HR Bartender Human Resources Blog

High Performing Organizations Manage Change Well

by Sharlyn Lauby on May 19, 2013

Want a competitive edge? The key is all about the way a company manages change, according to i4cp’s report “Building a Change-Ready Organization: Critical Human Capital Issues 2013”. You can download a copy of the full report here.

Change is a critical differentiator in today’s business world. Being able to recognize the need for change and incorporate necessary changes helps both individuals and organizations stay on top of their game. In the i4cp report, they mention two competencies for managing change effectively:

Preparedness is being able to anticipate and take advantage of change. Many people are able to see change coming. It’s about leveraging the opportunity.

Agility is defined as the ability to move quickly and decisively.

If change were a formula, it would look something like this:

Once a company knows that change is necessary, it comes down to how they spend their time. Does it wait for change to arrive and gripe the entire time about how it’s going to wreck their business? Or is the time spent putting a plan in place to potentially mitigate any losses and possibly benefit from the change? Because if your competitive set is busy grousing then it only makes good business sense to set yourself apart by embracing the change.

One way a company can really benefit is when their employees are capable of being agile in preparing for change. That means having a well-defined and executed strategy where your employees are concerned. The i4cp report shares several indicators for evaluating your talent management strategy. Here are a couple things that caught my eye:

Leadership development plays a huge role in high-performing workplaces, especially when management is held accountable for their performance.
Goal setting and performance management has a clear purpose and is connected to organizational objectives.

It comes down to hiring the right people and giving them the tools to succeed. This includes communicating expectations, training where appropriate and developing individuals for future needs.

Want a competitive edge? Develop the best darn group of employees you can. They’ll make sure managing change is a no-brainer.

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Telecommuting Doesn’t Have a Major Impact With Employees

by Sharlyn Lauby on May 16, 2013

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by Allied Van Lines®, a leader in the moving and storage industry with more than 75 years of experience. For a second year, they are championing a research project, Allied HRIQ, aimed to provide business professionals with data on current workforce trends. I’m honored to be working with Allied again and hope you find the information interesting.)

A few months ago, Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer banned telecommuting. The response uproar backlash was swift. Experts from everywhere said telecommuting is essential to employee satisfaction and engagement. Some said this was the first sign of the apocalypse. All right – you caught me. No one really said that … but you would have thought the world was coming to an end given all the media attention.

Let me toss an idea out there. Maybe telecommuting isn’t the utopia we think it is. Or that it’s been hyped up to be.

By definition, telecommuting is when employees do not travel to a central place of work. Telecommuting is also referred to as telework or remote work. Typically when a person telecommutes, they’re working from home. So chances are, they have a home office. Although there are some telecommuters who work from airports and coffee shops.

This is different than flexible work (aka flextime). Flexible work is when employees have the ability to adjust their work hours. There might be some core hours that everyone is required to be in the office. That’s probably driven by operational needs. But there are hours that employees can “flex” to accommodate traffic, parenting responsibilities, caregiving duties, etc.

I must admit there have been times when I’ve used the terms telecommuting, telework, flexwork, etc. interchangeably. But the terms are very different and this year’s Allied HRIQ research shares some interesting findings where recruiting, telecommuting, and flexible work are concerned.

Allied, Allied Van Lines, Allied HRIQ, telecommuting, flextime, employees, balance, chart

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In looking at the chart above it will be no surprise that corporate culture, management and leadership, and professional development were high on the list. Healthcare was rated number one – which I find surprising. Companies feel they have more strength in their healthcare package than with the quality of senior leadership.

But the thing that caught my eye was telecommuting rated pretty low on the list. Given the reaction to the Mayer decision, I expected telecommuting to be higher. Interesting note: flexible working arrangements was several places above telecommuting.

Then it occurred to me. Telecommuting is about working from home. As someone who currently works from home, I’ll confess – it can be tough. Work is always staring you in the face. You have to learn how to deal with it. If employees aren’t able to figure out how to create balance when they live and work in the same place, it can be a detriment to productivity and employee morale.

On the other hand, it’s impossible to shut off our personal lives when we arrive at work. Employees do have outside commitments and obligations. Having flexible work arrangements give employees the ability to deal with all the other things in their lives and still get their work done in an office environment. And they don’t necessarily need a home office. So work doesn’t need to stare them in the face every evening.

I’m certainly not saying that companies with telecommuting programs should toss them out the window. Allied HRIQ’s research reminded me that telecommuting isn’t necessarily an employee engagement Shangri-La. Just because it works for one company or one individual doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. Some organizations may find other options, like flexible work, bring better results and employees like it more.

My takeaway from Allied’s data is the importance of feedback.

Ask new hires what it was about the company that sold them.
Find out from current employees what keeps them coming to work every day.
Include a question in exit interviews about which benefits and programs the employee enjoyed.

Creating a feedback mechanism will allow companies to determine which programs work best for their culture and their employees.

There’s lots more interesting reading in the Allied HRIQ research. I encourage you to check it out by visiting their website, connecting with their LinkedIn group, or following them on Twitter. Also, be on the lookout for more Allied HRIQ insights from my HR blogger compadres Steve Boese, Kris Dunn and Trish McFarlane.

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How To: Start a Blog – Ask HR Bartender

May 14, 2013

Blogs were started back in the 1990s. At that time, they were mostly the work of a single individual about a single subject. Today, it’s estimated there are about 130 million blogs in existence covering more subjects that we can even begin to imagine. For that reason, it can seem like a Herculean task to [...]

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Working With People You Don’t Like – Ask HR Bartender

May 12, 2013

I’ve written before about working with people you don’t like. But what happens if you’re the manager and your employees don’t get along. That’s the conundrum this manager faces. I’ve been the manager at a restaurant and bar for about 5 years. The place used to have a “family” feel when it came to the [...]

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Employee Happiness Should Not Be An Impossible Task

May 9, 2013

Fortunately or unfortunately, employee engagement is a hot topic. Don’t get me wrong, engagement is important. There’s a proven link between engagement, productivity and profits. Companies should want to have engaged employees. It’s virtually impossible to have an engaged employee who isn’t happy. So step one in the engagement formula should be creating happiness at [...]

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The Reason We Should Under Promise and Over Deliver

May 7, 2013

One of the most frustrating things I deal with are people (and companies) who promise a specific deliverable on a certain date or time – and it just doesn’t happen. They either miss the deadline or forget the information. Or both. It makes me appreciate when someone under promises and over delivers. Yes, it’s an [...]

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