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.