A new study released by the American Psychological Association this fall shows that job applicants are more attracted to organizations when their websites include employee testimonials.  The study appears to suggest that employee testimonials may be an important method of attracting top talent (Walker, Field, Giles, Armenakis & Bernerth, 2009). Other research also seems to support the use of employee testimonials.  For instance, it has been found that others’ experiences in organizations influence job seekers due to their interpersonal nature (Van Hoye & Lievens, 2007) and that job incumbents are perceived as credible sources of information, as they are closer to the work situation (Fisher, Ilgen, & Hoyer, 1979).  In fact, more general forms of recruitment advertisements have been found to be perceived as less favorable, attractive, and credible.

In addition, the study also revealed that the type of media used to display employee testimonials also influences applicant reactions.  In the study, employee testimonials delivered via audio or video were perceived as more attractive and credible than those delivered via picture or text (Walker, et al., 2009).  The results suggest that richer media (audio, video, and multimedia) may be worthwhile when using employee testimonials to attract applicants into the organization.  Richer media tends to be more interesting and engaging to job applicants because it has the ability to better communicate affect and provides more information through tone, facial expression, and other nonverbal cues (Walker, et al., 2009).

Ideally, employee testimonials can serve as one way that organizations can convey the culture and types of individuals within their organization. One of the most common problems organizations face in their recruitment efforts is finding individuals that fit within their organization, yet job seekers readily use testimonial information to see how they fit with the culture and coworkers in an organization (Cober, Brown, Blumental, Doverspike, & Levy, 2004).  In doing so, organizations may find that using testimonials diminishes extra and possibly more expensive efforts, to assess cultural fit.

So whether your organization is swarmed with resumes of all sorts of job seekers or preparing to boost recruitment efforts in the coming months, it’s clear that employee testimonials may be a worthwhile part of any organization’s recruitment efforts as they positively affect job applicant reactions and are also relatively inexpensive to employ at the most basic level. Here are a few tips to help your organization get started:

• Pick employees that are representative of the organizational culture, are exceptional communicators, and have honest and positive things to say about the organization.  Possible aspects of the workplace they could discuss or testify to include:
  • “Day in the life” summary of job duties
  • Reasons they chose to work at the organization
  • How they would describe the work environment or culture
  • On-the-job challenges and development opportunities
  • Performance and/or job expectations
  • Perks and benefits
• At the very least, use text testimonials.  If you can, however, invest in some relatively inexpensive technology to help deliver testimonials via audio or video. Keep in mind that this technology can be used for many other purposes – on-boarding, training, communication, and other employee activities. 
• Evaluate how they are working…are the testimonials contributing to fewer applicants that are not the right fit? Are they helping to yield applicants that fit with the culture?

Sources:

Walker, H. J., Feild, H. S., Giles, W. F., Armenakis, A. A., and Bernerth, J. B. (2009). Displaying employee testimonials on recruitment web sites: effects of communication media, employee race, and job seeker race on organizational attraction and information credibility. The Journal of Applied Psychology. 94, 1354–1364.

Cober, R. T., Brown, D. J., Keeping, L. M., & Levy, P. E. (2004). Recruitment on the net: How do organizational Web site characteristics influence applicant attraction? Journal of Management, 30, 623–646.

Fisher, C. D., Ilgen, D. R., & Hoyer, W. D. (1979). Source credibility, information favorability, and job offer acceptance. Academy of Management Journal, 22, 94–103.

Van Hoye, G., & Lievens, F. (2007). Investigating Web-based recruitment sources: Employee testimonials vs. word-of-mouse. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 15, 372–382.

