Employee engagement in a VUCA environment

The business world has always been a challenging place. This is especially true today, when we are operating in what is known as the VUCA environment- volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous.

In such an environment, an organization relies heavily on its workforce to stay engaged, and give in their best to ensure that the organization reaches its desired results. Accordingly, many organizations invest in periodic surveys to gage the engagement levels of their employees.

However, what happens when an organization is undergoing even more changes than normal, and is in turmoil? If the organization is struggling with these changes, so would be the employees as well. Hence, organizations would ideally be spending more of their energies in understanding the pulse of their workforce, right?

Wrong!

Unfortunately, it is a general perception that organizations should only check the pulse of their employees when business is doing well, and/or organization has some growth plan. Most organizations shy away from conducting employee surveys when the company is in a turmoil- say if there have been mergers, change in leadership, or business plans have not been met. In any of these aforementioned situations, and any other similar situation, the likely approach to employee surveys is to cancel them.

There are two primary reasons for this. Firstly, organizations want to focus the funds on ‘things that truly matter’. And secondly, organizations expect dismal results as employees are likely to voice their displeasure in such situations.

However, canceling engagement surveys for either of these reasons is not the approach that organizations ought to take. In times when the organizations are in a flux for various reasons, employees tend to be uncomfortable as well. In this situation, management approaching them for their feedback will be reassuring for them. The management can also understand the specifics of their employees’ discomfort, and accordingly take measures to ease it. Failing in doing so, would lead to high attrition, and low productivity, which would only further aggravate the organization’s already difficult condition. Hence, investing in understanding the pulse of employees becomes even more critical during difficult times.

The other important point to note is how the results of an employee survey is perceived by the management. Surveys are essentially diagnostics to understand the state of employees. In case, the results are negative, then that is actually a success for the management because they now have an opportunity to address the issues, before they catapult. This is a much better situation to be in, than if they remained unaware of their employees’ opinion while it continued to silently hurt the organization.

In a VUCA environment, it is an organization’s workforce that determines if it is going to sail through, or sink. In such a situation, it is prudent for any management to invest in understanding the sentiment of its employees, and take measures to engage them, as this is what would ‘truly matter’ in the organization’s journey to reach its goals.

Understanding Employee Engagement - Inspireone

Employee engagement has been the buzz word for some time now as is evident in its ranking as the top 2 focus areas in Deloitte’s HCM Study in 2015 and 2016. Organizations are increasingly understanding its importance in driving business performance and continuously look at ways to boost the engagement levels in their organization. While the connection between employee engagement and business performance is getting highlighted, it’s important to first fully comprehend what employee engagement means. For instance, a common misconception is to view employee engagement as another word for employee satisfaction.

That, of course, is not completely true. While yes, employee satisfaction is crucial to drive employee engagement, the latter is more holistic, encompassing a few other factors. According to the IBM Kenexa High Performance Engagement model, employee engagement includes four components, namely, Satisfaction, Advocacy, Commitment, & Pride.

Let’s deep dive into each of these 4 elements to understand employee engagement understanding-employee-engagement better.

Satisfaction: In order to be engaged, an employee must be satisfied with the job they do, and the company that they work for. This often happens when the job that an employee is doing is aligned to his/her both interest & aptitude. Moreover, employee satisfaction is also determined by an organization’s efforts to make its employees happy. This is a critical component for employee engagement because unless the employees are satisfied and content with their professional life, it is unlikely for them to put in any discretionary efforts.

Advocacy: The employees of an organization are the greatest & most effective brand ambassadors of that organization.  It is important that employees like to advocate the organization they work for. If this is an aspect which is well taken care of, then all employees, and not just those in sales & recruitment, could be the champions to build confidence in both potential clients & talent for the organization. Employee advocacy is instrumental for the organization to develop its brand. Also, it is quite distinct from employee satisfaction. For example, an employee working with an internet service provider might be very content with his/her job because they can come in late and leave early and that nobody critics his/her output. However, if the same individual were asked to suggest an internet provider for his/her friend, it is unlikely that he/she will recommend his/her own company. This would be because he/she doesn’t have faith in the company’s focus on quality. Hence, it is crucial that employees are not just satisfied, but also are advocates of their company.

Commitment: At times employees are happy in the job that they are in. However, they still look out for other options. This brings in an element of instability in the workforce because the organization can never be sure if one of their key resources will quit, say, in the middle of a project. This is likely to happen when there is no strong motivator holding the employees back. For example, if pay is what is responsible for an employee’s satisfaction, another company can easily poach him/her by offering a higher salary. Hence, it is crucial to always be in sync with the commitment levels of your employees, and build your own employee value proposition for each employee.

