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L E A D I N G T H E W AY I N
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Three Steps to a More

Engaged Workforce
This much is clear: A highly engaged
workforce drives deeper customer loyalty,
increases productivity and improves
profitability. Study after study confirms the
links. What’s not so clear: How to get there,
how to accurately measure and strategically
improve engagement. These three steps can
make that goal more achievable.

T
BY ADRIENNE HEDGER

TRYING TO “MOVE THE NEEDLE” ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT CAN SEEM LIKE a Herculean
task; one that involves complicated survey administration, data analysis, sub-committees,
action items, and more. A daunting set of activities. Important, yes, but too much to take
on right now.
“This is a common myth,” says Mike Dolen, managing partner of Kenexa’s Global Survey
Practice. “Improving employee engagement doesn’t have to be overwhelming—there are
many ways to take small, incremental steps that lead to sustained improvement.”
And forget about putting it off any longer. “Your employees are on the front line, talking
to potential customers and representing your brand,” adds Dolen. “It’s vital to make sure
they are engaged.”
So what’s a company to do? Start by focusing on these three steps:
• Clarify “engagement”
• Understand the role that leaders play
• Simplify, simplify, simplify

july 2010 w w w. w o r k f o r c e . c o m | Workƒorce MANAGEMENT 27

L E A D I N G T H E W AY I N
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Step 1: Clarify “Engagement”
C O M PA N Y P R O F I L E
Definitions of “engagement” vary,
so to help organizations clarify the
concept, Kenexa breaks it down into four
related areas:
1. Pride in the organization
2. Satisfaction with role in the organi-
For more than 20 years, zation
3. Willingness to advocate to potential
Kenexa has studied human employees and customers
4. Intentions of remaining with the
behavior and team dynamics company
in the workplace—and has “These are the basic underpinnings
of engagement,” says Dolen. “Taken
developed the software
together, they determine whether or not
solutions, business processes someone will be highly motivated to
contribute to the organization’s success—
and expert consulting that and contribute in a way that is above and
beyond what’s expected.”
help organizations impact To figure out how employees are feel-
ing, you need to conduct an assessment
positive business outcomes that is customized to your business
through HR. Kenexa is the culture and your goals. And measuring
engagement is only part of the value;
only company that offers a you can also measure the factors that are
driving engagement—or hindering it.
comprehensive suite of For example, the Kenexa Research
Institute identifies four macro drivers of
unified products and services
engagement:
• Confidence and trust in senior lead-
that support the entire ership
employee lifecycle from • Managers giving respect and recogni-
tion to employees
pre-hire to exit., including: • Employees having the opportunity to
grow and develop
• Recruitment Process Outsourcing • Employees having an interesting job
that they know how to do
• Employment Branding
• Employee Assessments “Depending on the company, some of
• Recruitment Technology these drivers might be more pronounced
than others,” says Dolen. “We also break
• Onboarding
these down into more detailed micro-
• Performance Management drivers, so companies can see exactly
how engagement is being influenced.”
• Employee Surveys
Assessments not only measure what’s
• Learning Management driving engagement—they can also
identify employees who are capable of
• Leadership Solutions
becoming engaged, and employees who
• Succession Planning are, by their nature, probably not going
to engage.
www.kenexa.com This gets to the heart of a critical issue,
877.734.0002 says Greg Barnett, director of domestic
consulting at Hogan Assessments. “If the
28 Workƒorce MANAGEMENT | w w w. w o r k f o r c e . c o m
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fit isn’t right, it’s going to be hard to
engage someone no matter what you
do,” he says. “Sometimes an employee’s
values and the company’s values simply
don’t align.”
Measuring these gaps provides impor-
tant insight to companies. It can help
them better understand their culture, and
make hiring and promotion decisions
that, over time, will strengthen employee
engagement across the company.
“If the values match, employees will be
more likely to work harder and with a
better attitude,” says Barnett. “If the fit
isn’t there, even capable performers
won’t be motivated to do their best.”
All of these factors come into play
when a company is trying to determine
how to engage its workforce. But there
is another powerful influence as well:
the manager.
Step 2: Understand the role that lead-
ers play
Companies typically come to Hogan
Assessments with some type of leadership
challenge, says Barnett. “We come in
and assess executives and teams,” he
explains. “And over the years we’ve seen
the critical role that managers play. Good
management creates engagement, bad
management destroys it.”
One interesting exercise is to analyze
the top 25 percent of managers with the
highest engagement scores (meaning they
oversee teams that are highly engaged),
and the 25 percent of managers with the
lowest engagement scores. With this
information, a company can determine
which attributes contribute to success.
Then they can create development plans
to focus on those attributes; and they also
create a blueprint for selecting better
managers in the future.
But there’s another reason that leader-
ship assessments are important: They
serve as a cross-check for other data. For
example, consider a team that fills out a
survey and indicates that they trust their
manager. Meanwhile, the leadership
