What’s more important – our own personal Oscar or more money?

February 29, 2008

This week saw the Oscars ceremony come round again and it was great to see that British talent in the film industry was recognised once again. The likes of Daniel Day Lewis, Tilda Swinton and the lesser known names like Suzie Templeton all won much-coveted statues - and I bet they’ve felt great all week!

The Oscars is a particularly public and grandiose form of recognition, but it got me thinking about the kind of recognition our workforces find most motivating and how this compares with the experience of Hollywood actors.

You can’t talk about reward and recognition without mentioning money - it will, of course, always be important to people. Imagine you had a UK worker in a room with an Oscar nominee and you asked them both whether they would rather receive an internationally recognised award or a pay rise - I think you’d get very different answers from each of them. Obviously, this is partly because the actor already has plenty of money, but it’s also partly because in the UK (as in many other countries) we measure our success largely by how much money we earn, as opposed to how good we feel. Or at the very least most people assume that having money will make them feel good.

However, there have been some changes in this area of late because potential recruits now place more importance on the non-monetary aspects of a job than ever before. Recruiters who compete in the ‘war for talent’ have been starting to find that being seen as ‘an employer of choice’ is critical for securing the best people ahead of their competitors. Employers have discovered that applicants value aspects of employment that go well beyond pay – such as the potential to work flexibly, having high levels of autonomy and whether the organisation feels good to work in.

This picks up on some of the points that my colleague Ivan Robertson was making when he was a guest on my blog recently – that is, that leading organisations now know that paying the best salary is not enough to attract and retain the top people – staff stick around and give you their best when they buy into the vision painted by the organisation’s leaders and when they enjoy and are recognised for their work. These conditions, combined with pay that they see as fair reward for their contribution, are a recipe for success.

And it’s probably not that different for Hollywood actors – the pay is usually higher, but the principle is the same: Doing work that they feel is worthwhile for the right rewards and with recognition from respected peers and the public is a blend that leads to their best performances.  As Confucius once said “choose a job that you like and you will not have to work a day in your life”.

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Is the military really just like any other business?

February 27, 2008

Earlier this month the Ministry of Defence was told in a House of Commons defence committee report that the Armed Forces were losing large numbers of experienced personnel because they were fed up with constantly being away from home. At the same time new figures showed that one in 14 infantrymen is “unfit to deploy”. This means that 7,000 infantrymen are unfit to fight, with every regiment of 600 facing a shortfall of 100 people because of problems with recruitment and the numbers leaving the Army.

This paints a pretty grim picture of resourcing in the military – particularly at a time when it is so actively engaged. There’s no doubt that staff in the Army face some unique challenges and dangers, but reading these figures I can’t help wondering how different the Army really is to other organisations.

Ultimately, soldiers, airmen and naval officers are all employees like you and me. Yes, they take enormous risk to life and limb in their daily work, but just like your average office worker or teacher or social worker, if they don’t feel good about going to work each day then their motivation will begin to drop off. Like any business the Army has targets and its leaders have to use their resources, both human and material, to achieve those targets. However, if those resources are not managed in a sustainable way results will deteriorate over time.

Asking soldiers to stay out in Iraq for an extra two months is different in that it is more risky and life threatening but many teachers, social workers, police officers and managers are being asked to work longer unsocial hours. The effect on the employee is the same because it forces him/her to think about what is reasonable based on his/her psychological contract with the employer. It’s at this point that employees’ thoughts turn to their non-work life and they feel a ‘pull’ back towards it. When work life doesn’t seem like it’s treating us fairly it’s natural to feel this pull and in extreme circumstances this results in a decision to terminate the relationship with the current employer altogether – as is happening in the Army right now. And when organisations have high staff turnover it spins out into all sorts of negative consequences – including skill shortages, increased accident rates and succession planning becoming impossible. 

I thought that Col. Bob Stewart, who commanded British forces in Bosnia, summed up the parallels perfectly when he said:
“They need more rest, more training and more time off operational duty. The fact is that they are knackered. The operational commitments are so great now that people - particularly in the infantry - have not been able to recoup and retrain. As a soldier you must be given the chance to rest otherwise you are exhausted. And if you are exhausted you are far more likely to get sick.”

Remind you of any workplaces you’ve been recently?

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Posted by Cary Cooper

Work overload is a problem, but working your contracted hours is not the answer

February 22, 2008

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has just released the results of a survey that myself and my colleague Professor Les Worrall conducted for them - and the results have hit the headlines. The aspect of the study that the media have picked up on has been the extra hours that managers put in to help them cope with their workload - the equivalent of an extra 40 days a year. Break this down to the average working day and it equates to 9 out of 10 managers typically working for an hour and 18 minutes a day longer than their contracted hours.

