Tag Archives: Lloyd’s

September 11, 2012 · 4:30 am

Best-in-Class Engagement Metrics

The Aberdeen Group just published a fascinating report, The Rules of Employee Engagement:  Communicating, Collaborating and Aligning with the Business, that looks at what best-in-class organizations are doing about engagement and why they’re doing it.  Author Madeline Laurano takes a pretty deep dive into the subject and her analysis reveals some pretty intriguing conclusions.  What hooked me from the start were the three metrics for performance criteria to distinguish best-in-class companies for employee engagement:

  • 71% of employees exceeded performance expectations, compared to 14% of Laggard organizations
  • 85% of 1st choice candidates accepted an offer, compared to 8% of Laggards
  • 72% of employees rated themselves highly engaged, compared to 9% of employees of Laggard organizations

Most of the statistics we see about the value of engagement focus on tying engagement scores to financial outcomes.  No question:  we need that.  Data about the outcomes of engagement are helpful in building business cases for investing in the employee experience.

But tying other types of outcomes to higher engagement scores can also be helpful – like the number of 1st choice candidates accepting employment offers.  If a talent shortage truly is the number 1 concern of CEOs and their boards around the world, as the latest Lloyd’s Risk Survey suggests, then strategies that effectively raise the likelihood of securing the top talent you go after should be of interest. And it makes sense that A+ talent likes to affiliate with other A+ talent.

And connecting the dots between engagement outcomes and high levels of individual employee performance also makes sense.  I’ve long wondered at the value of trumpeting the engagement scores of every employee — when we all know that it’s the most effective employees’ opinions we care most about.  Linking employee performance and engagement scores makes a great deal of sense to me.

Take a look at the report.  I think you’ll find the data extremely useful.

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Filed under Business Case, Business Success, China Gorman, Connecting Dots, Economist Intelligence Unit, Engagement, HR, HR Data, Lloyd's, Performance Feedback

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April 24, 2012 · 2:00 am

Data Point #8: Risk of talent and skills shortages

I recently came across a fascinating report published by Lloyd’s, the world’s leading market for specialist insurance.  Lloyd’s Risk Index is based on a survey of global business leaders by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Lloyd’s.  It’s the second of its kind, the first having been published in 2009.  The survey is global and breathtaking in its scope.  It measures the top 50 Priority Risk factors for business – as identified by business leaders – as well as measuring how prepared businesses are to face these identified risks.

The headline for this survey is that business has gone from identifying credit as one of the biggest business risks in 2009 to focusing on talent as one of the biggest risks in 2011 and beyond.

As I read the report (see it here), I am struck that in the top 50 individual risks, as many as 12 have to do with people:  talent shortages, impact of regulation, demographic shifts, population growth, industrial/workplace accidents, changing legislation and others.

The respondent profiles are from more than 500 C-Suite executives (although it doesn’t look like CHROs were included) from large global enterprises.  The survey rated their attitudes regarding risk and their preparedness to face risks across five key categories:

  • Business and strategic risk
  • Economic regulatory and market risk
  • Political, crime and security risk
  • Environmental and health risk
  • Natural hazard risk

As the report explains, anything high on an executive’s risk priority list can be considered in terms of a potential critical point of failure of business.  So we’re talking big risks here.  Identified by board members and C-Suite executives in the largest global businesses in the world.

So of all 50 identified risks, guess what made the number two spot?  Talent and Skills Shortages (Including Succession Risk).  Woah.  Here’s what it looks like:

Talent and Skills Shortages — Priority and Preparedness by Region

The big headline for me is that more than 500 of the business leaders of largest businesses in the world agree that that the talent shortage is real.  That it’s big.  And it’s global.  And it threatens every business.

The second big headline is that this evaluation is being made by business leaders who do not identify themselves as HR Executives.  And that’s big.  If the board members and C-Suite executives of the largest enterprises in the world believe that the second biggest risk to their success is the looming talent shortage, then HR better be prepared with solutions for critical talent acquisition, retention and development.  And they better be prepared today.

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Filed under Business Success, Corporate Risk Management, Demographics, Economist Intelligence Unit, Lloyd's, Talent pipeline

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