CHAPTER 4

Employee Life Cycle

The employee life cycle, or employee roadmap, includes all of the points at which you interact with your staff. You have the daily interactions and conversations, of course, that take place on a formal and informal basis, and many other departments may also have interactions with your people.

The life cycle are the stages of an employee’s career from the point of initial engagement (attraction) to the point at which they finally depart the organization, for whatever reason (exit).

So, let us look now in some detail at each of the points in the life cycle of an employee and how an AGILE HR approach can benefit your people and your organization.

4.1 Recruitment

Recruitment starts way before we post job adverts or contact our preferred recruitment partner, and yet, at times, we forget this.

We make the assumption that just because we post a job advert, everyone will be falling at our feet to apply, because, well, it is a job, and why wouldn’t people want to apply.

But as we know, when the job market is candidate-rich, we are likely to get a lot of applications from the “wrong” people and we spend a lot of time, money, and energy shortening the list of people to invite for an interview.

We then spend what can feel like a lifetime trying to get managers to commit to interview dates (and even then, they often cancel, and then, wonder why HR have let all of the “good” candidates go), and we interview, make an offer, and start the onboarding/induction process.

“I love recruiting people,” said very few people, ever.

And how many people do you know that actually enjoy going through a recruitment process and get excited about being interviewed?

I have been through two great recruitment processes as a candidate in my career. Just two. And including my part time jobs while I was at school and college, I have worked for 11 companies.

So, what made only two of these stand out?

One of them involved an assessment center where, as candidates, we started off by introducing ourselves and giving a presentation, and then, the rest of the day was full of fun activities (with a purpose, obviously) before we each were asked to say who we had worked best with on the day and why, and then, who we had not worked well with and why.

I was 18, and this was my first experience of honest, open, and transparent feedback. Following the assessment center, we then spent the day with employees in the business, working on a series of exercises, and then, two formal interviews with four different senior managers.

It was not competency-based questioning, but questions based on why we had performed the way we had or why and how we felt we had worked well or not so well with people throughout the process and what we would change if we were in the same situation again.

The second one involved another group assessment center, less games, but lots of problems to solve and was facilitated by a psychologist. The second stage involved another full day with two psychologists and we worked alongside members of the HR team that we would be managing, and then, finally, we delivered a presentation to the CEO and were asked questions about the stages of the process so far and questions about our presentation.

No competency-based questions.

I will never forget these processes or the way I felt throughout them. As a candidate, I felt people were genuinely interested in me, that I was a person, and that I actually got the chance to demonstrate my strengths in different situations.

What was also apparent in these processes was that recruitment was important, and that recruiting the right people into the business was important, and that time and energy, and in some cases, quite a bit of money to ensure that the right people were selected was also important.

I did not, at any of these recruitment processes, feel like any of the panel members were bored or disengaged. I felt important and valued and I wanted to be part of this type of organization. Regardless of whether you were a successful candidate or not, you would have felt valued during each of these processes.

I have now seen two programs on TV about the recruitment process at LEGO, one when they were recruiting for designers for their head office and one when they were recruiting staff for their new London store.

I do not know many people that did not have LEGO in the house while they were growing up. I loved it as a child and so did my brother, and my sons loved it too. Even my brother-in-law in his 40s has a LEGO Ferrari on the shelf in his office. Essentially, of course, it is just plastic bricks, but the endless world of creativity, play, fun, and imagination is amazing; one of my favorites was the Millennium Falcon; it took hours, but we got there in the end.

The brand, the whole brand is about creativity and ideas. It is about passion. It is about excitement and getting busy with your hands. Can you imagine how all of that brand and passion could go to wreck and ruin if candidates were sat in room for a competency-based interview and then the second stage was another competency based interview.

Would you be inspired to work there still?

Where is the reflection of the brand in that process?

At Disneyworld, you are literally auditioned before being offered a job.

Why?

Because they believe when you are at work, you are on stage. Your job is to make people enjoy the experience, to show fun, and laughter, and engagement with your customers.

A competency-based interview is not a substitute for being on stage.

If you want to be an employer of choice, where people really want to work for you, and you know you can gain the best candidates out there, start engaging with future employees now.

On your Work for Us page, include videos or testimonials from your people at all levels; invite people to follow you on social media platforms, and then, post videos about your people, your ethos, your leaders, and what is important to you.

When you have a vacancy or two, post a video telling the world about it and explain the process. If anyone has been turned off by what you have been posting, they will not want to work for you, and therefore, will not waste their time or yours in applying.

At Chrysalis Consulting, we have been able to create a portfolio of potential applicants that we keep in monthly contact with via blogs and e-mails that we can connect with and build a relationship with before even advertising a role. And if the role is not suitable for anyone in the community, they forward it on to people they know, and they already trust us and know what we do just by the manner in which we communicate with them.

Two films that I refer to when it comes to recruitment are The Pursuit of Happiness and The Internship. Internships are something very unusual in the UK, but used by many large companies in the U.S. and this trend is growing across the world. In the UK, our thinking is currently based on the fact that internships are free labor and do not add any benefit, which I hope may change soon, but I love the idea of internships and the films mentioned, while not primarily about recruitment, for People Professionals like me, I like them.

Both films tell very different stories, and involve very different characters, but what I love about them is the focus on building relationships, on collaborating, and on finding different approaches to working, and they both demonstrate that success is based on factors other than just numbers.

What is more, the length of the process and the expectations during the process allow both the employer and the employee to ascertain whether they are a good fit for one another.

Shouldn’t every recruitment process be a two-way process?

Think back to the mindset section of the book and how we looked at how the brain works and why we feel the way we do.

Many recruitment processes focus on an application, an interview, possibly one assessment center, possibly a second interview, and then, an offer is made. We usually make a decision to recruit based on 2 or 3 hours in conversation with a person in an environment that does not reflect the true nature of the role, and at a time when their stress levels are likely through the roof.

To top it off, the interview panel are there because they “have” to be, the manager is too busy thinking about the e-mails that need to be answered or the project that needs completing today, and they say yes to the person that seemed most like them, because in a lot of cases, we are attracted to those who are most like us, while the rest of the panel is trying to ascertain cultural fit, fit with the team, and ability to do the job.

While with one of my employers, I carried out so many interviews for Tradesmen and Gas Engineers that I could have quite easily got the job because I grew to know what they were talking about, it would only be on Day One that my incompetence in these areas would have been identified. Likewise, I have interviewed finance and procurement directors so often that I could make a case for being recruited to manage contracts and suppliers and being able to set and drive finance strategy at a senior level while managing the expectations of stakeholders and the board. In reality, while I know enough of this to get by, I could not do the job.

What I am getting at here is that with enough practice, we can all get through a competency-based interview if we understand the role enough. But this type of environment does not really allow candidates to demonstrate their skills, or how they cope under pressure, or how they work with others, or how capable they are at making decisions or learning from mistakes, or analyzing information, or whatever else the role entails.

From the point of attracting people to your organization to the point that they join you for their first day, you need to be demonstrating that recruiting the right people in the right way and at the right time is important to you. You need to be engaging with candidates to allow them to show their skills, their qualities, and their strengths so that when you make a decision, you absolutely know you have recruited the best person, not just the person who was better at being interviewed.

If the best candidate has had traumatic interview experiences before, what are they thinking of as they enter the room? Yep, the last traumatic interview they had. And how will that have impacted their sleep the night before, or even their sleep over the last week? Will they be pumped up with happy hormones or stressed to the hill?

In the resources section at the back of the book, you will find examples from other organizations about what they do to attract and recruit the best people.

Before you move on, take some time and consider your own recruitment process.

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential candidate?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best recruitment process for your organization, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer:

• Does this allow candidates to demonstrate their ability?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for candidates?
• Does it reflect that your candidates are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that the candidates have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your answers and reflections with your team, your leaders, or in the HR Hub on the Chrysalis website.

4.2 Onboarding/Induction

Onboarding is a common term used in the U.S. for the induction period (usually the first three to 6 months of a new employee’s employment), and in the UK, I have heard it used as the part between the offer being made and the person actually joining; either way, none of these processes (onboarding or induction) sound particularly appealing.

