Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Employee Listening Study in Canadian Municipalities – 2026
Frequently Asked Questions This study is a shared effort across Canadian municipalities. By participating, you are contributing to a clearer understanding of how the sector listens to employees and how those practices can be strengthened over time. 1. What is this study about? This study is a national research initiative examining how municipalities across […]
State of Employee Listening in Canadian Municipalities – 2026
A National Study Supported by Provincial Municipal Associations Across Canada About the Study Municipalities across Canada are placing increasing emphasis on employee listening through surveys, pulse checks, focus groups, and other approaches. At the same time, many are working through similar questions: Are we using the right approaches? Are we acting effectively on what we […]
Rethinking the 9-to-5: Where and When Work Truly Happens
Navigating the return to the office isn’t just about logistics: it’s a balancing act between competing priorities. On one side, you have employees who have grown accustomed to the flexibility and autonomy of remote work, and are resistant to being forced back into a traditional office setting. On the other hand, your organization is grappling […]
Adopting Engagement as a Mindset With Ashley Ridgeway-Washington
Explore how the changing nature of work requires both leaders and employees to embrace a more holistic, self-directed approach with Laurie Ruettimann.
Self-Leadership and Betting on You with Laurie Ruettimann
Explore how the changing nature of work requires both leaders and employees to embrace a more holistic, self-directed approach with Laurie Ruettimann.
How Leaders Who Listen Can Transform Organizations With Paul Mastrangelo
On this episode of Leading Through Listening, I’m joined by Paul Mastrangelo, president and owner at First Domino Consulting. Paul brings a wealth of knowledge as an organizational psychologist, specializing in workplace behavior and the transformation of organizations through employee insights. In this conversation, we dive into how listening — not just hearing, but truly […]
Employee Engagement is Worth Caring About: The Increased Employee Productivity Factor
To understand how employee engagement increases employee productivity it’s important to put employee engagement into context and acknowledge how we as organizations play an influential role. In simple terms, we’ve all heard, read about, or experienced a customer service interaction exemplifying employee engagement. You know the kind: where the person you’re dealing with does their utmost […]
Wrestling Unproductive Meetings to the Ground with Employee Feedback Surveys
Are meetings really a waste of time? Not all of them. Not all the time. Yet we’ve all been there, done that. It hurts just to think about the endless hours we spend in webinars or on conference calls or wriggling in uncomfortable boardroom chairs listening to voices drone on and on, seemingly just for […]
What Is Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace?
When people think of diversity and inclusion in the workplace the first image that often comes to mind is that of different races in the workplace. But that’s not all that diversity and inclusion is about. It’s about accepting the many differences in all of us no matter who we are and honoring those differences […]
How Is Work Culture Impacted By New Technologies?
New technologies can impact organizations and their work cultures in many ways. They can save money and time. They can help gather intelligence about client’s demographics and their specific wants and needs. New technologies can streamline and simplify repetitive processes. New technologies can also help reach and serve clients around the world in new ways […]
What A Great Workplace Culture Looks Like for Remote Teams
As the COVID-19 crisis sweeps the globe, businesses are rapidly adjusting to current conditions and putting remote work into practice. Many have embraced this model for years, claiming great success. Some organizations that have mastered a great remote workplace culture boast that it increases both productivity and profits. But it seems that the key to […]
A Guide to Conducting 360 Feedback Surveys
Imagine a circle with an employee or manager in the centre and employees who work with that manager or employee, placed around the circle. That’s a snapshot of how 360 feedback surveys work. Those around the circle namely peers, reporting staff, coworkers and supervisors who regularly work with the manager or employee, are asked to […]
How to Tailor a Culture Message Across Different Generations
Many of today’s organizations are comprised of employees from not just one or two generations, but three or four. Plus, thanks to diversity and inclusion many employees can come from different cultural backgrounds. Today’s organizations may include people of different ages, races, genders, and religions. These employees might communicate differently and have different life experiences […]
How Do Corporate Mergers Impact Work Culture?
The quick answer: It depends on the styles of the corporate cultures involved. If the two companies have cultural styles that are a lot alike, it’ll be easier for everyone in the organization to adjust. But, if two companies have very different work cultures and the merger is not planned carefully to soften the blow, […]
Top 6 Ways to Create a Welcoming Culture
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “welcoming” with terms such as comforting, inviting, desirable, hospitable, kindly and personable. If you’ve ever walked into a party where you don’t know anyone and after about an hour, you realized you didn’t want to leave, you either met an old friend that you really like or there’s a good chance the host […]
Do You Have the Right Culture Mix?
If you’re looking to change your culture but you’re not sure what your current culture is, take a look at our blog called, Do you know what your workplace culture is? You’ll learn that there are almost as many options as there are companies out there. Plus, with the help of the Harvard Business Review, we identify some key […]
Overcoming Employee Resistance to Cultural Change
We all live with habits and patterns of behavior, even if we’re not aware of it. From the moment we wake up – almost without thinking – we follow the same routines in the same sequence. 1. Start the coffee maker 2. Shower 3. Get dressed 4. Drink coffee, etc. We enjoy routines and habits […]
Use Corporate Culture to Boost Employee Loyalty
What is loyalty? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as faithful to a person to whom allegiance or affection is due and faithful to a cause or ideal. Unshakeable loyalty is a rare trait. So, when we see examples of it in our daily lives, we usually don’t forget it, ever! What does loyalty look like? […]
How Can Leaders Champion a Revamped Workplace Culture?
Imagine ten people living on a small ship. To make sure that the ship runs well and everyone gets along and knows what they’re supposed to do, the captain of the ship has got to share what’s expected and how things are done based on the ships’ values and goals. The captain also has to […]
Top Eight Steps to Change Your Culture
It’s easier to create a culture before the launch of a new organization. But most experts agree that changing a culture that’s already in place can be a lot tougher. The reason? There’s a good chance you’ll run into resistance and at first, it might cost you in time and money. But, if your culture […]
How to Align Corporate Culture With Your Business Goals
If you’re looking to develop a culture for your organization there are a lot of options out there. Truth is, there are almost as many cultures as there are organizations. So it can be tricky to nail one down. But as Adam Bryant, In this video, and after consulting with hundreds of managers, former Deputy […]
Do You Know What Your Workplace Culture Is?
If you’re asking this question, the chances are that you probably don’t. Organizations with a defined workplace culture usually know it because everyone in the organization lives it. They’re steered by it, in everything they do. It’s important to understand that just because it isn’t defined doesn’t mean you don’t have one. You certainly do. […]
Can You Measure Corporate Culture?