assessment indicates that the manager is
overly controlling and prone to anger.
Taken together, the data might suggest
that employees were intimidated by their
supervisor and, even though the survey
july 2010
When you multiply the right individual by the right environment, success is inevitable. 877.734.0002
Learn how Kenexa® uses science, technology and consulting to create transformation in your company. www.kenexa.com
L E A D I N G T H E W AY I N
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
C O M PA N Y P R O F I L E
As an international authority
in personality assessment and
consulting, Hogan has over
30 years of experience
helping businesses reduce
turnover and increase
productivity by hiring the
right people, developing
key talent, and evaluating
leadership potential.
The Hogan assessments
predict job performance by
assessing normal personality,
derailment characteristics,
and core values. The assess-
ments are grounded in
decades of research and
evaluate every major job
family. The portfolio of
employee selection, develop-
ment, and leadership tools
allow companies to better
manage their human resource
capital and retain top talent.
www.hoganassessment.com
30 Workƒorce MANAGEMENT | w w w. w o r k f o r c e . c o m
was anonymous, felt pressured to give an
inflated response.
“We use a people-centric approach that
asks, ‘what are employees truly experi-
encing?’” says Barnett. “What’s really
going on? It could be that there are
‘derailing’ personalities in upper manage-
ment that are undermining employee
engagement.”
Sometimes managers don’t understand
the impact they are having, or how they
are perceived. And there are many
instances when leaders will continue to
use management styles and techniques
that worked early in their career, instead
of evolving their styles as they move up in
the organization.
“These aren’t easy conversations to
have, but they’re necessary,” says
Barnett. “In some cases, the manager
may not be the right fit. But in other
cases, you’ll have a manager who is open
and interested in developing new skills
and motivating their teams.”
Step 3: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
It’s one thing to understand the factors
that influence engagement; it’s another
thing to undertake a program to drive
improvements.
The good news is that depending on
the partner you select, the process can be
quite easy.
“Companies don’t need to reinvent the
wheel,” says Kenexa’s Dolen. “Your
assessment partner should take care of
tailoring an approach based on your com-
pany’s specific culture and needs. And the
assessment itself should be completely au-
tomated, so you don’t need to worry
about administration or data collection.”
After the assessments are complete,
Kenexa delivers detailed reports to
managers, explaining what’s driving
engagement in specific teams or groups.
The information packages also include
concrete action plans for improvement,
based on research and best practices. It’s
a tool that appears to be working;
the company has shown that use of its
online action planning makes a manager
75 percent more likely to see year-over-
year improvement.
“We’re not just diagnosing the issues,”
says Dolen. “We’re helping managers
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understand the treatments that will be
effective. What they can do to improve
engagement in their area.”
Barnett agrees that effective solutions
can be simple. “Personal assessment and
coaching can be appropriate for top
executives, but at lower levels there’s
rarely the budget to offer these services.
At the same time, companies recognize
the important role middle managers play
in employee engagement and the overall
success of the company.”
To fill this need, Hogan Assessments
created the Hogan ThinkBox, an online
portal that aligns in-depth leadership
assessments with hundreds of bite-sized
development resources designed to help
managers succeed.
“It’s an easy way to send a positive
message to managers,” says Barnett.
“You’re letting them know that they
matter, and you’re giving them skills that
will position them for the future.”
It’s also a way to address leadership
gaps that could be affecting engagement.
In many companies, particularly those
that have experienced layoffs, people
may have been promoted faster than
usual; and they may be selected for
management positions based on their
technical skills, rather than leadership
skills. Tailored coaching and develop-
ment can help fill in the gap and strengthen
leadership qualities.
Small Steps, Big Impact
Measuring and influencing engage-
ment doesn’t have to be a daunting
experience. The key is to remain steadily
focused on making incremental progress.
“Organizations, leaders and teams are
continually evolving,” says Barnett. “By
understanding engagement and how
to influence it, you can help steer the
evolution in a positive direction.”
“It’s not about taking huge, drastic
steps,” adds Dolen. “It’s about gaining
the right insight so you can drive
improvements year over year. Small
improvements, multiplied over hundreds
or even thousands of people. That is
the path to powerful and sustainable
engagement.” I
july 2010
 Lunch with the boss!

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If this is your company’s

idea of engagement,
you need us.

Even if it’s not, there’s no getting around the fact that employee engagement is a function of
corporate culture, which is in turn defined by the strength of leadership. The best managers
know how to build creative, effective teams that drive innovation, growth and organizational
longevity. Hogan’s Leadership Forecast Series™ is designed to help your company develop
stronger leaders, better employees and a corporate culture that works for the long term.

T H E S C I E N C E O F P E R S O N A L I T Y

hoganassessments.com/hogan-lead HoganAssessment Hogan Assessment Systems