Equity Skills News & Views
Volume 5, Issue 2, 31 January 2006
Registered as an electronic newspaper: ISSN 1684-5722

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In This edition:

1. Employee Disengagement A Global Epidemic 
2. One Size Does Not Always Fit All
3. Web Earns Central Role In HR Service Delivery
4. A Built To Change World
5. Book Review: The Living Dead
6. Case-Law & Legislation Review: Landmark Court Ruling Favours Whistleblower
7. Downloads: Development Needs Analysis  - Creating A “Self Funding” Development Strategy
8. Unsubscribe & Moving Soon

NB: If your Internet service provider (ISP) or server administrator filters incoming e-mail, please add Equity Skills News & Views to your list of approved senders to ensure you receive this e-journal to which you are subscribed.

Jeff Sacht: Publisher-editor

www.equityskillsweb.com

jeffs@worldonline.co.za

'A MUST TO PRINT & READ'

>22,000 & still growing!

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1. Employee Disengagement A Global Epidemic*   

Management Issues News, 16 November 2005; www.management-issues.com

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At a time when companies are focused on growth and relying on their workforces to achieve it, a major new survey has found that only one in seven employees worldwide are fully engaged with their jobs and willing to go the extra mile for their companies.

But the study, by consultants Towers Perrin, found that while many people are keen to contribute more at work, the behaviour of their managers and culture of their organisations is actively discouraging them from doing so.

The study, the largest of its kind, was carried out among more than 85,000 people working for large and midsize companies in 16 countries on four continents.

It shows that there is a vast reserve of untapped "employee performance potential" that could drive better financial results if only companies could tap into this reserve.

People want to contribute more. But they say their leaders and supervisors put obstacles in their paths "What we're hearing is that people want to contribute more. But they say their leaders and supervisors unintentionally put obstacles in their paths," said Donald Lowman, a Managing Director of Towers Perrin HR Services business.

"The insights from our study give management a very clear road map on how to remove these obstacles and unleash the full potential of the workforce to deliver superior performance."

According to the survey, employee engagement - the measure of people's willingness and ability to give discretionary effort at work - varies dramatically worldwide.

The highest recorded levels are in Brazil (31 per cent) and Mexico (40 per cent). The lowest recorded levels - in the low single digits - are in the four Asian countries in the study, with Japan bringing up the rear.

Across Europe and North America, engagement levels fall in between these extremes.

"The vast majority of the people we surveyed are moderately engaged at best, and a quarter of them are actively disengaged," Lowman noted.

"This creates serious risks for companies since companies with fewer engaged workers are far less likely to deliver on their growth agendas or achieve the kind of performance that shareholders demand."

The elements that define engagement include emotional aspects, like taking pride in working for a company, and rational aspects, like understanding how your job fits into 'the bigger picture'.

But how a company establishes these emotional and rational connections with employees differs considerably depending on where it operates.

Engagement also appears to have little to do with economic conditions in the country where an employee works.

Only eight per cent of Chinese employees in the survey felt engaged, for example, despite (or because of) its fast-growth economy. But in Germany's slowing economy, almost twice as many employees feel highly engaged.

In the United States, employees are frustrated and sceptical about both their senior leadership. Meanwhile, employees are frustrated and sceptical about both their senior leadership and how well their company is delivering on their "employment deal".

"Employees in the United States feel they've hung in during the tough years," said Julie Gebauer of Towers Perrin's Workforce Effectiveness practice.

"They don't think they've seen enough in terms of pay raises, incentives or other rewards for their contributions - despite hearing lots of talk about 'pay for performance.' And this view appears to be intensifying as the economy regains steam.

"What's more, this perception is also creating retention risks," Gebauer continued. "More than half of our U.S. respondents (55 per cent) are what we call 'passive job seekers' - open and vulnerable to other job offers."

The study shows that highly engaged workers believe they can and do contribute more directly to business results than do less engaged employees.

