshit - "Inspire through ingenuity" being my own personal favourite, so to counter that here's my take on some example core values for "Cowboy Inc."

1. Speak the truth

2. Do the right thing

3. Respect others

Too simple? Not really - because the three statements above (made by listening to the voices of our fictional employees) are all contained in the original phrases at the top of this page.

As people are all different, they will interpret these values based on their own internal values. These three hypothetical values will allow me to retain and attract believers in the cowboy way.

But that's not good enough - because some people in the company may not understand, and values like that are hard to add to performance management systems. So I need some expected behaviours, to clarify what I expect. This is where things get harder.......I would suggest the following....

1. Speak the truth

• Be honest when you communicate, agree and disagree in constructive, respectful ways.
• Don't give different versions of events to different people at different levels in the company.

2. Do the right thing

• If you feel uncomfortable doing something that is asked of you, then ask for reasons before you decide whether to do it or not.
• Make sure you treat people the way you want to be treated.

3. Respect others

• Be polite, address others as Sir or Ma'am.
• People in other departments are responsible for their areas - if you think they can do better go and talk to them, not others.

If you're reading through these and think they are over simplified and wouldn't work, then that's absolutely fine. You probably want to look elsewhere for employment because you will not fit in, you won't enjoy working at Cowboy Inc. and you'll probably leave shortly after I've invested time and money training you.

But these are definitions of what to expect if you come and work here. If you think that the same process of listening to your employees and building your value system around them would not work with your own company, then you are dead wrong.

Your company became successful based on the people that work there. Those people are your greatest strength, and have beliefs you need align with and reinforce. If your company needs to change direction, then make sure you identify the best people to get you there, and align around them.

Just please don't think you can do this by locking yourself away in a room with a whiteboard and creating generic gobbledegook.

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Employee Engagement Through Gamification

Last week my Wife told me off again for using my iPhone after our 7pm household tech curfew 

We do this so we can interact together as a family......TV and radio are OK after this time, but the use of gadgetry is forbidden except in extreme cases of homework.

"What ARE you doing now" she asked.
"Just checking my Twitter feed" I responded, "No big deal - look my Klout score has gone up."

(then I turned it off).

But it got me thinking about my own motivations, and I came to the slightly uncomfortable conclusion that although learning is my #1 reason for engaging through social media, I do have an additional motivation that is rooted firmly in the competitive.

I measure my influence using Klout and Kred, look at my volume of retweets and how many followers I have on Twitter, and how many +1's I get on Google+. I like it when the numbers go up, not so much when it goes down. I heard this behaviour recently alluded to as being like collecting coins on Super Mario Bros - repeatedly performing the same actions to gain points....

Of course, these mechanisms help us all tune our broadcasts to appeal to people, and highlight the things we do well - fundamentally measuring social influence allows us to play to our strengths and develop them.

I still hesitate to bring up gamification with clients though (a word still so new it keeps switching to ramification in this spell check - hmmmm.....) because the implications of the phrase hint towards the frivolous. The definition above doesn't help a great deal either "exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun".

But gamification IS an incredibly useful tool for boosting employee engagement - and it's already being used widely, you probably just call it something else.

If you use any kind of internal social media - you are bringing elements to your workforce. It could be an internal portal with some message boards or community sites, Salesforce Chatter, Microsoft Yammer or a private LinkedIn group. 

Any one of these allows for improvement in communications, better sharing of ideas, improvements in productivity and a greater feeling of involvement - and if that isn't a dictionary definition for engagement, then I'm not sure what is.

BUT it also allows people to see what others are most interested in, to collect 'likes', or comments to their posts. It allows people to collect followers for groups they create, and delivers a level of recognition that is not dependent on rank or position - but rather on skills and expertise. The more you share, the more 'points' you get - the better the level of engagement and the more fulfilled the employee. 

How about rewards and recognition within your company? Do you have a place to give public 'shout outs' to people? Gifts for work well done? Tenure awards? 