The quick answer is yes. But to measure corporate culture, you must define it. When people hear the word, “culture” they might think of how people in other countries do things differently. Or they might imagine a room full of “cultured” upper class people dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns while staring at art and […]
Top Six Proven Strategies to Improve Engagement
There’s a mountain of material out there on how to engage employees in an organization. It can be overwhelming trying to figure out what’s best, what fits your mandate, your budget, your culture and your specific workplace. For example, some large businesses can afford to give their employees the moon and the stars when it […]
Tech-Focused Tactics Organizations Can Use to Engage Their Workforce
The value of engaged employees is undeniable. In fact, an Engage for Success study found that organizations with engagement levels of 65% or higher had shareholder returns of 22% higher than average, and show a 40% decrease in turnover rates compared to organizations with lower levels of engagement. Also, the study shows that engaged employees […]
How to Get More Value Out Of Your Survey
There are some Internet voices out there that claim that employee surveys are on the way out. But a Harvard Business Review article called Employee Surveys Are Still One of the Best Ways to Measure Engagement, by Scott Judd, Eric O’Rourke, and Adam Grant says, “it would be a big mistake to abandon them today.” Many […]
Top 4 Trends in Engagement
When you think about it, employee engagement has a lot to do with what drives most people to do their best. We all have certain needs that keep us interested in anything that we’re doing for a long time. Employees need the same things and if organizations tend to those needs, there’s a good chance […]
Does Employee Engagement Improve Business Performance?
This is a no brainer. All you have to do is remember a time when you received excellent service from someone on the job. If that person gave you service that was respectful and fast, they knew the product or service inside out, and they seemed genuinely glad to serve you… they either just won […]
7 Conversations Guaranteed to Lead to Higher Engagement
If you want your employees to feel connected to your organization and willingly contribute their best, you need to notice what’s missing and then take action. You’ve got to meet with your employees and let them know that you want their engagement and you’ll do what it takes to get it. There are a lot […]
The Real Reasons Your Employees Don’t Answer Surveys
You’ve probably noticed that for years now, a lot of organizations have been asking people to “take a few minutes to fill out a survey.” People are getting hit with it in bookstores, at the end of telecom calls, when they chat with technical support teams online, after they get a haircut — the list […]
Top 9 Performance Review Questions
Performance reviews can feel like talking to a school teacher about your report card. Most of us aren’t big on it. We might even feel a bit anxious or uncomfortable about doing it. But once it’s done, it can give the employee and the employer great insights and make everyone’s direction a lot more clear. […]
Top 5 Mistakes To Avoid In Your Next Engagement Survey
For many years now, organizations have used surveys to measure their employees’ engagement. But as described in this Deloitte article entitled, “Becoming Irresistible. A New Model for Employee Engagement,” written by Josh Bersin, if they aren’t utilized properly, they won’t be as effective. Common survey mistakes The following are common mistakes many organizations make when […]
How Do You Identify Troubled Teams?
There are a few signs that teams are not working well. If teams don’t have trust, don’t share thoughts and ideas, don’t find ways to work together, and don’t accept each other’s differences and support each other, there can be trouble. Why teams matter If you’ve ever been to a team-building workshop, you might remember […]
What Is Employee Engagement and How Can It Help Your Organization?
There are a lot of opinions out there about what employee engagement looks like and what it does. But, to keep it simple, let’s look at what some engaged employees feel and experience at work How do employees experience “engagement” on the job? Their managers keep them up-to-date on the organization’s bigger direction. Employees feel […]
What is the Difference Between a Satisfied Employee and an Engaged Employee?
What Is the Difference Between a Satisfied Employee and an Engaged Employee? There’s a big difference between satisfied and engaged employees. As noted in the article entitled, Satisfied Employees vs. Engaged Employees: How to Spot the Difference, engaged employees behave and act differently. It’s like the difference between giving a restaurant a rating of five […]
Top 6 Reasons your Employees Aren’t Engaged
Achieving employee engagement is a worthwhile cause for your organization. When employees are engaged, they feel a connection to the organization and its outcomes. The end result is that they are a lot more excited about doing their work, they will work harder, and they will want to stay. So let’s look at the reasons […]
Top 15 Employee Exit Interview Questions
If Employees leave your organization and you don’t know why, you may be losing a valuable chance to improve it. In fact, their silence may cause more employees to leave your workplace in the near future. Why? Since you didn’t hear about the problem that caused your employee’s exit – there is a good chance […]
What is the Cost of Losing an Employee?
It’s more than you think. When an employee’s business relationship isn’t working out, they become sick or they need to take an extended leave, businesses pay for it, in more ways than one. So it’s in a business’ best interest to do whatever they can to keep and support the best people in their organization. […]
What Type of Culture Should You Create?
If you want to create a new business culture, the first step is to understand what culture looks like and means to your organization. Second, learn how to measure and define your business’ current culture, and third, decide if you want your culture to change, and if so, how? So what does a culture look […]
How Does Workplace Culture Relate to Employee Engagement?
There is a shift in the marketplace as more and more organizations are starting to realize the importance in cultivating a good workplace culture. It is a key factor in measuring how successful your organization is in attracting and retaining good employees. Sleep Walking Through Your Job In 2018, Gallup pollster reported that only 16 per […]
How Does Good Workplace Culture Affect Profitability?
For something vitally important, workplace culture appears to be surprisingly difficult to manage. How is workplace culture defined? Workplace culture can determine whether an employee wants to stay or leave an organization. When you walk into an office, can you feel a vibe or is the atmosphere deflated? When Google hires people, often the answer to why […]
Reasons Why Workplace Culture Can Make or Break Your Organization
Your organization has just hired a new employee. He has great credentials and loads of experience. But is he a good fit? What does that mean? Does he have the right character to inspire and be inspired by the work and organization’s brand? Furthermore, if he is good, will he remain? This is why workplace […]
Mastering the Art of Employee Recognition
A lack of employee recognition is a potential cause for increased “job-hopping,” especially amongst younger talent pools. It poses critical issues for employers, but an effective employee recognition program is a low-cost solution that helps increase engagement and makes employees feel their contribution to a company is important to overall success. Studies conducted by OfficeVibe […]
What is Workplace Culture?
Richard Branson is the well-known founder of the Virgin Group which is one of the world’s most recognized and respected brands with over 400 companies, including Virgin Airways and Virgin Galactic to Virgin Media. Branson has always expressed a different approach to business than his contemporaries. In Forbes magazine, he explains what he looks for in an employee. […]
How Do We Measure Employee Engagement?
Here is a list of our 13 core dimensions that measure employee engagement. We also measure Diversity & Inclusion, Mental Health and/or Safety if required. Work environment measures how comfortable an employee is with their ability to perform in their role. It assesses an employee’s view on whether your organization provides them with the right […]
Why Measuring Employee Engagement is Critical
Measuring employee engagement with an effective, proven measurement tool will provide your organization with a snapshot of the current landscape. It will identify areas of strength, weakness, and what the drivers of engagement are for your organization. In addition, when surveying with TalentMap, our clients receive Benchmark data of comparable organizations so that you get […]
What Is Employee Engagement?