As HR professionals, what typically happens as soon as we have offered you your dream job is that we send you enough paper (to kill a rainforest) to read and sign, telling you what you can and cannot do, mainly what you cannot do, to act as a doorstop and enough pieces of paper to sign to give you RSI (repetitive strain injury), all of which you must return before you start working at the organization or we probably won’t pay you for your first month because, you know, our internal processes and form filling just takes far too long.

We look forward to you joining us soon, though.

However, please do not get too comfortable because we are going to review your performance in 6 months, and if we decide we do not like you, or that you are not doing what we want you to do, then we will let you go.

Of course, this will only happen if your manager remembers to do the meeting in the first place because they are very busy, and quite frankly, if there is an issue, they will probably wait until you have been here for almost a year (now, 2 years) and want us to get rid of you before you can make a claim against us.

But, if this does not happen, and we do not talk to you at all, then you are probably doing a really good job and we want to keep you, so just go with the thinking that no news is good news.

Just as I can remember my two best recruitment processes, I can remember my worst first day ever in a new organization, and without a doubt, it has overshadowed all of my first days anywhere.

I arrived early, I did not want to be late or risk issues with any traffic or transport delays, I would have been super-duper early, but I went for a coffee across the road first. On arrival, I checked in at reception, they had no idea who I was (not in a “don’t you know who I am” kind of way, but a “welcome to the organization” kind of way would have been nice), and I asked for my manager.

The time when I had been asked to arrive came and went, and still, I remained at the same place. After another 10 minutes, I walked back to the desk, which was about 10 feet away from where I was, and got a, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were still here, I’ll e-mail again”—what a lovely welcome!

Another 15 minutes passed, and then, a member of the team came down to get me, or rather, they came to take me for coffee. After a few minutes, they shared that nobody was expecting me and that my manager was busy and would only see me for 10 minutes that day.

I had not got the date wrong; I checked several times. Does this happen to all new employees? This had to be rectified, for surely this cannot be normal practice. I learned that my manager had been told of my start date, but had forgotten to put it in her diary with all of the other (important) stuff she had to do. It took me 4 days to get a security pass because of a “form” that needed to be filled in and signed—by whom, I never discovered—almost 2 weeks to get IT access (another form), and 2 months before I sat in on the corporate induction, because we had to cancel the others as none of the managers who were scheduled to deliver some of the sessions could make it.

I do love a challenge (luckily), and I was not going to be disappointed by this as there was clearly a lot that needed to be improved, and this was just the induction period. What else would I find to get my teeth stuck into (I discovered very quickly, a lot).

I learned very quickly—on Day One, in fact, as I got to speak to all of my team, a lot of the employees, and several managers while I waited for everything to be set up—that while the people were willing, the processes were broken and nobody seemed able to simplify or fix the process. The majority of managers did not want anything radical or life-changing from the HR team; they just wanted the basics right, and seemingly, we could not do any of that either.

I joined the organization with over 40 outstanding ER issues and seven ongoing ETs (employment tribunals) among another HR team restructure processes—one had only just happened when I joined and I was the last appointment made, an organization-wide restructure and redundancy process, a high number of underperforming managers, and a leadership team that saw HR as a pure admin function that could not even administrate effectively. I left with one ET outstanding and 11 ER cases as a result of the organizational restructure, which saw many employees redundant at the end of the process.

The corporate induction was cringeworthy when I eventually got on it; a lot of the information was irrelevant, and the passion from most of the managers presenting was lacking so much, I could have fallen asleep under the desk.

My team had designed an amazing interactive induction process with visits to sites, different managers delivering different sessions, a shorter process with a local induction that managers would deliver themselves to ensure their teams knew what they needed to know, and the onboarding process involving facilities and IT, so that passes and IT access were sorted straightaway. And most importantly, all employees would receive a welcome letter from the CEO on the day they arrived.

The process was rejected because of time and cost restrictions despite the CEO saying the induction needed to be improved.

What a message!

“We want you to work here, but we don’t think you need to know anything about us; you are here to do a job, so here’s your desk, thanks for your time, we will pay you at the end of the month.”

Of course, the first few months in a role are more than IT access and a corporate induction, but if these areas are lacking, what does it say about your organization as an employer? What does it say about your culture, the leadership, and how much you value your employees?

The “new and improved” induction that I mentioned earlier was not designed in isolation in the silo of the HR function. It had been designed with input from employees, new and existing, employee representatives, managers, and the HR team. And in one 10-minute discussion, it had been thrown out by the board, and we were told to just modify what we already had. We did get it approved eventually, but it should not have been so hard.

An employee’s first few months in a role should involve supporting, nurturing, educating, growing, and training from the management with support from HR. A great few months pave the way for a great career with the organization, no matter how long our people stay. It should not be difficult.

So, why is it so hard?

First, regardless of the HR process for induction, managers need to understand their role. The HR element of induction is largely the administration and coordination of the process. Without managers and leaders engaging in the process and seeing the importance of it, whatever the shape and size of the packaging, the content will always be lacking. Because managers see it as an “HR thing,” it is easy for them to pass the buck. AGILE HR is about everyone being an accountable adult.

Second, we focus on what we feel employees need to know about the organization, instead of focusing on what will help them embed into the organization.

The objective setting for the first few months should include things along the lines of spending time with a “buddy” or mentor, getting to know team members, meeting with some of the key stakeholders, understanding the customer journey, and so on. It is not purely about “hit £10k of sales,” “learn IT system,” and so on.

New employees should be met with regularly and made to feel as though they can approach their manager or appointed contact with what could be considered as the silliest of questions. I personally do not believe in silly questions. If you need to know something like how to make a coffee, or the best place for lunch, then you need to ask. These small things can make a big difference to how you settle in to the organization.

And why do we call it an induction period?

Induction noun

 

noun

an occasion when someone is formally introduced into a new job or organisation, especially through a special ceremony:

 

Their induction into the church took place in June.

Her induction as councillor took place in the town hall.

An induction course/programme/ceremony.

 

There has been a lot of discussion over the last few years about whether it should be a “trial period,” a “getting to know you period,” a “test it out period.” I do not see anything wrong with the word “induction”; everyone knows what it means, but rather than leaving new employees sitting in the reception for hours, and then, telling them they have been forgotten about and that they need to wait for weeks to get IT or security access, let us make it a ceremony, a celebration of them joining the business.

Let us find ways of removing or at least minimizing the vast amounts of rainforest that we send you prior to joining (which will be much more simple a task when our policies reflect that we treat people as adults), and give you what you need in a more interactive way (videos, podcasts, online learning, audiobooks), signing only the “must have paperwork,” and then, let us find a way to minimize the fear on Day One, by inviting you to one of the greatest ceremonies you will ever attend. A ceremony where you are made to feel important, and valued, and respected, and where you get to know about the organization and all of the “silly” things that will help your journey start more easily and run more smoothly for you.

And then, let us pair you with a buddy/mentor to help support you even more, and let us encourage your manager to set you important and relevant objectives and have regular contact with you, and then, let us involve you in the design of the induction ceremony for the next round of new starters, because you will know what would have helped you settle in more.

How about that for an induction?

Before you read on, take some time, and consider your own induction process.

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential candidate?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best recruitment process for your organization, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer:

• Does this allow candidates to demonstrate their ability?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation from candidates?
• Does it reflect that your candidates are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that the candidates have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your thoughts with your team, your manager, or in the HR Hub.

4.3 Well-being

I have included this as a separate section as some of it does not fit into Reward, and yet, it is an important area to consider when creating practices and frameworks for your people.

Many of us strive for greater work–life balance—something I do not think we will ever really find, given the hours we work each week, and so, I prefer the term “life balance,” but that is not always possible either.

The growing use of technology means we are accessible 24 hours a day, we are expected to work harder for longer to get the job done, and add to that, the normal everyday pressures of bills, family commitments, friends, and wanting to stay active—and we are already sinking.