Pride: It is important that employees take pride in working for the company that they do. This is critical because this links with & boosts all the other 3 aforementioned elements. When an employee feels proud to be associated with a company, they are likely to be satisfied, likely to advocate the same to others, and stick with the organization longer. Employee pride also leads the employees to be more driven towards achieving greater results for the organization. For example, suppose an organization is known for launching innovative solutions which are state of the art. Employees are likely to feel proud to be associated with such a brand. They are also likely to keep up the organization’s reputation of being innovative by directing their own efforts in that direction, thus, leading to discretionary efforts.

In conclusion, employee engagement is critical for performance. Numerous studies have listed down myriad ways in which employee engagement accelerates business results. However, whenever an organization is looking at improving their employee engagement level, it is important that they look at all these four components together. It is only then that organizations can translate employee engagement into business results.

5 Criteria to look for while choosing an Employee Engagement Survey provider

Conducting an employee engagement survey is like visiting a doctor in many ways. An individual consults a doctor when he/she wants to assess his/her health; it could be because they are currently experiencing some ailment, or because they wish to check their general health. Similarly, the leadership team of any organization would partner with employee engagement consultants to conduct an employee engagement survey when they want to understand the issues in their organization.

Given the criticality of such a survey initiative, it is imperative that your organization keeps certain points in mind while choosing their survey provider. We have listed 5 such key criteria to look out for while selecting an employee engagement partner.

1.       The science behind the survey

When visiting a doctor, an individual always checks if the practitioner is well qualified for the job. Similarly, it is critical for organizations to assess if the survey partner is qualified for the job of running their survey. One important parameter gauge this is to understand the framework or the science behind the partner’s survey solution. The framework usually forms the backbone of the survey, as both the design and the results will be based on the framework. Hence, while shortlisting your survey partner, look for someone who understands how to drive not just engagement, but even business performance.

2.        Credibility

An employee engagement survey requires employees to share their honest opinion on myriad facets about the organization. Some of these opinions might not be seen as ‘favourable’ to the senior leadership team. Consequently, employees would only be comfortable in sharing their honest opinion when they are confident that it would be completely anonymous and would have no repercussions on them. Hence, it is important that organizations partner with service providers who are established for their credibility, thus eliciting honest employee feedback. An important data point to ask the partner is the number of engagement projects they do annually and the data points / available benchmarks in your industry. 

Emplouee Engagement Survey

3.       Lead time to launch the survey

Let’s draw a parallel here with the time when an individual has a medical emergency. The said individual would like the doctor to diagnose the ailment at the earliest. Having to wait in a long queue might aggravate the condition, while almost certainly affecting the individual. Similarly, when an organization is looking to run an engagement survey, they want to get started as soon as possible. Having to wait for the survey provider to get all the requirements in place to launch the survey is not ideal. Hence, while looking for an employee engagement survey partner, check on their lead time to survey launch. Anytime up to 3 weeks is your benchmark.     

4.       Quick access & dynamic reports

Suppose the individual got all the tests done. How long would he/she be comfortable waiting before receiving the results? Not very long, clearly. Waiting for the survey results is equally uncomforable for organizations. With the best technology in place, partners should provide results the minute the survey concludes.  This immediate reporting helps the organization to study, understand and action on the survey results at the earliest, while the survey results are still relevant.

5.       Post survey consulting & support

Finally, the individual who had gone to the doctor and has received his/her report. Now what? The individual would obviously want the doctor to work with him to understand the reason behind the diagnosis, and what could be some of the medicines/therapy to get well. Similarly, the survey provider should also have the consulting capability to understand, interpret, and share the action plans for the survey. That would give the senior leadership team very specific issues to execute. Your organization may also want a longer term engagement with a survey provider who can not only conduct the survey and share the results, but also hand hold your organization to improve engagement in a sustainable manner and also impact business performance.

In summary, conducting an employee engagement survey should be considered as a strategic imperative which should highlight insights shared by your workforce that can help you leapfrog your business and retain your talent. It’s also a strong signal to your workforce on your commitment to their success in your organization. Hence, while selecting the best consulting firm with whom to partner, carefully weigh in the five parameters above and thereafter choose on the basis of the firm which provides you the best fitment – in terms of understanding your organization’s context.