Employee Engagement describes the way employees demonstrate commitment, ownership, and discretionary effort toward their work, team, and organization. How people feel about their jobs, working conditions, management, compensation, and a host of other factors determines how well an organization performs. Engaged employees are loyal and committed to the organization. They are far more likely to […]
Six Savvy Action Plans to Increase Engagement Through Professional Growth
Professional growth is a joint effort – with inputs both from the employee and their employer. So the truth is that individuals and organizations have a lot to gain from committing resources and energy into managing careers. 1. Start career development on day one. Introduce a robust on-boarding program that integrates new hires into their […]
The Top 11 Myths About Employee Surveys
Think you know everything about Employee Surveys? Think again. 1.We already know what our employees will say You may feel strongly that you already have your finger on the pulse of your staff, so there is no point in surveying them. Well, we don’t mean to startle you, but your perception may not be r. […]
The Importance of Acting on Survey Data
Two schools of thought seem to be bandying about in the HR field these days. On the one hand, there are those who forecast a mass exodus of baby boomers from the workforce. The predicted result is a huge talent gap. A fiercely competitive talent market. Employees can be had, they caution, but, at a […]
What is the TalentMap Engagement Questionnaire Based On?
In 2000, Sean Fitzpatrick (founder of TalentMap) and Dr. Tom Foard collaborated to develop the original TalentMap employee satisfaction survey. The TalentMap survey was based on a review of the best practices of other organizations and through active participation in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). Our review included a detailed study of […]
Why You Should Run an Employee Engagement Survey
We believe every organization with more than a handful of employees should run an employee engagement survey annually or biennially (depending on your circumstances). Employee surveys ‘done right’ are the most efficient and effective tool to open up two-way conversations between management and staff. The top four reasons why our clients use employee engagement surveys: […]
What Employee Engagement Looks Like in the Financial Service Sector
The financial service industry is a complex compendium of banking and securities, commercial real estate, investment management and insurance. In 2016, this mammoth sector represented 7.3 percent (or $1.4 trillion) of U.S. gross domestic product. What does employee engagement look like in a sophisticated industry employing more than 6.2 million Americans? In general terms, there’s huge competition […]
The Five Barriers to Employee Engagement
Last year, close to a billion US dollars was spent on employee engagement around the world. If we’re spending all this money, shouldn’t we be getting better? Sadly not. Data shows engagement seems to be flatlining at best. Why? Reasons are outlined in “Translating Employee Engagement Research into Practice,” a 2017 paper authored by Alan […]
The Pitfalls of Using Shortcuts (like Net Promoter Score)
Customers and employees are like the chicken and egg thing. Which takes precedence or comes first in an organization’s priorities can be long debated without resolve. Customers pay the bills, right? But those products and services customers purchase are produced by employees. The bigger question is how to optimally measure, attain and retain customer satisfaction […]
No Budget Is No Excuse
Many U.S. local governments lament budget constraints when it comes to employee engagement. If you see your budget as a barrier to employee engagement, you’re not alone. In fact, Employee Benefits polled employers on the subject, and 47% said the cost of engagement was an obstacle. The poll also found 44% of respondents named time and […]
Modern Employee Wellness Programs for Irresistible Employee Experiences
It’s that resolution time of year again. Weight loss programs, sporting goods retailers, fitness centers, and so on are all clambering for their share of the pie. Each promising a new and better you. Health and wellness is big business. It’s also a hefty business tool for organizations wanting to give employee engagement a lift. A 2017 survey of […]
Workplace Safety: Violence Has No Place in Deeply Engaged Cultures
On a day usually reserved for love and lovers, the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida ripped through America’s social conscience. Schools are meant to be safe, secure, and engaging environments for students and those employed as teachers, administrators, custodians and cafeteria staff. While devastating school violence draws mass media […]
Prepare for Change: Top Trends Shared by HR Professionals
At a recent HR leadership conference in Toronto, Canada, change was the constant. It crept into pretty much every presentation, lunch table discussion, and coffee break chit chat. Everyone seems to be brandishing the same notion. It’s a time of transition and significant change. And it’s turning the business world upside down. As fiscal year […]
Retain Top Talent with Meaningful Employee Engagement
Compensation Might Entice Quitters, But Then What? The U.S. economy is now firing on all cylinders such that many companies are facing attraction and retention issues. Recently in the Wall Street Journal, David Harrison and Eric Morath’s piece “In This Economy, Quitters are Winning” looks at how American workers are choosing to leave their jobs at […]
Turning the Tide Through Effective Employee Onboarding
News outlets spewed frenzied headlines: “The long, amazing history of quitting jobs in epic fashion” – Washington Post “Americans are quitting their jobs like crazy” – Business Insider “More Americans quitting jobs” – Reuters “It’s Great That So Many Americans Are Quitting Their Jobs” – The Atlantic Statistics from the U.S. Labor Department’s December 2016 Job […]
Work-Life Balance: Why Overworking Your Employees Makes Them Less Productive
Whether you work in a restaurant, an office, or a high-stress emergency room, a lack of productivity can occur due to excessive workloads. The problem is, many don’t understand that their employees are often not to blame when they are overworked. Employers are sometimes under the assumption that employees don’t care enough or want to […]
Workplace Health and Wellness: The Profits of Prevention and Impact on Employee Engagement
There’s a ton of research out there singing the cost/benefit praises of workplace health and wellness programs. Stats point to links between recruitment and retention, absenteeism, presenteeism, productivity and how it pays to keep healthy people healthy. Estimates suggest a $2 to $4 return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent in workplace health and wellness. […]
Workplace Safety and Employee Engagement: How Top Organizations Tackle Work-related Safety
Workplace Safety Stats: Every 15 seconds, a worker diesfrom a work-related accident or disease. Every 15 seconds, 153 workershave a work-related accident. Every day, 6,300 people die because of occupational accidents or work-related diseases – more than 2.3 million deaths per year. Every year 317 million accidents occur globally; many of these resulting in extended absences from work. These […]
Asking the right questions for a meaningful and effective check-ins
Successful one-on-one meetings with employees are like opening a locked vault filled with treasures You’ve noticed a tinge of tension in the air. Your team isn’t playing well together, not as well as usual. Levity is missing. Deadlines are being met, but just barely. One of your group left on paternity leave several weeks ago. […]
Talent Acquisition In A Competitive Talent Market: How to Use Recruitment Experts to Find the Right Fit
HR professionals have heard the drum call: brace for a talent war. Unemployment rates are down. Job growth is on the rise. There’s a demographic transition in the works. Not enough talent supply to fill demand. Unscrupulous talent poaching and outrageous compensation packages are just the tip of a competitive talent market that’s just starting to heat […]
Seeing Employee Surveys Through a Clear Lens
Imagine visiting the Grand Canyon on a blue-sky kind of day, taking in the sweeping vistas of mountainous formations millions of years in the making. Talk about a high-level view. Sometimes your organization’s leadership can have a high-level view from their own tower offices. But things aren’t always as they seem – especially from a […]
What to do with Neutral Employee Survey Responses
The never-ending debate on employee surveys Social psychologist Rensis Likert was a visionary guru. His contributions to organizational psychology influenced businesses of the day. And his theories of participative management can be said to have shaped today’s concepts of employee engagement. But it’s the five-point scale developed for people to respond to questions that’s his greatest […]
Why Aren’t Your Employees Filling Out Your Employee Surveys?