When I was appointed to a new post, I was going through some reports for a board meeting late one night for a meeting the next day and my boss sent me an e-mail; I responded. She came straight back to me and told me not to answer at this time of night to anyone from work, including her, as once started, the expectation would be that I continued. She was right.

Over the last few years, I have been conscious about my own well-being, largely due to two operations, the ailments of which were related, I believe, largely to stress.

My morning routine now consists of yoga and meditation, with some added meditation, if required, throughout the day as well as running, cycling, and going to the gym. I journal at night to clear my head and do not touch (or very rarely) my phone or laptop after 8 p.m. at night so that I get a better night’s sleep and wake up feeling refreshed in the morning. Lack of sleep is the biggest driver toward stress, depression, and anxiety, as we saw earlier on in the book.

And I have discovered that when I rest more, I am more productive. Even a walk at lunchtime can be beneficial, and yet, so many of us sit in meetings for 10 hours a day with little food, water, or air, and wonder why our energy and our mood are affected.

The concept of employee well-being has grown in popularity over the past few years, but is it something new or just a clever relabelling of traditional absence management, occupational health, and good management practice?

What programs and initiatives are taking place under this heading and how effective are they for both employee and employer?

Stress and other mental health conditions are now among the main causes of employee absence, according to the CIPD absence management survey (2006).

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that stress costs businesses £3.8 billion a year.

The increase in obesity is also a major worry for policymakers. The Department of Health (DoH) research reveals that if current trends continue, the proportion of men who are obese will have risen to 33 percent from 22 percent in 2003. The number of obese women is set to rise from 23 percent to 28 percent over the same period.

Personal well-being does not exist on its own or in the workplace, but within a social context. Recent years have seen individuals’ lives affected by social, lifestyle, and employment changes, but despite these shifts, people still have the same basic physical and mental needs for social support, physical safety, health, and a feeling they are able to cope with life. Increasingly, they are demanding that employers help them to achieve this, particularly as a large part of their lives are spent at work.

We define it as: creating an environment to promote a state of contentment, which allows an employee to flourish and achieve their full potential for the benefit of themselves and their organization. Well-being is more than an avoidance of becoming physically sick.

It represents a broader bio-psycho-social construct that includes physical, mental, and social health. Fit employees are physically and mentally able, willing to contribute in the workplace, and likely to be more engaged at work.

Well-being is a subjective experience. It can involve practical measures such as introducing healthy food or a gym at work, or perhaps less tangible initiatives, such as working to match the values and beliefs held by employees with those of their organization.

It could be argued that a change in the way employees are engaged in discussions about how their work is organized could have more of an impact on an individual’s well-being than the introduction of a corporate gym.

Well-being will run the risk of being dismissed as a gimmick unless those involved in its introduction and promotion demonstrate the positive business benefits that it brings.

To be effective, employee well-being needs to be part of a regular business dialogue and has to be deeply embedded into an organizational culture. The well-being dialogue can be beneficial to employees.

Many organizations are trying to create a balance between maximizing productivity and the risk that their employees may burn out, making costly errors or resigning. An understanding of a holistic approach that underlies well-being, and development of initiatives, coordinated with other HR policies, can offer an approach to achieve that balance.

Organizational well-being is about many things, but some of the most important include employees having meaningful and challenging work and having an opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge in effective working relationships with colleagues and managers in a safe and healthy environment.

Well-being-orientated organizations provide the tools to get the job done and the opportunity to achieve personal aspirations while maintaining work–life (or life) balance.

Some of the essential factors leading to organizational and personal well-being are:

• values-based working environment and management style
• open communication and dialogue
• team-working and cooperation
• clarity and unity of purpose
• flexibility, discretion, and support for reasonable risk-taking
• a balance between work and personal life
• the ability to negotiate workload and work pace without fear of reprisals or punishment
• being fairly compensated in terms of salary and benefits

The employer also has a duty to ensure that its culture fosters a positive working environment. The need for social justice and human rights has been addressed in a CIPD statement on human rights (2007).

Employers should focus on creating a workplace culture in which everyone feels included, valued, and respected. To foster personal responsibility and engagement, a balanced approach is needed to address diverse stakeholder and organizational interests and preferences. Creating a climate of mutual respect and dignity will foster improved working relationships and contribute to productivity and business performance.

Perhaps the most important factor in employee well-being is the relationships employees have with their immediate manager. Where there are strong relationships between managers and staff, levels of well-being are enhanced. A good manager will recognize the strengths, likes, and dislikes of their team members (treating them as individuals), and will be able to recognize when the volume or complexity of the work is too much for a particular team member.

The more capable that line managers are in identifying the personal interests and concerns of the individual, the more likely they will be able to create a team where employee well-being becomes an integral part of getting the job done.

Employee well-being involves:

• maintaining a healthy body by making healthy choices about diet, exercise, and leisure
• developing an attitude of mind that enables the employee to have self-confidence, self-respect, and be emotionally resilient
• having a sense of purpose, feelings of fulfillment and meaning
• possessing an active mind that is alert, open to new experiences, curious, and creative
• having a network of relationships that are supportive and nurturing

Marks & Spencer is known nationally as an employer who values employees. Historically, well-being was delivered through a traditional benefits package, including flexible working and family-friendly policies.

In addition, a good physical working environment was provided, including good catering facilities.

Other ancillary benefits for some or all employees included hairdressing, chiropody, dentistry, massage, yoga, mindfulness, and other holistic services. As the business moved through a change management program, it was realized that more focus was needed on the health and well-being areas that were directly affected by the workplace.

The UK Government strategy for health and well-being and vocational rehabilitation were considerations for the HR and occupational health teams within Marks & Spencer, with management referrals to occupational health being predominantly for guidance on the management of individuals with a musculoskeletal health issue.

The decision was taken to trial a fast referral for physical therapy for those employees who have their personal and work life affected by such health issues, recognizing that the NHS process for assessment and treatment via the general practitioner was overburdened.

Fourteen stores were involved in a 3-month trial. All employees who were in the workplace and experiencing musculoskeletal problems were eligible for referral for physical therapy. Employees who contacted the store to advise them of absence owing to musculoskeletal health issues were also referred for physical therapy. The employee was provided with an appointment within 72 hours from referral. Referral for assessment and treatment were not dependent on the cause being workplace-specific.

The total number of employees participating in the trial was 4,000. Of this number, 192 (4.8 percent) were referred from 13 stores.

During the trial, employees who received treatment were able to continue in the workplace alongside their team members, employees who had experienced delays in accessing NHS treatment were appreciative of the service, and employees absent were able to return to work to undertake restricted workplace duties.

The 3-month trial demonstrated an 8 percent reduction in employee sickness absence for musculoskeletal health issues. Store management teams reported additional benefits: improved morale of the departmental team and the general store, all of which are difficult to estimate in financial terms, improved customer service, and improved efficiencies.

Take some time now to consider your own personal well-being, and then, the things you have in place for the people in your organization.

Personal well-being

• Do I make it a priority?
• At what times throughout the day does my energy slump?
• How can I counteract this? Solutions—Walking, less carbs/sugar/caffeine, more water, less back to meetings etc.
• What one change can I commit to for myself?
• How can I encourage my team to make their well-being a priority?
• Does the culture in my organization prioritize my well-being?

Organizational well-being

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Does it help you and motivate you as an employee?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best environment for employee well-being in your organization, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer

• Does this allow employees to feel supported and able?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for employees?
• Does it reflect that your people are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your people have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your answers and reflections with your team and or your senior leaders.

4.4 Reward

For this section, as in the online program and the workshop, we will look at reward in its totality, so that includes salaries, bonuses, pay rises, benefits, and gifts.

I started my career with the John Lewis Partnership, first at Waitrose, and then, I transferred to John Lewis. My salary was great, not just for retail, but for anyone in their first role out of education. I got amazing discounts, subsidized lunch, and of course, the much-talked-about annual bonus, based on profit shares.