1. Don’t cheat on sleep. If you routinely deprive yourself of sleep, you’ll pay for it with fatigue. Adults need 7 to 9 hours a day; even an extra hour of sleep can dramatically improve energy.
   Tip: The best way to improve sleep is to maintain a firm time for going to bed and awakening.
2. Get physical. Research indicates exercise is one of the best ways to increase energy. Avoid strenuous workouts that might overly tire you. Moderate activities such as a daily walk or swim are ideal.
3. Fuel up. Several servings of fruits and vegetables a day should provide a noticeable increase in energy. Plus these foods have far fewer calories than heavy, high calorie snacks and most fast food.
4. Drink to your health. Dehydration is another energy thief – it reduces blood flow to your organs, including your brain. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty. When you exercise or perspire heavily, drink plenty of water.
   Tip: Alcohol also contributes to dehydration and reduces your mental and physical response.
5. Reduce stress. Rushing to cross everything off your list can be exhausting. Slow down and set priorities so you only do essential things. Set aside time each day to relax. On-the-go techniques such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation can revive you.
   Tip: Remember to have fun rather than waste energy trying to make everything perfect.

Source: Smart Health November 2009

John C. Rowland, Manager of Managed Services for Thinsolutions, talks about how using a managed service provider can help your organization.

Measuring performance may be a challenge for organizations this year.  Some employers could find themselves using a performance measurement system that may not accurately measure what top performance looks like during a challenging economic year, particularly if performance and value of contributions has historically been determined by financial impact or the meeting of organizational, team and individual financial and budgetary goals.  It’s possible that this may be the year that organizations will need to look beyond this scope and re-identify how employees’ value is defined.

Measuring top performance by revenue generation, while certainly important, may not be the only way that your organization can measure the performance of your employees, regardless of how your organization financially performed this year.  In fact, the true value of what your employees have accomplished this year may be manifested in other ways, according to the Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement (2009), such as:

• Referrals of new customers
• Identification of cost savings
• Initiating and/or suggesting new efficiencies
• Interpersonal relationships inside and outside the organization (with coworkers and customers)
• Making the organization look attractive to potential customers
• Organizational citizenship behaviors

In these ways, you can probably identify employees that may not have generated a record amount of revenue this year, but have indeed contributed a great deal of value.  Performance measurement, in its best form, should accurately measure this value and differentiate between levels of performance – however your organization determines it, whether it be demonstrating organizational values, displaying value-adding behaviors, or delivering valuable results.  Only your organization can uniquely define what those may be and an important starting place is to determine the characteristics of those employees that carry the most value or the least value (Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement, 2009). Here are a few questions to guide you:

• What are your organization’s core values? Are all employees expected to exemplify these?
• What are the top 10 most value-adding behaviors at your organization?
• How does your organization define valuable results?
• Does your performance measurement tool capture all of the above?

Employers of choice typically establish this value proposition – determining what they perceive to be value-adding and measuring performance based on this. This way your organization ensures that it is measuring the behaviors, attitudes, and results that matter most to your organization.

Source:
Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement (2009). Employee Lifetime Value: “The People Impact” on Financial Success. www.performanceforum.org.

Looking for a way to reward your valued employees? Consider changing their job title.

A new study by Pearl Meyer & Partners shows that employers can use job titles to retain and reward high performing employees. The study suggests that many employers title jobs with great flexibility and allow for alternative job names. For instance, many employers assign titles of Manager, Director, and Vice President to not just employees with supervisory responsibilities – but also those that have significant responsibilities in the organization and are individual contributors. In this way, employers can reward non-supervisory or non-managerial employees. For examples of job titles, visit

• http://www.jobtitles.org
• http://online.onetcenter.org/find/
• http://www.wave.net/upg/immigration/dot_index.html

Why are job titles important in rewarding and motivating employees? They hold significant value for several reasons. First, they define a job and an employee’s area of responsibility. In the survey, almost three-quarters of organizations found job titles to be important and believed that they conveyed authority and responsibility.  Second, they establish the company ladder.  Being labeled as someone of a higher level in the company is distinguishing, allowing for greater access and recognition. In addition, job titles have emotions and expectations attached as individuals have a need to feel intelligent, influential, and important. Finally, they can empower employees to expand their responsibilities in the organization, and may even prompt positive behaviors such as taking more initiative or displaying greater leadership. For all of these reasons, enhancing job titles can be extremely motivating to employees.

