Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/343811
8 Executive Series Digest hrreporter.com productivity around this particular question, so that will hit the bottom line, she said. But sometimes it has less to do with engagement and more to do with empower- ment, said David Wexler, former vice-pres- ident of human resources at FreshBooks, which has 145 employees. " e people who serve our cus- tomers are fully empowered to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy. By being fully empowered, it means the buck really stops with them. And when you are empowered, great things happen — you are able to serve the customer with- out seeking approval from some- one else, you are able to innovate in terms of what it is that you are doing to help solve the customer's prob- lem and you're able to bring in other resources in the company that can help that customer as well." It's about building relationships, said Ian Hendry, vice-president of hu- man resources and administration at Interac and president of the Strategic Capability Network. In nancial services, for example, if people are measured on cross- selling more products, customers might feel coerced. However, if the bank teller is merely imparting her knowledge, that changes the nature of the transaction. It becomes more of a partnership, based upon mutual respect, he said. " ere is a connection that's made and there's a skill to that." e challenge becomes how do you drive results, which means pushing people to do more, said Hendry. "At what point do you dissatisfy your employees because you're driving for performance? ere's a ne line between the two and that's a bit of an art and so your ability to do that in large organiza- tion is really tough to do," he said. "You can always create a burning platform that energizes people over the short haul but… it's abso- lutely a long haul. When it becomes same old, same old, then what are you doing to stimulate the performance you're looking for?" Measuring engagement While annual, bi-annual or pulse surveys are still popular with em- ployers when it comes to measuring employee engagement, there are other proxy forms that may be even more important, according to Wexler, such as revenue and pro tability per employee. "If you are generating higher revenues, and higher pro ts per employee, then there's an association with employees being more engaged." FreshBooks also looked at numbers around regretted turnover, he said. "Not all people who leave you are necessarily a loss but when you're losing individuals who are performing and who choose to leave you, that's sending a very clear message that there are issues with regards to engagement, amongst other things." If you look at any one score or measure in isolation, there is a risk you're measuring the wrong thing, said Wexler. "But when you couple revenue per employee, for example, with regretted turnover, if your regretted turnover is low and your revenue per employee is increasing, then that suggests that you're actually doing things to help your bottom line that are healthy for the individual in an organizational perspective." ere can be confusion between engagement and productivity, said Hendry. Engagement scores may be linked to line scores for managers, but that can become a popularity contest, he said. "We have to think a little deeper about what engagement means and how that links to productivity." Leadership's role When it comes to changing those scores, and boosting engagement, employers have a variety of tactics. For one, it's key to combat skepticism by responding to the survey results, said Van Eck. " e worst thing that anyone can do is to survey employ- ees and then not show action. at certainly can erode results, so we've put a big focus on having those engagement action plans and actually reporting out on an annual basis: 'What did we do? We've heard you and this is what we've done.'" At Shoppers, there are three recurring themes that come up: recognition, career development and performance management, said Van Eck. "If you think about those, they're typically tied to leadership ef- fectiveness. So one of our big areas of focus is on developing our leaders to make sure they're strong in these areas." When it comes to restaurants, leadership is critical, said Wyllie. "You have to be present every day and on your game or on stage to demonstrate to your associates how committed you are and how happy you are that they're there because, ultimately, the impact is on our guests," she said. "Actively leading every single day is something that we inspire our franchise partners to do, and we talk about it endlessly — at conferences and town halls and in our communica- tions — to reinforce those behaviours time and time again." Another piece that really encourages the non-believers has been thank-you cards from senior leaders, said Wyllie, which are sent to associates a er positive feedback from customers. " e feedback we get from those associates that are getting those cards is phenomenal, and for something so simple, that has such a signi cant impact has been amazing for us." Leadership is a foundational part of engagement, said Jennifer Trant, general manager of nancial services at Aimia. "Having leaders really role-model behaviour that they're looking for from the employee population is huge." Boosting — or killing — engagement Pride can also help with engagement, be it pride in your job, your leaders or the brand, said Wexler. Meaningful work is also important to employees, said Trant. Bird agreed: "It's also the ability to in uence and e ect change within your sphere of in uence," he ROUNDTABLE >>> productivity around this particular question, so that will hit the bottom line, she said. But sometimes it has less to do with engagement and more to do with empower- ment, said David Wexler, former vice-pres- ident of human resources at FreshBooks, which has 145 employees. " e people who serve our cus- tomers are fully empowered to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy. By being fully empowered, it means the buck really stops with them. And when you are empowered, great things happen — you are able to serve the customer with- out seeking approval from some- one else, you are able to innovate in terms of what it is that you are doing to help solve the customer's prob- lem and you're able to bring in other resources in the company that can help that customer as well." It's about building relationships, said Ian Hendry, vice-president of hu- man resources and administration at Interac and president of the Strategic Capability Network. In ROUNDTABLE