In addition to this, when you hit 25 years’ service, you also receive 6 months paid leave, plus an annual pay rise based on your individual performance (although 1 year, I received two pay rises for hitting and exceeding my objectives as a trainee), and totally unbeknownst to me, if you had been given amazing feedback or helped a colleague, you could also go and select a gift, there and then, from the MD’s gift cupboard.

Wow.

Now, depending on which data you look at, I am a millennial. I was born in 1980 and do indeed want autonomy and purpose, so when I was promoted, and then, told no positions would be available for the next 6 years (I was 24 at the time and was not going to be at the same level for the next 6 years), I left the John Lewis Partnership, somewhere I thought I would spend my entire career.

No amount of money in the world was going to keep me there. That said, throughout my life, there have been times when money has been the driver. I think it happens to us at differing times of our lives, but for me, with kids, and a mortgage, and a personal life I wanted to maintain, money, at times, has been my main driver.

At another of my employers, we would receive Easter Eggs every Easter, a £50 gift voucher every Christmas, an occasional annual bonus, a performance-related bonus, chocolates and ice cream at varying points of the year “just because,” a letter from the CEO when we were recognized for doing a good job, a birthday card, awards for delivering the values, with our photo on the wall of fame and other ad hoc things throughout the year. Much of this, however, then became expected by staff and not seen as a reward of any kind. The enthusiasm from staff was lost, the want to reward staff was important to the CEO.

Reward, I fear, will always be the biggest bone of contention with our people, even though we know from the research that it is not seen as the biggest priority of what motivates us or engages us, but the good news is, it does not have to be this way.

But, we need to make a lot of changes first.

First, I believe we need to pay people what they are worth. Not what we pay everyone else on the same level or grade, but what the person is worth. What is the value for their expertise and experience? If someone comes to you with exactly what you need and more, why would you only pay the rate you pay every new starter? You dangle the carrot of the pay rise after “probation,” and somehow think the annual bonus is enough to incentivize them. I do not know anyone that can explain to their employees how the bonus is calculated each year because it is usually hidden in some algorithm of a spreadsheet or other database.

 

There is a lot of research on this topic and a lot of great work being done by a lot of companies to change the way we reward our people. I have attached some of these examples in the resource section, so I do not want to labor the point on this one too much, for you will never move onto the next section, but from my own experience, we need to:

• Pay great salaries and forget the bonus—It is often used as a carrot, but is usually a stick.
• Reward our employees with Thank You and handwritten notes, or Easter eggs and a visit to the cupboard of gifts to make a selection, something on the spot and unexpected—We all like a unexpected reward, it is good for a release of our happy hormones and makes us more productive.
• Be fair and consistent but lose the complicated frameworks, bureaucracy, and red tape—Have a framework, but not a cast iron policy that nobody has the key for.
• Introduce reward programs that allow your people to select what they want—gym membership, child care vouchers, extra holiday, increased pay. We all have different needs and wants, and this changes at different points in our life. Child care vouchers were great for me 10 years ago; what use are they to me now?

I was speaking to a new client just this week, who has moved from the private to the public sector, and she said what she finds most difficult is the fact that their employees talk about their band like it is a badge of honor. I’m an “A” band, and I’m a “E” band, and in reality, what most of this means is that they have been in the post for so long that their annual mandatory salary increase has moved them up and up and up, and that is all that will happen each year until they leave. How incentivizing is that?

Before you move on, take some time and consider how you reward your people.

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential candidate?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best way to reward your people, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer:

• Does this allow employees to feel their ability is recognized?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for candidates?
• Does it reflect that your employees are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your employees have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share them with your team or your managers.

4.5 Learning and Development

I left school immediately after my A levels and started my career in retail management. I now hold two degrees, countless other qualifications and certificates, and skills and experience, and am currently completing my PhD.

I love learning, and over the years, I have spent thousands of pounds and hours on my own personal and professional development. I look at what I want to learn, or where I want to develop further, and I find a way to do it. Sometimes, it is as simple as reading a book; sometimes, an online course; sometimes, a program; sometimes, a degree—it depends on what I want to get from it and how I think it will add value to me, my life, and my work.

Yet, we do not very often look at the different ways or different learning that our people want and need. I have worked for employers where we have spent months collating skills and training audits only for the information to be irrelevant when we actually started designing the programs. And don’t get me started on how much money is wasted on trainers and venues to have nobody show up to a course, when everyone has been sent them 20 different reminders (even copying in their managers)—how very adult of us.

When my MD at Chrysalis suggested we start delivering e-learning, I was totally against it. Having been involved in e-learning since the late 1990s, as a participant, and then, as a purchaser (because it is what my employers wanted), it was not engaging, I never learned anything, and I certainly did not embed any of the learning in the workplace. I did, however, get to put the stats onto my database to say how many people we had trained and how much we had saved on last year—pat on the back for me, yay!

But at Chrysalis Consulting, we researched, and we found a system that I liked, and a way of designing learning that was fun, engaging, and allowed you time to embed the learning and keep on learning after the course was finished.

We do this in different styles for our clients, with a very different feel—for some clients, it is a simple resource library; for others, it is a MOOC, a long program; and for others, it compliments and works with their face-to-face material.

Research tells us we learn best when it is social and when we can embed the learning immediately. How many times have you been on a course and promised yourself you will make all of the changes as soon as you get back to the office, only to be swamped the minute you step back in, and never get round to doing any of the stuff you intended to.

Research also tells us that it can take us 60 days before we learn to make a change—not the previously thought 12 days—and up to 11 times of practice before we learn something new, and yet, much of our learning is structured in a way where you sit through death by PowerPoint all day, fill in a workbook, and then voilà, you are ready to be awesome.

In the resources section, you will find our infographic that highlights some of the stats about learning effectiveness. It shows that we lose 80 percent of what we learn in the first 9 days, 80 percent!

It also shows that only 5 percent is learned from what we see and hear, while 90 percent is learned when we teach others and when we put the learning into immediate application.

Instead, though, of investing our time in on-the-job training, mentoring, or sponsorship, we spend hundreds of thousands a year on external training that does not take into account any of the learning effectiveness requirements, and of course, then when money is tight, the training budget is the first thing to go and we stop learning altogether.

At the very beginning of this book, I said my advice was to go through it once, and then, dip in and out when needed.

That is what I believe we need to provide for our people. A time and a place when they can grab and go, where they can get what they need when they need it, and if something is missing, we will create it for them or support them in finding it for themselves.

When you need to learn something new, where do you usually go?

For me and most of my family and friends, it is Google, without a doubt, and I always find what I need, even if it involves three Youtube videos before I get the full picture.

The world of technology and learning is no longer just something that happens in a classroom or on a training course. We are surrounded by, and, in some cases, overloaded by data and information and learning.

I have just tallied up the amount of learning opportunities that I was sent by e-mail last week—64.

Sixty four! Seven invitations to workshops, 14 webinar invitations, and 43 online courses. I have not said yes to any of them; if I had accepted them all, then I would have no time to get any of the learning completed or embedded, and given that we lose 80 percent of the learning in 9 days if we do not embed it, most of what I learned would be forgotten, and therefore, a waste of time and money.

We do this a lot when it comes to developing our employees. Instead of giving them access to learning or supporting their requests to learn what they need when they need it, we plough endless resources into designing programs and courses that we make mandatory for all employees, and tell them there will be consequences if they do not attend, and then, at the end of the year, we wonder why performance of the individual and the team and the organization has not improved.

It is not rocket science.

I include coaching in this section as well.

Coaching is great. I say this as a coach and someone who still works with a coach. And while the session may allow for moments of clarity and understanding, the change can only really occur if time is put aside to make the changes and act on the changes.

I also suggest that clients allow at least an hour for self-reflection and planning at the end of the coaching session and advise that the sessions take place outside of the place of work. There is nothing worse than leaving a session or even a meeting and feeling pumped up and ready to make a change only for the opportunity to be lost because you got back to your desk and became swamped with the day-to-day tasks and never got around to implementing what you wanted to do.

This happens continuously with learning in the workplace, and we need to find a new way of allowing people to learn what they need to learn when they need to learn it to allow them chance to implement it, action it, and continue to improve.