Then you're driving engagement through gamification - the simple act of giving is a powerful motivator, and recipients are being rewarded for the kind of behaviour that the company wants. 

If you ever ran a competition within your company to come up with a new idea, or solve a company problem - then you started a game. Serious business benefits for sure - but allowing employees to suggest new things (and then acting on them), is a sure-fire way to build engagement from the ground up. 

Don't ever forget that the people making those suggestions probably know a lot more about the opportunities and issues than those at the executive level - and it takes effort to make their ideas public, so respect their risk.

So there are two other critical points to make here.

Firstly - gamification is not 'on' or 'off', it's a graduated scale that can bring great benefit - especially if you recognise it's power in improving employee engagement. In one company I worked with recently over 15% of the workforce were actively posting in the largest internal community - which also happened to be focussed on culture and business improvements. That's over two thousand voices that were not being heard before.

Secondly - appreciating that those with the most 'coins' are likely the most engaged, it's easy to find them, listen to them and develop them into even greater corporate assets - and that can only lead to increased success for your business.

Now - back to that Twitter feed to see how many extra followers I've picked up.......(sorry Wife)



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Bring Your Jelly Babies To Work

I'm a big fan of 'bringing yourself to work', and I always have been. I suspect it's because I'm too simple minded to try and have multiple personalities - but I've always figured that if people don't like or respect me for who I am then that's OK. No big deal. Better that than I become a pretend person for others.

As I collected my morning coffee from James this morning (7th customer of the day apparently) - he mentioned that I was the first person to say say 'good morning' to him. He must have seen me looking confused, because he went on to explain that those before me had replied "Toffee Nut Latte" or similar when he greeted them. Rude.

Then I got to thinking about the lady in Sainsbury's who waited until a customer had stopped talking on their phone before putting their shopping through, and how I felt the companies response (an apology) was wrong. Talking on the phone when someone else is talking to you? Rude.

And the poll from the Telegraph would indicate that 89% agree with me (unsurprisingly). I asked a few people in my local Sainsbury's about it - they were disgusted with their own executives that day.

Then there are the countless people I see on aircraft refusing to take their headphones off or make eye contact with the air crew serving them drinks and food, checking if they are OK, and generally caring for their passengers. How would you feel if you were talking to someone and they didn't make eye contact? No excuses. Rude.

I was brought up to treat others the way I want to be treated. It's not hard - and it makes sense. Sometimes I can take it to far I'll admit; last week on the train I had a bag of jelly babies and offered them around the carriage - either listening to the voice of my mum telling me to share or embracing my inner Doctor Who. You decide.

So when I start working with companies on their leadership, their company culture or their level of employee engagement I'm ever watchful for those that conceal themselves from their colleagues, manage their image upwards (and downwards) - and generally seem to focus too much of their time on trying to be someone else.

I've found that the people who do not fit their corporate cultures are often in this mould, and I've come to believe that it's a side effect of trying to be different people all the time. 

If you do that, then you are setting yourself up with different internal beliefs, and in turn that effects your behaviour. You'll never be truly comfortable, or fit in with the tribe at any company you work for because there's an internal level of indecision and discomfort that is holding you back - and others can sense it.

So bring your authentic self to work. It will make a difference.

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The Gender Pay Gap

For some time now I've been accumulating anonymous salary data from various companies I've worked with. 

It's one of the 'hidden' factors in culture and engagement - and although conventional wisdom dictates that employees do not compare salaries, the reality is somewhat different; as our society and workforce get's closer and more open, financial remuneration gets discussed more than you think.

So typically when I work with clients who have a good understanding of their culture already but want to learn more, we look at promotion and career progression patterns, management span, salary, gender, ethnicity, performance management, quota achievement and a number of other 'sensitive' areas. 

Then we can overlay that to current understanding of different teams and functions in various offices - not only to build stronger cultures and better employee engagement, but also to provide hard metrics on the benefits.

