By Melissa J. Anderson

Forbes and the Great Place to Work Institute recently released their annual list of the best places to work – and it should be no surprise that the companies at the top of the list sported perks designed to actively design workplace culture, improve employee work/life balance, and boost morale.

The list, complied based on the Institute’s Trust Index survey, which asks random employees at a company about “management’s credibility, job satisfaction, and camaraderie,” as well as “open-ended questions about hiring practices, internal communication, training, recognition programs, and diversity efforts.” Scores are also based on a culture audit by the Institute, as well as measurements of data on compensation and benefits. This year, 311 companies participated.

This year’s top company was the Cary, NC-based software firm SAS, which Forbes noted, received high marks for its extensive employee benefits, like on-site child care, car cleaning, a beauty salon, and more. But, it explained, the magazine explained, getting the top spot on a list of the best places of works is about more than the perks. It has more to do with an active interest in building a great workplace culture.

Forbes quotes one manager who said, “People stay at SAS in large part because they are happy, but to dig a little deeper, I would argue that people don’t leave SAS because they feel regarded – seen, attended to and cared for. I have stayed for that reason, and love what I do for that reason.”

By Melissa J. Anderson

Happy workplace environments mean more creative, productive employees, says a new study [PDF], performed by researchers at several major companies. We frequently associate creativity with tortured genius – like that of Edgar Allen Poe or Sylvia Plath. But, the study explains, in the work environment, positivity in terms of motivation and teamwork helps individuals produce more creative, quality work.

The study analyzed quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data from over 200 employees in seven companies. The study showed that positivity was, in fact, the antecedent to creativity, and on productive teams, creativity and positivity created a feedback loop.

The researchers, Teresa M. Amabile, Harvard University; Sigal G. Barsade, University of Pennsylvania; Jennifer S. Mueller, New York University; and Barry M. Staw, University of California at Berkeley, wrote that the study subjects were employees with in the chemicals, high tech, and consumer products industries, working on a range of creative work – like developing new products, creating new processes, and solving complex client problems.

They wrote, “When reactions to ideas are encouraging, a virtuous cycle may be established, in which cognitive variation and creativity are subsequently increased. In contrast, if reactions to ideas are negative, the affect-creativity cycle may be truncated.”

By Melissa J. Anderson

Last week, Mercer presented its findings [PDF] on its most recent global talent mobility study at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The report focused on the need for collaborating amongst various stakeholders to ensure that global talent is being developed and mobilized effectively.

According to Laszlo Andor, the EU’s Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, who wrote the forward to the report, the word will soon be facing a talent crisis – in some areas are suffering from high unemployment, while others face a shortage of skilled employees. He wrote:

“It is in this context that qualified people represent a strategic resource; one that needs to be paid far greater attention to than ever before. The ability to encourage development and attainment of new knowledge and skills while at the same time promoting innovation and geographical mobility will greatly influence the overall capacity of the European Union and its member states to sustain economic growth and social progress.”

The report, discussing global talent issues – not just those of the EU – goes on to suggest that broader collaborative partnerships between companies, non-profit organizations, and governments can address the challenges that exist when it comes to talent mobility.

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to a recent study by researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Delaware, institutionalized flexible work environments can help employees reduce stress, sleep more, and stay healthier.

The research, performed in 2010, followed almost 700 white collar Best Buy employees at the company’s corporate headquarters. About half of the employees participated in a ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) and the other half did not.

The study, “Changing Work, Changing Health: Can Real Work-Time Flexibility Promote Health Behaviors and Well-Being?” showed that ROWE employees were healthier and happier. The researchers write:

“To summarize, ROWE facilitates employees’ health-related behaviors (more sleep, more exercise, greater likelihood of going to the doctor when sick, and less likelihood of working when sick). These direct effects of ROWE are, as theorized, mediated by changes in schedule control and negative work-home spillover. On the other hand, ROWE does not directly influence employees’ subjective measures of well-being, although it indirectly influences these outcomes by increasing employees’ sense of schedule control and their ability to manage work and home life, changes that do improve well-being measures.”

By empowering employees to work when and where they needed, the company improved its employees’ health, work-life integration, and well-being.

By Rebecca Pyne

While initiatives to increase employee engagement have been a hot topic for some time, many companies continue to struggle to keep high numbers of their employees feeling engaged at work. What can companies do to make their employee engagement initiatives more effective?

A case study published last month in the Gallup Management Journal shows that including employees in the process of designing and implementing employee engagement initiatives can reap rewards. With Gallup’s help, Stryker Navigation, a global manufacturer of navigation systems for computer-assisted surgery, has been able to involve its employees in the process of bringing about significant increases in employee engagement.

The case study, written by Marco Nink, a Practice Consultant for Gallup and Klaus Welte, a Vice President at Stryker Navigation, has promising implications for employers interested in novel ways of increasing employee engagement.

Asking the Right Questions

While employee surveys assessing engagement are commonly used, Nink and Welte suggest that companies’ employee surveys often fail to effectively measure employee engagement because they ask the wrong questions, confusing employee satisfaction with engagement.

According to Nink and Welte, employee satisfaction is not the same thing as engagement; in fact, employee satisfaction can be connected to passivity. Nink and Welte write, “An employee who is satisfied with his salary or the amount of annual leave is not necessarily, of his own free will, going to lend full support to his employer and his employer’s goals.”

Meanwhile, engagement, which in Gallup’s terms is emotional attachment to one’s work, has a positive impact on productivity and increases the likelihood that employees will act in the interests of the employer.

When Stryker Navigation reached out to Gallup for assistance in increasing employee engagement, Gallup began by utilizing a 12-item questionnaire, the Q12, which assesses employee engagement by measuring the degree to which employees’ core needs and expectations of the workplace are being met. The Q12 asks employees to what extent they agree with key statements such as, “I know what is expected of me at work” and “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.”

The results of the first Stryker Navigation employee engagement survey demonstrated that only 32% of employers were engaged. Gallup found that Stryker employees had provided particularly low ratings for two items: “I know what is expected of me at work” and “I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.”

Creating a Transparent Follow-through Process

Armed with a new understanding of the factors contributing to its employee engagement levels, Stryker’s management worked to more clearly describe what was expected of employees on individual teams and projects and to increase the frequency of feedback discussions. In order to include employees in the implementation process, Stryker began discussing and monitoring action plans for addressing engagement-related challenges at monthly project team meetings.

In doing so, Stryker’s management deliberately shared responsibility for progress in its action plans with its employees while creating a structure for monitoring engagement over the long-term.

Stryker Navigation’s employee engagement efforts led to the percentage of engaged employees doubling from 32% to 64% within the first year and reaching 73% in 2011. Nink and Welte note, “The atmosphere in the company has changed for the better. Employees and managers feel that together they can get things moving and make improvements.”

Additionally, Stryker Navigation has increased its output of products considerably while the quality of new products has also increased as measured by the number of repairs and customer complaints. Nink and Welte emphasize the value of correlating the results of the employee surveys with key performance indicators or KPIs. They write, “By combining these two types of organizational data — the ‘soft’ employee engagement data with the ‘hard’ KPI data — we can demonstrate the direct economic benefit of the actions on costs and growth.”

Lessons from Stryker Navigation and Gallup

Nink and Welte highlight the importance of asking employees the right questions so that a company can develop a clear understanding of what is causing lower levels of engagement and then target those areas. They emphasize the potential of creating a transparent follow-through process that shares the responsibility for progress with employees by involving them in frequent monitoring. Additionally, Nink and Welte call attention to the value of correlating the results of employee engagement surveys with performance indicators and carrying out these surveys regularly, tracking changes over time.

By Melissa J. Anderson

Recently the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its Your Better Life Index, a report which ranks the OECD’s 34 member countries on a number of topics, including work life balance.

According to the OECD, work life balance per country can be measured by comparing the percentage of workers in a country working more than 50 hours a week, the amount of time spent on “leisure and personal care” per day (including sleeping, eating, hobbies, etc), and the rate of employment of mothers.

The organization explains:

“This [work life balance] is a challenge to governments because if parents cannot achieve their desired work/life balance, not only is their welfare lowered but so is development in the country. If parents have to choose between earning money and looking after their children, the result is that there will be too few babies and too little employment.”

The OECD’s concept of work life balance is mainly focused on the well-being of children and ability of parents to be productive. It does take productivity and worker happiness into account, but not as a strong focus. Nevertheless, the measure is an interesting way to see how different countries allocate resources to family-related issues as they pertain to workers.

By Melissa J. Anderson

In the past few years, we’ve seen employee engagement drop significantly from previous levels. In fact, according to Gallup, which is well known for its employee engagement tracking methodology, in the best organizations, the ratio of engaged to disengaged employees is 9.57 to 1. On the other hand, in average organizations, that ratio is only 1.83 to 1. Gallup says that engagement is key to driving effective workers – and disengagement costs US companies $300 billion in lost productivity.

If employee engagement is so important and, simultaneously, so low, why aren’t companies doing more to raise it? And what can companies do to increase the engagement levels of their workforces?

By Melissa J. Anderson

When it comes to talent management, it seems that the majority of HR professionals are turning their noses at performance reviews. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, reporter Rachel Emma Silverman pointed to several studies revealing that HR professionals and managers take little pleasure in the review process.

For example, according to a 2010 study by Sibson Consulting Inc. and WorldatWork, 60% of HR professionals would grade their performance review system a C or below. Another study, she says, “more than 600 employee-feedback studies found that two-thirds of appraisals had zero or even negative effects on employee performance after the feedback was given.”

As a result, she pointed out, several companies are giving up on performance reviews altogether. But as the adage goes, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” How can companies address problems with performance reviews, while still making sure talent is on task, creating value, and growing for the good of the company?

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to a numbers by Gallup, less than a third of Americans (29%) are engaged in their work. That leaves almost three quarters who are not engaged (52%) or actively disengaged (19%). Engaged employees are “enthusiastic about their work and contributing to their organizations in a positive manner.” According to Gallup, these numbers have been relatively steady throughout the year.

Interestingly, Gallup’s writers Nikki Blacksmith and Jim Harter mentioned that engaged employees were more than twice as likely as actively disengaged employees to report that their company was hiring. Blacksmith and Harter believe that engaged employees tend to lead to more innovation and job creation, and noted, “Increasing the percentage of engaged workers in the U.S. could spur a significant amount of job growth, as detailed in Gallup’s latest book, The Coming Jobs War.”

In fact, recent research out of the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics reveals that the number of individuals who are leaving their jobs without being fired is increasing – in October, nearly 1.1 million simply quit their jobs, and ERE pointed out, that’s the highest amount in a decade, and even sharply higher than voluntary quits in September.