Consider now how you train and develop your people.

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential candidate?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best way for your people to learn, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then answer:

• Does this allow employees to feel their ability is recognized?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for candidates?
• Does it reflect that your employees are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your employees have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions, and then, share your learning with your team and or your manager before moving on.

4.6 Performance Management

I am really looking forward to my performance review, said no one ever.

I cannot ever remember sitting in a performance review meeting with any of my managers that felt engaging and inspiring. They were always more of a conversation that focused on a run-up to the grade I would receive while we went through the form, and then, discussed my objectives for the next year and what training I wanted and needed.

The best feedback, support, and encouragement were the ad hoc feedback I received throughout the year, and usually in a more informal discussion.

And how many times has your HR team been bombarded with requests for the previous year’s form so that employees and managers can review what they wrote and what the objectives were?

Annual appraisals happen annually (the clue is in the name). While I was at John Lewis, this related to the anniversary of your start date, but for many organizations, it is a companywide annual event, with all staff being met with at the same time of year.

And yet still, when the time comes around, managers and senior managers will ask for extra time to complete them because they do not have the time, and in many cases, you go back to them with a No, because this will delay the payment to their employees—how wonderful!

I focus mainly on annual performance reviews here, but of course, this also includes probation reviews and at any point when you are formally or informally focusing on the performance of your people.

Back in 2009, I designed a rolling appraisal process for my organization; it was not without its faults, but it did mean that conversations were happening more often, objectives were more relevant, and performance increased, and I have introduced it for a number of clients since.

But the biggest issue relates to the grade, and usually because the grade carries a price with it associated with an annual bonus, and if you were an “A” last year, you better be an “A” this year because you have already booked your holiday or spent the bonus in some other way before it is even in the bank.

Then, when the tick box exercise (the form itself) is completed, you send the form off, there is a meeting to moderate the grades at which point your grade could change, depending on how many people have been awarded the same grade, a bit of a bun fight happens, and then, payments are made.

I have never been fan of forced distribution, not one bit, but still we do it, because we were taught in the 1980s that bell curves were the best thing since sliced bread, and if we do not do annual reviews, what will we replace them with?

For 2 years in a row, I was on a moderation panel where it was evident that managers were not managing their people effectively, nor giving them constructive, helpful, or motivating feedback.

The biggest offender reported directly to the CEO. I gave my feedback on him and how he was managing the process directly to him, and then, to the CEO, and yet, still no change.

The offender’s team had the highest rate of sickness absence and performance issues than any other department, and had more complaints from customers than any other team, yet they were all awarded As.

The panel downgraded them each year, only for the CEO to put them back up again. The second year, we had moved to rolling reviews, where a grade was awarded each quarter and averaged over the year. The offender had created the calculations and despite a few Bs throughout the year, they still ended up with all As by the time of the final assessment.

This was a big issue, and in the third year, I finally won my argument with him and the CEO, but why had this been allowed to happen for so long?

What we need are relevant objectives, more frequent feedback, and to take pay out of the equation altogether. I know companies that have scrapped reviews altogether, some with success, others not so, and where it did not work was where managers were still underperforming, did not give any feedback other than when something went wrong, and their teams felt demotivated and began to disengage, and where a learning culture was a myth and not something that was played out in reality.

And unfortunately, it is these managers that we create such tight measures for when it comes to managing the performance of our employees. But in reality, the process is worthless if the people are incapable of making it work. And really, this is the same for any process or policy that we implement.

A piece of paper outlining a process is only as good as the people that action the process.

If performance management is an issue for your organization, take some time and work out how much the annual reviews are costing you each year—not so much in terms of bonus, although you can add that later, but in time taken to prepare, complete, write up, send off, moderate, process payments and issue letters.

Take that figure, work out how it could be better spent, and submit a proposal to change it or stop it all together, but do find a framework or something else to ensure that employees are set objectives and are able to have meaningful and helpful conversations with their managers, even if it is over a coffee every month.

I am sure you could fund a lot of coffee and cake with the amount you will find.

This, just as reward, is probably an area where you may be faced with a LOT of challenge from the business. Because this process is all we know, and it is what the management schools tell us we need, and we will think we need to replace it with something else. Do not create another process; find a productive way to provide feedback that engages and motivates your people and improves performance.

Find a way to set clear objectives and have better conversations with your people inside and outside of a formal review process.

Consider now how you manage the performance of your people.

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential candidate?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best way for your people to manage performance and provide feedback, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer:

• Does this allow employees to feel their abilities are recognized?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for candidates?
• Does it reflect that your employees are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your employees have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions in the workbook, your journal, or share your answers and reflections in the group.

4.7 Talent Management

How many times do we ask our people to think outside of the box when we want them to find solutions and new ideas, and yet, what do we do with them when it comes to talent? We put them in a box. A beautiful, carefully crafted nine-box grid or four-box grid where we have carefully considered what to label each box for fear of upsetting someone and we sit around a table and place their names in box.

What if there was no box?

I love the concept that we should act, think, and work like there was no box; how liberating that would be, to know there are no boundaries and that we can grow and stretch and flex in any way we can?

Why don’t we think like that with our people and how often do we assign them a box without talking to them at all, but based on our own perception?

We make assumptions due to the length of service or performance ratings that people will automatically want to climb the corporate ladder, and yet, that is not always the case, and likewise, sometimes, we assume that someone is happy in a role, and so, we leave them there, plodding along until the day they leave or retire.

The John Lewis Partnership are great at having conversations about career aspirations and many of their roles are advertised internally so that you can move sideways, upwards, or downwards into a role that will give you what you want; it is great, and it also means that people will stay for longer because they get the variety and development they want and need.

Over the years, though, I have had discussions with people about needing to look externally for talent because we have “none” in the business.

How do we know if we do not look or ask?

New blood has its advantages, but so does home-grown talent. and just because there may not be anyone suitable in your team, it does not mean there aren’t a dozen people that could do the job elsewhere in the business.

We do not always want to share, though, do we?

We want to keep our own people to ourselves, and in some cases, we do not want to promote our own team members because they do their role so well and we feel we will be lost without them.

Well, guess what?

If we do not nurture and develop those who are seeking to grow, they will leave anyway, and if at the point that they resign, you then decide to offer them a promotion or a pay rise, they may stay for a while, but when the emotional contract is broken, it is broken and there is rarely any going back.

John Lewis were great for growing and developing talent, and in fact, when I was promoted, I was promoted knowing I may need to wait for a role to come up.

Many people also believe that you can only move upward. If you take a sideways move or a step back, you must be some kind of failure or perhaps your performance is just not up to scratch. Our thinking and our approach to Talent Management is currently very linear, and as we talked about earlier, full of boxes.

But life is not like that, so why do we manage our talent like this?

What if you progressed through your career, and then, at the time that you had children (and this is for the mums and dads), you wanted a little less responsibility for a while, or less hours, and then, in a few years you wanted to move sideways to gain some new experience, and then, you wanted to move upward, and then, when your kids go off to university, you decide you do not want quite the senior role you had anymore because you are more financially secure and you want to take more holidays, or go to evening classes, or start a new hobby, or start dating your spouse again?

Or, if you are caring for elderly or sick relatives and you want to take your foot off the brakes a bit and be able to move into positions as they arise, whether it be up, down, or sideways.

Or, what if, you just want a slower pace, or less management, or less report writing, and you just want to enjoy your role?

Some people thought I was mad when I recruited an MD for the company I founded, but it works for me, and I like it. I love coaching and delivering workshops and working with clients and sitting in the office all day looking at accounts, marketing and all of the other administrative tasks that come with running a business do not make the most of my strengths. So, I recruited someone into the business who is great at creating and implementing processes and growing the business, and it allows me to focus more on not only what I love doing, but what I am good at.

And we should not be afraid of taking steps like this if it makes the most of our strengths and ensures that we love doing what we do.