As I've accumulated the data, certain patterns have started to reveal themselves - and one of them is that of gender pay gap. I've looked at multiple pieces of research on this, and I've found the reality (certainly within the companies I'm working with) is more exaggerated that I previously believed.

I realise that the infographic below is going to shock. Good. It should. But I'd ask you do to a couple of things before you open it.

1. Don't try and find reasons why it shouldn't be so - it is. These are facts, and even when I doubted them myself, I managed to go back through the data and verify them.

2. I've been working with data for over 18 years - there are indeed "Lies, damned lies and statistics" - and I've endeavoured to remove the 'spin' from the charts - but that shouldn't detract from the fact that there is clearly a huge problem with gender pay gaps in the global workforce.

3. Don't get hung up on the "did you compare like for like" argument. If you want to see that, skip to the bottom. The story is the same, just softened slightly - as no two people are alike it is impossible to do a perfect comparison, but in lower level sales, consulting and finance roles there is consistency that can be used. 

Click the graphic or here for a larger version

Again, I must stress that paying employees to improve culture and engagement will never work. In my last blog I pointed out .... 

"Most people join companies for the job, and the salary - but they stay there because of the culture. Deep down, most of us want to be part of a group that have the same belief systems and passions - and financial rewards (whilst being necessary), don’t actually make us either loyal or happy in the long term" 

However - what this data illustrates is that there is an endemic lack of fairness in many companies, which will feed the more negative aspects of cultural transformation and act as a barrier to employee engagement.

One final note - the companies who kindly provided this data are ALL being proactive in their approaches to addressing the problem. There is no quick fix, and there's a lot of historical influences that have contributed to the current situation - you should assume that if your company has the same kind of pay discrepancies, then they are currently fixing the problem.

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Culture Gobbledegook

A friend asked me recently to help out his son - he's in the first year of his Computer Science degree at Cardiff University and was handed the following assignment,

"Describe some of the key ways in which managers can try to control the culture of their organisations to enhance performance?"

I was delighted to see that the educational establishments are taking the question of culture seriously - flattered to be asked for help and was half way through a response before I realised I was talking gobbledegook to an 18 year old.

I deleted it all, and started again - but it made me realise how big the temptation is to revert to corporate BS speak sometimes (and I really do try and avoid it at all costs). 

Problem was that I reverted back to academia - where through rose coloured spectacles I diligently studied for four years and never touched a drop of drink....But I do remember hated the confusing language some of my tutors used - it seemed designed to make us look dumb.

So by way of answering this question for anyone relatively new to culture - here's my response. I would be delighted to get more input on this - the student in question is following these blogs and you'll be helping him too :-)

Hi Mark,  I have to do a presentation on the following question: "Describe some of the key ways in which managers can try to control the culture of their organisations to enhance performance?". 

I've found loads of influencers on culture but I don’t know how managers can use it to enhance performance.

No problem at all, happy to help and also to see that these kinds of questions are being asked of you :-)

Most people join companies for the job, and the salary - but they stay there because of the culture. Deep down, most of us want to be part of a group that have the same belief systems and passions - and financial rewards (whilst being necessary), don’t actually make us either loyal or happy in the long term - but it certainly does help!

There’s no such thing as a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ culture. If you’re in the technology field - you may want to work for Apple, but not for Microsoft. For Google, but not Facebook. Twitter not Oracle. A big part of that is how you think about their culture.

The younger you are, the more that will influence how long you stay, and how well you work when you join an organisation. There’s a good blog from my friend Peter McKelvie on different styles of management for Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y etc. here….

One of the biggest influencers of culture is how well you can engage your employees. This means assuming that people are smart, motivated and can contribute great ideas and good work to your company - and then trying to create an environment where they feel good about doing all those things. 

The opposite of an engaged culture is one where managers tell employees what to do all the time, and don’t listen.

Before you ask about ways to 'control’ culture, you have to understand why people would want to. Almost all businesses want to do this in order to save money or make money. The biggest savings come from reducing voluntary attrition (staff turnover where people just hand in their resignation). The biggest benefit comes from attracting the best people, and then getting the most from them.

So - the question is about key ways to control the culture.

1. The closest influencers that people have are their manager and their peers. If you want a consistent culture then make sure your managers are appropriately trained - this will be different in the Navy Seals that it would be in a Starbucks, or in the IT Department of Ford, or in kitchens of a hotel. The trick is making sure that your manager training fits the culture you already have, or the culture that the company aspires too. If you have five mangers that sit down with their staff over lunch everyday and listen to their ideas - and one who sits behind a closed door and yells at everyone to work harder, then you’re going to have performance issues in the latter team.

2. Measure employees perceptions of their managers. Most companies have a clear vision and values statement - they could be expected behaviours, or core values, a strategic vision or a mission statement. When you join a company, you expect to be working towards this common goal. So measure how close to the behaviours on the wall each of your managers is seen to act.  Asking, and then sharing the results keeps people motivated to share further information - but make sure that whatever the feedback is, employees are never punished for being honest. Nothing kills culture faster.

3. Act on employee suggestions - a manager who asks for help, ideas or advice from their team and then does nothing with it will never get anything of value from their team. If you are asked “how would you do this better” and nobody listens, why would you answer the question next time?

4. The CEO of Netflix once said “Don’t tolerate brilliant jerks” - he meant that sometimes in your teams the best performers can be rule breakers that pay no attention to culture and annoy those around them (whilst typically getting away with this behaviour). Another key role for a manager is to remove these people from the company.  Whilst there is a place in all teams for occasional heroics, if you have people that consistently annoy others they will drive their teammates to leave the company, and send a message that the 'values' are just words. This will cost you far more than keeping the bad influence.

5. Keep your people happy. It sounds easy, but it really isn’t. You can look up "Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” and see a bunch of research on this - but the higher up that triangle you can get your staff, the better they will perform, and the better your company will do. (Click here for a modern take on it from the Huffington Post, maybe easier to digest if you’re presenting to an audience ). Any way managers can support this, will effectively control the culture in the organisation. 

6. Measure the culture, and measure it’s effects. The smartest companies measure success of these things - so you can come up with a bunch of ways to control culture, but unless you know which ones work it’s all pointless. You can do this by looking at employee engagement levels, looking at the results from point 2 above, or analysing where the highest employee turnover is. By measuring it, and talking to employees about it - the whole thing becomes more ‘serious’ and is likely to drive people towards the right cultural behaviours…….of course, acting on what you measure is critical. There's some detail about engagement measurement here from a prior blog if you want to take a look.

7. Get the hiring process right - make sure that you explain to people at interview what the culture of the company is. If possible, give them a quick test to check they fit. Getting control of cultural influence this early is good management practice - and WILL reduce early attrition.

I’ll finish up with an example for you. I went to see a company a few weeks ago that was losing a lot of money because people kept leaving. They’d hire them, and then over one third would leave within the first six months. That was a change, two years before only 1 in 30 new hires would do the same. 

The hiring policy within the company had changed, and they were employing a high proportion of both recent university graduates and school leavers. These people were being put into teams under managers that measured everything, gave out tasks regularly - but also DID listen to the ideas from them. But still they were leaving. 

Several reasons emerged, firstly the management team blocked all social media from the computers - no Facebook, Twitter, Google+ (of course all the new hires were just taking their smartphones to the toilets instead).  The teams were also scattered into various offices within five miles of head office - and the way it had been done meant that some teams felt very distant and undervalued. When younger employees came on board, they were managed by numbers (literally with a  huge public whiteboard) & told what to do. 

The managers believed they were listening (and they were), but they were not doing anything about it - not changing policy, or explaining why they did it - and the work environment was not explained during the interview process. So 1 in 3 were leaving because the culture of the role wasn't as promised.

This is an example of a culture being controlled by management, but certainly not to enhance performance - the opposite was true, and it’s easy to see how to fix it. Many times cultures need to change over time to support growth of the company or the financial goals.

If you have any more questions about this, please email back.....

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