The result is that the TUC is urging people to work within their contracted hours to protect themselves from the stress that comes with this kind of work overload. While I broadly agree that routinely overloading staff is a bad thing, I’m not sure that if employees took them up on their advice it would remove this problem when we come to run the survey again next year. For a start, many of the private sector employees we surveyed this year would probably not still be in the same job next year if they refused to be at all flexible around their working hours. But more importantly, I think that we have moved beyond thinking about working hours in such a black and white way - it just isn’t as simple as saying that either we work long hours or we work our contracted hours.

There are two parties involved in the psychological contract between an employer and employee and both have responsibilities. There are links here to my previous post (Jan 11th 200 8) about work-life balance and flexible working. What I’m talking about is a more sophisticated approach to working hours and workload based on good relationships and trust between a line manager and his/her team members.

It’s critical that line managers are able to communicate a clear sense of purpose to employees – so that they know why they come into work every day and what they need to achieve to help the organisation to be successful. Employees also need to know the parameters within which they are working to meet these objectives – for example, can they work at home when they need to? Can they work until 9pm one night and come in at lunchtime the next day? Or is it strictly 9-to-5? It also helps if employees feel free to challenge these assumptions and managers show that are listening by responding to good ideas.

On the employee side, it’s about taking responsibility and proactively searching for the right balance. As employees we all have a certain level of ‘discretionary effort’ that we can give to our employer or withhold for ourselves and our non-work life. When we are motivated by our job and feel like we have a fair and equitable relationship with our employers we are much more likely to release our discretionary effort to them. Also, flexibility is not just about policies – it’s a state of mind. There’s nothing wrong with deciding to work late on a project once in a while if it brings you satisfaction and adds value to your organisation. The trick is to apply the same principles of flexibility when you feel burnt out and need a rest.
I thought that Jo Causon, CMI Director for Marketing and Corporate affairs summed up the importance of this two-way relationship nicely when she asked the question:

“Why are employers ignoring the impact of long hours on the health and performance of their employees and what responsibility are employees taking for how they manage themselves?”

For more on the story, go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7251943.stm

1 Comment | Productivity, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper

Guest Blog Spot: Should I stay or should I go? New insights into how to create loyalty and boost staff retention

February 19, 2008

This week, I’m really pleased to be able to share the blog with my colleague and good friend Professor Ivan Robertson, Managing Director of Robertson Cooper and Professor of Organisational Psychology at the University of Leeds. He is a leading figure in the areas of personality assessment, recruitment, retention and well-being. Over to you Ivan….

Ivan

Employers never like losing their most valued employees, but this will always happen to some extent because it’s actually the best (and worst) performers who are most likely to leave organisations. In fact, research shows that it is those in the middle range of performance who tend to have the longest tenures, but the most successful organisations actively invest in extending this trend to their best performers.

They do this because of the cost of losing good staff, but it seems that staff retention is becoming an increasingly difficult trick to pull off. The latest CIPD survey showed that the number of employers reporting retention difficulties has risen from 69% in 2005 to 78% in 2006 (which included a staggering 83% reported by private sector businesses). My estimate, based on CIPD data, is that it costs organisations at least £8,000 for each productive employee who leaves – other, less conservative, estimates have put this figure at over £20,000!

The CIPD survey reported that the most common reasons for leaving jobs were career development (including lack of promotion) and pay. This suggests that improving people’s career prospects (e.g. through promotion) would be one way of holding on to people. But not all of the research supports this idea - with at least two studies suggesting that promotions may, in fact, lead to higher turnover. It seems that people who move up the organisation more quickly are more likely to leave and that this effect is, in fact, more pronounced for poorer performers.

Of course not all employers want to increase employee retention, some are happy with their current situation – with a minority (10%) actually wishing to increase turnover. Regardless of how happy an organisation might be with current turnover rates, it’s important to be able to establish a trend whereby good performers stay and poor ones leave. Achieving this requires relatively high levels of performance management so that organisations know who the good and poor performers are. But this is not the full story.

After career development and pay, the most frequent reasons for people leaving cited by the CIPD were lack of support from their manager and stress. And just as in the case of performance management, line managers are therefore highlighted as key ‘operators’ of an effective retention strategy. So, investing in line manager skill development is usually seen as a priority for the most successful businesses.

All employees – whatever level – derive motivation from having a strong sense of purpose and feeling good about coming to work every day. The relevance of this conclusion is inescapable for all organisations that compete in the war for talent: When people are engaged in activities that bring them pleasure, activities which have a clear and relevant purpose, they are unlikely to actively choose to stop doing them!

Professor Ivan Robertson

3 Comments | Guest Blog Spots, Management, Productivity, Talent | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper

Whitehall studies prove link between workplace stress and heart disease

February 11, 2008

Researchers at University College London (UCL) who have been studying the same cohort of Civil Service employees since 1985 announced this major finding last week and I believe this constitutes a real call to action for UK employers.

This type of long-term research provides a unique and reliable insight into how work conditions impact us over time to produce certain health outcomes, so we have to take its conclusions seriously. The research documented how workers felt about their jobs, monitored heart rate variability, blood pressure, and the amount of the stress hormone cortisol that was in the blood. They also collected information about diet, exercise, smoking and drinking. They then looked at out how many people had developed coronary heart disease (CHD) or suffered a heart attack and how many had died as a result.