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Why Corporate Social Responsibility Matters
Once every three months a Bay Street firm’s leadership team and employees trade wealth management portfolios for kitchen chopping blocks, and cook up good eats for those less fortunate. Every quarter, that half day of business time channeled into volunteering serves up a lot more than goodwill. Working side by side, dicing onions, wearing aprons, […]
Why is Employee Data So Important?
Employee data is a roadmap to places your organization has never travelled. Unfamiliar destinations that might, at first, or to some, seem a tad off the beaten path. Take surveying brand new recruits as part of the onboarding experience as a for instance. Where’s the value in that kind of data when newcomers have such […]
Volunteer Engagement Strategies
Volunteerism: Matchmaking Nirvana? If you’ve ever volunteered, you’ve likely had an enriching experience or one that’s left you shaking your head wondering why you got involved in the first place. Although volunteer engagement strategies might be something those of us outside of the health care and not-for-profit sectors easily dismiss, thinking they don’t really apply […]
Want to Motivate Sales Professionals? Applaud Their Resilience
There’s a whole lot of psychological know-how behind managing people directly responsible for gross revenue. Be it inside or outside sales (or fundraisers – the non-profit synonym for sales) these career professionals are the first to admit they’re a breed unto themselves. To master the art of sales team motivation, the first rule of engagement […]
Not All Benchmarks Are Created Equal
Why “Go Big Or Go Home” May Not Be In Your Best Interest When an organization looks at shifting employee engagement survey projects from a large survey vendor to a highly specialized albeit smaller survey partner, there’s always pause for concern. Particularly when it comes to comparing employee engagement benchmarks. If one database comprises 500 or more […]
Performance Feedback Improves Employee Engagement
Performance feedback improves employee engagement when done right. Historically an organization’s handling of performance feedback has never been a top of mind consideration in the context of employee engagement. Key drivers of engagement have tended to revolve around career and professional growth, around a culture of innovation and organizational vision. Even when it’s been an irritant, it’s been relegated to […]
Plan for Engagement Survey Action Planning Difficulties
Surveying your employees is one thing. Acting on results is another. The difficulty of employee engagement survey action planning might come as a surprise. It takes a champion or three to make it happen. A good many champions of employee engagement have wrestled with some of the best oppositional managers. These naysayers are everywhere. Getting management […]
Workplace Diversity: Employee Engagement’s Close Cousins Diversity, Inclusion and Respect
R…E…S…P…E…C…T… Find out what it means to me When it comes to workplace diversity and its impact on employee engagement Aretha Franklin’s signature line couldn’t be more apt. When people feel respected, they become more engaged, right? Diversity – together with its cousin’s Inclusion and Respect (DIR) – is not a peripheral issue separate from […]
The #1 Reason To Change Your Employee Survey Vendor
It could be that your organization isn’t actively looking for an employee engagement partner. You’ve got a vendor you’ve worked with for a while now; you know their platform, their work style, their deliverables. Although it would be nice to figure out how to return to those early days of priority service, change hasn’t really crossed […]
Uniting Unions in Support of Employee Engagement
Like cilantro, it’s an either-or kind of thing. Either your organization and unions like one another and get along palatably. Or you don’t. Many of us have had a first-hand (or maybe arm’s length) experience from one side of the fence or the other. For unionized organizations intending to introduce or raise employee engagement levels, […]
Verbatim Comments & Protecting Anonymity
Surveys were designed in the 1930s as a way to aggregate or count the opinions of a large number of people. Scale questions – the agree versus disagree, satisfied versus not satisfied and everything in between – are ways we derive statistics, turn attitudes into mathematical equations, compile and then extrapolate insights. The thing is responses to […]
One In Five Doctors Intend To Leave Medicine Altogether. Let’s Talk About Why.
Healthcare is facing enormous hurdles. Dr. Goldman, host of CBC’s radio series White Coat, Black Art, recently looked at doctor burnout. According to the Canadian Medical Association, more than half of Canada’s doctors may be suffering from burnout. And in the U.S., it’s even higher with nearly two-thirds of doctors feeling depressed, burned out, or both. Meanwhile, a 2017 […]
Survey Reliability vs. Survery Validity: What’s the Big Deal?
You may ask yourself or find others asking you about the “reliability” or “validity” of data that comes out of employee surveys. It’s not uncommon for those two words to be used interchangeably. But in the field of data research, the two are far from synonymous. Why is it important to know the difference? Because […]
Survey Saturation: When Is Too Much Of A Good Thing Too Much?
