Employees decide to strike for many reasons.  But at the end of the day, most just want to be heard.  In that regard, they’re not alone.  At Questar we track tens of thousands of employees’ opinions about their workplace.  This research shows that many employees believe no one is listening.

• Only about half (54%) of all employees indicate that their company’s senior management values employees’ ideas and opinions.
• Those on the front lines are least likely to feel heard:  While 77% of management employees agreed with the statement above, just 43% of hourly employees did.
• Among employees belonging to a union, even fewer feel they are heard.  Only about one third of all union employees say their company’s senior management values employees’ ideas and opinions.

Obviously it’s something that many employers struggle with.  Entry level employees – eager to change the world – are often met with less than enthusiasm at their ideas for improvement.  Front line supervisors literally tell employees “Look, it’s not our job to make improvements to the process.  The guys upstairs – they decide what the process is going to be.  We just do what we’re told.”

But some companies are bucking the tide.  Front line employees at Best Buy generate an abundance of business impacting ideas.  Online tools provide forums so that every employee in the company can help solve important business issues and generate innovative solutions to problems.  These ideas from entry-level employees have been credited with increasing sales, decreasing expenses, and reducing shrink in the field.  Best Buy employees are also empowered to help customers – not just in the stores, but around the world.  Have you ever heard of @twelpforce?  Best Buy’s Twitter based help desk is literally powered by thousands of “Blue Shirts” on the floor in Best Buy stores.

Google also goes out of it’s way to gather employee input.  Employees are solicited to help solve business problems through open group sessions called “Fixits.”  Their TGIF forums provide direct access to company executives for thousands of employees.  There’s a great description of these programs in the Business Week article “Involve Your Employees,” Says Google, CEB

We’d love to hear from you.  What innovative strategies do you use to facilitate input, empower and engage employees in solving problems?

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services

This “geek” is glad you asked.  These types of questions come up all the time – and they are good ones.  At Questar, we are always up for a game of devil’s advocate, so here is my reaction to your 7 questions. First a bit about engagement.  Sure, productivity is becoming increasingly important.  But it’s not just about getting employees to work harder.  It’s about retaining the best talent, aligning behind values, and helping employees grow with changing needs of the company.  All things I/O Psychologists strive to help organizations do better.  It’s about the antecedents, the experience, and the outcomes.  I think that is why it has had such great success in practice.  People get it – even if it’s not a neat and tidy construct.

1. If you are not engaged, i.e. not excited about the work you do, can engagement training get you more involved? Conversely, if you are excited about your work, is engagement training a waste of time?

“Engagement training” doesn’t work at an individual level.  You can’t teach someone to be excited about their work.  Knowing what levers to pull to boost engagement (say having the ability to do what you do best), though, can help organizations.

2.  What happens if the company’s and the consulting firm’s definitions of employee engagement do not align, but you go ahead with the consulting firm’s survey anyway?

While the desired outcomes are fairly universal, the drivers of engagement may differ from one company to the next.  Surveys should reflect the values and culture of the organization.

3.  Is it possible to feel engaged by your work and committed to your organization in spite of a negative environment, a stressful job, or a boss you don’t like?

Sure.  Some of it has to do with personality traits.  We can’t change those, so let’s focus on what we can affect to get the biggest bang for our buck.  At Questar, we help employers build an environments that are conducive to engagement – including factors like mitigating stress and developing supervisory skills.

4.  If you happen to feel engaged on the day of the survey, what does it mean if you don’t feel engaged a month or even an hour later?

Let’s talk level of analysis here.  We are measuring at the organizational level.  Yes, any one person might feel a little differently about their job a month from now.  With surveys, we are looking at an overall picture, so these fluctuations become less important.

5.  Is engagement a continuous process, in which employees who receive training ultimately reach some threshold of engagement, or is it a fluid process dependent on changing factors? Is it possible to feel engaged all the time? Should that be the goal?

See the response to the first question.

6.  Can the energy surge generated by engagement lead to burnout?

Not in my book.  In fact, in a sense, it is the antipode.  If we look at it from a JD-R (job demands-resources) model, it would be too much demand on an employee with out the resources that is causing stress and burnout.  Engagement is about providing those resources.

7.  How does engagement relate to the individual employee’s sense of what’s right or wrong about the organization?

Part of fostering engagement is about having values and a mission that employees can get behind.  Our research shows feelings about the organization’s image does impact employee engagement.

How would you have responded?

Michael Durando | Associate Consultant

Our friends at Bolster (www.bolstercreative.com) are also in the business of driving brand loyalty. They use authentic storytelling, and engaging and sustainable communications tools to strengthen the reputation of a brand.We thought they had some good ideas and that you might find them interesting as well. Let us know what you think.

Once Upon A Time-Driving Brand Engagement Through the Power of Story

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact. — Robert McKee, Screenwriter

“Tell me a story.”

“What’s your story?”

“That reminds me of a great story!”

The overwhelming familiarity of these phrases reminds us that we are all truly hardwired for stories. They are how we learn about our world as small children and how we come to define our social and cultural values as we grow older. Listening to others’ stories is how we decide whom to invite into our social circles. If the story someone tells us contains values that align with ours, a connection is made. And perhaps best of all, stories are universal. There have been societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories – true story.

Story has always been a compelling way to communicate a message, but what special relevance does storytelling have to communicating in today’s media-saturated, digital landscape?

Consider this: we live in the age of information overload. Never has more data or factual information been available – to the point of annoyance when you’re looking for something specific. It seems we are constantly trudging through a surplus of email and meaningless spam ads every time we are trying to digitally connect. Therefore, one of the great challenges of our time is to synthesize that data, discover the insight from the facts and ultimately find a way to convey those insights in a meaningful way. This is precisely where story can help solve this unique modern problem.

Story doesn’t just tell you the facts. Story shows you how the facts have impacted a human life. And story allows you to see yourself in that central character’s shoes and imagine how your life would be different were you in that position yourself. Herein lies one of the most powerful qualities of story: empathy. Story is in fact, the quickest way to building an emotional connection. And those emotional connections are absolutely necessary in the new experience economy where emotional brand loyalty comes from the side of the brain that makes intuitive decisions.

Brand as Story

First came products, then came trademarks, then came brands. Brands transcend product features and design. These material things can and are being imitated and for a lot lower cost by international competition. The time to compete based on physical characteristics and rational pricing arguments alone is over. We’ve entered an era where consumers are buying based on the values a brand portrays and whether or not those values align with their ideal of a meaningful life. So how can brands better showcase their core values to allow consumers and employees to make an emotional connection more readily?

Through story.

A powerful brand builds on clearly stated values while a strong story communicates those values in a captivating manner, easily understood by all. Think of the stories of your childhood. Most were a lot of fun to experience and they also had a moral to them. And that moral is also usually a social value – a value which could easily be one of a brand’s core values. Therefore, our task is to find and tell the stories which contain our company’s core brand values as their inherent theme or moral. How do we do this?

If your company has customers, then you have customer stories. In many cases, the sales force knows them best. Every interaction between customers and your brand or service has story potential. The task is to identify the stories that most clearly and powerfully bring your brand values to life.

The first thing we must do to find an ideal brand story is to identify a protagonist. Our protagonist must represent our target audience – in this example, your customers. This protagonist must have faced a challenge and through the help of your service our product, overcome that challenge to find a new level of success.

Once you’ve identified a powerful story, how do you determine the best way to tell it?

There are as many different ways to tell a story as there are different kinds of stories to tell. This is where storytelling becomes a powerful skill in today’s marketing landscape. As you begin to partner with professional storytellers and media producers to bring your brand stories to life, here are a few general storytelling tips to keep in mind:

1. Know Your Audience: Target your audience before you target your story. The demographic of your audience will inform the type of story you tell and how you go about telling it.

2. Conflict & Resolution: Every story must have a central character that overcomes a challenge (in this case with the help of your product or service).

3. Raise Questions: This is what gives a story momentum. Your audience should be asking,

“What happens next?”

4. Make it Visual: Strong imagery makes for more memorable stories. Web video is a great way to tell a memorable, visual story with high viral potential. Web videos are also simple to integrate into social media and mobile channels.

5. Moment of Reflection: Every story must give the viewer a chance to connect the dots and make the final judgment of what the core values or the morals of the story are for themselves. The theme or values should not be overt, preachy or salesy. Business writer Annette Simmons put it best when she said, “Story doesn’t tell people what to do, but it can powerfully influence what they think about as they make their own choices.”

Find the right content-producing partners and keep these story tips top of mind, and you’ll be on your way to strengthening your brand by telling some value-defining, wow-inspiring stories.

Happy storytelling.

– Jesse Roesler | Bolster

Well, let me tell you a little more about Questar’s new friend, Clarabridge.

Where to start…how about here: Clarabridge is the leading provider of text analytics solutions to track and improve the customer experience.  Period.  They provide Global 1000 companies with the ability to automatically collect, classify and apply sentiment analysis on text-based verbatims found in voice of the customer feedback channels.

And Questar is embedding the Clarabridge solution into the suite of survey research solutions as part of our goal to provide the most comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing the customer experience and, in turn, building customer loyalty.

