Tag Archives: Effective Practice Guidelines

June 21, 2016 · 3:00 am

The ROI of Working Human

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The SHRM Foundation’s latest Effective Practice Guideline, Creating a More Human Workplace Where Employees and Business Thrive, was released just in time for the SHRM Annucal conference this week. The timing couldn’t have been more appropriate, as it follows on the heels of last month’s WorkHuman conference.

If you’ve been following Data Point Tuesday for a while, you know I’m a big fan of the SHRM Foundation’s EPGs. They are researched, written, and reviewed by leading academics in the Human Resources field, and are underwritten by some of the most innovative suppliers in the HR arena. This EPG, sponsored by Globoforce, brings a great deal of data and analysis into one easily read report. In other words, it’s chock full of validated research and data on a topic that is becoming top of mind for CEOs, boards, and all C-Suite members:  the connection between employee well-being and business success.

The business case for creating a more human workplace is made in the first section of the report. It includes Strategies that pay off, High costs of our current work culture, and Multiple benefits of a thriving work culture. A few of the gems from this section include:

  • The American Psychological Association estimates that workplace stress costs the U.S. economy $500 Billion (!) a year.

  • Workplace stress increases voluntary turnover by nearly 50%.

  • Gallup estimates that poor leadership associated with active worker disengagement costs the U.S. economy $450 – $550 Billion (!) per year.

  • 550 Billion workdays are lost annually due to stress on the job.

  • 60 – 80% of workplace accidents are attributed to stress.

The supporting data showing how detrimental most workplace cultures are to their financial success are proliferating. Even if treating employees as if they were human beings wasn’t the right thing to do, the numbers alone make it hard to understand why creating more humanity-focused cultures aren’t the leading priority for every single organization and for every single CEO!

Once past the business case, the report lays out a thorough treatment on how to fix your culture in the section, Seven Ways to Help Employees Thrive. Not rocket science, but rather simple common sense, these seven elements come with case studies, examples and specific “how tos” for you to consider in your own organization.

  1. Share Information About the Organization and Its Strategy
  2. Provide Decision-making Discretion and Autonomy
  3. Create a Civil Culture and Positive Relationships
  4. Value Diversity and Create an Inclusive Atmosphere
  5. Offer Performance Feedback
  6. Provide a Sense of Meaning
  7. Boost Employee Well-Being

Citing employers like Alaska Airlines, Genentech, General Mills, Ritz-Carlton, Microsoft and many others, author Christine Porath loads this EPG with practical tips, examples and evidence.

At its heart, however, humanity-focused workplaces start at the top. They start with trustworthy leadership and sustainable leadership behaviors. This graphic says it all:

EPG May 24 2016

This report shows, once again, that there is absolutely no downside to not only treating employees humanely, but consciously and intentionally investing in their well-being. When our employees feel respected as individuals, appreciated for their contributions, and supported in their family lives and community commitments, as well as their physical health and mental well-being, our organization missions are more likely to come to fruition and all of our stakeholders – every single one of them – will be more than happy with the return on their various investments.

Thanks to the SHRM Foundation’s newest EPG, The ROI of Working Human has never been more clear.

 

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Filed under China Gorman, Christine Porath, Company Culture, Culture, Data Point Tuesday, Effective Practice Guidelines, Employee Engagement, Employee Stress, Engagement, Globoforce, HR Data, SHRM Foundation

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April 27, 2015 · 12:41 pm

The Win-Win of Leveraging Baby Boomers

data point tuesdayI’m a Baby Boomer, born smack-dab in the middle of my generation. And I’m beginning to concretely think about the answers to questions like:

  • What is the legacy that my career will leave behind?
  • What kinds of work do I really want to do going forward?
  • What will retirement look like for me?
  • When will I want to retire (because it certainly is the last thing on my mind now…)?

Just as I wrestle with these questions, organizations are facing stiff headwinds on the talent pipeline front making workers like me critical components in workforce planning activities. We all know that workforce demographics are changing rapidly and many organizations are flummoxed when they try to get a picture of how to respond to this critical talent dynamic. Say what we will about the criticality of Millennial employees, many organizations are starting to pay equal attention to retaining the backbones of their organizations: Baby Boomers.

A terrific source of practical and actionable research based information is the SHRM Foundation’s recently published Effective Practice Guideline: The Aging Workforce: Leveraging the Talents of Mature Employees. As with all the reports in this series, it takes a rigorous approach to discovering what the research says and what organizations are actually doing in the topic area. If you haven’t discovered the SHRM Foundation’s EPGs, you’ll thank me after you download and read this free report. Not just because the data are useful and the examples practical, but because it is written for practitioners not academics and is super easy to consume.

“Mature workers will be a firm’s largest source of talent in the next two decades. There will not be enough younger workers for all the positions an organization needs to fill, particularly those requiring advanced manufacturing skills or advanced education in science, technology engineering and math.”

We all know this. The real question is what do we do about it? And this report lays out a roadmap for data gathering within your organization, a planning outline, successful examples from other organizations, and strategies for moving your plan forward.