Pulse surveys, engagement surveys, 360 surveys, attitude surveys, organizational assessment surveys, safety surveys, entry and exit surveys – the possibilities are endless. And online survey tools make it easy. At a recent HR chapter meeting, a question was raised about survey saturation. When does asking for employee input become one survey too many? It really depends on […]
Public Service Work Doesn’t Have to be Dismal
Questions around the differences between public and private sector employee engagement badger scholars around the world. In a 2012 study investigating Work Motivation Differences Between Public and Private Sector, Pakistan-based scholars Sadia Rashid and Uzma Rashid, found public servants are motivated by finding the right job fit, and experience more work-life balance in the process, while financial rewards […]
Pulse Surveys: The Right And Wrong Reasons To Do Them
The Benefits and Pitfalls of Pulse Surveys All trends take flight because they offer users a benefit over existing offerings. Pulse surveys are no different, and they can be very useful tools in understanding employee engagement and the employee mindset. However, the benefits giving rise to their increasing popularity may not be the reasons one should […]
Recruiting Best Practices Why Employee Soft Skills Matter More Than Ever
Nasty office politics, difficult managers, gossipy colleagues; together or alone each of these can fester and brew into a downright toxic, counter-productive work environment and poor employee engagement. We all wish for world peace. But let’s face it: how is that ever likely if we can’t even manage to get along at work? That’s where […]
When Growth Gets in the Way of Employee Engagement
What comes to mind when you think about successful employee engagement? Magnetic organizations and productive workforces? We equate employee engagement with business growth. But what happens to employee engagement when business growth mushrooms? Cindy Grant, VP of Human Resources for Trisura Guarantee Insurance Company frets exactly about that. Having worked her whole career in the heart of Canada’s financial […]
The Imperatives of Employee Survey Identity Protection and Confidentiality
To land the big scoop journalists work hard to gain their source’s confidence. Not infrequently, identity protection accompanies trust. Without that veil of obscurity, a lot of headline stories would never see the light of day. Deep Throat, the secret informant behind Watergate, is one of the most notorious. It was 30 years before Mark […]
The Power of Appreciation and Recognition Programs
Remember the first ever gift you made at school or purchased on your very own for your mother or father or special someone? Do you recall their oohs and ahhs of appreciation and your sense of pride? The utter satisfaction? Recognition makes us feel good. It placates our egos. It also gives others watching from […]
The Powerful Relationship of Engagement to Performance
Thirteenth-century Persian poet and Sunni mystic, Rumi, once ruminated, “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” Unlocking the heart’s desire is at the very core of employee engagement. But engagement isn’t just a warmhearted, convivial sort of thing. Engagement is part of […]
The Presenteeism Conundrum and Absenteeism Panacea
Time to fess up. The world of human capital and employee experience is truly fascinating to an inquiring mind (like mine). One attracted to statistics and the stories they tell, depending of course, on the storyteller. And always digging for the “why” behind the “what”. Seriously, it’s a veritable feast for a serial researcher. Every […]
Turn March Madness Into April Advantage: Engage the Hearts and Minds of Sport Enthusiasts
It started with Super Bowl Sunday. This year roughly 103.4 million people watched the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots. Seemingly some 16.5 million people or one in ten Americans skipped work the next day, according to CNBC, costing employers somewhere in the vicinity of $3 billion. Then crossing oceans and time zones, for […]
Skilled Labor Shortages Threaten Growth: How to Gain the Upper Hand with Employee Engagement
It’s midway through 2018. The economy continues to expand. The talent pool continues to contract. Skilled labor shortages are prolific. No sector is immune. Employers predict wage increases. They say this elevated demand for labor is constraining growth. They report losing out on business. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, as an example: A […]
Where Survey Data and Open-Ended Employee Feedback Meet
How do you make sense of employee feedback from open-ended survey questions? And does this kind of feedback really help pinpoint key engagement drivers? After all, it’s not uncommon for an employee engagement survey to rack up hundreds of pages of comments. And having someone from your organization toil through massive numbers of text responses across nine or […]
What Does Career Development Look Like In a Flat Organization?
Retaining valuable employees is a challenge in the modern workforce. A lack of employee engagement is a potential cause for increased “job-hopping,” especially amongst younger talent pools. It poses critical issues for employers, but an effective employee recognition program is a low-cost solution that helps increase engagement and makes employees feel their contribution to a […]
The Human Age of Employee Experience
Lessons from Progressive Organizations It seems the Human Age has finally arrived in the Western world of business. Hello to “employee experience,” the trending mantra of today’s progressive thought leaders. Mismatched supply and demand in the talent market seems to be the catalyst for this trend. Well, that and the fact that early adopters of employee […]
Engaging Employees in the Safety and Health of their Workplace
This year on April 28 the International Labour Organization’s World Day for Safety and Health at Work is linking forces with the World Day Against Child Labour in a joint campaign to improve the occupational safety and health of all employees, regardless of age. Every day 6,300 people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases […]
Millennial Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Expectations Fuel Employee Engagement
Millennials are the dominant force in today’s work world and their drum-call for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) keeps getting louder and more persistent. Business pundits and scholars point to growing evidence between CSR and employee engagement. One of those studies, out of IBM Global Services, found 44 percent of young professionals wouldn’t consider an employer with a bad […]
Mental Health, the Formidable Workplace Foe
What we can do to promote employee well-being Mental illness is slowly eking its way out from under the long-casting shadow of stigma. Very slowly. Especially in the workplace. Despite recognizing how employee well-being can help or hinder productivity and improve employee engagement, the sad fact is few organizations really pay attention to mental health or know […]
Measuring Up: Tools of the Employee Engagement Trade
Landscape masters Claude Monet and JMW Turner surveyed the lay of the land and painted what they saw, each with their own interpretation and style. Likewise, your organization’s senior leaders look at their employee landscape, interpret what they perceive, and paint a mental picture with broad sweeping strokes. While interpretive creative license has a place […]
Managing Generational Gaps in the Workplace
Do Age Differences Really Matter? Check out some of the online genealogy sites that help trace family lineage and history. The generally accepted time between generations averages 20 to 25 years (from the birth of a parent to the birth of a child). With good health extending our life expectancies in North America it’s not inconceivable our […]
15 Tips for Employee Survey Customization
Themes around employee engagement are well documented. All survey vendors have some version of standard survey questions that fall under those 12 or 15 umbrella categories (compensation, professional growth, leadership…you know the shtick). Yet strategic objectives and corporate cultures vary. Internal corporate-speak and external industry jargon differ. Geography, language and literacy rates compound differences. Sometimes employee survey customization is required or […]
Links Between Employee Engagement and Organizational Success
“People create organizations, therefore the concepts and systems of any organization must reflect the diversity and complexity of the people who comprise it.” What a great quote. Altruistic, yet oh so true; employee engagement stripped to the bare bones. Kevin Fong, a proponent of Eastern traditions and philosophies, offers this golden nugget in his paper, The […]
Leave it to Self: Unleash Engagement through Empowerment
When you do an internet search and look up employee engagement tips or employee engagement ideas what you’ll find is the majority, in fact almost all the topics are what executives can do or what managers can do. Very few ideas or suggestions look at what employees can do to drive engagement. At a talk […]
Leadership and Employee Engagement
How to connect with 10,000 employees (more or less) Leaders often ask me what the most “highly engaged” organizations do differently that engages their employees. While there are a number of key drivers of engagement that highly engaged organizations tend to do well, I have come to observe one consistent difference. That difference is how […]
Keeping Remote Employees Engaged
Confessions of a Digital Nomad She’s a millennial. Part of a 40-person technology team. Like her engineer colleagues who work from different geographic locations across North America, she’s one of many remote employees. A member of a global nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas. Most of us know her employer as TED Talks. Twice a year, […]
Job Purposing: Igniting a Sense of Purpose at Work
Employees At Their Best — On Purpose When someone sees a strong purpose, when they feel really good about what their organization stands for, and they feel they have true meaning in what they’re doing then they are going to feel pride in the organization, optimistic about its future and they’ll emotionally invest. And of […]
Is Employee Engagement Part Of Your Organization’s DNA?