How does communication impact employee engagement?

Just the other day, we presented the findings from the engagement survey for one of the world’s leading bathroom fittings company.

At first glance, their numbers and accompanying qualitative feedback on employee engagement were extremely positive. Particularly, a 100% response rate and over 3 comments per employee on average went to show just how important every employee believed the survey was and how much they expected would improve as a result of this survey.

The organization had also pegged itself against other high performing organizations in the same industry and comparable industries to benchmark its performance and engagement scores relative to others

While all the scores checked out per the CEO’s expectations, he began to realize a common trend across all areas of improvement:

• The company had not scored as favorably in it’s Performance Management process owing to low scores in HR and Managerial effectiveness
• Despite being a global leader with dominant market share in countries like India, employees did not give a thumbs up to how the company went about resolving customer related issues, especially after-sales queries from dealers and end customers
• Employees voted down the ability of their managers to engage in 1:1 conversations with them relating to their career goals, development and felt the overall ability to relate to and trust managers was inherently missing
• Even though the organization’s goals and long term vision was a source of pride for employees, they felt directionless on the progress they and their company were making towards these goals. Many employees cited that despite clear goals set at the start of the year, many changes were introduced without enough firsthand knowledge about why those changes to the organization’s goals were important.
• Lastly, despite several areas of improvement, there were genuine high performing areas that the organization excelled at such as safety, quality assurance and brand name in the market. However, employees believed that successes in these areas (and others) were not highlighted nor were they rewarded in the local markets where such milestones were being achieved. In the absence of such R&R, it became harder for best practices to be highlighted and shared across the organization.

As you might have guessed, ineffective communication or a lack of enough communication emerged as a stark gap across the organization, emanating perhaps from the senior leadership’s inability to constantly communicate the shifting priorities of the organization. This communication gap further trickled down to local managers not being able to have proper discussions with their team members.

Many other smaller but equally telling incidents were tabled by the CEO and his HR Director relating to how employees feared speaking out their minds and avoided confrontations that later would flare up to become much larger issues. For example, for a local manager at one of their largest plants, the idea of discussing HR policies seemed trivial enough to Whatsapp it to his team members. Little wonder then that members of his team either suffered from a misinterpretation of the policies or worse an equivalent way of responding to the manager on matters such as taking leaves, working from home, etc.

Quick to grasp on the seriousness of the matter, the CEO resolved to put together a quick action plan to arrest this communication issue within his immediate team and thereafter ensure it cascaded down all the way to the local managers at the plant and branch offices.

This incident might not be as isolated of a case as you may expect. In fact, 60% or more annual employee engagement survey results point to effective communication as a key lever to improve important business issues – from sales and customer service to manufacturing and managerial effectiveness.

By getting it right, organizations can create an internal momentum that catalyzes employees to provide discretionary efforts, which ultimately improves employee engagement results and in turn business performance.

Let the Project Management Begin!!

The account is closed and the monies start rolling in.  We’ve bagged the client and it’s a brand name that is worth bragging of for the years to come.  The account manager has earned his incentives for a job well done.

Then begins the interesting albeit overwhelming phase of project management.

The question that most project managers grapple with is this: Is Project Management the SCIENCE OF MANAGING THE PROJECT OR THE ART OF MANAGING THE CLIENT? There are some sticky situations that we, as project managers tend to get into. I’ve touched upon a few key ones below:

Sticky Situation 1: Creepy Crawlies

The client asks for additional deliverables that were not accounted for in the project scope. These requests creep in subtly but may soon snowball into a large-ish scope extension which impacts the project financially

What can we do? Ask the right questions initially which will define the scope of the project more tightly. Also evaluate the client request to see whether it can be accommodated with minimal cost and resource implication

Sticky Situation 2: Pass the Parcel

Your internal delivery team members are not on the same page as you when it comes to what needs to get delivered for the client. This is a sticky situation which presents itself more often when there are multiple delivery consultants working on the same project.

What can we do? Communication is the key! Always keeps the communication flowing between client and delivery consultants. You need to make sure that any recent information is passed on to the other party with the suitable context so that there is no room for misinterpretation

Sticky Situation 3: You just missed the bus

How often does it happen that you’ve communicated the deadline for a client delivery internally to the project team and delivery team right at the beginning of the project and they still miss the date?  You had prepared a detailed project plan and even marked a reminder on your calendar.  But you end up losing credibility with the client.

What can we do? It’s a good idea to have in-process steps within your project plan. For example, if a communication mail needs to be sent out on 15th September, it’s not merely enough to have the 15th September highlighted in your project plan. Plan for the interim steps and work backward so that you have a deadline of 10th September to create the draft invite, 12th September for internal approval, and so on. Also, have a reminder in your calendar to remind your project team of the approaching deadline!

Sticky Situation 4: Oh oh! Didn’t see this coming

The faster you learn that you are not God, the better! Not everything is in your hands and unexpected circumstances at the client end can change the scope in a project sometimes.  You haven’t accounted for this change and now your entire plan around costing and resourcing flies out the window

What can we do? Ever heard of a ‘Plan B’? At the inkling of an unexpected scenario, sit with the client and discuss the potential risks to the project. Then, do the same with your internal project and delivery team. Pick on each other’s brains to come up with contingency plans around the given cost and resources. You’d be surprised to find out that the dumb-looking guy on the project team is actually the brightest bulb!

Building Human Capital and Emotional Intelligence - By the Numbers

The valuation of companies is driven significantly by their intangible assets. In the last decade, competition has become so fierce that any edge gained by the introduction of new processes or technology is short- lived. Companies can no longer rely on investment in capital or physical assets to provide a competitive advantage. People have taken the centre stage in achieving sustainable economic growth. Given the significant financial impact of people in organizations we often refer to them as ‘human capital’.

A survey conducted by TMI across the world and organizations threw up alarming results pertaining to employee engagement at a given point in time in most organizations:

One out of 10 employees was on the lookout for a new job

4 out of 10 employees were not proud of their organization and spoke negatively about it

8 out of 10 were indifferent towards their organization – did not feel responsible for achieving its goals and were at best committed with their minds

Only 2 out of 10 employees were proud of their organization, they were committed both with their minds and their hearts.

80% of decisions are made emotionally. And today’s business winners will be those who best connect emotionally and empathetically. » K. Roberts, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi

The Need to Develop Emotional Intelligence

At the heart of Building Human Capital, is the leadership of the organization. Research today is attributing almost 40 % of business results in organizations to its leadership.

70% of all change initiatives fail due to people issues – inability to lead, inability to deal with change.

A survey of US employers reveals that:

More than 50% of employees lack the motivation to keep learning and improving

4 in 10 people cannot work cooperatively

Only 19% of entry level applicants have adequate self-discipline for their jobs

Leadership development programs yield disappointing results, wasting billions of dollars

70% of all change initiatives fail due to people

issues—inability to lead, lack of teamwork, unwillingness to take initiative, inability to deal with change, etc.

Primary derailer of top executives: a lack of impulse control

Given below are a few examples of how Emotional Intelligence is a key success factor in organizations across industries:

US Air Force –

Used a EQ module to select recruiters for the Air Force’s front-line HR personnel

The Air Force found that by using emotional intelligence to select recruiters, they increased their ability to predict successful recruiters by nearly three-fold

Savings of $3 million annually

At Loreal –

Sales agents selected on the basis of certain emotional competencies significantly outsold salespeople selected using the company’s old selection procedure

On an annual basis, salespeople selected on the basis of emotional competence sold $91,370 more than other salespeople did, for a net revenue increase of $2,558,360

At Infosys –

Infosys's 2010 annual report also includes a "comprehensive intangible assets score sheet" that can be used as a decision-making tool to determine how successful the firm has been at investing in its people from year to year.

Research estimates that while companies could easily add 10-20% to their operating income by better utilizing human capital management, only a small number even reached the 0.5% mark. Suffice it to say, companies are leaving a wealth of value in their intellectual assets unrealized.

Leadership Assessments: New Practices

Scientific and predictive validity seem to be the mantra for organizations today as they look at building rigor and objectivity in their hiring process. Instead of merely hiring the ‘right person for the right job’, organizations have become more appreciative of charting out a career graph for new hire hires even as they are being considered for the job.

We appreciate the importance of choosing candidates who possess the capacity and orientation to take on strong leadership roles tomorrow. Investing to select future leaders at the level of hiring itself presents multiple benefits to the organization concerned.

1. The decision of hiring individuals is based on well-researched assessment tools, which show a strong correlation between scores on the assessment and performance in leadership roles. Hence, the organization is trusted to make a sound hiring decision.

2. The assessment can throw up some very insightful data with respect to the candidate’s strengths and opportunities keeping in mind a specific role. By providing a career graph to the individual along with a development plan at the time of joining, the organization provides confidence to the candidate that the right efforts are being invested in making him or her successful.

3. Many times hiring technically sound individuals may prove costly at a later stage when the individual is being considered for promotion. Because candidates have been accepted purely on the basis of their technical or behavioral skills, they may not necessarily make the best people managers. Assessing candidates on their leadership capacities helps organizations in planning ahead of time.

CASE IN POINT

Our client, part of the USD 3 billion Indian conglomerate, is engaged in sales and servicing of luxury cars through state-of-the-art showrooms in Southern India. It is one of the world's leading premium brands and is amongst the most admired car brands across the world.

To achieve its vision to acquire and maintain global leadership position in the automobile space, the Company recognized the significance of having the right leaders spearheading the business. Through ongoing and structured deliberations with the Capability Building and Senior Leadership Team, and in partnership with InspireOne, the company came up with a rigorous Leadership Assessment exercise for the hiring of college graduates.

The hires were selected to go through an internally-led Leadership Acceleration Program (LAP) which focused on a fast-track job rotation program of 9-12 months. By the end of the program, these newly hired recruits were designated leadership positions with teams reporting into them. 

Hiring Process:

The Company’s selection panel visited tier 1 and tier 2 Indian business schools for a pre-placement interview. All students who choose to go through the selection procedure went through 5 stages and candidates were filtered as they moved through stages:

Analytical Test: This was a short paper and pen test, which contained 10 questions on Logical Reasoning. A time-bound test, approximately 1 minute was designated to solve each question. All students who cleared this test were moved to the next level.

Group Discussion: A case study of the companywas provided to a group of 6-7 candidates. The candidates were judged on how they were able to take decisions as the CEO of the organization around various situational challenges that cropped up in year 2006.

Personal Application: Candidates were asked to fill a personal application form which provided an insight into their personality. The questions pertained to the personal experiences that the candidate may have gone through. 

Personal Interview: The selection panel conducted a one-on-one interview with the candidate for roughly 20-30 minutes. The candidate was primarily judged on the 4 E's i.e. positive Energy, ability to Enthuse, Edge, Execution power and passion.

Evaluation of Leadership Capacity: This was the last and most critical filter to determine selection of a candidate. In line with the vision to select future leaders, the company partnered with InspireOne. The objective of this online questionnaire was to identify the natural leadership orientations, leadership styles and career anchors of the candidate. Based on the outcome of the questionnaire, the selection panel took a decision of 'hire' or 'no hire'.

Customization:

Keeping in mind the values and ethos that the organization aimed to promote as part of its culture, the team came up with following 13 behavioral requirements for a candidate to be selected.

1. Self motivation

2. Execution orientation

3. Analytical

4. Ability to work under pressure

5. Goal orientation

6. Passion to serve

7. Nurture Talent

8. Creativity

9. Accountability & Ownership

10. Collaboration

11. Decisiveness

12. Passionate

13. Seeks Quality

To meet the requirements of the organization, we mapped the leadership orientations to each behavioral requirement. A measurement scale was designed in order to evaluate the candidate on the 13 parameters. Each parameter could gain a maximum of 5 points for a candidate. Hence, a candidate could score a maximum of 65 on the overall scale. Defined by the purpose of the exercise and the background of the candidates, the range defined for hire was approximately 15 - 25.

In addition to the measurement outcomes, we analyzed the report and provided a brief summary for each candidate based on his or her strengths and areas of development. The scoring and analysis was conducted keeping in mind the specific role that the candidate was being considered for.

Assessing success:

Using the aforementioned assessment process, the organization has hired 56% of the candidates from the total applied. In order to assess the success the organization may be recommended to use the following measures:

Performance appraisal data at the end of the Leadership Acceleration Program is an effective way to determine accuracy of the results from the assessment exercise. 100% candidates must successfully complete the Leadership Acceleration Program and are deemed ready to take on leadership responsibilities.

Engagement surveys conducted within respective teams after 6 months of taking on leadership role should produce sufficient data.

Minimal attrition rate from amongst the candidates hired through the new assessment exercise to be documented on yearly basis.

The Seven Deadly Pitfalls in Designing Sales Training Programs | InspireOne

Different organizations have different focus, mindset, set-up & budgets for sales training depending upon various factors like their industry, turnover, business strategy, outlook/philosophy of senior management, etc. They may or may not have a dedicated training & development department to identify sales training needs & conduct sales training accordingly. Irrespective of this fact, there are certain pitfalls that organizations need to be aware of & avoid, while designing sales training programs. This is very imperative to ensure effectiveness of the training programs & to get the maximum bang for each penny spent on them.

Here are the top seven pitfalls that we feel are critical to watch out for & avoid, while designing sales training.

Pitfall 1: Not having a clear and easily definable application or relevance to the training

Many organizations fall into the trap of looking to conduct sales training based on the current fad in the industry led by some newfound simulation, game, sales process, model or formula. This propensity reflects a herd mentality rather than a training program based on a real business need aimed at achieving a real business & learning objective. Sure, new developments in sales training might be useful, but organizations should judiciously evaluate if they are really relevant for their business & industry and then go for them. After all, the concepts & skills from the training must find application in your business & give your sales people some real firepower to make better deals.

Pitfall 2: Only the frontline sales team needs training

Many organizations are of the belief that the frontline sales teams, who go out into the market & personally interact with prospects/clients, should be the recipient of most and in some cases, all the sales training. Sure, the frontline sales team needs to have a very high degree of selling skills as they personally are in contact with the market and would have a very high level of positive and /or negative impact on the business. Having said that, the importance of continually training the immediate supervisors of the frontline teams and others in sales leadership role cannot be overlooked. As they are ultimately responsible for the performance of the frontline teams, the skills needed for motivating, coaching, leading & driving productivity through teams need to be regularly honed. Also, the people in managerial roles play a big role in ensuring the application of training by the frontline team on day to day basis.

Pitfall 3: Our sales team is already trained & evolved and therefore doesn’t need a structured training program anymore.

True, your sales teams might have highly experienced sales people, might have undergone sales training in the past, come from reputed institutes and performed satisfactorily so far. All this, unfortunately, cannot guarantee success in the future as well. With the changing dynamics of the business, the fluctuating economic scenarios & ever increasing competition, all the sales people need continual “up-gradation” of knowledge & skills. Also it is often seen that many sales people have very sound technical expertise but lack the selling skills to make the sale. Lastly, research on effective sales people has shown that the performance of a sales person is also due to several external factors which are either unknown to the sales person, or worse, rejected by him or her as not important. Either ways, this spells trouble if undetected as the sales person in question takes undue credit while not letting his or her weakness come to the forefront to get developed.

Pitfall 4: That’s how we did it till now

Many organizations are comfortable following the historical practices for conducting sales training programs like following the same set of training calendar programs year on year, following the same training methodologies, etc. With changing times & business complexity, they need to be flexible & change with time to do what is required currently to best equip their sales teams.

Pitfall 5: Concluding once the workshop is over

Many organizations do not have a clear plan and/or commitment to ensure the sales team is applying the learning post a well-structured workshop. The real business impact from a sales training comes from its application more than the workshop itself.

Pitfall 6: Only thing that matters is how the trainer is delivering during the workshop.

No doubt about the importance of the quality of the trainer & his or her way of facilitating a workshop. But it is also very critical to ensure that a thorough pre-workshop diagnostics & customization is done by the trainer to understand the ultimate business objective to be achieved from the training, the dynamics of the company & the sales team, etc to ensure effective delivery of the workshop.

Pitfall 7: Cramming too many modules or topics to be addressed in a single workshop

Organizations should resist the temptation of cramming too many topics to be covered in a workshop as it can have serious implications on the quality of learning by the sales person. “Lets add Negotiations Skills as well” can be extremely detrimental and counterproductive if the two day program’s key objective is to develop better listening and probing skills among sales people. A good way to ensure this pitfall is avoided is to look at your sales process and identify all the challenges across the sales process, which occur to make a successful sale. Thereafter, prioritize them in terms of the following categories to conclude on what can wait or be deferred for later development:

Applicability – the number of sales people with this challenge

Degree of Acceptance – how many people believe in the criticality of the challenge?

Business impact – What happens if this challenge is not overcome?

Ripple Effect – How early in the sales process does this challenge occur and does it impact give rise to any other challenge

Developing your sales force on a regular basis can have a substantial positive impact on company performance provided it is properly designed and the above pitfalls are avoided.

Have you come across any other pitfall that has limited the success of a sales training initiative? We would love to hear your perspectives and how you overcame those pitfalls.

Integrating Technology with Assessments | InspireOne

Numbers are honest. Sometimes, brutally so. Anything that can be measured is mapped to a number. Right from the number of man hours needed to bring a software project to completion to the number of productive hours spent by a unit of the organization. However, there is one thing that numbers can’t do by themselves – make decisions. That job, thankfully, still rests with people. Imagine a world where the right people are armed with the right numbers. Imagine a world where the honesty of numbers meets the intuition of man. Imagine a world where you have all the information you need to quantify things like employee productivity. Our assessment tools bring this world as close to reality as is possible in this day and age.

One thing all managers, recruiters and executives complain about is the fact that their decisions are made based on very abstract and often intangible and unquantifiable attributes. The gap between feeling and fact, intuition and reality is what our assessment tools seek to fill. Let us look at recruitment, for example. It is pretty obvious that the quality of your organization would be a direct function of the quality of recruits. Recruiters often face one glaring problem – how do we make sure that he/she is the right person for the job, which is a big deal, given that that’s what their job is – to find the right people. The first step towards understanding whether an individual fits the requirement is toassess the individual.

Humans assess and size each other up very quickly. We’ve developed immense stereotypes about each other that have grown over thousands of years. However, human assessment based on human perception can be extremely dangerous due to the perception being impacted by elements such as bias. Given the way things are at this point of time and given the fact that we’re unlikely to nominate a machine as CEO/president in the near future, it would be safe to assume that we can’t change ‘who’ makes those assessments. What we can change, is ‘how’. Assessment tools drive out human perception and bias and replace it with a set of objective indicators. You could assess whether or not a candidate is fit for a job by looking at his EQ or personality tests. You still get to make the decision. But you now have the ability to make an informed and objective decision.

You could argue that standardized as well as customized tests have been around since the beginning of time. You could also argue that we have always used some objective measures to arrive at decisions. So what’s different about assessment tools these days? There’s a huge list, actually. But let us start out with a couple of benefits you stand to gain out of these tools. To start with, you could actually conduct these tests online. Great, but that only makes it easier for collection of data. It isn’t building any intelligence into our systems, you may ask. The answer to that is simple, really. It isn’t just collection of information that’s easy, but also storage and retrieval. Online tests enable you to create huge repositories of data – which you could use for modelling something, or even use as a baseline for a different entity.

The biggest benefit of collecting such information or running such tests online is the fact that these tests can then be analyzed via a variety of techniques, which can again be customized. You can slice and dice across data, look for outliers, look at measures of central tendency and what not! This information can lend several perspectives and would form an immense repository that would hold you in good stead later. What’s more, given the fact that we’re moving into a cloud based environment, all this information is stored on the cloud, making it accessible to any place with an internet connection! Have multiple branches that span across continents? No problem, as long as you have an ISP who is willing to give you an IP address that you can use to get on to the internet. If you can read this blog, you can access your data. As simple as that.

Most organizations are reluctant to move from traditional assessment methodologies onto more tool and automation based methodologies. This is mostly because  there’s a huge paradigm shift in the manner in which this information is collected and analyzed. One thing that most organizations fail to realize is the power of sample spaces. With online assessments, you can increase your sample space massively, especially in a cloud-based environment. A greater sample space would mean that you have more data to work with and this brings down the probability of surprises (read shocks) that would arise as a consequence of your decisions.

To sum all of it up, it does appear that the future of decision making lies via assessment tools. They act as great enablers and ensure that your decisions are tied to something tangible, something quantifiable and something measurable. Imagine a cricket match where the teams don’t really know what their scores are. They’re just playing along with some vague idea of what they need to do in order to seal victory. Contrast this with the bare minimum information that you would need in order to succeed – runs, wickets and balls. Information is truly paramount. It manifests itself as data that can be mined to create new information. This new information can be fed back into systems and results can be observed. These results go back into the system again as further information. Once you set the information cycle in place, you can rest assured that you will be making decisions based on observable, well defined parameters. Information systems have revolutionized the way we view data and make decisions. The world is headed towards a second IT revolution. The world is moving to a space where data can be accessed anytime, anywhere and from any device. The world is moving towards the cloud. You should too.