For example, more than eight out of 10 highly engaged employees believe they can positively impact the quality of their company's products, compared with only one in three of the disengaged.

Smartly, almost three-quarters of the highly engaged believe they can positively affect customer service, versus a quarter of the disengaged.

Highly engaged employees are also far less likely to leave for another job than their less engaged peers. Worldwide, six out of 10 highly engaged employees planned to stay with their current employer, compared with just a quarter those who felt disengaged.

"Not surprisingly, workforce engagement is increasingly a boardroom issue," Lowman continued. "We are seeing the notion of a 'war for talent' give way to a quest for employees' discretionary effort.

"In my work, I see more and more boards holding senior management accountable for taking steps to attract, retain and engage the people needed to carry out the company's strategy.

"It's viewed as a critical part of overall leadership effectiveness, as well as an element of business risk that needs to be managed through the corporate governance process."

*Reprinted by permission of Management Issues

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2. One Size Does Not Always Fit All:  Annual Sale Of License Free Courseware

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Frustrated by the high cost of purchasing commercially available courseware? Tired of paying endless license fees? And how about those restrictive license agreements that prohibit you from customising the content to fit your situation?

A solution is at hand!

Once a year Equity Skills News & Views has a “one size does not fit all sale” of professionally designed and developed courseware. So, if you are a large employer this offer is a steal! Imagine training as many people as you like for the price of 1 download! Imagine being able to customise what you need when you need it!

FOR THE NEXT 10 WORKING DAYS THE COURSEWARE AND TOOLKITS LISTED IN THIS AD ARE AVAILABLE COPYRIGHT FREE TO THE REGISTERED USER FOR IN-COMPANY USE ONLY. The packages can be freely customised for in-company use, but cannot be used for commercial, or other purposes, or for resale outside of the registered user's organisation without written permission.

All products are now available at Workinfo.com’s Online Human Resources Store http://shop.workinfo.com.shopdirect.co.za  Courseware can be downloaded immediately from the web on payment by credit card, EFT, cheque payment, or direct deposit. Items too big to download will be posted to you as a CD.

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#8. MENTORING FOR SUCCESS (FOR HR PROFESSIONALS & LINE MANAGERS). PAY ONLY R3, 425-00 LESS 15%. Includes: 1 master copy facilitator's manual (Word 2000) + 1 master copy participant's manual (Word 2000) + 1 Power Point slide show + Mentoring self-assessment (Organisational & personal skills). To purchase right now click on: http://shop.workinfo.com.shopdirect.co.za/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=RR008 

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3.  Web Earns Central Role In HR Service Delivery*

By Mike Theaker who can be contacted at mike.theaker@mercer.com

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As HR functions strive to simultaneously improve the speed and quality of HR service delivery, increase their focus on strategic partnering with the business, and achieve efficiencies in HR operating costs, many are turning to the Web as a critical element in achieving these often competing and conflicting priorities.

And rightly so. The use of Internet/intranet solutions is increasing at a rapid pace because the Web offers the HR function an attractive service-delivery mechanism (both functional and cost-effective) for a broad range of people activities. These activities span many areas of HR, including access and modification of HR data online by employees and managers; the provision of HR tools directly to the customer’s desktop or “palmtop”; and quick, easy access to HR information via HR portals and personalized, dynamic HR knowledge bases.

 As a means of combining improvements in customer service for both employees and managers, driving efficiencies in HR operations, and enabling the function to redirect resources to value-added activities, the Web offers an unbeatable value proposition.

Falling short of the Web’s potential

Most HR functions have embraced the Web to some degree; the problem is that many have not been using it wisely. For example, while many organizations have grasped that the Web can transform the way they conduct HR and many have been quick to create HR portals on their intranets, few of these portals have lived up to aspirations. Instead, many are simply “link farms” to HR forms, benefits provider pages, outdated material, and “shovelware” (paper-based HR policies and practices literally “shoveled” onto an intranet site with no regard to content structure, format, presentation, linkage to complementary information, or ease of use). In short, many HR sites are dull, unfriendly, non-strategic, outdated, and underutilized.