Where does the notion of employee engagement come from? What’s the motivation? For HR leaders looking to elevate their status and overall value, making those kinds of connections can be the portal to a C-suite. It’s all about how you connect something like attraction and retention to corporate culture, and that culture to employer/employee branding, and that […]
A Point or Two About Engagement and the Time it Takes to See Progress
When an organization is on a mission to improve employee engagement, questions abound. Invariably someone will ask, “how much can we expect engagement to improve year over year?” It’s a stock question without a pat answer. Engagement measurement isn’t an exact science. There are lots of variables to consider. How long has employee engagement been a […]
Selecting Benchmark Data for Valid Employee Engagement Measurement
Selecting benchmark data to measure Employee Engagement surveyoutcomes can stir up a lot of issues in more ways than you might imagine. People get twisted in a knot about measurement comparatives: rancor and concern is most common among senior leadership. Who are they being compared to? Are these the right comparisons to be looking at? […]
Promote, Praise, and Influence Engagement in the Workplace
When was the last time someone at work gave you recognition for a job well done? Count yourself lucky if you can remember, and extremely fortunate if employee recognition is frequent and regular. Recognition has an impact on everything from employee retention and churn to customer satisfaction, increased productivity, cost savings and even improved safety. […]
How to Measure Human Behavior: The 3 Requirement Criteria
In order to identify the underlying processes as well as the ultimate ‘driving forces’ of human behavior, research has developed intricate techniques allowing for the collection of qualitative and quantitative measures that are indicative of an underlying personality trait, an emotional or cognitive state, or a specific problem-solving strategy. This relationship is referred to as […]
How to Make Employee Engagement Happen Without an HR Department
As the hub for all things employee related HR is the “go-to” executive leaders rely on for strategic people and performance guidance. But what happens when a smaller-sized organization doesn’t have an HR department? How is something as fundamental as employee engagement handled, if at all? Operating without an HR professional is often part and parcel of […]
Engagement and Expectations: How to Keep Your Top Talent Ticking
Employee engagement and expectations are a hand in hand kind of thing for top performers. Ever heard the story about a high-profile band that always included a quirky rider in their concert tour contracts? Buried deep in the middle of said contracts: a request for M&Ms in the backstage area – without any brown M&Ms. […]
How To Ask The Right Employee Survey Questions
All survey vendors have some version of standard employee survey questions. Often though customization is desired or required especially when an organization wants to measure the impact of specific concepts or initiatives. However, asking the right questions is a complex science. Researchers and statisticians spend years, decades, lifetimes honing their scholarly know-how. After all, defective data is […]
How Servant Leadership Wins The Hearts And Minds Of Employees
Ancient Greek and Roman temples, the great pyramids of Egyptian, Mayan and Inca cultures, the 828 meters (2,717 ft) towering Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, and 104-storey One World Trade Centre in New York are monuments of indentured servitude. Architectural marvels built by slaves of bygone rulers and laborers bound to regular paychecks issued by […]
How Many Managers Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?
…Writer Rey Elbo posited this question, tongue in cheek, in a Manila Times editorial exploring “the idiocy of excessive management command-and-control that defeats employee empowerment.” Changing light bulbs aside, the real question is: how many hurdles does it take to find the right kind of manager? Finding the right type of management talent is as […]
How Engaged Companies Handle Parenting
It’s difficult keeping our parenting and work worlds apart. We worry about projects and deadlines when we’re home, contend with babysitters, sick days, PD days and how to get the kids to their dental appointments when we’re on the job. “More and more companies are coming to terms with the fact that the majority of […]
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Too Much Employee Data?
Have you noticed how things are moving so fast? Uber quickly. How we seem to be caught up in a profound shift? According to Bruce Croxon, a digital mogul who built one of the world’s first and foremost online dating empires, “we’ve generated more data in the last year than we have in the history […]
How Corporate Social Responsibility Influences Recruitment, Retention and Engagement
Home is where the heart is. For a growing number of people, especially Millennials, this proverb holds true on the job. Work is where the heart is if we’re truly engaged with our jobs and employers. One of the touchpoints for the hypermobile Millennial generation is a desire to work in an environment where similar values are […]
Why & How Employee Engagement in Higher Education Can Help
Higher education is facing enormous hurdles. By some estimates, 50% of universities and colleges in the U.S. are likely to face bankruptcy in the coming decades. Most colleges failed to meet their revenue or enrollment goals for 2016. National Student Clearinghouse data shows U.S. college enrollment has declined for five consecutive years and is projected to continue declining for the […]
Guest Blog: 7 Tips for Recruiting the Right Person for the Job
Recruiting the right employee to fit the job opening in your business can be a tricky feat, but it’s well worth the effort if you find the perfect candidate. Hiring the right talent can mean the difference between an engaging, helpful, and knowledgeable staff, and a staff that barely seems capable of working as a cohesive unit. […]
Why Employee Engagement Is Globally Misunderstood
When we talk about talent acquisition we tend to cast a wide net to find the people we’re looking for to move our businesses forward. One of the things that’s becoming an interesting addition to the conversation is the whole idea of a global workforce strategy. Back in 2004, management guru Dave Ulrich said “for […]
Getting Workspace Design Right
There’s a popular trend lately around open concept offices with undesignated desks or seating. “Inspire collaboration!” interior design types enthuse. Physical workspace design is an interesting topic for yours truly given that the place where this blog and others are written happens to be under a canopy of trees on an outdoor cottage deck (or […]
Get Prepared For The Generation Z Workforce: Facts, Predictions, and Implications
It’s early days for Generation Z (also known as iGen or Post-Millennials) in the workplace. Researchers and writers paint their own pictures of this post-millennial population with different characteristics. Some say they’re confident, entrepreneurial. Others say not so much. So What Do We Know About The Generation Z Workforce And How Can HR Professionals Prepare? […]
5 Must-Ask Questions About Diversity and Inclusion
As Canada’s largest employer, the federal public service has an obligation to ensure that its employees are representative of the diverse people it serves. The Joint Union/Management Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion tabled research and recommendations to strengthen diversity and inclusion in the Canadian government. The Task Force reported that in successful public sector organizations, diversity […]
5 Internal Communication Strategies for HR Professionals
A new study exploring communication requirements of non-desktop, remote, and office workers found despite their different work environments, all three segments share a common view of the importance, frequency, and channels of communication. Research revealed that employees would like to hear from their HR teams more frequently and consider open communication to all employees one […]
5 Conversations Guaranteed to Improve Employee Engagement
In my role at TalentMap I present employee engagement survey results to countless HR and leadership teams. Inevitably, the discussion turns to what to do to improve employee engagement. While each and every presentation and discussion is unique, there is one element that is common throughout: the large majority of strategies and tactics to improve […]
Facing Layoffs 8 Tips to Manage Employee Morale During Troubled Times
Bad things happen. When markets contract and revenues decline, costs need to be cut. In many organizations that means people have lost or will lose jobs. It’s a harsh reality. Unless you manage engagement wisely, you can expect employee morale to take a turn for the worst. It’s a changed work environment. Cost cutting. Fewer […]
Exit Interview Questions
Adios. Farewell. The Goodwill and Good Management of Exit Interviews What makes employees leave one job for another? Better compensation is an enticing carrot to be sure. Career advancement. Yup. No doubt. Getting away from a toxic work environment? An untenable boss who micromanages? More and better growth opportunities? A better corporate culture with a […]
9 Ways to Increase Your Employee Survey Response Rates
High employee engagement survey response rates are vital to a successful survey program. TalentMap’s average employee survey response rate is over 81%. Below are some ways to help you hit and even beat the benchmark average. SURVEY LAUNCH: Invite employees for coffee and donuts the day the survey launches to introduce, promote and build excitement around […]
Engagement Survey Follow-up Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Organizations can say all kinds of things without uttering a single word. One of the most perilous is leadership’s big silent hush following an employee feedback survey. That quiet inaction can be a real killer. The whole purpose behind polling is to uncover information for future action planning. Earliest accounts of statistical gathering date back […]
Engage Your Employees Through Compensation, But Without Money. Wait. What?