Top 3 myths of Employee Engagement | InspireOne

Doing more with less has become familiar to many of us—and our workforce is no exception. The World Bank estimates global GDP grew 2.3% in 2012, with expected continued moderate growth in 2013 (The World Bank, 2013). Much of this growth is driven by the human side of the equation. Between 2011 and 2012, 90% of countries saw an increase in productivity i.e., GDP per capita (IMF World Economic Database, 2013). Since 1993, revenue per employee has seen a 3.2% compound annual growth rate compared with little to no growth in revenue per cost of goods sold or per invested capital (CEB, 2013). These facts illustrate what most leaders know: companies (and countries) should be able to do more with the employees they have. Employee engagement is increasingly seen as a fundamental mechanism through which to attain superior organizational performance (IBM, 2013). Fundamentally, organizations can do more with more engaged employees. Presented in this report are insights into the global state of employee engagement based on one of the biggest employee research databases ever assembled. These insights help provide a roadmap for driving productivity through engagement of people. Armed with these big data, we identified three key findings that can challenge some of the commonly held beliefs concerning employee engagement and leadership:

• Neither the sky nor employee engagement is falling. Contrary to popular reports, in almost each country, our big data indicate employee engagement was up in 2012 compared to both 2010 and 2011.

• People join companies, but leave managers companies. The adage that people leave managers is not supported by big data. Although managers play an important role in supporting the engagement and retention of employees, they cannot go it alone. Their senior leaders should step up and take responsibility for delivering on what has been consistently the most important driver of employee engagement over the last five years—communicating a motivating vision of their organization’s future and inspiring confidence in their employees.

• The economic crisis should not be used a scapegoat. Compared to 2008, senior leaders’ ability to inspire confidence and motivate employees towards a shared vision was rated more positively in 2009, at the peak of economic turmoil. Ratings generally remained consistent or actually improved in 2010 and 2011. It was only in 2012, three years after the crisis, that confidence in leadership took a notable hit. Further, senior leaders were rated similarly or more positively in mature, stable and even economically challenged markets. These data suggest the economic crisis should not be used to explain poor perceptions of senior leader performance.

In addition to sharing the evidence for these myth-busting insights, this report will also give leaders valuable guidance into their role in promoting employee engagement to build organizational success.

For companies to be successful, employees must be engaged to perform, innovate and drive outcomes. This report will help organizations proactively manage employee engagement activities for future productivity by drawing attention away from what matters less—the economic climate and direct managers—and focusing on what matters more—visionary leadership.

Five ways to use Assessments more effectively

With analytics and measurements coming into the fore in HR, it’s little wonder that assessing employees has taken so much mind space of HR leaders. The benefits cannot be discarded – from hiring the right person in the right role to identifying development requirements for your high potentials. If well used, they are said to have no adverse impact and yet deliver results that predict (not foretell) your employee’s performance on the job.

So what are ways in which to make the use of assessments more effective in your organization?

Here are five for starters:

Involve the line manager. It cannot be over emphasized but assessments that are designed for business leaders would be better suited to deliver results that business leaders require. By starting with the output in mind, involve your business stakeholders to agree on a set of outcomes using which they feel comfortable to take relevant actions (for hiring and / or development) that support operational decision-making.

Don’t let go there; consult with them on the first few process steps to get them to become more comfortable with your assessment process and become your ‘Assessment Champions’. Before you know it, they’ll be speaking fluent HR!

Automate the administration process as much as possible. ‘As much as possible’ is key. Oftentimes, organizations continue to hold on to earlier process steps, such as first level interview screening, even after using Assessments predominantly to screen applicants early on in the process.  Similarly, while identifying high potentials, managers can often bypass assessment results with their developed bias. Failing to trust the validity of the assessment process is a key reason why many well-intentioned assessment initiatives fail.

When using assessments for recruitment, also look at using the data to develop the person during on boarding. According to Aberdeen Research[1], 75% of Best in Class companies use Pre-hire assessments for creating targeted development plans during post hire. That translates into a 91% retention of employees in the first year by Best in Class companies versus others.

Beyond selection, there’s prioritization as well. Oftentimes, hiring managers do not have depth in their pipeline to effectively use assessments for selection. In such practical situations, its important to still prioritize the candidate pool for interviewing. This will ensure that you capitalize on the probability of hiring a high performer and also not lose out on the possibility of selecting a trainable candidate who can over-achieve by stretching himself/herself.

Better, more informed sourcing based on assessment data. An established assessment process can work wonders to your sourcing strategy. You can generate enough data to create a detailed DNA profile of a high performer, which you can then work backwards to identify sourcing channels that provide you those characteristics in future hires as well. This feedback loop also helps recruiters to constantly calibrate their assessment process and make it relevant for the future.

These are just five approaches to effectively use assessments out of many more possible approaches. Do you have any such approaches that you recently used? Tell us how you used assessments innovatively in your organization and we’ll profile your work in our upcoming U&I quarterly newsletter.