The results showed that chronic work stress was associated with Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) – particularly in men and woman under 50. And because the measures were taken over many years and included a full range of lifestyles (i.e. good and bad), there is no dodging the conclusions – in fact, the researchers controlled for the effect of lifestyle and still the link was proven.

For many years, this link between workplace stress and CHD has been suggested, but never has it been so starkly demonstrated. Business psychologists often talk about the links between well-being and the bottom-line business outcomes to convince organisations to tackle stress at work – well, forget productivity and absenteeism as outcomes, it doesn’t get much more bottom-line having a heart attack and dying!

These kinds of conclusions are forcing employers to sit up, take notice and carefully consider their responsibilities for providing a workplace environment where stress prevention is second nature, but also one where active steps are taken to promote well-being. So, not only do employers meet their statutory responsibilities as an employer, they also improve their business and ensure that their success is sustainable.

You can see the full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2498217.stm

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Posted by Cary Cooper

The new Head Coach- showing England a fresh management style

February 8, 2008

It was great to see Fabio Capello taking charge of the England team with a positive but thoughtful management style this week. I was impressed with how he ‘grounded’ the players - his message to them was not to impose unrealistic expectations on themselves, he urged them to enjoy the game and play like they do week in and week out with their clubs. The motto was just ‘be yourself’, not a media-created superstar with all ‘expectational’ baggage which comes with that. He was saying “If you do that, I’ll show you the way to be successful”.

Capello is an example of another thoughtful European football manager, like Arsene Wenger and Sven Goran Erikson, who more often than not projects a calm manner which exudes self confidence. Football is in an industry characterised by multiple demands, sky-high stress levels and an over-emphasis on the bottom-line. Not so different from your average UK company really. 

Many people in today’s workplace want to know what is expected of them, to feel that their senior managers will provide them with the support they require and have confidence in their abilities. They want to know the direction of travel. Employees need things to be less frenetic; they want less stress and at least a modicum of security and reassurance. But they also want to feel challenged because, like the England players, employees fundamentally want to find their best performance.

The English football team is off to a successful but slow start, as it begins to find its new identity with a different manager - and by all accounts a different and more supportive culture. Perhaps one that is not unrealistically ‘driving’ for success but gradually moving toward it - supporting and protecting their young and talented people along the way.  It would be nice to see more companies with a similar attitude toward their employees and a few more Capellos on the shop floor!!

1 Comment | Leadership, Management | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper

The battle to recruit teachers – time for a change of focus

February 2, 2008

The Education sector has caught my eye this week as the National Union of Teachers threatened strike action over pay and the government announced a new advertising campaign to persuade people to join the profession. I also heard a radio phone-in on the subject which included an interview with the so-called ‘Frank Chalk’, an ex-teacher who has written a book called “It’s your time you’re wasting: A teacher’s tales of classroom hell”. Frank painted a vivid picture of life in the classroom that bore no relation to the inspirational scenes portrayed in the new adverts (which you can see online at the link below). While some classrooms in some schools may be like those featured in the adverts, there are also many that are filled with the kind of anti-social behaviour we hear about on the news and which Frank Chalk describes. It left me wondering where this aspect of school life is in the adverts.

This got me thinking about the advertising strategy being employed here. Yes, there is marketing capital in the inspirational aspects of teaching children, but you can’t expect to bury the less attractive parts of the role and hope that nobody, including existing teachers, notices. In one important respect, recruiting for teachers is no different to recruiting staff in any field – there has to be congruence between the promises made during the hiring process and the reality that is experienced when the person starts work. In the recruitment trade they call this a ‘realistic job preview’. For example, you wouldn’t show an aspiring accountant the CEO’s office at interview and then set them to work in a store cupboard in the basement!!

In the same way, it’s no good promising teachers a zen-like learning environment full of engaged and ambitious students and then sending them into a battlefield of verbal and physical abuse played out to a soundtrack of mobile phone ringtones.
So maybe it’s time for the government’s advertisers to show a more realistic picture of what life is like for teachers – good and bad. With 24 hour media and personal publishing on the Internet, stories from disenfranchised teachers will always be out there. That’s why everyone now knows that there are many more administrative moments for teachers these days than there are inspirational ones.

Ensuring that people feel good about their jobs and have a sense of purpose every day is the secret to retaining employees and attracting talented new ones. I think a more productive strategy would be to invest in improving the reality that teachers have to experience and then report that in the advertising campaigns. If well-being and engagement levels were raised significantly for staff the good news stories would soon start to flow.

See the ads here: http://www.tdanewadvertising.com/uyh_tvads.htm

Read more about the story and a phone-in on the subject here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/fivelivebreakfast/2008/01/our_schools_need_you.html

No Comments » | Engagement, Public Sector, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper