By Melissa J. Anderson

According to Mercer’s recent What’s Working survey, “rank-and-file” employees are considerably less satisfied with their jobs than their managers – across several different measures. It seems that the higher individuals climb the ladder, the happier they are with their jobs.

Michael Burniston, US and Canada leader of Mercer’s Human Capital business, said, “Across virtually all aspects of the work experience – such as pay, benefits, performance management, careers, work environment and management effectiveness – nonmanagers hold distinctly different views than do their bosses.”

For example, when it comes to recognition, 82% of senior management agreed with the statement, “When I do a good job, my performance is rewarded.” Fifty percent of management agreed, and only 34% of non-management agreed with the statement. Similarly, 80% of senior management said their organization does a good job of matching pay to performance, while 55% of management agreed, and 38% of non-management agreed.

And it’s not just about pay – measures of for career opportunity, management quality, work environment produced similar numbers. Why is there such a divide between workplace satisfactions across levels of an organization? Are business leaders unable to accurately assess the situation on the ground in their companies?

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to a new study by Cardiff University, people with disabilities and long-term health problems are the most likely targets for ill-treatment at work – including violence, unreasonable treatment, and disrespect.

Authored by researchers Ralph Fevre, Duncan Lewis, Amanda Robinson and Trevor Jones, the study involved 4,000 in home face-to-face interviews with UK residents. Almost half of respondents reported experiencing unreasonable treatment (i.e. being forced to take on an unmanageable workload), and 40% said they had experienced “incivility and disrespect” like teasing or bullying. A small portion (6%) of the sample had experienced violence at work.

Yet, the researchers note, this is still a large number of people. They write, “It is important to grasp that these are nationally representative figures. Scaling up these responses shows that, even on our lowest scoring item, over 1 million British employees are injured in some way as a result of violence in the workplace.”

These percentages do include incivility perpetrated by clients, customers, and the general public – and the incidence of ill-treatment of those in public facing jobs was considerably higher than average. But, outside this, according to the study, a major perpetrator of ill-treatment is management. That’s why, the researchers say, any efforts to remedy workplace ill-treatment and bullying must start with culture change at the top.

Management and Bullying

According to the survey, almost a third of employees experience “unmanageable workloads and impossible deadlines” and a quarter said their views and opinions are ignored. One in five said their employers “did not follow proper procedures.”

The study explains:

“…for the most part, it would not be too far-fetched to rename unreasonable treatment as ‘unreasonable management’. We also found evidence that much of this unreasonable treatment has a serial form with the same person, probably a manager, being responsible for two or more incidences of ill-treatment.”

When it comes to incidents of unreasonable treatment, a change in the nature of one’s work or role can be a factor. But according to the report, when it comes to incivility and disrespect, the workplace culture is more often the culprit than the role one occupies.

The study goes on to suggest that managers should be measured on their performance when it comes to fairness. They say, “Genuine commitment to fairness and respect is the only way in which organisations can hope to place the drive for fairness and respect on a par with any other organisational priorities. Indeed, it should be pursued at the same time as other priorities.”

They add:

“Altering the behaviour of managers is the key to the adoption of successful solutions to ill-treatment because they are responsible for so much of it, and because it is managers that leaders will use to help them extend the requirement to promote fairness and respect throughout the organisation.”

Top-down leadership is key to ending workplace ill-treatment.

Other Factors

According to the report, individuals who are most likely to experience unreasonable treatment, incivility, and disrespect are those who with psychological or learning disabilities. “For example they were more than five times as likely to experience gossip, rumours and allegations, nearly five times as likely to experience people excluding them from their group; and eight times as likely to feel threatened,” the report says.

The researchers posit that managers and coworkers are targeting this group because they feel they are getting special accommodations they don’t deserve.

“We believe much of this incivility and disrespect is related to managers and co-workers impressing on workers with other disabilities that, if they had different needs to other workers, they did not deserve the same rewards or, perhaps, to hold onto their jobs. This may well be why they were more than three times as likely to be ridiculed in connection with their work, persistently or unfairly criticised or be in receipt of hints that they should quit their jobs.”

Looking at the larger picture, the researchers suggest that whether employees are treated as people can strongly influence workplace relations. They write, “Employees who thought people were not treated as individuals were at the greatest risk of unreasonable treatment across the board in our model, stronger even than having less control over one’s work or having a disability.”

When managers and coworkers acknowledge one another as individuals, they can better work to create civil and productive workplaces.

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to a new study by Accenture, executives are beginning to view work life balance as the norm. The survey polled almost 4000 male and female executives in 31 countries around the globe, and almost three quarters of respondents (71%) said they have work life balance all or most of the time.

“It was higher than I expected,” said Nellie Borrero, Diversity and Inclusion lead at Accenture. “Several years ago, we may have seen a different answer.”

Nevertheless, the survey, entitled “The Path Forward,” revealed some challenging data. Despite the high percentage of executives who said they had work/life balance, 41% said their career had had a negative impact on their family. In addition, 42% said they often sacrifice time with their family to succeed.

The survey might show that work/life balance is taking on a new understanding – an acknowledgement that ‘having it all’ is not a reality. Balance means there are always going to be sacrifices when it comes to work and family, and that making those sacrifices is okay.

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to PwC’s latest Annual Global CEO Report, the fifteenth, CEO concern over talent is growing – and with good reason. According to the report, nearly a quarter of CEOs (24%) said they had to cancel a key strategic initiative because of a talent shortage in the past year.

The same percentage (24%) said they couldn’t achieve growth forecasts overseas or in their home countries because of the talent shortage.

Dennis M. Nally, Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers International, pointed out that two-thirds of CEOs said they will “devote more attention to developing talent pipeline.” In a letter opening the report, her wrote, “The focus on talent and customers today is a natural ‘next step’ towards establishing their organisations in the markets where they operate and building the trust needed for the business of tomorrow.”

The report, which polled 1,250 company leaders from 60 countries, showed that CEOs are taking a more strategic approach to talent management – and given the competitive nature of today’s changing workforce, they have their work cut out for them.

By Melissa J. Anderson

Yesterday hundreds of business leaders came together on International Corporate Philanthropy Day at Morgan Stanley’s New York Headquarters to celebrate the commitment of over $1.6 billion in skills based volunteer services by 78 top companies, as part of a new campaign called A Billion + Change. In addition to Morgan Stanley, the group includes companies like American Express, Ernst & Young, GE, JP Morgan Chase, PIMCO, UPS, and more, which will provide pro bono services to non-profit organizations that need it – in the spirit of “professionals helping professionals.”

US Senator Mark Warner opened the conference by explaining the need non-profit organizations currently face. Even while so many individuals are hurting because of the recession, he said, today, the government spends a smaller percentage of GDP on safety net programs than it did in the 1960s. Non-profits are increasingly relied upon to fill in those services.

He proposed that a stronger partnership between business and charities could bridge the gap between what non-profits can do now and what they’ll be called upon to do tomorrow. “I urge companies not simply to write checks, but to give up their most important assets – their employees’ time and expertise,” he said.

Warner explained that non-profits are often fueled by passionate people who truly believe in the good work they are doing. “But that doesn’t necessarily turn them into efficient, well-run, metric driven organizations,” he explained. Skilled volunteering doesn’t mean simply putting in man hours as much as it means helping an organization build the capacity to get to the next level.

He added, “There’s a real value-add for an employer if their skills are being used in the non-profit sector.”

By Melissa J. Anderson

According to a new study, employee engagement measurement tools may not go deep enough to discover whether engagement is really translating to productivity or loyalty. The study of almost 1000 professionals in China, India, the Netherlands, and the UK, revealed four different types of employee engagement – and each engagement type yields different performance results.

The report, entitled “A study of the link between Performance Management and Employee Engagement in Western multinational corporations operating across India and China,” was written by Dr. Elaine Farndale, Assistant Professor, HR Studies Department, Tilburg University, The Netherlands; Prof. Dr. Veronica Hope Hailey, Associate Dean & Professor of HRM and Change, Cass Business School, City University, UK; Prof. Dr. Clare Kelliher, Professor of Work and Organization, Cranfield School of Management, UK; and Prof. Dr. Marc van Veldhoven, Professor of HR Studies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Initially the researchers set out to discern whether engagement tools could aptly measure preformance management standards in developing economies.

They noted, “Ultimately, it is important to know what type of engagement you are measuring, how you are communicating about the types of engagement you desire, and what action plans might help to create the necessary engagement to achieve firm performance.”

What they found was that the effectiveness of employee engagement measurement tools is largely dependent on the kind of engagement a company is looking for.

Four Kinds of Engagement

According to the researchers, there are four kinds of employee engagement: job state engagement, organization state engagement, job behavioral engagement, and organizational behavioral engagement.

• Job state engagement “is about people loving their job, having great enthusiasm to get out of bed each morning and do their daily tasks.”
• Organization state engagement “is about people loving the company: these people make great ambassadors for spreading the corporate brand.”
• Job behavioral engagement “is about people taking the initiative in their daily work, and looking for development opportunities.”
• Organization behavioral engagement “is about employees being proactive in highlighting problems and suggesting improvements.”

The researchers comment, “Arguably, behavioral engagement may be more beneficial to firms from a productivity perspective, whereas state engagement creates a pleasant environment for people to work in.”

And while research as shown in the past that evaluating employee engagement often leads to an increase in engagement later on, this wasn’t true in every case. “The frequency of performance evaluation was only linked with increasing employee state engagement with the organization,” they wrote.

Certain performance outcomes are linked with each type of engagement, particularly when it comes to long-term and short-term performance and loyalty. But some factors increase engagement across the board – for example, ensuring workers have the resources they need to do their job. The researchers explained:

“Both job and organization resources (performance feedback, autonomy, development opportunities, task variety, welfare, and support from line manager, colleagues and senior management) are linked to positive employee engagement of all types, and might therefore be useful tools for enhancing engagement. Equally, a relatively high level of pressure to produce has a positive effect on employee behaviors (although, of course, too high a level may lead to burnout).”

Additionally, they continued, fairness is a key factor in engagement.

“Fairness and transparency in HRM practices were highlighted as being critical, particularly in the Chinese context where people are very willing to talk to each other about their level of pay, for example. …Organizational justice is positively associated with higher levels of job and organization state engagement: if people feel they are being treated fairly, they are more likely to talk about their work and their organization with passion and pride.”

When it comes to measuring engagement across different countries, the researchers said they may need different tools. They explained that people living in developing countries who are hired by Western multinationals are likely already amenable to Western management techniques. They speculated that if they ran the same tests in companies owned and run out of their own countries, employees would respond differently, because a different type of person would work there. The main difference they noted between engagement levels on behalf of people in developing countries and their Western counterparts was that workers in India and China were more likely to work well under a hierarchical management style.

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.