For example, research indicates that although some 85 percent of visits to corporate websites are to career sections, 80 percent of these visitors do not return. Clearly, many corporate recruitment sites – a fundamental use of Web-based HR – are missing something. The “missing something” is often employer branding, customer (applicant) focus, personalization of service, ease and speed of use, access to information, search capabilities, applicant relationship management, and the efficiency of the application process. These deficiencies are often replicated across other Web-enabled HR processes.

The Web therefore can be a powerful tool, but is not a silver bullet. Web-delivered HR services must be aligned to business requirements, organizational culture, and customer needs. As such, different organizations require and benefit from different approaches and solutions. Airlines, for example, where a proportion of the employee population is either in the air, in a hotel, or at home, require a different approach than a financial services organization, where the vast majority of employees and managers have access to Web-delivered HR services via their desktops, or a manufacturer, where a large proportion of the workforce is on the shop floor without direct access to a computer. There is, therefore, no “one size fits all” approach; Web-based HR solutions must be designed to reflect organization-specific requirements and goals as well as the composition and profile of the HR customer base.

Where the Web is working well

Let’s look at some different examples of how HR functions are using the Web effectively. One US-based telecommunications firm that Mercer worked with introduced 33 self-service transactions for employees and managers worldwide via a global instance of the PeopleSoftTM system. They then standardized HR policies and processes across multiple European countries, loaded this information into a content management solution (CMS), and linked the CMS to their HR portal, making this information readily accessible, in nine languages, to managers and employees across Europe. This HR “knowledgebase” is the first port of call for managers and employees for HR-related queries.

The overall goal was to establish an integrated, global direct-service model as the means for delivering effective HR services at competitive costs. Through online transactions and HR information, this was achieved. The European HR knowledgebase, containing standardized policy and process information, has been so successful that it has now been extended to cover the North America, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America regions.

Web delivers cost efficiencies

There is compelling evidence of the cost efficiencies achieved from Web-delivered HR services:

Research has found average reductions of 43 percent in the cost of some HR transactions. For example, executing a change of address costs an average of US$17 for a manual change versus US$2.40 when employee self-service is used.

One energy company introduced a self-service solution to handle the distribution of benefits statements and electronic pay stubs to 9,000 employees, saving US$370,000 in the first year alone.

Through Web-delivered HR services, a financial services firm achieved a 50 percent reduction in HR process cycle time, a 60 percent reduction in cost per transaction, a 75 percent reduction in inquiries made directly to HR, and a 100 percent payback in one year.

Another Mercer client, an airline, sought to deliver well-directed and demand-oriented information for all employees. It also wanted to facilitate networking and knowledge exchange across the organization, achieve process and efficiency improvements, and positively differentiate itself in the labor market through use of an HR portal. This portal – underpinned by process optimization and automation, Web-initiated workflow, and stringent content management – created a new dimension of e-enabled HR management for the company whereby the portal was established as the preferred place to conduct most HR transactions and seek HR information.

A third example concerns the merging of two companies with few similarities, including different compensation plans and corporate cultures. However, the two organizations had two substantial commonalities – both poorly communicated benefits, compensation, training, and development, and both offered substandard HR websites. The newly combined organization took a dramatically different approach, redesigning its entire benefits and compensation program and creating a new communications and delivery platform via an all-inclusive employee Web portal.

The organization now has a one-stop, holistic portal where each employee can manage his or her own account. Employees now have full access, on one site, to their total rewards. The front page shows company news, reminders, and personal links where employees can view and manage their health, wealth, career, and work/life benefits. Early results indicate that the site is a tremendous success: the site receives about 7,000 hits weekly, with about 600 hits coming each weekend.