What this means is that our current and future clients will now have access to an enterprise-class solution that turns all of these types of customer comments into business intelligence:

• Web-based feedback forms
• Call center notes
• Emails
• Receipt-based surveys
• Social media sites
• And more

So that they can more efficiently and effectively accomplish the following:

• Discover emerging trends
• Uncover customer pain points and potential solutions
• Identify issues on social media sites that require immediate attention
• Monitor and track brand sentiment
• And more

In the press release that came out yesterday, Sid Banerjee, chief executive officer, Clarabridge, Inc., said it best: “With our text and sentiment analytics technologies embedded into Questar’s offerings, their clients will gain insight for organizational action and change, leading inevitably to higher ROI and increased customer loyalty.”

Cheers to that!

– Joseph Stanton | Vice President CEM Division

It reminded me of similar discussions heard in the mid 1990s about whether employees should have access to the Internet at work. Today, of course, most businesses cannot imagine operating without the internet. Yet what I remember most about that debate was a comment from a Senior Leader with whom I worked at the time. He said, “I remember when they decided to put telephones on the clerks’ desks. It was the same discussion then. ‘If we put phones on the clerks’ desks, they’ll be on the phone all day instead of working.’”

It would be easy to say “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and “we don’t want to be stuck selling buggy whips.” But I was still skeptical about the value that social networking brings to the workplace. So I reached out to talk to organizations that have implemented social media platforms.

My first stop was Doug Molitor, I/O psychologist and a Manager in HR Measurement for global conglomerate 3M. Long known for their focus on innovation, 3M is pushing their culture forward and using social media as a medium to get people thinking differently. 3M has replaced their corporate employee directory with a social media platform. Now when you search for a coworker, you’ll find a page with their profile populated with the usual (i.e., phone number, e-mail and mailing address, job title, department) plus any additional information that they’ve chosen to add. Employees can include descriptions of key projects, photos, work history, work updates and timelines. They can even add a blog or upload a video if they choose. In addition, online public communities allow employees to connect to others who have similar interests, needs or work projects. Being a user of social media myself, I was beginning to see the ways in which a platform like this may help its more than 74,000 employees across 35 business units working in 65 countries to connect, share information, and communicate.

I soon learned that leveraging social media to facilitate work is not confined to large, global organizations. Small companies are using it as well. I talked with Susan Jambor, Human Resources Director for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota. Prince of Peace uses a social media platform to facilitate information sharing – not just among the staff, but also between church members. Members can upload photos, share recipes, learn about events, and communicate with others about topics of interest. But more than that, the church uses existing social media sites like Facebook to help staff connect, not just with members but with the community at large.

Assuming social networking is the wave of the future, what can we expect its impact to be? For that I talked to Richard Landers, Assistant Professor of I/O psychology at Old Dominion University. Beginning this summer, more than 500 students and faculty will have access to an online social networking system called socialPsych. The platform includes many of the features familiar to Facebook users such as user profiles, status updates, and messaging. It also includes class specific discussion areas and opportunities for virtual mentoring. A few weeks into the pilot, feedback has been very positive. By the end of the summer, Dr. Landers and his colleagues will be testing the impact of social networking on key outcomes such as student commitment/loyalty measures and course satisfaction.

Personally, I am eager to learn the results of their research. In the meantime, we’d love to hear what your organization is doing with social media. Leave your comments here or take our poll on the Questar website.

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services

Feel free to follow us: http://twitter.com/QuestarResearch

While waiting in the airport recently, I noticed that the guy sitting next to me had taped paper over the webcam at the top of his laptop. I chuckled to myself at first at his apparent paranoia. Then I thought about that kid in Philadelphia who sued his school for taking photos of him on his laptop without his knowledge. So who could blame this young professional at the airport for being cautious? It is more than a little creepy thinking that your boss might be watching you in your hotel room on a business trip. Which got me thinking about trust.

Trust is lacking in many workplaces today. Employers don’t trust employees. Employees don’t trust employers. We see it in the survey business all the time. Clients hire my firm to conduct their employee surveys in part to ensure anonymity of respondents and confidentiality of results. And yet no matter how it’s communicated some employees will never believe their survey responses are anonymous. And so, with the fear of big brother looking over their shoulders, many employees miss the opportunity to provide honest feedback that might improve their workplace….(more)

“Can I help you find anything, sir?” a young employee asks me as I enter the store.

“Nope.  I’m good.  Thanks.”

“Can I help you find anything?” another employee asks me twenty seconds later.

“Nope.  I’m good.  Thanks.”

“Can I help you find anything?”  Another employee.