I spent the first 18 years of my career climbing the corporate ladder, always chasing my next promotion and my next role and looking for the next project to help my teams continue to develop themselves and their skills. And I reached the top, and wondered what I was going to do for the rest of my working life. The more senior I had become, the more time I was spending creating strategies and managing the politics of the board and less time doing what I loved.

So, when I started Chrysalis Consulting, I knew I could go back to doing what I loved. Except that I could not. Several people had told me that when you run your own business, a large proportion of my time would be spent building the business instead of delivering the work and I could not see how that could be the case. But it was. There is so much to do and I just wanted to help clients.

I did not take the decision to recruit someone into the business lightly. I considered recruiting some admin support, but I would still need to manage this, and actually, while I love developing people, I did not want to manage anyone. I wanted to work with clients and create content without the responsibility of managing people. I had been doing that for years and I wanted a change. And some people find this weird. Why would I start a business and recruit someone else to run it?

Because after climbing as high as I wanted in the corporate world, I want to go back to my roots and do what I am good at. This may change, it may not, but having the choice and the freedom to do what I love doing keeps me passionate about the work I do, and away from the Monday-to-Friday syndrome that so many people experience on a weekly basis.

One of my previous employers had a customer service advisor who had been in her post for over 20 years; she had survived the mergers and was without a doubt the nicest advisor ever, and if you heard her on the phone with customers, or talking to and helping other team members, you could not fault her. If you could clone her, we would have no problem with customer service at all, ever, but she did not want to be a supervisor, or a manager and while she was happy to buddy up with new starters, she did not want to take them all. After all, how could she deliver great customer service if she was always training other people? She was talented, but did not want to move. She was happy to learn and picked up new systems and new ways of working brilliantly, but she did not want to move up the ladder, yet every year, her manager would tick the box as someone we should invest in and look to promote.

We should not be afraid of having conversations about how long someone thinks they will be in a role or stay in a company, and we should not penalize them if they do not see themselves being here forever. There is no such thing as a job for life anymore. Some people like variety and some people do not; some people want to develop and some people do not; some people want to learn new skills and some people do not. And we should not make the mistake of thinking that our talented people are those we should automatically look to promote by placing their name in a box.

I think it is great that a lot of organizations are now implementing career coaching into their talent and performance management thinking. It works. And this is not led by the manager with their employee, but with trained coaches from across the organization, who, through the coaching program, discuss the aspirations, challenges, and work of the coachee to help them grow in their role, and if they choose, to help them develop in preparation for their next career move, whether this be moving upward, sideways, or downward.

Organizations and the people within them are changing. New ways of working, new technology, new markets, mergers and acquisitions all provide a lot of opportunity to develop new skills, or utilize existing skills in a new way. Employees want more from their employers than a salary and a promotion, and we need to embrace this.

Boxes and grids no longer fit the needs of the people in the business, and yet, they are still seen as a useful business tool.

The only way we can genuinely manage our talent is through having better more informed conversations with our people, understanding what they really want and need, and then, supporting them as opportunities arise.

Consider now how you manage the talent in your organization.

• Does it reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential candidate?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best way for your people to manage performance and provide feedback, what would you create?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then answer:

• Does it allow employees to develop in their abilities and have these recognized?
• Does it encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for employees?
• Does it reflect that your employees are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your employees have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your reflections with your team and or your senior leaders.

4.8 Leadership Development

When I was in second year sixth form, the general election was being held and our teachers wanted us to understand politics more by running our own campaigns, based on the political parties, their manifestos. and their promises and see who could create and run the best campaign and secure the most votes.

Our entire year group was responsible for researching the parties we had to represent, creating our own manifesto that was relevant to the school based on the manifestos created by the parties, presenting our manifesto to other year groups in the school, and then secure votes.

There were four political parties—The Conservatives, Labour, The Liberal Democrats, and The Monster Raving Loony Party. Each group was given a party to represent and I was selected to be the leader of The Liberal Democrats and people voted to work for me on the campaign. I did not see myself as a leader at that point, especially as the introvert that I am, but my team did, and so, for that one year, I became the leader of a political party. We came second when the votes were counted, losing only a few votes to The Raving Loonies, who were the two most good-looking and popular boys in the school.

How did that happen? It is not like school votes become a popularity contest, is it?

As a team, we reviewed our manifesto and did all we could to make the content simple and relevant for students in the school. I spoke with conviction at each of the year group assemblies throughout the school about how we would help them and also asked them what they wanted and needed to make school better for them. We could not deliver on all that was asked of us and we made no promises that we would not be able to keep. We were honest, and my team, who had self-selected themselves to run our campaign, was passionate, supportive, and delivered.

Now, this is not a story of politics, but for an area that was mostly a Labour constituency with a few Conservatives in place, I doubt that many parents would have been happy with their children voting Lib Dem. But we came second—by asking questions, listening, being honest, having passion, and speaking with passion and conviction.

We took it as a win as we certainly were not the Raving Loonies that many of the students would have voted for.

Leaders can shine, often in the most unlikely situations and are not always the people we think they are. They are not always the most popular, the most liked, or in the most senior positions, and yet, many of our promotions and leadership development programs are focused on a one-size-fits-all approach, where to lead, you must be an extrovert, be great at all aspects of leadership, and in a lot of cases, be the best person at the job and possibly also have the longest length of service.

It does not work like that.

One size does not fit all. I have never heard anyone praise the leadership development program for any improvements in the team, and yet, we spend thousands upon thousands on leadership development every year.

I was asked to pitch for a leadership development program with a potential client last year. I knew as soon as I walked into the room with the HR Director and the CEO that I was not going to win this pitch.

The CEO looked at me as I entered, briefly, rolled her eyes and spent most of our meeting looking at her notebook before asking me what I could offer to her senior managers who spend most of their time glued to their phones in meetings, and will do so if ever they get bored in a meeting, especially when they had more MBAs, degrees and even a higher level of coaching experience than me.

This is often a typical situation. We assume that because we gain letters after our names or complete a qualification that we know it all, but if they were all that good, and if the programs they had been on at some of the most prestigious business schools in the UK had provided any value, they would not need me, or anyone like me to help them work together as a team or to stop them using their phones in meetings. This is down to leadership, pure and simple.

We also fail to look at, or give opportunity for learning to be embedded once a course or program has been completed.

In Simon Sinek’s book Leaders Eat Last, he states that “educational institutions and training programs today are focused not on developing great leaders but on training effective managers,” and I tend to agree with him. Much of what we talk about and implement in our organizations when it comes to leadership development is, in fact, teaching effective management skills.

I was working with a team of directors delivering our LEADing The Way Programme and the finance director mentioned that he had tried engaging his team more in team meetings, but that he struggled to keep their attention and gain buy-in to the new initiatives he was trying to introduce. We explored how he was trying to engage his team at these meetings and he proudly spoke about his beautifully crafted PowerPoint presentations that were filled with important data and statistics about the business and how he wanted to build a more effective team who were able to engage better with their customers across the business.

I asked what was the most engaging meeting/presentation and what made it so. He talked about a seminar he had attended in London where the speaker had told story after story and made these stories relevant to the data he was presenting on quite a boring topic to help engage the audience. Was he telling stories to his team? No.

But this type of presentation was all he had ever been taught and he did not know how to change. We explored some options and at the nest meeting, he designed a shorter presentation (his comfort blanket) and had considered some stories to tell. He later informed me that as he started to work through his presentation, he stopped, turned the screen off and told stories and asked for opinions from his team. The best meeting ever, and he has grown from strength to strength ever since, with his team engaging more with their customers and performance improving.

In her book Executive Presence, Sylvia Ann Hewlett talks about leaders needing to demonstrate Executive Presence and states that this rests on three pillars: How you act (gravitas), How you speak (communication), and How you look (appearance). She goes on to say that we need to be focusing on all three of these areas, but that we should not try and do all of them if they are not our natural tendency. How is that for choice! And yet, we spend all of our time trying to box people into competency frameworks and roll out the same style of boring, ineffective training that we never embed into the business because we expect that as soon as our leaders have been given the information, they will be immediately changed.

