Teryl @ Work

Every discussion on this topic seems to come back to “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”.    Employee engagement is seen as the Utopian solution to driving out measurements and introducing total commitment and great results. Companies have done it. Is it possible as a norm?   And once you have achieved these high levels of engagement, is it possible to maintain them? I think there is a tipping point in terms of size, in both directions.   Too small, family type of bickering kicks in.   Too large, maintaining consistency is challenging. Every line manager needs to be a committed cheerleader, driven by passionate executive leadership.   Psychology qualifications would be essential as each member of a team might have different motivators. Strong identification with the team, division, branch, company has to be the way to go. Look at Sharks and Man United supporters.   They live the brand.   Even w...

Do you take former employees back? We spend so much time discussing retention, and not nearly enough time with the people we want to retain or those we want to return. There are companies who have a policy not to re-employ. There are also companies who have alumni strategies where they continue to engage with former employees with the clear objective of re-engagement.   These strategies usually sit at executive level and tend to focus on high level talent. It has always surprised me that companies won’t re-employ, when I hear senior execs say that “you can’t go back” – once people have moved on, taking them back cannot be a good decision. I disagree.   First of all, when you find people who add value and fit your culture, they are gifts that don’t go into the re-gifting cupboard! It is a reality that people starting their careers are advised to try different opportunities.  If you hire young people, they will move on.   Your investmen...

Is the employee toxic or simply disengaged?  And how to tell? Dissecting Employee Behaviour We spend hours of management time dissecting employee behaviour to ensure that not only is each employee delivering to a minimum expectation, he or she is not actively undermining the effectiveness of the business. We design KPAs (or KPIs, or whatever we want to call them), we run regular appraisals, we discuss career paths and succession plans, and  as long as toxic employees are delivering on their job description, we keep them! It’s only after they leave, when you hear the collective deep breath of relief from colleagues and management, that you can be absolutely sure of the negative impact. Underperformance vs Undermining My view has changed – rather an underperformer, than an underminer. So what to do? Once you have firmly established that undermining is the problem, the first step is to tell them that you are onto them! Never an easy task, because very few p...

What is Family Responsibility Leave?   It seems self explanatory, but in South Africa (and in many other countries, I am sure), families are extended beyond the nuclear one.   Frequently, aunts look after children for many years without formal adoption, but they fall outside of the legal requirements ie if a child falls ill under an aunt's care, the aunt may not take family responsibility leave (FRL). There are also interpretations of the word "child", some companies have taken the view that a child has to be under 18 if you wish to take FRL.  Others contend that the child must be financially dependent on the parents, or still living at home, if over 18.   A further variation is that there are companies that allow sick leave to be used as FRL. Line management are constantly trying to improve productivity levels and complain about abuse of  non holiday leave.    (While discussing this, it must be noted that there are people who have serious or chro...

This is a favourite topic of mine.   I started thinking about it, some years ago, when we hosted social events for our staff at the office.   There were those, both management and staff, who pitched in, but there were many more who had a wonderful evening, said thank you very politely at the end, and left the execs and senior managers loading dishwashers and generally tidying up. Then I started extending my thinking to every day at work.   We had a robbery one evening and we found that one of our managers was the last in and out through the front door before the robbery (our  +Accsys (Pty) Ltd  Time and Attendance system proved very useful), so we asked him if he had noticed anything.   "Oh yes" he told us, "in fact, they let me in the door, there were 5 of them, 3 men and 2 women, but I didn't recognise them, so I thought they must be temps or new staff".     He was definitely a guest. When we have a dinner party at home, the family all hel...