Emerging Web usage in HR

Other examples of progressive Web usage within HR include areas such as resourcing and learning and development:

# eResourcing utilizes the Web to facilitate employer branding; maximize the exposure of company opportunities externally and also internally to promote career development, support resource utilization, and increase employee retention; improve the candidate experience through more efficient, faster, customer-focused processes and practices; and reduce the “time to hire” while also improving the quality of new hires.

# eLearning utilizes the Web to publish learning materials and schedules; enable online registration and delegate communication; provide access to online, external learning libraries; and track and trace employee learning activity and development.

In addition to the above uses, the Web provides the HR function with a valuable and effective marketing tool with which to communicate and promote HR services, initiatives, and capabilities, as well as to receive feedback from the customers of HR and to monitor the areas of most interest to customers – the HR equivalent of customer relationship management.

Conclusion

Web usage in the HR space has exploded over the past decade. Few would have imagined the capabilities and potential uses of Web technology to aid in HR transformation. Indeed, the Web, along with other enabling technologies, has created an emerging revolution within the HR function and across organizations as a whole. However, few companies have realized the true potential of what is at hand. Many remain at the first level of enablement – online libraries. Unlocking the potential requires innovative thinking about prospective opportunities to transform not just how work gets done and by whom, but what the work is and what can be accomplished.

The Web presents enormous opportunities for the progressive HR function. But like any tool or resource, it must be used thoughtfully and effectively to produce the greatest benefit. The Web has earned its central role in HR service delivery, and winning organizations will be those that tap its full potential.

*Reprinted by permission of Mercer HR: www.mercerhr.com

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4. A Built To Change World

By David Creelman who can be contacted at creelmanresearch@canada.com

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Rapid change has been a hot topic since 1970 when Alvin Toffler published Future Shock.  Every manager knows something about change management.  Many consultants are change management specialists.  You would have thought organizations would have completely adapted to a world of change, but that isn't the case.  Change still takes us by surprise.

I have often had uncomfortable experiences where organizations act as if stability is just around the corner when in our hearts we know this is not true.  I have worked with leaders launching a one-year project and when I checked in a few months later they had all left the company.  Surely they must have known the project was doomed by their imminent departure?  In another case I worked on a 3–5 year succession plan and then, just a year later, a major re-organization eliminated many of the jobs we were planning to fill.  Surely the managing director must have sensed that what we were doing would be undone by change.  Yet, we carry on this way because we still have an ingrained idea that organizations are stable.

Even change management assumes stability.  The most common model for change management is Kurt Lewin's unfreeze–change–refreeze model.  The idea is that the organization goes from one period of stability to another via a change process.  But we know from experience that those periods of stability never last very long, we spend more time in the midst of change than in the stable periods between change.

We need to change our idea that organizations are solid entities like cathedrals and think of them as something ever shifting, like a football team racing up, down and across the field.  And if organizations are not stable then we had better design them so they are able to change constantly, and that is the topic of a new book by Dr Ed Lawler and Dr. Chris Worley, Built to Change.  

Lawler and Worley argue that we unconsciously design organizations to be stable.  One of the main building blocks of an organization is the job.  But the idea of a job presumes a kind of stability that often does not exist.  Anyone who has written a detailed job description knows that it is often obsolete within 6 months.  Lawler believes we should think in terms of employees taking on collections of tasks and accountabilities—not entering stable jobs.  Employees will not resist changing jobs if they never have a defined job to begin with.

One of the lessons I like best from Lawler and Worley is the notion that in a world of constant change organizations need a stable core.  Employees need to know that certain aspects of the culture and mission will not change.   If leadership is clear about what will not change, and what probably will, then it makes it easier for employees to adapt.

Another important lesson is that there is an advantage to having small business units.  Small business units are better at adapting because they are closer to the customer and because a small unit is easier to change than a big one.  There is an advantage to small business units even when they are less efficient than larger ones.  And this leads us into one of the most important underlying ideas.  It's not enough for an organization to strive for maximum efficiency.  As well as striving to be efficient it must be built to change—even if that imposes some short-term costs.  If we know (which we do) that our environment will be changing, then we need to structure the company so it can be successful in tomorrow's world, not just successful in today's.