Do a search on Google about what employees really want from their leaders and you will be overwhelmed with responses, but the most common traits listed are:

• A leader that encourages improvement
• A leader that gives praise and recognition
• A leader that recognizes improvement
• A leader that acknowledges their own shortfalls before criticizing others
• A leader that allow employees to save face and learn from their own mistakes
• A leader that is honest
• A leader that is fair
• A leader that is dependable
• A leader that encourages collaboration, and
• A leader that is responsive.

When did your programs ever include content that included any of this?

Search for leadership development training, and again, you will be swamped by the results, many of which focus on leadership skills and include:

• Presentation Skills
• Influencing and Networking
• Personal Brand
• Strategic Thinking and Planning
• Accountability
• Communication
• Difficult Conversations

Hundreds, if not thousands, of leadership training providers who deliver programs and courses focus on effective management skills, but not skills that create great leaders and certainly not anything that creates leaders who will meet the criteria of what employees want by the end of the program.

And if we think back to the masculine and feminine leadership traits that we discussed earlier in the book (page 14), then what our people want aligns more to the feminine than the masculine leadership traits, yet so many leadership and management programs focus on the masculine trait of “doing.”

Admittedly, a Google search does not amount to a great deal of research into this area, but the key is to find out what your people want from their leaders, identify what the business needs from its leaders, and provide learning opportunities to meet the needs of your individual leaders that fills the gap.

When I was creating our LEADing The Way program, I did so in collaboration with some of our past and present clients, looked at the research, spoke to a number of different universities and employers, and created a solution that met these needs. There is a blend of group and 1-2-1 work and it looks at leadership, rather than management skills, but not everyone will want to do the program, and we will not accept everyone onto it that does.

Why?

Because if the learner is not committed to it, and they do not have the time, or the resource, or the passion to implement the changes, then it is a waste of their time and money.

I have always been deeply invested in my own personal and professional development and when I have had my mind set on learning something, I have been committed to doing it, whether my organization would pay for it or not, and since starting my own consultancy, I have invested thousands and thousands of pounds in ensuring I know what I need to know and I do what I need to do to learn it.

I have also discovered that trying to develop my weaknesses (I hate that word), my less strong areas, is a waste of time. I have learned that by developing my strengths further and surrounding myself with people who can do what I cannot, or who know what I do not, is best all round for everyone.

That is one of the reasons I recruited an MD to manage my company. I love working with clients, designing courses, writing books, helping others to grow and change. I do not like process, and quite frankly, I am no good at running a business, but I can lead, and motivate, and empower and I have a big vision and big ideas. Strategy, I can do; detail, I cannot.

Leadership development does not tend to focus on developing strengths even more, though, does it? It tries to squeeze leaders into a leadership box, where everyone has the same level of competency as everyone else and where everyone fits the same mold.

One of my previous CEOs was a total introvert, and when he presented, he would stand at the side of his PowerPoint, in the dark if he could, and speak to the room, but with no passion, energy, or enthusiasm, and the room would switch off, whereas another of my CEOs, also an introvert had so much energy, and passion, and enthusiasm that you felt energized and inspired each time he spoke.

As an introvert myself, I understand that these differences were about much more than presentation skills. The only difference between these two people was the ability to engage their people. The one introvert would hide in his office and not even acknowledge his people in the mornings or at any point throughout the day, whereas the other would walk the floor every day, talk to people, learn about them and their lives and families, and create relationships with all his staff.

Which one would you rather work with?

We have to stop assuming that a one-size-fits-all approach is what our leaders want and what our business needs. We need to understand our leaders, what their strengths are, and support them in developing more of that.

Let us not think outside the box; let us work like there isn’t one.

Before you move on, consider the following:

• Does your leadership development program reflect the needs of your leaders and your people?
• Would it excite you as a participant?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best way for your leaders to develop, what would it be?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer:

• Does this allow candidates to demonstrate their ability?
• Does this encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for candidates?
• Does it reflect that your candidates are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that the candidates have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your reflections with your team, your leaders, and in the HR Hub online community.

4.9 Employee Engagement and Communications

So many organizations, when you speak to them about employee engagement, see it as little more than a communications plan and how we provide messages to our people, rather than what will engage them.

Employee Engagement is about much more than communicating and it is also not about creating happy employees.

Happy employees may be completely disengaged from the organization. Some people are very motivated by security and unemployment. These people may be very content to fog the mirror. While these folks may not appear engaged, misinformed managers might not understand the difference between engaged employees, happy employees, and employees who are just happy to have a salary each month.

“Engaged employees are happy employees,” someone recently had the misfortune of saying in front of me at a meeting. Why does this seemingly harmless statement frustrate me so much?

Because it is not true.

Even when you get a great 360-degree performance review, even when the engagement scores for your organization are through the roof, even when you have the most engaged workforce in your space (and you have lots of “Best Place to Work” lists and awards to prove it), your employees might still not be happy. 

Engaged employees are far more likely to become disengaged if employers only think about making them happy. Instead of offering additional learning and development opportunities, for example, employers might focus on increasing bonuses, thinking that a happy employee is an engaged employee. To an engaged employee, this might be a nice one-time bump in pay. But it will not compensate for their investment in the organization in the way removing obstacles from their pet project just might. And we know from the research that money is not the biggest factor when it comes to motivating our people.

When we are engaged at work, we perform better, work better with others, and want to learn more (remember the 3Ps from the How the Brain Works chapter—Positive Actions, Positive Interactions, and Positive Thoughts), and when we are engaged, so too are our customers, yet sometimes, we seek to overcomplicate things.

And as with most of what we do, we create a survey to find out how engaged people are, and then, create initiatives or strategies around what we need to improve. When I started at one company, a list of 164 things (yes, you read that right, 164) came out of the engagement survey and there had been six meetings—yes, six—before I joined to see how many of the 164 things we would prioritize.

Err, a maximum of three.

Anymore than three at a time and we would not achieve anything. “But we need to do them,” I was told, “We have to report back to staff in 3 months on how we have done with them all.”

So, a year after a survey of carefully selected questions had been pulled together, and the survey had been delayed three times because of redundancies, audits, or new managers, six meetings and 164 objectives, and we were going to deliver them all because we needed to go back to staff, we were still discussing the priorities—ludicrous.

And then, on top of all of this, we wanted to start pulse surveys once a month to gather feedback form employees so that they could tell us how we were doing. I do not think it would need rocket science to find the answer to this one. Let me guess—yep, the same as last month: no change and no progress.

With one employer and with many of my clients, instead of surveys, we facilitate engagement workshops. Nothing fancy, just me in a room with a flipchart and some tea and coffee, asking questions of no more than 15 employees at a time, of varying lengths of service and across different levels and from different roles. Some of the typical questions include:

• What attracted you to apply for a job here?
• Why did you accept?
• Do we deliver what we said we would?
• Why have you stayed?
• What do you love most?
• What frustrates you?
• What would you improve?

More valuable feedback has been received from these sessions than from any survey that employees have previously completed and employees felt heard and valued and the organization was able to take the comments and feedback from these sessions and quickly initiate changes. The organization was making a difference, not discussing what was a priority and getting nowhere.

The suggestions from each of these sessions varied; one person suggested a map of the floors or even some sort of sign to say which department was where, more difficult with hot-desking or agile working, but they said this would help new employees find their way and it did—lampposts were put in place. Another employee suggested every new starter have a buddy—a buddy system was put in place. Many suggested that IT, Facilities, and HR work together more effectively. And there were, of course, lots of conversation about the heating in the office, which we never did resolve.

Some of the most helpful was about change needing to be implemented more quickly and effectively, more analysis of the external markets, and less internal navel-gazing, people wanting to be thanked when they had done a good job, being able to spend more time with their manager, and seeing a more visible leadership team.

The visible leadership team suggestion did not quite go to plan, they just rotated their meetings to other offices, so we broke it down further, and said visible and engaging leadership, less meetings, more floor walking, and talking. It helped. This sort of change would have taken years to implement if we were waiting on another survey outcome.

