consulting gallup

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:47:27 -0400 - Posted in sabre travel consultant





We explored Gallup’s study on the issue of employee disengagement in an earlier post. The statistics are sobering. 82% of Australians are not actively engaged at work, costing the nation $42 billion in lost productivity annually.  We caught up with Allan Watkinson, Engagement Manager at Gallup Consulting to understand more about their latest study, unhappy workplaces and the likely solutions to employee disengagement.

DT. The latest Gallup study paints a pretty bleak picture about Australian workplaces. Why do you think employees are not engaged at work? Is this a failure of corporate recruitment process, of HR policies or corporate culture? Can fingers be pointed to anyone or anything in particular?
AW: Engagement is a local phenomenon. The single biggest factor in someone’s engagement at work is the effectiveness of their immediate manager. We’ve found through our research that people join companies but leave Managers. Managers are not investing the time or don’t have the skills to simply manage. Organisations can significantly improve Engagement by helping Managers to focus on the basics. Things like setting clear expectations, recognising good performance appropriately and investing in their peoples’ development. A lot of these things happen when Managers have regular conversations with their people. Our experience is that most Managers don’t. HR has a critical role to play in encouraging them to take the time to talk to their people.

DT. We are one of the hardest working nations in the developed world. Yet, majority of us are disengaged at work. There seems to be a real disconnect – how can we clock so much hours when collectively we do not like our jobs. How long can individual companies and our nation sustain this kind of situation?
AW: Our survey of the Australian workforce showed that only 18% of us are engaged in our work and this is costing us at least $42.1 billion annually in lost productivity, not to mention the social costs of poorer physical and mental health. The majority of us turn up to work every day, do what is required and no more. We don’t hate our job but we don’t love it either. Culturally, I think we still have a work ethic which says that work is work and you need to turn up and put in some decent hours for fear of looking redundant or ineffective. Encouragingly, we’re seeing a growing recognition that it is OK to find a job that suits your talents, which you enjoy and is based on results rather than time at your desk.

Q. In a recent interview the CEO of Zappos,  the hugely successful online retail company, talked about how they let go good performers largely because they do not fit into the culture of the company. Is cultural fit a solution to ‘disengagement’?
AW: That was a very bold thing to do, but absolutely the right thing. If someone is in the right role, doing what they do best every day, then they’re much more likely to be engaged at work. Whether or not they’re in the right place is not just about the role itself, but influenced by the local culture of the organisation. Managers play a big role in setting the behavioural expectations that determine the culture.

DT: What can companies do or pursue, especially in times of economic downturns when there seems to be so many other immediate priorities?
AW: In times of economic downturns, it’s more important than ever to focus on the basic human needs at work.

  • Make sure people know what’s expected of them at work by regularly communicating expectations
  • Ensure people have the right materials and equipment. Where budgets are limited, manage their expectations
  • Make sure people are in the right roles to enable them do what  they do best. Adjust roles or move people accordingly
  • Don’t forget recognition and praise. Make sure you find out how people like to be recognised as there is no universally successful approach
  • Keep investing in peoples’ development. One of the biggest mistakes a company can make in a downturn is to stop the investment in development. You may not lose good people in the short term, but they will remember this when the market recovers

DT. Do you have an example of a client who is able to address the waste and human capital problems associated with employee disengagement?
AW: One of our clients has improved engagement and financial performance across his organisation significantly by doing three things.

  • Introducing 1:1 monthly meetings with his direct reports to discuss progress, clarify expectations and generally get to know his people better
  • Including engagement on the agenda at his monthly management team meetings
  • Adjusting roles to make them more interesting and challenging for people, based on their strengths and interests Increased engagement has seen an associated reduction in absenteeism as well as improvements to customer satisfaction and profitability.

DT. For decades, Gallup is synonymous with market research. Little is known about the other services offered. Can you shed more lights on human capital services offered under the Gallup umbrella in Australia?
AW: What makes Gallup unique in the Human Capital Consulting space is our extensive research based approach. Gallup Consulting draws on more than 30 years of research into how human behaviour drives performance in organisations – the field of Behavioural Economics. This allows us to focus on and measure the things that really make a difference to business and financial outcomes. We help our clients really believe it when they say that their people are their most important asset.

Gallup Consulting provides services in the following;
Employee Engagement – measuring and improving the emotional attachment employees have to the organisation to increase discretionary effort and improve financial outcomes for the business

Strengths Based Executive Coaching and Development – helping managers and executives discover their innate talents using our Strengths Finder tool and then coaching them to develop to maximise success in their work and lives using their strengths

Strengths Based Selection – helping organisations to select the right people by matching roles to peoples’ strengths

Management and Leadership Development – a suite of programmes which trains Managers in the 4 Keys of Great Management and helps Leaders to deal effectively with the 7 Demands of Leadership.