Are your compensation policies contributing to employee engagement? Perhaps, but it is probably more likely that your compensation policies are actually acting as a drag on engagement, even if your compensation plan is competitive in the marketplace. To understand the role that compensation plays in employee engagement, we need to understand that there are many […]
Employee Turnover Costs & Retention Tips
Employee turnover cost-estimates are as varied as wildflowers in a field. The average cost-per hire is $4,129 says the Society of Human Resource Management based on a human capital benchmark survey of 2,048 respondents reflecting fiscal year 2015. Total direct and indirect costs of replacing a supermarket cashier earning $6.50 per hour is at least $3,637 according […]
Employee Surveys and the Stories They Tell
Think about a recent customer service experience you’ve had on the phone with an airline or cable company, in the food court, at a Starbucks’ counter or wherever. In that brief interaction, you can tell instinctively, whether that person is an engaged employee. Easily. An engaged employee goes above and beyond to make sure your […]
The Value of Open-Ended Survey Questions
If you’ve ever spent time with a two or three or four-year-old you know how exhausting it can be. Why is the sky blue? Why do I have to wear socks? Why does it rain? Why? How come? Why?! Those never-ending questions are a young mind’s foray into the wonder filled world of learning. Open-ended […]
Employee Survey Methodologies: The Case for Likert’s Five-Point Scale
Named after its inventor, psychologist Rensis Likert, the Likert five-point scale is the most widely used method in employee survey research. It measures attitudes and opinions by posing a series of questions or items that ask respondents to select a rating on a scale that ranges from one extreme to another, such as “completely agree” […]
Employee Engagement: Engaging Your ‘Older’ Workers
Pop Quiz: Which is the fastest growing segment of the working population in the USA (and probably Canada as well)? If you’re about to answer: Millennials, you would be…. wrong! Despite the fact that the millennial generation is getting the most press, publicity, and attention these days (including from yours truly – mea culpa), the […]
Why Employees in Small Businesses Are More Engaged
When it comes to employee engagement in small businesses, they’re doing something right. TalentMap’s 2017 Employee Engagement Benchmarks study reports organizations with fewer than 250 employees have a collective engagement score of 86 percent. In short, that’s a sizable 13 percentage points higher than the overall score (73 percent) for organizations of all sizes. Mid-sized organizations with […]
Employee Engagement In Not-For-Profits: Doing It For The Cause
Having recently completed a number of engagement surveys and workshops in North America’s cause-driven non-profit sector (i.e. mostly charitable organizations), I’ve been struck by the enormity of the challenges many of these organizations face. Yet I also continue to be highly impressed by the high-level of resilience of their employees in the face of these […]
Employee Engagement in Municipalities: Unique Challenges and Solutions
If the number of surveys and workshops we do for municipalities is any indicator, these organizations have been getting on the employee engagement bandwagon in a major way over the past several years. The case for higher employee engagement in municipalities is clear: higher productivity, better retention, lower absenteeism, better citizen/ratepayer experience, and the list goes […]
Employee Engagement Drives Customer Satisfaction
Engaged employees provide services with pride which can improve customer satisfaction. This is especially important for customer-facing service industries like financial, government, and healthcare sectors. Study after study has shown employee engagement is a predictor of how employees deliver services and how their behavior, in turn, affects customer satisfaction. ISS, a provider of facility services around the world, amassed more than […]
Employee Engagement Best Practices
The first step to improving employee engagement is to ask your employees how they feel and what they think can be done to improve the workplace. The next step is taking action on those results. These actions will be different for each organization, depending on the size, resources, and culture of the organization. There is […]
Employee Engagement Best Practice Series: Setting Up Your Employee Engagement Committee
This is the second in my series of “best practice” blogs on measuring and improving employee engagement. In this series, I’m answering a number of questions which are often asked by our network in terms of how to measure and, more importantly, improve employee engagement. One of the things that tends to perplex many of […]
Employee Engagement Best Practice Series Verbatim Comments – Walking the Tightrope
One of the most common questions we at TalentMap receive almost on a weekly basis is how to handle and distribute verbatim comments. On the one hand, comments submitted by individual employees provide essential insight into the issues and root causes underlying the different scale responses. They need to be read. However, unlike marketing or public opinion […]
Employee Engagement Action Planning: ‘Quick Wins’ That Can be Implemented After Your Survey
Your organization must identify its priorities for action, and it should also identify some simple and effective changes the organization can make quickly. This way, your company can demonstrate to employees that it is committed to acting on the survey results and that change is possible, positive, and going to happen. To identify employee engagement […]
Embracing AI Within the Recruiting Process to Hire Top Talent
Many don’t realize this, but humans and artificial intelligence (AI) are about to work together at every stage in the recruiting funnel. In a recent report, Jobvite found that when the skills of both are combined, they collectively introduce an opportunity for more efficient, meticulously screened and results-driven recruiting process. Here are just a few ways […]
Eight Easy Pre-Survey Communication Tactics
Pre-Survey Communication is a must do before launching any kind of employee engagement survey. Your organization’s leaders, managers, and general employee population need to understand the purpose and their part in its success. Depending on the size and structure of your organization, communication about a forthcoming employee survey may fall to members of the HR […]
8 Reasons Why a 3rd Party is Best for Presenting Survey Results to the Exec Team
Employee engagement surveys invariably surface negative or sensitive leadership issues. It’s an industry norm. A predictable key driver. And a top opportunity for improvement with relation to engaging people in their workplace environments. But when executive team members are gathered together hearing unwelcome news about themselves, a certain expression comes to mind: don’t shoot the messenger. For […]
Don’t Judge a Questionnaire by Its Cover
A Well-Designed Employee Survey Goes Well Beyond Layout Design It’s no wonder some folks spend years earning their PhD in the art and science of surveys. Complexities abound. Like just about anything, everything can be argued one way or another. Granted, there are very specific clearly defined, not-to-be-deviated-from truths when it comes to good survey […]
DIY or Outsourced Employee Engagement Surveys?