EPG April 28 2015This chart lays out the challenge well. What follows is a trove of information about mature workers. What they want, what they can do, and the inordinate benefits of keeping them engaged in the workforce. Here are several benefits outlined in the report:

EPG 2 April 28 2015The real meat of the report are the 15 strategies for engaging and retaining mature workers that are based on both research and real organization practice. There are mini-case studies from 30 employers sprinkled throughout the strategies that share effective practices. Perhaps the most impactful sentence in the entire report is in the introduction to the 15 strategies: “The best way to engage and retain workers of any age is to provide a strong vision at the executive level, fair compensation and competent, respectful supervisors.” While the focus is clearly on the acquisition and retention of mature workers, every age demographic benefits from these strategies.

15 Strategies for engaging and retaining mature workers:

  1. Acknowledge Work Contributions
  2. Offer Flexible Work Arrangements
  3. Offer Bridge Employment
  4. Support Health and Wellness
  5. Provide Caregiver Support
  6. Offer Skills Training
  7. Provide Career and Personal Growth Opportunities
  8. Use Mixed-Age Workgroups
  9. (Re)Design Work to Match Worker Capabilities
  10. Train Managers and Supervisors
  11. Provide Support for Retirement Planning
  12. Address Age Discrimination (Real and Perceived)
  13. Foster an Age-Positive Organizational Culture
  14. Foster Job and Career Embeddedness
  15. Facilitate Critical Knowledge Transfer

It’s obvious that none of these strategies are rocket science. In fact, as you look at the list you might think, “well, these are just common sense practices that will support the engagement and retention of ALL of our workers.” And that’s the point. We can’t focus our workforce planning activities on one generation alone. And ensuring that we Baby Boomers remain engaged and valued will make the demographic transition that is looming just over the horizon more effectively managed for organizations, for workers and their families, and for society. I call that a win-win!

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Filed under Baby Boomers, China Gorman, Data Point Tuesday, Effective Practice Guidelines, SHRM Foundation, Workforce Demographics, Workforce Planning

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May 22, 2012 · 2:00 am

Data Source Highlight: SHRM Foundation

From time-to-time we won’t discuss a particular data point, we’ll highlight a particular data source.  Due to the ubiquity of content on the web, it’s important to find trustworthy and relevant sources of data.  Today, I recommend the SHRM Foundation.

You don’t have to be a SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) member to avail yourself of the wealth of knowledge published for free by the SHRM Foundation, SHRM’s separate 501(c) (3) nonprofit affiliate.  The Foundation’s mission is to “advance global human capital knowledge and practice by providing thought leadership and educational support, and sponsoring, funding and driving the adoption of cutting-edge, actionable, evidence-based research.”

In addition to providing scholarships to SHRM members for degree completion and certification, the Foundation performs two very important functions for the Human Resources profession:

  • It is one of the leading funders of rigorous academic HR research
  • It creates educational resources for the profession, including EPGs (Effective Practice Guidelines) which makes research findings easily accessible.

I make this introduction to the Foundation because many in HR don’t know what the Foundation does for all HR professionals – SHRM members or not – and so don’t avail themselves of the research that is practical and relevant to the job of HR.

Of the most useful of the Foundation’s products, EPGs integrate current research findings on what works in real life with expert opinion on how to conduct HR effectively and have been published on a wide array of topics critical to talent and organization management success.  Recent EPGs have included:

  • Human Resource Strategy
  • Promoting Employee Well-Being
  • Recruiting and Attracting Talent
  • Retaining Talent
  • Developing Leadership Talent

Case in point:

HRM’s Role in Corporate Social and Environmental Sustainability, the newest in the series of Effective Practice Guidelines (EPGs) from the Foundation.

Want a readable, rigorous overview of how HR can integrate CSR and environmental sustainability into the culture of an organization?  Want to know what new competencies you need to develop to be a credible leader in this regard?  Want a roadmap to embed CSR and ER into an organization’s mission so that “its impacts on employees, communities and their stakeholders align with the sustainability vision” of the organization?

In 31 pages, noted CSR experts Elaine Cohen, Sully Taylor and Michael Muller-Camen provide an extraordinary review of what the research says, what effective practice looks like, the inclusion of several case studies and the introduction of successful organizational models – all written for easy consumption by HR practitioners.  It’s a goldmine of information.

For example, early in this EPG, a discussion of the different manifestations of CSR ends with this very useful diagram:

This visual, based on work by Archie Carroll, brings useful context to any business discussion about CSR – and would be a strong starting point for any business case an HR professional would bring forward.  The Foundation’s EPGs are full of these kinds of easy to understand and extremely useful data points.

If you aren’t familiar with the SHRM Foundation’s EPG series, I recommend that you visit their site and start browsing the titles.  I guarantee that after reading one you’ll not only feel smarter – you’ll actually  be smarter.

Full disclosure:  I served on the SHRM Foundation Board of Trustees from 2007 – 2010.

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Filed under Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Effective Practice Guidelines, Environmental Sustainability, SHRM, SHRM Foundation, Uncategorized

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