New trends in employee engagement and the democratic climate suggest that effective employee engagement may soon include supporting causes and social issues that their employees do. Keeping an open dialogue with employees about which causes to support and how to spend philanthropic dollars keep them engaged in the company. This type of dialogue also allows the employer to get to know employees better, and understand who they are outside of the office. Allowing employees to express their opinions and communicate with upper management and key decision makes can take a number of forms. Some companies use online platforms such as surveys or anonymous feedback forms. These tools are often effective for communicating ideas, but do not contain the interpersonal aspect that a company-wide town hall meeting, or lunch hour fresh air forum. Engaging employees increases productivity and employees' sense of purpose. Consider engaging your "activist employees" this year. For more information check out the GreenBiz.com article.
Does your company work in the cloud? According to a new Elance Report the number of businesses seeking to hire online contractors doubled in 2011. 83% of the small businesses surveyed by Elance said they plan to hire up to half of their workforce as virtual in the next 12 months. GiftCard Partners was built on a virtual model and has been recognized for its ability to function in alternative ways, free of the constraints of a 9-5 office atmosphere. Here are Elance's predictions for the 10 most popular online jobs going forward
Internet and social media immersion is without a doubt second nature to Gen-Yers, AKA, Millennials. As a Generation X-er and an early technology adopter; I can clearly see how our most recent generation of college grads were born 1 step from where I was. We've seen some recent research around shopping habits, customer loyalty, and working tendencies of Generation Y; I’ll bring these findings together here to offer insight in the realm of employee motivation, incentives and loyalty. “45 percent of Millennials would accept a lower-paying job with more flexibility towards social media access, remote work and technology choice than a higher-paying job with less flexibility. 1” This is a pretty big number, but should not cause much surprise. As an entirely remotely operating company, GCP expects people to work this way, it’s in our company DNA. But we did not expect that almost 50% of a generation would prefer it. (YAY for us/GCP). Are you an employer who will rise to this challenge, knowing that embracing a remote working situation is a core motivator and a recruiting competitive advantage? In a recent national poll conducted by the No. Carolina firm of Public Policy 2; It was found that generations precluding Gen-Y, are skeptical about younger workers' work ethics, motivation and engagement in their workplace. Gen-Yer’s said this about their own generation:
According to a new Gallup poll 71% of employees indicated they do not feel engaged, or feel actively disengaged at their jobs. Employees that do not feel engaged are often far less productive than employees who feel engaged and connected to their position within their company. This staggering statistic is indicative of employers needing to make more of an effort to engage their employees at work, and recognizing their hard work. Tom Agnew author of "The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration--and Get the Most from Your Employees" identifies three causes of disengaged employees: poor communication about goals and performance, resource constraints that make it more difficult for employees to do their jobs, and employees who feel that they do not have the authority to do their jobs effectively. In order to engage employees it is important to keep open communication lines, and ensure that employees know when they are doing their jobs well. Giving small spot rewards such as a small denomination gift card to useful retail outlets such as CVS/pharmacy lets employees know that an employer is noticing their work, and empowering them to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Do you think your employees feel engaged? How do you think you can engage your employees better? For more information on employees engagement from Business Finance magazine click here.
Incentive Magazine recently published an article called “Forget Employee of the Month and Focus on Employee of the Moment”, where they discussed the rise of importance of immediate rewards for brilliant performance. In the past year, our connected sociability brought a 250% increase in tweets per day, 100% growth of LinkedIn users, and Facebook’s increases logins to 250 million each day, indicating a rapidly growing culture of immediacy. How does this effect HR professionals? Razor Suleman’s Incentive article announces that it’s time to institute an “Employee of the Moment” strategy by launching a social networking campaign to:
