The Performance Improvement Blog

The Course Catalog Is (Should Be) Dead

Recently, I was asked a very thought-provoking question by the director of HRD for a large organization. I was explaining the “5As Framework” to her and she asked, “What are the implications for what we do here?” I immediately launched into my usual speech about getting managers of learners
involved in actively supporting the learning process. This led to a discussion of all the excuses she hears from managers to explain their lack of involvement in employee learning. It wasn’t until later, after further rumination, that I realized the better answer to the director’s question is, “Throw out the course catalog!” 

Like HRD departments in many large organizations, each year they offer a long list of courses and programs that have all of the current buzz words in their titles. I have no doubt that her department delivers excellent, world-class courses and programs. And I’m sure employees enjoy the courses and even say that the knowledge and skills will be very useful to them in their work. However, I’m also quite sure that very little has changed in the wider organization as a result of the many outstanding events put on by this unit. The problem is the lack of alignment between event-based instruction and important business results.

The competency model, which provides the underlying theory of event-based training, is doing a disservice to the current needs of organizations. Training and development professionals seem to believe that if they can identify the competencies that people need in order to do their jobs and then offer courses to teach those competencies, employees will be more productive and successful. The problem with this way of thinking is that performance has as much (if not more) to do with work culture as it does with job competencies. To be successful, employees need supervisors and co-workers who are supportive of learning and performance improvement, they need a supervisor/boss/mentor who talks to them regularly about learning and results, they need the opportunity to apply new learning and to receive feedback, and they and the organization need to be held accountable for learning and results. If there is this culture of learning, employees will continually improve performance.

According to my colleague, Ralph Jacobson, we have to change the local environment so that people actually “work differently”, not just learn how to work differently. All the courses in the world will not change behavior and improve results unless the local culture supports change. At one time, when jobs were static and organizational change came slowly, a menu of well-designed courses was sufficient. Now, when change has to happen rapidly, when we have to find ways to lower the cost of learning, and when we have better and better online, just-in-time, mobile learning resources, event-based learning is no longer the best answer.

We must provide learning experiences to people when and where they need it and in ways that optimizes application to achieving important business results. We need training and development that is timely, short duration, and project-focused. We need frequent on-the-job feedback from supervisor/boss/mentor to employee. For example, leadership skills are best taught during a challenging, team project while the leader is trying out new behaviors and receiving ongoing feedback from a coach. This way of learning will have much more impact on performance than a course or conference on leadership.

What do you think? Can we throw out the course catalog?

St. Jude Trains Its Leaders

We could have been invited to speak about org charts, making tough decisions, managing finances, etc. Instead, we were asked to talk about vulnerability, trust, and engagement. This is what my co-presenters and I did at a one-day leadership program for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital last week. This exceptional pediatric research and treatment center recognizes that it needs to keep learning and that the intra/interpersonal aspects of leadership are as important as the mechanics of managing hospital departments and labs.  

I facilitated a workshop on the leader’s role in ensuring the success of employee learning and development programs.  Brené Brown gave a keynote address about how everyone's sense of vulnerability and shame can be a barrier to leading. Greg McKeown had St. Jude managers 
thinking about how they can make the people around them smarter, more motivated, and more successful. Jim Ferrell talked about minimizing the self-deception we all do as both individuals and organizations. Rich Brandt emphasized the importance of leaders building trust and engagement. And Carl Cohen described the interpersonal dynamics of leading biomedical research teams effectively. The day provided a tremendous learning opportunity for St. Jude’s managers to become more effective leaders. 

 

College Completion Matters

If companies care about having high performing managers, they should become involved in supporting high quality K-12 and post-secondary institutions. They should care deeply about government policies and legislation that affect education for all students. Success in the workplace is related directly to success in college and success in college is related directly to success in K-12 schools. Managers who cannot read and write at college level  or don’t understand the math needed in automated, computer-driven, 21^st century companies will not be successful and, worse, will be a detriment to their organizations. Managers today need the kind of critical thinking and creative problem solving that one can learn in good educational institutions. Businesses need schools and colleges to help more people complete a post-secondary education with the basic knowledge and skills for the modern workplace.

The research supports this emphasis on completion. Lou Glazer, President of Michigan Future, Inc., reports a high correlation between the percentage of college graduates in a region and the vitality of the economy in that region. Speaking of Michigan, he writes:

Human capital is the asset that matters most to knowledge-based enterprises. Michigan’s fundamental economic challenge is that we rank 34th in the proportion of adults with a four-year degree. States without concentrations of talent will have great difficulty retaining or attracting knowledge-based enterprises and are unlikely to be the place where new knowledge-based enterprises are created. 