An important additional reward component of enhancing job titles is the way in which the change is communicated. Creating a formal announcement organization-wide or within a specific department allows for public recognition of the employee. Other ways organizations could communicate this change is on their website or within a newsletter.

Source:

• Pearl Meyer & Partners. (2009). 2009 Report on Job Titling Practices.
• Business Knowledge Source. (2009). Job titles: How can I use them to motivate employees and communicate to customers?

Social Media is still a relatively new and cloudy area in regards to employee and employer privacy and security. The lines of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate are still quite gray, however several companies are ammending their existing policies to include guidelines for social media use in the workplace. We found 200 policies, tips, and ideas for coming up with your own social media policy – just remember, not all policies are created equal. Make sure you create guidelines that fit the culture of your workplace…there certainly are no “one-size-fits-all” policies out there.

Sample Policies

• 91 Social Media Policies from Leading Organizations
  from Social Media Governance
• 30+ Social Media Policy Examples
  from 123 Social Media
• 29 Sample Social Media Policies
  from the Altimeter Wiki
• “My Two-Line Social Media Policy”
  from socialmediatoday

Tips for Building Your Policy

• 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy
  from Mashable
• Corporate Social Media Policy: Top 10 Guidelines
  from PR-Squared
• Social Media Policies and Procedures (8 Tips for Sample Social Networking Policies)
  from Daniel Hoang’s blog

Etiquette and Rules

• The Ultimate Social Media Handbook (Covers 9 Social Media Platforms)
  from Techipedia
• The 11 Rules of Social Media Etiquette
  from Digital Labz

Don’t forget to visit the ERC Media Center for more examples of how ERC is using social media to connect people and share information…

Innovation. It’s an important characteristic of our NorthCoast 99 winning workplaces, helping them create a leading edge in their workplaces and products or services.  These winning workplaces have mastered creating cultures that facilitate employee creativity and idea generation.  Numerous studies suggest that innovation not only increases employee engagement and intrinsic job satisfaction, but is a strong predictor of organizational success. But what organizational factors truly contribute most to innovation? What does it take to create a truly innovative organization? 

Research seems to suggest that there are two “entry-ways” towards innovation. Both opportunity and necessity/limited resources stimulate creativity.  In fact, in addition to new opportunities that present themselves (such as new technology), pressing problems, necessities and distress with the status quo can cause organizations to become more innovative.  Perhaps even in the face of a difficult recession, organizations, more than ever before, have a reason to innovate and think differently about how they are conducting business (Bledow, Frese, Anderson, Eres, & Farr, 2009).

Insights

A newly published study (Bledow, Frese, Anderson, Eres, & Farr, 2009) analyzing over 150 research studies on innovation suggests that several factors can contribute to the degree of innovation in organizations.  Their insights include:

• Ask employees for new ideas regarding an area of the organization in which development is needed.  Focus on creative idea generation, as this is the root of all innovation.
• Empower all employees to engage in some exploration activities.  By exploration, we mean search, variation, risk-taking, experimentation, flexibility, and discovery. Offer the right balance of exploration (free-thinking, unstructured activation) with exploitation (structured activity focused on refinement, efficiency, productivity, implementation, and execution). Allow time for individual projects unregulated by managers.
• Encourage incremental innovation, rather than radical innovation – start with small improvements to everyday processes, procedures, products, and services. By using a well-defined customer base as the main source of innovation, focus on solving problems for that particular customer pool. Organizations with a strong customer focus have shown to be more innovative and successful.
• Individual characteristics and styles matter. Hire individuals that are conscientious, open to new experiences, curious, and intuitive. They will need to be able to tolerate and embrace ambiguity and adapt accordingly – particularly those in leadership and management roles.
• Acknowledge the creative process. The creative process makes setting deadlines and providing performance feedback more difficult. It’s important to acknowledge that performance management will need to be more flexible as a result.
• Make creativity and innovation an organizational value and performance objective.  Set goals for creativity and innovation for each employee.  Make it part of other performance criteria on which the employees are assessed.
• Support innovation in all facets of the organization and not just one department, such as research and development. Provide resources for innovation to all departments.
• Eliminate barriers to creativity and innovation.  These could be strict and restrictive rules, guidelines, policies, or norms that contradict the goals of creativity.  It could also include unsupportive managers and supervisors. The organizations that innovate best have managers and leaders who provide unconditional support for creativity.
• Provide moderate levels of employee autonomy, which allow for optimal creativity.   Large levels of autonomy do not necessarily lead to optimal creativity as most employees need some form of structure to implement ideas. Too little autonomy and micromanagement, however, stifle creativity and lead to other adverse effects.
• Reward new and successful ideas. Rewards do not have to be large, or even monetary, but they should be meaningful. Do not provide rewards that impede creativity as this communicates a contradictory message.
• Stick to a vision. Ensure that all creative efforts and ideas are focused on a shared, common vision. Efforts and ideas should not stray away from the core mission and purpose of the organization.
• Use diversity. Create diverse teams in terms of education, knowledge, and demographics. Diversity of thought leads to greater innovation.
• There may be positions within organizations that do not require innovation.  Regardless, organizations can employ the use of a simple method called proactive creativity – a method in which a worker identifies a work-related problem and identifies ways and strategies to solve it. This has been shown to be a successful practice among production workers at manufacturers and nurses in healthcare.  All employees can be engaged in solving work-related problems creatively and with the customer’s interest in mind, even if their jobs do not require a creative mindset.

Perhaps your organization’s unique demands and problems could actually be the “entry-way” to a transformation in how your organization conducts its business. Try some creativity yourself, exploring how employee innovation and ideas can change the way your organization operates and meets customer needs. The results could not only impact your bottom line, but may improve your employees’ engagement and morale as well.

For some innovative workplace ideas, check out this year’s NorthCoast 99 Innovation Award Winner, Intuit Real Estate Solutions.

More Great Workplace Tips on Twitter

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, where we’ll be tweeting one great workplace tip each workday until the 2010 NorthCoast 99 application opening. Follow us now! – twitter.com/NorthCoast99

Sources:

Bledow, R., Frese, M., Anderson, N., Miriam, E., and Farr, J. (2009). A dialectic perspective on innovation: Conflicting demands, multiple pathways, and ambidexterity. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice. 2:3. Wiley & Sons.

“Start Where You Are” is the title of the second book written by our 2009 NorthCoast 99 Awards Dinner keynote presenter, Chris Gardner. Gardner is probably best known for his rise to success from homelessness, as portrayed by Will Smith in the Hollywood adaptation of his first book, “The Pursuit of Happyness”. His new book offers an inspirational guide to people embarking on their own personal journeys toward success and fulfillment.

There are many ways to apply this simple, yet profound, statement, especially in the context of how to best attract and retain top talent. This is highly evident in the ways in which our 2009 NorthCoast 99 winners are promoting our region as a great place to live and work.

Where are you?

Organizations that excel at attracting and retaining great people understand that their missions and cultures are not confined to the physical buildings in which they conduct business. The things that make their organizations great extend far beyond bricks and mortar and are connected to the communities, cities, and regions in which their people live and work.

NorthCoast 99 Winners recognize the importance of proudly professing “where they are” to anyone who will listen; especially highly talented people who currently (and may someday) work for their organizations.

Reflecting on how NorthCoast 99 Winners apply this concept, here are three easy things you could do today to improve how your organization promotes Northeast Ohio (or wherever you do business) as a great place to live and work:

1. Educate your employees

It’s amazing what you can learn about a place, even if you’ve lived there your entire life. Helping your employees better understand their communities and how your organization is connected to those communities can help build a stronger sense of camaraderie and purpose in your workplace.