What does workplace breach of confidentiality mean? Well, what if you were to say something disparaging about Big Boss, to someone you “trust”, yet somehow Big Boss learns about those criticisms? For a good many employees, worry about confidentiality is an oppressive fear factor when an Employee Engagement survey arrives in their inbox. “Just how secure are my comments?” […]
Disability Inclusion in the Workplace: 8 Tips to Access a Talent Pool High on Engagement
In this age of low unemployment rates and high demand for qualified employees, transformational change leader Mark Wafer suggests organizations cast wider diversity and inclusion nets. “Not only is hiring people with disabilities the right thing to do,” says Wafer. “It can have a dramatic effect on a business’s bottom line. In bringing them into the […]
Dig Deep with Employee Focus Groups: Part 2
Facilitation Guidelines Employee focus groups can dig deeper into problems and causes identified in employee surveys, and can surface suggested solutions. Once you have determined the purpose of your employee focus group, what questions will be asked, and have finalized the timing and location of your focus group, it’s time to ensure you’re ready to facilitate […]
Dig Deep with Employee Focus Groups: Part 1
Experiences, Feelings, and Preferences Unearthed After an organization has conducted an employee engagement survey further dialogue may be required to validate and clarify results, unearth the root causes of issues, and provide deeper insights that feed into and assist with action planning. Employee focus groups probe identified problems and causes, and surface suggested solutions. The […]
Decline of the Employee Engagement Empire
Estimates peg the amount of money spent conducting surveys, doing action plans and marshalling resources around the concept of employee engagement in the $720 million USD range in North America. Yet the number of disengaged employees is on the rise. Forbes recently showcased a study by Aon Hewitt that revealed employee engagement dipped for the first […]
How to Deal With Workplace Transformations
Organizational improvement initiatives are hard work. Accelerating at breakneck speeds these days, change is a constant that’s demanding faster and more frequent tactical shifts. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin who lured children to follow the spellbinding notes of his magical flute, HR professionals lead the charges. They make transformative magic happen by facilitating the […]
Can I Customize The Questionnaire?
Yes, you can. Most of our clients start with our standard questionnaire TalentGage Classic and then decide if they need to customize it. For those that do customize, changes can be made to any text, the items (questions) and the sections to align with specific goals and to resonate better with staff. We can accommodate […]
12 Secrets to Fortify HR Relationships with Managers
Employee engagement is a function of how people interrelate. How people are managed by others. Funnily enough though, people who manage others aren’t typically moved into these roles because of interpersonal prowess. It’s rather quite the opposite. Accomplished technical skills have traditionally been one’s “ace in the hole.” Yet to reach their personal pinnacles, employees need […]
Building Better Buy-in from the Bottom Up
Three Post-Survey Action Planning Tactics There’s no universal solution when it comes to post-survey action planning. Essentially tactics fall into three distinct categories. Many organizations have success mixing methods. Choosing the right approach depends on your organization’s corporate culture, leadership style, the abilities of your different managers and a compendium of other circumstances. 1.Strategic Breakthrough […]
BIG FIVE Workplace Personalities
Recognizing employees’ traits makes it easier to inspire and engage Understanding the association between individual personality traits and employee engagement is the premise of an academic paper authored by Ilke Inceoglu and Peter Warr. Of course descriptions of workplace personalities come in all kinds of different packaging (red or blue? owl or eagle? amiable or assertive?). When you […]
Before You Launch a 360 Survey… Read This!
A word of caution here: questions about implementing 360° feedback (360 survey) are easy to ask but not so to answer. Often times, management assumes the answers but does not openly discuss them, resulting in much chaos and confusion down the road. An Exceptional Tool for New Managers CASE STUDY: Based in Montreal Canada, a leading software […]
Are Millennial Problems Just The Tip Of The Iceberg?
“Coddled, entitled, self-involved and lazy? Are Millennials really that bad?” Based on her experience, Adrienne Batra Editor-in-Chief at the Toronto Sun thinks so. “We love to hate on them” she pronounced likening Millennials to “the kid we want to pick on in the school yard.” Batra’s comments were part of a nationally televised debate exploring […]
20 Onboarding Survey Questions for Your New Hires
Finding and recruiting the right kind of talent for your organization takes a certain knack. Perfect matches aren’t made in heaven. They take time and effort. Why isn’t that same attention applicable to onboarding? According to an article written by Keith Ferazzi for a March 2015 edition of Harvard Business Review, almost a quarter of […]
10 Guidelines for Successfully Deploying an Employee Survey
A client of TalentMap’s recently achieved a remarkable 96 percent participation rate on their employee engagement survey. The organization’s internal efforts deserve praise. At 7:00 am members of the HR team were at entrance ways greeting people with chocolate bars and reminder notes to fill out the employee survey launching that morning. Simple. Smart. Effective. Deploying […]
9 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Support Employee Development
Have you ever watched the reality TV show, Undercover Boss, where the CEO of a company leaves their ivory tower office to secretly experience the frontlines? What a great example of cross-department training delivered from the bottom up. Imagine adopting that concept for real across all levels and divisions. Okay, so the undercover part doesn’t apply […]
8 Ways to Prevent and Manage Employee Burnout
“My my, hey hey … it’s better to burnout than to fade away.” These widely quoted lyrics by the Godfather of Grunge, Neil Young, give pause for thought. Would we really rather burnout on the job than fade away into retirement and the alumni records of our employers? Probably not. Stress is a formidable foe […]
7 Key Factors When Choosing a Survey Provider
The views of your staff are critical. Their ideas and attitudes about the organization have a serious effect on financial performance and growth, so you need to do the research right to get a true picture. A seasoned research partner can help you choose which survey option meets your organization’s needs. Consider the following criteria […]
6 Tips for Reliable Employee Survey Data
Plenty of universities offer survey design and stat courses. If “stats” was a mandatory requirement for your post-secondary degree (and math’s not your thing) you probably fell into the big pool of students drowning in all the formula and despising the subject. Far from throwing a few questions together and tossing them out for responses, […]
Top 8 Ways to Increase Engagement During the Holidays
It seems like a lot of us are in a better mood around the holidays: Strangers might talk to us more, also, friends, family and even people we don’t know very well, might reach out to spend time together. Some will perhaps simply open a door for us or give us the space we need […]
Why Your Christmas Party Won’t Improve Engagement
Depending on the organization’s culture, sometimes workplace Christmas parties can be a great time where everyone feels relaxed and comfortable. But even if that happens, it’s a mistake to rely on one Christmas party a year to ensure ongoing engagement in your organization. It’s just not enough. Employees need to feel consistently valued, appreciated and […]