In a more recent blog post, Glazer writes:

…all the evidence is that the premium for college attainment is increasing. The gap in pay between college educated adults and those without has been growing for decades. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that life time earnings of those with a four year degree is a million dollars more than for those with a high school degree.

And job growth is coming in those industries where college educated workers are most concentrated. From 1990 to 2007 job growth in what we call high education sectors (predominantly health care; education; finance and insurance; information; and professional and technical services) was twice that in the rest of the economy (primarily manufacturing, hospitality, transportation, construction, retail and temporary services). And during the Great Recession those trends accelerated. Of the 8 million lost jobs, 7.6 million came in the low education attainment sectors.

President Obama has made college graduation a high priority of his administration because of the evidence that connects education to jobs. This week Vice President Biden announced an initiative to reward states and schools that are doing something significant to increase their graduation rates. The administration has set a goal of 8 million additional college graduates by 2020.

The College Board has set a goal of 55 % of the 25 to 34 age group achieving a post-secondary degree by 2025. They write:

The United States ranks fourth out of 36 nations in terms of postsecondary attainment for citizens

ages 55 to 64 years old. The United States is fourth behind the Russian Federation, Israel and Canada in the percentage of citizens with postsecondary degrees.  However, among 25- to 34-year-olds, the United States falls to 12th in degree attainment. For this key demographic group, Canada, Korea, the Russian Federation, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Israel, France, Belgium and Australia have managed to leap ahead of the United States, while Denmark and Sweden are close to parity with the United States.

One can quibble with the notion of a causal relationship between a post-secondary education (one-year certificate, two-year associates degree, or four-year bachelors degree) and an increase in jobs and income. It is clear, however, that there is a significant relationship and, given this, it seems to be in the best interests of all of our institutions (business, nonprofits, government) to encourage and support post-secondary education for all students.

 

Google's Search for Good Managers

Managers have a critical role to play in the learning and development of the people who report to them. In fact, that relationship is more critical than anything the HR or Training departments can do to improve performance. This is born out in Google's internal study of good management.

In this self-study, Google identified eight things that “good” managers should do. These imperatives are listed here in order of importance:

1. Be a good coach
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage
3. Express interest in team member’s success and personal well-being
4. Don’t be a sissy [I don’t know what this means.]; Be productive and results-oriented
5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team
6. Help your employees with career development
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team
8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team

Adam Bryant, in an article he wrote about this study for the New York Times, points out that while there is nothing new in this list, Google managers pay attention to these behaviors because they are based on Google data. Another important aspect of this internal research is that having technical skills, while important, is at the bottom of the list which might be surprising to some given the technical nature of the business. Bryant writes:

technical expertise — the ability, say, to write computer code in your sleep — ranked dead last among Google’s big eight. What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.

Apparently, managers are successful in Google, not because of their technical expertise, although that’s important, but because of what they do to help team members learn and develop and achieve success. In the 5As Framework, we call this relationship: “alliance”. The alliance of manager with team member is a critical factor in employee learning and performance improvement.

 

Temporary or Full-Time? Is That the Right Question?

Companies need a flexible workforce, more than ever. They need to add workers quickly to meet unanticipated changes in marketplace demands, they need to grow without spending too much on labor, and they need to respond to normal, cyclical staffing fluctuations. One response to all of these challenges is to bring in temporary workers and another response is to find more flexibility in regular, full-time employees. Ed Frauenheim presents the case for the latter in an article he wrote for Workforce.com. He writes:

Turning to temporary workers is typical during economic recoveries, but some workplace experts are raising questions about the move to a “just-in-time” labor model. Among the concerns are: lack of commitment to the employer, steep wage markups for some temporary jobs, uncertain qualifications of contingent workers and the risk of misclassifying workers as independent contractors, a problem the Obama administration has been targeting.

However, companies need both full-time and temporary workers. Many companies, as they dig out of the recession or manage second and third stage growth or try to manage the vagaries of markets, need the flexibility provided by a combination of full-time and temporary employees.

To use temporary workers effectively, companies need to integrated them into the worklife of the business. Temporary employees can be committed and engaged in their short-term placements if they are hired with that in mind.