The specific advice we find in Built to Change is helpful, but the biggest lesson is simply that we need to stop pretending that organizations are stable.  We need to presume that our processes, competitors, products, technologies, tasks and accountabilities will constantly be changing.   We will never have the comfort of sitting still any more that the football player does.  We must learn to build our organizations so that this kind of constant change is natural, even expected.  As individuals we have to learn to enjoy constantly adapting and not become too attached to how things are today, because they won't be that way tomorrow.

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5. Book Reviews: The Living Dead

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# The Living Dead: Switched Off, Zoned Out - The Shocking Truth About Office Life

To buy this book click on: http://www.kalahari.net/e-trader/referral.asp?toolbar=mweb&linkid=5&partnerid=293&sku=27973889

By David Bolchover, Wiley, 2005

According to recent research, employee disengagement is becoming a global epidemic. Only one in seven employees worldwide are fully engaged with their jobs and willing to go the extra mile for their companies.

According to David Bolchover, this isn't surprising. Trapped in large, inefficient, process-obsessed, soul-destroying corporations, most office workers are so bored, demotivated, and poorly managed that they do everything they can to avoid actually doing any work.

Yet rather than address this vortex of low output, many organisations still cling to the belief that employees are fulfilling their life's destiny through their undervalued corporate existence.

"…Many millions…go into a large office somewhere in the world every weekday, they go to their desk at the same time, they leave at the same time. And in between, they do pretty much nothing. Zilch. The Big Zero.

"…Their home lives may be happy and fulfilled, but at work they are the people that time forgot. They contribute next to nothing. They are the Living Dead."

"The Living Dead: Switched Off, Zoned Out - The Shocking Truth About Office Life" cites a raft of statistics to demonstrate just how widespread a problem this disengagement has become.

>> One in three people has taken class A and B drugs such as ecstasy, cocaine, cannabis, and amyl nitrate at work

>> One in five US workers has had sex with a co-worker during work hours

>> 70% of Internet porn sites are accessed during the 9 to 5 working day

>> One in three midweek visitors to a major UK theme park is pulling a ‘sickie’ from work

>> In the UK alone, doctors receive 9 million (equivalent to the entire population of Sweden) 'suspect' requests for sick notes each year

>> 14.6% of US office workers surf the web constantly

>> Monday (23 per cent) and Friday (25 per cent) are the days most commonly taken off sick by UK employees. Wednesday is the most rarely taken (8 per cent)

A refreshing antidote to all those unremittingly positive self-development and management books, "The Living Dead" makes a powerful case for the need to improve the quality of middle management and to radically rethink the model that promotes purely on the basis of functional performance in favour of actively developing those who actually have some flair for managing people.

Of course, whether most organisations are ready to hear this – let alone act on it – is very much open to question.

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6. Case-Law & Legislation Review: Landmark Court Ruling Favours Whistleblower

From www.iol.co.za December 2005

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# Andisa Securities vs. Pedzinski

In a landmark ruling, the Labour Court in Johannesburg has ordered Standard Bank to pay two years' salary to a whistleblower they wrongfully dismissed. They also have to pay costs. The compensation, which amounts to about R330 000, is the maximum compensation possible in such a case.

Allison Pedzinski had disclosed irregular share transactions by one of her executive directors but, instead of the bank taking action against him, they got rid of her. Andisa Securities, a Standard Bank division, was found to have contravened the Protected Disclosures Act, commonly know as the Whistleblower's Act.

The transactions had not been reported to the JSE  "This is the first time a court has been called on to decide whether an employer had contravened the whistleblower law. It is a landmark decision in favour of transparency and good corporate governance. This is a victory for David over Goliath," Pedzinski's attorney, Tzvi Brivik, said.