At another employer of mine, to help employees understand more of what the leadership team experienced and had to deal with on a regular basis, a board game was created and used as a team game at our staff conference. Everyone was split into teams and we were allocated roles on the team, a board game, and some money; it was bit like monopoly.

We would roll the dice and take our turns, and on some spaces, would lose or gain money or people and have to carry on regardless, as there was a business to run. Every so often, an announcement would be made over the tannoy with bad news from the regulator, or a poor audit outcome, or a change to a legal framework or policy, and changes would have to be made.

The team with the most money at the end of the game won, but only if they had all of their key people in place and a high engagement score. The game was simplistic, it was a bit of fun, and by the end of it, the employees understood much more about the complexities of the business and what their manager had to deal with daily, and why change needed to be implemented.

Your most engaged employees might irritate you a little bit. They may propose wild ideas, get frustrated when projects are derailed, and volunteer for everything. They may rarely seem super happy, because they are busy pushing the envelope. These are people you want in your organization. In fact, you want their lack of appreciation for the status quo to infect those around them.

Stop perpetuating the myth that happy = engaged. You do not need to sacrifice one for the other, but stop creating an equivalency between the two. Tell your managers and your employees that while you think their happiness (and their well-being for that matter) is important, their engagement is crucial. Listen when they tell you how to help them become more engaged and act; do not wait 12 months and take no action at all.

The qualities that make each workforce engaged are going to be totally unique. Zappos has worked hard to create a distinct and engaged workforce. You know what else leader Tony Hsieh has done? He has tried to revitalize the downtown Las Vegas area. His stamp is on that project as much as it is on the way he structured the Zappos workforce. Importing programs from some other industry or business will not make your employees happy or engaged.

Focus on changing attitudes, not communications plans or programs. When faced with poor results, many executives change the program instead of the attitude. Instead of swapping out one useless campaign for another, take the time to talk to your employees before selecting a new option to increase engagement. You might be surprised at what you find out.

Before you move on, consider the following;

• Does your employee engagement reflect the needs of your leaders and your people?
• Would it excite you as a potential employee?
• If you could wave a magic wand and create the best way for your people to be engaged, what would it be?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then answer:

• Does this allow your people to demonstrate their ability?
• Does it encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for employees?
• Does it reflect that your people are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your people have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your responses with your team and senior leaders, or better still, arrange a session or two to talk to your employees using some of the questions I mentioned earlier on in the chapter and compare the outcomes from this to your latest survey, and then, share your findings with the business.

4.10 Exit

When it comes to employees who are leaving your business, the end of this journey does not have to mean the end of their journey with you completely. Yet, we prefer to break all ties with our people when they tell us they are leaving or we have to tell them it is time to go, and we just want to ensure that we get all of our property and equipment back.

The statistics are out there to say that most employees leave because of their manager, although with most people only now staying in jobs for 2 or 3 years, it is sometimes just because they want to try something new and because of our linear talent management programs, we are not to meet the requirements of our people.

There are, of course, a number of ways people leave—they resign, are dismissed for conduct or performance issues, or are made redundant. It is how we treat our employees at each of these stages that makes a difference, though. And as we talked about in the recruitment section of this book, with more and more people watching us online, any negative comments or feedback can significantly impact our brand and our reputation.

People may resign for a plethora of reasons—from personal matters, to development opportunities, to relocating, pay, starting their own business, or something else. How we treat them matters.

At one of my employers, a member of the HR team was relocating due to her husband’s new job, she had been heavily involved with the implementation of a new system and she worked from her new home for us until the system was finished, and then, found a new job in her new city. She stayed in contact for years.

We make it difficult, though, in a lot of cases. We do not let people leave early because we are paying them or they won’t have given enough notice, so we hold them to ransom and make them work for as long as we possibly can.

In some cases, we prevent exiting employees from having access to any of our systems but still expect them to show up every day, and do what exactly? And for some, we just stop including them because we believe they have shown us no loyalty.

Very AGILE!

Some companies welcome their leavers back with open arms, and why shouldn’t you? If they loved us once, they know what we are about and if their reason was nothing to do with anything we had done, why wouldn’t we have them back?

Some companies offer Refer a Friend schemes; you are not going to let your friends down, after all, and some encourage their people to keep in contact with them, even offering some freelance or project work.

Yet, for the majority, it is a resignation acknowledgement letter saying how much we owe them or vice versa, a list of all of the things they need to return, and an exit interview form that you will probably never return, because the exit interview process is usually flawed.

Of course, if you are dismissing your people for anything other than redundancy, then a more formal approach may be the right way to go about it, but not for every circumstance.

Years ago, at the end of a redundancy process, my team and I were brought flowers and chocolates along with Thank You cards, from exiting employees.

Why?

We had followed the process, it is a legal requirement, but we had treated them as people at every stage of the process, keeping them updated, providing a safe space for them to come and talk about their issues and concerns, helped with CV and interview preparation, and even contacting employers in the local area who did similar work to us and working with the other company to design some assessment centers. Some of them, we were able to find jobs for; others were able to do this on their own; some went self-employed; and some returned years later, when we had new roles come up.

Most of the employers that left, left knowing that we had done everything we could for them, and that the decision had been based to decrease our workforce for nothing more than a genuine business reason and everyone understood what this was, even if they did not like it

It could have been a very different outcome.

Sites such as Glassdoor give interview candidates and employees the unprecedented opportunity to share the inside scoop on what it is really like to interview or work at a particular workplace; and this is leaving many employers feeling more than a little uncomfortable at the prospect of receiving public negative reviews.

One example of a company receiving less than glowing feedback on Glassdoor was Technorati.com, after a recent decision by its CEO to close its contributed content program in an effort to rebrand. According to multiple reviews on Glassdoor, many longtime contributors to Technorati.com were abruptly terminated, without thanks, respect, or appreciation.

Many reviews from these employees and contributors reference Technorati’s CEO as the reason the company is “a sinking ship” and “taking a rapid nose dive.”

So, how does this sort of feedback affect future recruiting and business growth? According to research into consumers’ use of online reviews, 88 percent of people have been influenced by an online customer service review. And while the research into how online company reviews impact employee job decisions does not reveal quite the same degree of influence, we do know that a significant number of job seekers rely on these sites when evaluating a potential workplace.

In one study, for instance, out of 4,633 random job seekers surveyed, 48 percent had used Glassdoor at some point in their job search. The study also found that 60 percent of job seekers would not apply to a company with a one-star rating (on a five-point scale).

This suggests that many job seekers do seem to use workplace review sites, and negative reviews can dissuade them from applying to a particular company, and just as consumers now heavily rely on the reviews of products before purchasing, sites such as Glassdoor may only continue to gain momentum when it comes to new employees deciding on their next role and the company they want to work for. How you treat existing employees is, therefore, going to be an important part of how you protect your brand and your reputation, going forward, particularly if you want to be seen as an employer of choice.

Before you move on and look at the overarching factors, consider the following;

• Does the way you exit employees reflect your brand?
• Would it excite you as a potential employee?
• What would be different if you could wave a magic wand and create the best way for your people to be exited?
• How could you then implement this in your organization?

Then, answer:

• Does this allow your people to demonstrate their ability and a level of trust?
• Does it encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for employees?
• Does it reflect that your people are individuals?
• Does it demonstrate that your people are leaders?
• Does it demonstrate that your people have a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values, and would it be something that they would feel proud about sharing with their family and friends?

Take some time to answer these questions and share your responses with your team and or your senior leaders.

Summary

We have covered a lot so far in the book (and we are not done yet), so let us quickly recap what the key themes are so far when it comes to implementing AGILE HR.

AGILE HR should:

• allow space for your employees to demonstrate their ability in a trusting and autonomous way
• encourage ideas, creativity, and innovation for your people
• demonstrate that your people are individuals
• demonstrate that your people are leaders
• reflect a shared purpose, a shared vision, and shared values that you would feel proud about sharing with your family and friends?

It is about openness, honesty, and trust, and furthermore, adult-to-adult conversations.