NorthCoast 99 winners do this by providing employees access to local publications and organizations (i.e. Cleveland Magazine, Positively Cleveland, ClevelandPlus, CoolCleveland.com, etc.) and posting information about upcoming events and activities. This could include something as simple as a flyer on a bulletin board, a posting on a company intranet, or a mention in a staff newsletter.

2. Encourage your employees

Don’t just educate employees. Encourage them to learn more and provide ways for them to engage in their communities. Here are a few ideas from NorthCoast 99 Winners:

• Reward employees with tickets to local events and attractions
• Provide gift certificates to local restaurants and shops
• Give employees maps that highlight the stores, restaurants, and parks in and around the areas in which they work
• Coordinate “Service Days” and other community activities in which employees may participate
• Buy local!
• Encourage employees to participate in other activities that promote their region. For example, you could encourage your employees to spread the word or submit an entry to be a contestant on Cleveland’s first reality web-TV Show, Got City Game Cleveland (www.gotcitygame.tv)

3. Brag to future employees

Show all those talented future contributors to your organization that the communities in which they live and work are important to your business:

• Link to sites such as www.neoisgreat.com or http://www.neoisgreat.com in your online career centers and electronic job ads
• Post info on your website about your community activities and discuss those opportunities during the interview process
• Let candidates know about ties you have with local colleges, professional associations, and other community organizations
• Give candidates and/or new hires a checklist of things to do in your community once they begin employment

For more ideas and examples from NorthCoast 99 Winners, visit www.northcoast99.org or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NorthCoast99.

Perhaps one of the most important and significant characteristics of a great workplace is its organizational climate. Organizational climate, while defined differently by many researchers and scholars, generally refers to the degree to which an organization focuses on and emphasizes:

• Innovation
• Flexibility
• Appreciation and recognition
• Concern for employee well-being
• Learning and development
• Citizenship and ethics
• Quality performance
• Involvement and empowerment
• Leadership

Organizational climate, manifested in a variety of human resource practices, is an important predictor of organizational success. Numerous studies have found positive relationships between positive organizational climates and various measures of organizational success, most notably for metrics such as sales, staff retention, productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability:

• Denison (1990) found that an organizational climate that encourages employee involvement and empowerment in decision-making predicts the financial success of the organization.
• Schneider (1996) found that service and performance climates predict customer satisfaction.
• Patterson, Warr, & West (2004) found that manufacturing organizations that emphasized a positive organizational climate, specifically concern for employee well-being, flexibility, learning, and performance, showed more productivity than those that emphasized these to a lesser degree.
• Potosky and Ramakrishna (2001) found that an emphasis on learning and skill development was significantly related to organizational performance.
• Ekvall (1996) found a positive relationship between climates emphasizing creativity and innovation and their profits.
• Hansen and Wernerfelt (1989) found that organizational climate factors explain about twice as much variance in profit rates as economic factors.  
• Thompson (1996) found that companies utilizing progressive human resource practices impacting climate such as customer commitment, communication, empowerment, innovation, rewards and recognition, community involvement/environmental responsibility, and teamwork outperformed organizations with less progressive practices.

Organizational climate clearly influences the success of an organization. Many organizations, however, struggle to cultivate the climate they need to succeed and retain their most highly effective employees.  Hellriegel and Slocum (2006) explain that organizations can take steps to build a more positive and employee-centered climate through:

• Communication – how often and the types of means by which information is communicated in the organization
• Values – the guiding principles of the organization and whether or not they are modeled by all employees, including leaders
• Expectations – types of expectations regarding how managers and behave and make decisions
• Norms – the normal, routine ways of behaving and treating one another in the organization
• Policies and rules - these convey the degree of flexibility and restriction in the organization
• Programs – programming and formal initiatives help support and emphasize a workplace climate
• Leadership – leaders that consistently support the climate desired

Making a climate change in your organization is one of the core fundamental steps to beginning to create a great place to work. The 2009 NorthCoast 99 winners have excelled at creating such climates.  We encourage you to visit http://www.northcoast99.org to learn more about these companies. 