“Nope.  I’m good.  Thanks.”

It was at that moment—thirty seconds before another “Can I help you find anything?”— that I asked myself “can there really be too much of a good thing when it comes to customer service?”  I think, the managers at this retailer and this particular location must take a lot of pride in servicing customers well.  They definitely understand the importance of the customer experience and employee accessibility and attentiveness.  They’ve trained the staff well…and the staff is following through.  I should be proud.  This validates the work we do every day at Questar.

And yet my answer to that question “can there really be too much of a good thing when it comes to customer service?”  A resounding yes!

Because if another employee asks me that question…well, I don’t know what I’m going to do but I’m not happy about it.

All too often, I think we get so caught up in creating best practices and turning those best practices into standard operating procedures at the store level—it’s how you turn data into action—that we forget to actually listen to what the customers are saying.  Typically, most customer satisfaction surveys will ask some variation of “were the employees attentive?”  My answer to that question based on my experience above is yes, they were every attentive.  But if given the opportunity to provide open-ended feedback at the end of the survey I would probably say something like “Employees were friendly and attentive, but I don’t need every employee in the store to ask me if I need help, especially when I’m in a hurry and already know what I want.”

So when you’re turning data into action, be sure to listen to all sources of customer feedback.  Try to ease out the underlying sentiment in order truly understand not just the behaviors that make for a positive customer experience, but the intricacies that make every customer experience a great one.

I leave you with this cliché: silence is golden.  Got it, young lady about to approach me in the aisle?  You can’t help me with anything, okay?  I already know what I want.

– Joseph Stanton | Vice President

One of my stories related to this is from a client I worked with years ago.  The main character in this story is an up and coming young executive – we’ll call her Sarah (not her real name).  Sarah was a go getter, recognized by corporate leadership for her achievements, her performance and her potential.  She was just 33 years old when she got her first chance to truly lead.  She was named president of a small division within the large global corporation for which she worked.  And boy was she ready – this was her chance to really prove herself.

This part of the business was new to her.  But Sarah was a quick study and knew just what to do.  She wasted no time evaluating the competitive landscape and identified some “quick hits” to gain market share.  She worked hard developing plans, securing resources, contacting clients, and informing key stakeholders.  She found places to cut costs, introduced efficiencies, and pushed ahead with some innovative product development.

There was just one problem.  Morale on her team was very low.  Sarah could sense it, but she couldn’t name it.  Something was amiss in the work environment.  Silos were strong.  Conflict was high.  She had lost one of her most experienced managers.  She knew she had to get people working as a team or all her hard work was for naught.

The news – and the solution – was not at all what Sarah expected.  You see Sarah had forgotten to lead.  She worked hard – early in the morning, late into the evening, weekends – she was always at work.  Her strategies were sound.  Her solutions were practical.  But she wasn’t leveraging her team.  Her team could see how hard she worked – alone – which left them feeling less than valued.

It was then that Sarah learned to let go.  She had been promoted for being a doer, but that wasn’t going to cut it anymore.  She had to learn to trust, to delegate, to empower.  Were her team’s ideas as good as hers?  Often no.  But Sarah learned to take some risks.  At times there were failures.  There’s learning in that as well.  And now her leadership team was learning together.  They would dust themselves off.  They would try again.  And they would accomplish much more as a team than Sarah ever could have imagined.

Today Sarah is a much better leader.  She’s still a brilliant, innovative, and hard working.  But she’s learned to forget how smart she is, let go, and let her team carry the torch.  As every good leader does, she learned the story was never really about her.

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services

In 1935 packaged foods did not print the “sell by” date that we’re so accustomed to seeing today. It wasn’t until he bit into his pie that Kenneth, the younger of the two brothers, noticed that his pie was moldy. The kids tried to return it, but the café refused. “All sales are final” – the kids were out of luck.

It was their uncle – who they had come to town to see – who coached them on what to do next. “Don’t worry. I know how to fix them.” They placed that moldy pie in the window of the café – just behind the curtain. The pie was out of site from inside the café, yet anyone walking past on the sidewalk could clearly see this “product sample” before walking in the front door.

True story. In fact my dad was the older brother in this story. The story always makes me smile: young people getting a little revenge after being treated like less than real customers. I’ve often wondered how long that pie sat in the window – getting more and more moldy –how many potential customers saw it and whether it had any impact on that small town café.

I also think about how much more power my kids have – in our wired society – when they’re not treated fairly at a place of business. Within hours of receiving lousy service at a restaurant, hundreds of their friends can read about it on Facebook. So I guess that moldy pie just got a lot more visible. Do you know what your customers are saying?

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services