Rodd Wagner's Blog, page 6

Your Frustrated Employees Are Not Traitors

A lot of consultancies encourage their clients to consider their frustrated employees as traitors.

Gallup says the “actively disengaged” are “busy acting out their unhappiness.” “Every day,” it claims, “these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.” Globoforce included among its profiles of “five famously disengaged employees” the traitors Brutus and Benedict Arnold (whose engraving appears above).

The most “disengaged” are “corporate terrorists,” claims one self-described “HR pro” and blogger. These people “are the ones trying to sabotage everything you’re trying to do,” he asserts. “Your goal should be to remove the terrorists every time you catch them planting the cultural equivalent of an IED.”

There’s another possibility: that some of your employees are not being supported as they should be, and when you asked them to tell the truth on the latest survey, they did, which is – ironically enough – an act of loyalty.

An excerpt from Widgets on the serious misunderstanding of so-called “disengagement” was published today by Training magazine. You can find it here.

Why Do Employees Think They’re Special? Blame Your Selfie

I spoke last week at the Northeast Human Resources Association conference in Cape Cod and, with the rest of the attendees, was given a selfie stick. (I used it during my session to take a photo of all of us.) My take on the cultural implications of the latest tchotchke is this week’s Forbes column.

Finally, Evidence that CEO Character Hits the Bottom Line

In the roughly 20-year history of “employee engagement” initiatives, the focus has been almost exclusively on front-line managers. In fact, some approaches deliberately avoid asking questions about employees’ perceptions of the CEO and his or her team. It created a blind spot in the research and the strategy. Finally, we’re getting good evidence of something most of us long suspected: CEO character affects the financial returns of an organization.

My Forbes column on the subject can be found here.

Seven Myths About Employee Engagement

Have you seen any of these “Seven Myths About Employee Engagement” take its toll at your company?

1. Employees want to be engaged.

2. High marks on the employee engagement survey show that an employee is loyal.

3. Employees who give low scores on the survey should just resign.

4. It’s useful to ask about “best friends” at work.

5. Because engagement is important, bonuses should be tied to it. 6. Almost everyone tells the truth on employee engagement surveys.

7. Engagement is so badly messed up that it can’t be fixed. 

You can read the post on why these are myths here at the SHRM Book Blog.

The Optics and Reality of ‘Empathetic’ Amazon

The facts may be in dispute, but the “optics,” as they say in Washington, are bad.

Amazon gets slammed over the weekend in The New York Times for, among other sins, making grown men cry and sidetracking working mothers. So who comes out Monday morning to answer the allegations? Not CEO Jeff Bezos, the self-described keeper of the culture, but a guy we kind of remember giving the typical partial answers at D.C. press conferences.

My take on the Times story, Amazon’s reaction, and the reasons why leaders are always tempted to grind down employees is now posted on Forbes.

Don’t Kid Yourself: All Leave Is Limited

While Netflix’s new one-year parental leave policy is being called “generous,” let’s not pretend it was anything but a business decision. Wired magazine went so far as to call the rationale “selfish.” It’s the kind of tactic that can (perhaps must) be used when a company is rolling in money and fighting for qualified employees. If the cost of replacing a highly talented or credentialed employee is greater than the cost of paying for a year of parental leave, then a company makes more money by being “generous.”

But like all leave from work, it’s limited by numerous practical considerations.

You can read the full column on Forbes.

Regaining Leadership’s Humanity

I had a wide-ranging and sometimes deep conversation with Bob Garlick at the Business Book Talk podcast about the root motivations of company leadership. You can access it here.

Ask About Teamwork or Collaboration, Not Friendships

A decade ago, I was among the most prominent and forceful defenders of the “best friend at work” concept. That chapter of my first book has been reprinted and cited ad infinitum.

But subsequent research shows questions about friendship aren’t really useful. And too often an employee’s answers to that highly personal question have been used against him or her. (Never mind that many people’s “best friends at work” got laid off.) It’s well past time we shelve those kinds of inquiries in favor of aspects more predictive of performance and legitimately within the purview of the business.

My Harvard Business Review piece on the issue is now live on the site.

Let’s Fire Him: Trump Is A Bad Poster Child For Executives

The greatest lasting harm of the Trump candidacy may be that he – a narcissist who the media apparently can’t resist giving a disproportionate share of coverage – comes to the race as what the Boston Herald called the “ultimate capitalist.”

Odds are if you asked someone today to name a prominent business figure, he or she would mention Trump. But Trump makes a lousy poster child for capitalism because his inner child is a brat and pretty much runs the place.

(The full column is available now on Forbes .)

The 41st Hour Should Be Expensive

How much of a person’s time does an employer get, and at what cost?

It’s the most basic issue in the bargain between worker and company, and it’s up for debate again after President Obama’s recent proposal to increase the threshold for overtime pay.

While the political lines form and economists try to predict the consequences, if the regulatory change takes effect, the more important imperative is cleaning up a loophole that allows some organizations to demand too much of employees with too little in return. The 41st hour of a person’s time should be expensive. Instead, it’s often free.

(My full commentary is available at Forbes.)