Sources:

• Hellriegel, D., Slocum, J., & Woodman, R. (1998). Organizational Behavior.
• Denison, D. (1990). Corporate Culture & Organizational Effectiveness
• Patterson, M., Warr, P., & West, M. (2004). Organizational climate and company productivity: The role of the employee affect and employee level. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.
• Schneider, B. (1990). Organizational Climate and Culture.
• Potosky, D., & Ramakrishna, H. (2001). Goal orientation, self-efficacy, organizational climate, and job performance. Academy of Management.
• Ekvall, G. (1996). Organizational climate for creativity and innovation. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.
• Hansen, G. & Wernerfelt, B. (1989) Determinants of firm performance: The relative importance of economic and organizational factors. Strategic Management Journal.
• Thompson, M. (1996) in Ashkanasy, N., Wilderom, C., & Peterson, M. (2000) Handbook of Organizational Culture & Climate.

Randstad recently published an excellent report on the Managers of Tomorrow, including some fascinating statistics and observations on what our managerial landscape might look like in the future. In his book, “The Future of Management,” Gary Hamel argues that the secret to long-term business success is “not operational excellence, technology breakthroughs, or new business models, but management innovation–new ways of mobilizing talent, allocating resources, and formulating strategies.” We’ll take a look at some predictions for the future and how we might be able to influence them.

Who wants to be a supervisor?

According to Randstad’s report, current employees have mixed feelings about the quality of managers currently, but their outlook of future supervisors looks somewhat bleak.

The report goes on to suggest that “It’s clear that finding and preparing the next generation of managers is rapidly becoming one of the most critical business needs in the modern workplace.” The problem: future generations of employees aren’t embracing the role of a manager. “Employees watch their managers and see long hours, loads of new responsibilities and not much more money. Increased stress is the number one reason employees don’t want to become managers.”

What attracts employees to a manager role?

We’ve established that future generations might not currently embrace the role of a manager, but Ranstad’s report does provide some insight on what employees do find attractive about being a manager.

So what makes management more attractive? “Maybe it begins with rethinking management.When we asked employees to list the reasons why they would want to be a manager, the answers were surprising. Power, status and money didn’t even make the list. The number one reason was being able to share my knowledge with others. Number two was being responsible for the success of an organization. And, number three was being able to influence decisions.”

Some Goals for the Future

In February, the Harvard Business Journal published an article featuring 25 Stretch Goals for Management in the 21st Century. Here are a couple interesting points from the article:

• Redefine the work of leadership. The notion of the leader as a heroic decision maker is untenable. Leaders must be recast as social-systems architects who enable innovation and collaboration.
• Create internal markets for ideas, talent, and resources. Markets are better than hierarchies at allocating resources, and companies’ resource allocation processes need to reflect this fact.
• Depoliticize decision-making. Decision processes must be free of positional biases and should exploit the collective wisdom of the entire organization.
• Retrain managerial minds. Managers’ traditional deductive and analytical skills must be complemented by conceptual and systems-thinking skills.
  (Source: “25 Stretch Goals for Management“, Harvard Business Journal)

Supervisory Training for Tomorrow’s Supervisor

Today’s work environment demands highly skilled frontline supervisors different from the command-and-control leaders of the past. People are not interested in working for someone who just gives orders daily and conducts evaluations annually. Today’s employees are looking for leaders who develop, support and coach them and keep them engaged.

In ERC’s popular Supervisory Series I, beginning September 8, participants learn the managerial and interpersonal skills necessary to handle all leadership interactions—including those that are emotionally charged—along with the ability to apply both of these skill sets in any leadership setting or interaction.