The 5As Framework is a useful lens through which to examine the inclusion of temporary employees in a company. According to the Framework, company leaders should ask themselves these five questions:

1. Do temporary employees understand the alignment between the jobs they are being asked to do and the strategic goals of the company?
2. Are expectations for performance clear to temporary employees and is everyone anticipating that they will be successful?
3. Are managers having regular and frequent conversations with their temporary employees about performance goals and progress toward those goals?
4. Are temporary employees being given the same training that any full-time person in the same job would have and are they given the opportunity to immediately apply those newly learned skills on the job?
5. Are measures of progress and performance being used to give temporary employees useful feedback for the purpose of improving performance?

If a company can answer “yes” to each of these questions, then it is very likely that their temporary employees will be committed and engaged and will contribute substantially to the success of the business. 

 

Retaining High-Impact Employees

As we crawl out of the recession, high performing employees will be in greater demand than ever (See blog post: The Coming Turnover Storm.). What are you doing to keep them? Kelly Goldsmith, professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Marshall Goldsmith, executive coach and author, offer excellent advice for retaining these valued employees. They contend that companies need to do essentially six things to keep their talent: 1) show respect for them; 2) create a work environment in which they can thrive; 3) provide ongoing training and education to them; 4) develop a coaching relationship with them; 5) provide continual feedback to them; and 6) involve them in decision-making.

They make the case that developing these “high-impact” employees is strategically important to a company. They write:

Developing people is a strategic process that adds value to both the employees and the bottom line of the organization. Highly committed, highly competent people create financial rewards for the organization; organizations that develop their people and provide opportunities for growth are sought-after by high-impact performers. Great leaders know this simple formula. They understand it and strive to create an environment that supports it. And the result is success!

The tendency of executives is to assume that employees are motivated by money and that if they are paid well, they will stay with a company. Money is a motivator but it is not the only motivator and often it is not the strongest factor in retention. The opportunity to develop one’s skills and abilities, to continue to learn, and to feel respected and valued, are stronger drivers of retention for many high performing employees.

And this is not only true for high performers; all employees are happier and more productive when they feel respected, are developing their abilities, can contribute to the success of the organization, and are involved in making important decisions. The Goldsmiths' recommendations for retaining high-impact employees are also the characteristics of a high performance organization. 

 

Employee Engagement and the Bottom-Line

Does employee engagement make a difference in the performance of companies?  The evidence from a number of studies that correlate findings from employee surveys with financial indicators of company performance suggests that the answer is “yes”.  And everything I know about high performing employees tells me that engagement and performance are related. But a high correlation doesn’t mean that this is true in every case.  I want to know why some low-engagement companies are highly profitable and produce high shareholder return and why some high-engagement companies are not profitable and do not achieve an increase in share value. What is it about the work environment in some companies that even when employees experience what Towers Watson defines as  “…a combination of effective and caring leadership, appealing development opportunities, and a feeling of empowerment that comes with the ability to control one’s work situation”, they are still not successful? And why is it that in other companies, where leaders are uncaring and distant, development opportunities are absent, and employees have little control over their work situations, financial success is achieved?

Living close to their corporate offices, I hear about the fate of Borders Group Inc almost on a daily basis. This once successful giant in the retail book business, with still very loyal employees and customers, is now on the brink of bankruptcy. Employee engagement has been high in that company since it was founded by Tom and Louis Borders 40 years ago, but that has not been enough to save the company.

It’s possible that for companies like Borders evidence of employee engagement was collected at a time when the company was riding a wave of success generated by past practices and it would be just a matter of time before low employee engagement would begin to affect productivity. It’s also very likely that the link between employee engagement and financial performance of a company is not causal. I have addressed the fallacy of the correlation-causation assumption, previously. The relationship of employee engagement to performance is explained by considering other intervening variables. For example, a company that has several niche products and no competition, will, for a limited period of time, be successful in spite of itself. Conversely, a company that has strong employee engagement, but no market for its product and services, will not be successful over time.

Clearly, employee engagement is a key factor in bottom-line success. However, we make a mistake when we assume that employee engagement increases profitability and share value. Many factors contribute to organization performance (e.g., leadership, product/service quality, sales and marketing, financing, economic environment). All of these factors should be considered when attempting to explain or predict long-term success. 

 

Temps: They're Here to Stay

The latest labor data indicates that in the current economic recovery, temporary workers have become a permanent fixture in many companies. The New York Times reports that …

…there are signs that this time around, the economy could be moving toward a higher reliance on temporary workers over the long term…This year, 26.2 percent of all jobs added by private sector employers were temporary positions. In the comparable period after the recession of the early 1990s, only 10.9 percent of the private sector jobs added were temporary, and after the downturn earlier this decade, just 7.1 percent were temporary.