Succession Planning – helping organisations to develop and execute a succession strategy that helps retain and attract key talent

Human Sigma – helping organisations to drive success by managing the moments when employees interact with customers.

Allan can be reached at allan_watkinson@gallup.com or +61 2 9409 9000 Article by Janice Davies, Ann Andrews and Michael Smyth

A recent report highlighted the tragic news that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of workplace bullying in the world, with a staggering one in five employees being subjected to overbearing or belittling behaviour at work.

The research, funded by the Department of Labour and the Health Research Council found that levels of workplace stress and bullying were far greater than expected.
A survey of 1728 workers in the health, education, travel and hospitality sectors found 18 percent had been bullied, while 75 percent had suffered workplace stress.
Ineffective leadership was highlighted as one of the main causes. However, Janice Davies believes that lack of personal awareness skills is also a key factor in the bullying relationships.

The research further discovered that employers across all the surveyed sectors had a limited understanding of the problem and how to address it. It also found that reporting structures in most of the organisations they studied were ineffective, with bullying being viewed as part of wider harassment or violence initiatives.
Organisations need to have a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying which, for most places of work will require a cultural change and clearly defined procedures put in place to educate managers and team leaders on effective strategies for dealing with bullies.

Although it is impossible to gauge lost revenue from the effects of bullying, some staggering statistics are available on workplace disengagement. In a biannual poll of working New Zealanders undertaken last year by Gallup Consulting, their results showed that 15% of workers are actively disengaged (a 4% increase since 2006) and that manufacturing has the highest percentage (22%); service industries the lowest (12%). 38% of actively disengaged staff felt that the stress of work caused a flow-on effect to behaving poorly with their family or friends, compared with only 13% of Engaged employees.

In New Zealand, JRA, who conduct the ‘Best places to work survey’, believe 70 percent of workers are ambivalent or disengaged and the cost of that disengagement is on the rise and estimated to be in the region of $NZ5.9 billion p.a.

Janice Davies was herself bullied at work from a bully with a previously tainted workplace reputation. After a five minute verbal attack from the bully, her boss told her to discuss the problem over lunch and become friends. Fortunately for her, prior personal experiences with bullies and had taught her how to remain empowered.
From the victims point of view bullies are cruel co-workers. It is difficult, but the victim needs to learn if it wasn’t them, the bully would find another target. They use manipulative language and behaviour, preying on kind hearted and non assertive employees or gradually nitpick at confident employees until they lose their self confidence.

A workplace bully is angry and unable to communicate assertively. They have low self esteem and create negative relationships. Some may be conscious of their antics but unaware there are different types of positive workplace relationship which create more satisfaction for both parties.

At Janice’s workshops on dealing with difficult people, attendees confirmed a high percentage of bullying was experienced. It uncovered that after victims discussed the situations with their HR department or managers, they were often told to ‘get on with it’ or it was fobbed off as inconsequential. Generally they found another job leaving the bully for the next employee.

These solutions are suggestions from the reports and our authors.

• Organisations need to have a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying which, for most places of work will require a cultural change and a realisation that bullying is not acceptable
• Organisation will also need to have clearly defined procedures in place to educate managers and team leaders on effective strategies for dealing with bullies
• Organisations also need to provide education for empowering employees to be confident and how to engage in positive workplace relationships
• Organisations who hire for skills rather than attitudes may discover that qualified staff have not developed their people skills, therefore qualified employees still need further education about creating positive workplace relationships.

When these solutions are addressed, an organisation is likely to have a safer environment with trustworthy, motivated staff who support, respect and perform at a higher level during working hours. Thus, the 1 = 2 or more, ratio of disengaged employees is transformed

In the Gallup Poll, it was discovered that 76% of engaged New Zealand workers strongly agree that their supervisor is an active supporter of changes that affect their group. Which translates into good old fashioned democratic or consensus style leadership!

Three professionals who work in the corporate sector are now providing practical solutions so companies can deal confidently and competently with the issue.

• Janice Davies from The Attitude Specialists is a business trainer and consultant who has first hand experience of being bullied at work and now shows targets of bullying how to deal with the situation.
• Ann Andrews – The Corporate Toolbox has 20+ years experience as an HR Consultant who, not only advises organisations on how to set up sound policies and procedures but also teaches managers how to actually deal with bullies in their team
• Michael Smyth is a practising employment law barrister and the author of Employed But Not Engaged: How to break up with your employees and hold on to the ring. Michael has successfully worked with the victims of bullying in raising personal grievances and defended employers from bullying accusations.


Also available are tips, articles, TV & radio interviews and E-Posters for display on http://www.attitudespecialist.co.nz/self-esteem-bullying.html For further queries email janice@attitudespecialist.co.nz