Pedzinski was employed as a compliance officer at Andisa and picked up irregular share transactions in breach of fiscal regulations. These irregularities involved one of Andisa's executive directors, Grant Talbot. The transactions had not been reported to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the irregular shares issued to Talbot were not reversed.

Pedzinski reported this to the group compliance officer within Standard Bank as well as Andisa.

Although disciplinary steps were taken against other employees for similar irregular share transactions, Talbot had not been disciplined. At the time, Pedzinski had been working half-day due to a back problem. She was told that, unless she worked for a full day, she would be dismissed. This was conveyed to her after she had reported the irregularities.

Thereafter, her employers claimed that her position had become redundant and her services were terminated.

She took her employers to the Johannesburg Labour Court, and charged that they had discriminated against her on the basis that they didn't take into account her physical condition. She also alleged that they had contravened the Protected Disclosures Act.

The court found in her favour, finding that the only possible explanation for her dismissal was her disclosure of the information, not that her position had become redundant. The judge found that the decision to make her redundant was not genuine and Andisa was found to have contravened the Protected Disclosures Act. The judge ordered her employers to compensate her for two years' worth of her salary for her wrongful dismissal.

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7. Downloads: Development Needs Analysis: Creating a “Self Funding” Development Strategy

By Will Doherty who can be contacted at william.doherty@ntlworld.com

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A difficult question for any HR team to answer is how much money has been spent on Learning and Development and what “measured” added value or financial return has this investment brought to the business.

This paper aims to help Chief Executives and Senior HR Managers create a corporate development strategy that does what it says on the tin : It develops the company at a cost that is recovered from the added value it creates.

Rather than see HR as the strategic partner working with line management the paper recommends the L&D function becomes more integrated and connected to the strategic objectives of the business by taking ownership for achieving set targets to increase the efficiency and effectiveness throughout the value chain. This paper will ask challenging questions and provide some new ideas, guidelines and templates, which can be adapted.

Q: Does the L&D Department really understand the business, the corporate processes, metrics and drivers? (Appendix E).

Q: How does L&D diagnose the corporate development need?

Q: What involvement and engagement does the supplier have with key stakeholders analysing needs before the development takes place?

Q: What should we expect a development workshop to do for the business?

Q: What are the contractual guarantees you should insist on before spending any corporate funds on L&D?

Q: Who / how should the development workshop be evaluated?

Download the full text of this Discussion Paper for Senior Managers at: http://www.workinfo.com/free/downloads/180.htm

*Reprinted by permission of the author.

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8. Unsubscribe & Moving Soon

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UNSUBSCRIBE: Scroll to the end of the newsletter where you will find a code directly linked to your name. Click on the unsubscribe link. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS NEWSLETTER TO UNSUBSCRIBE. MOVING SOON: If you are changing your email address soon and would still like to continue receiving this newsletter, please email us your new or temporary email address to ensure that you do not miss out on the next edition.

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About the e-Journal/e-Newspaper

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Equity-Skills News & Views is a free bi-monthly newsletter for business owners, Line Managers, and Human Resource Practitioners (who support Line Managers) with the implementation of fair and developmental people management systems and practices. The style of this e-Newspaper fits between the traditional email newsletters and printed professional trade journals & magazines. Subscribers will be kept up to date with the latest developments in the world of people management, receive handy people management tips, and feedback about labour court rulings that relate to the implementation of the key Labour Acts. Please add equity skills news & views to your list of approved senders if your Internet provider or server administrator filters incoming e-mail, to make sure you receive periodic e-mail alerts and this newsletter to which you are subscribed.

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Opinions expressed by contributors DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT the standpoint of the publisher-editor of Equity-Skills News & Views. Information published here is for general information, and is not intended as legal advice. The authors, editors, and publishers do not accept responsibility for any act, omission, loss, or damage occasioned by any reliance upon the contents hereof.

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Publisher-Editor: Equity-Skills News & Views

'A MUST TO PRINT & READ'

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Copyright (c) 2004 Registered electronic newspaper: 1SSN 1684-5714