Temporary workers can no longer be thought of as tangential to organizational performance. They often are the first person to whom customers have contact, they become key members of ad hoc project teams, they sometimes offer expertise that can be found nowhere else in the company, and some have a longer history with the organization than many so-called permanent employees.  

As I have written before, temporary workers have become critical members of our organizations and, therefore, we need to pay attention to their on-boarding and development. Very quickly, a company needs them to acclimatize, contribute, and be team players. There’s no time for a gradual learning curve. Typically, the hope is that they will hit the ground running, whether on the front desk or on a new product team.  Yet, at the same time, a poorly prepared, low performing, poor attitude employee (temp or permanent) can have a devastating impact on work climate and team performance. Examine and continually improve the process of hiring, training, developing, and retaining temporary workers much as you would for permanent employees.  

 

Alan Beaulieu on the Economy and Training as a Competitive Advantage

The economy is on the rebound and companies need to make hiring and training a priority. This was Alan Beaulieu’s message at a meeting of the Washtenaw Economic Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan that I attended on September 16^th. With all the negativity about the economy, especially in Michigan, it was refreshing and comforting to hear these words from a highly respected economist. Beaulieu is President of the Institute for Trend Research (ITR), a 60 year old firm with an unusually high level of prediction accuracy, including warning his clients about the start of the Great Recession in 2008. He is co-author of the recently published business strategy book, “Make Your Move.” He not only makes predictions; he presents the economic evidence for those predictions.

According to Beaulieu, the economy will grow slowly and steadily over the next two years. He said that this is the perfect time for companies to bring in the people they’ve been reluctant to hire and prepare those people to help their companies achieve a competitive advantage. He said:

This is the time when we want to make sure that all of our employees are as trained as they possibly can be. We want to make sure we are driving all of the efficiency we can. Cross train. Super train. Reduce work hazards. Make sure the product knowledge is where it should be. Because we can’t waste time losing a single sale because we have somebody who is rude to a customer, doesn’t know the product, or doesn’t know our competitive advantage.

If companies are going to emerge from the Great Recession in a better place than where they started, they must invest in people. It will be their competitive advantage. 

 

Employer-Employee Loyalty

The social contract between employer and employee has changed dramatically in recent years. Loyalty has been the loser. In commenting about a post I wrote last year, Milan Moravec presents the case that long-  term loyalty is no longer part of the implied understanding between management and worker. He writes: 

Employee loyalty and retention: It's not what you think! Business and the public sector are into a phase of creative disassembly where reinvention and adjustments are constant. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are being shed by United Technologies, GE, Chevron, Sam’s Club, Wells Fargo Bank, HP, Starbucks etc. and the state, counties and cities. Even solid world class institutions like the University of California Berkeley under the leadership of Chancellor Birgeneau & Provost Breslauer are firing staff, faculty and part-time lecturers. Yet many employees, professionals and faculty cling to old assumptions about one of the most critical relationship of all: the implied, unwritten contract between employer and employee.

Until recently, loyalty was the cornerstone of that relationship. Employers promised job security and a steady progress up the hierarchy in return for employees fitting in, performing in prescribed ways and sticking around. Longevity was a sign of employeer-employee relations; turnover was a sign of dysfunction. None of these assumptions apply today. Organizations can no longer guarantee employment and lifetime careers, even if they want to. Organizations that paralyzed themselves with an attachment to “success brings success’ rather than “success brings failure’ are now forced to break the implied contract with employees – a contract nurtured by management that the future can be controlled. Jettisoned employees are finding that the hard won knowledge, skills and capabilities earned while being loyal are no longer valuable in the employment market place. 

What kind of a contract can employers and employees make with each other? The central idea is both simple and powerful: the job or position is a shared situation. Employers and employees face market and financial conditions together, and the longevity of the partnership depends on how well the for-profit or not-for-profit continues to meet the needs of customers and constituencies. Neither employer nor employee has a future obligation to the other. Organizations train people. Employees develop the kind of security they really need – skills, knowledge and capabilities that enhance future employability. The partnership can be dissolved without either party considering the other a traitor. 

The new social contract between employer and employee that Moravec describes is based on trust with a heavy dose of reality. Employer and employee must be able to trust that each is making the best decisions given actual market and financial conditions. Although, as Moravec says, they don't have a "future obligation" to each other, they do have an immediate implied obligation to do the best they can for the organization under the circumstances. Employees should do what they can to help their organizations be successful and employers should help employees develop the competencies they need now and in the future, even if that will be with a different organization. This is also  true for temporary employees who have become the norm, not the exception. To get the most from these workers, an employer must create mutual trust quickly and sustain it until the temporary employee leaves.