The HR Whisperer

Yes, this is really me in Steamboat, CO!

With the new year beginning, I started thinking about what the year might hold for the workplace and employees.  Well, I’ll be honest; I was really thinking about snow and skiing.  Those two are at least fun —  I know,  I know.  Unless you have to get on the roof with the hairdryer to de-ice the gutters before the second storm hits and the snow wrecks the house (true story).   Been there, done that.  Sunny Florida beckoned.  I went.  Still miss snow, though.

But it did get me thinking about employees and their needs.  There’s this old adage that says, red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning sailors take warning.  Meteorologists and sailors alike know that a red dawn means high water content from an approaching low pressure system.  Simply put, a [snow] storm is brewing.

Well, we have a red dawn coming.  Employers have enjoyed loyalty from their workforce, especially with the down economy.  While 2010 may still be a downer, things seem to be looking up job-wise, which means that employees will soon be on the move again.  There’s a tempest coming and with it new work ethics, attitudes and priorities.  It’s the perfect storm.

But, in spite of record unemployment, a dismal economy, and Gen Y entering the workforce, employees still have the same expectations they always did.  Spherion points out in its 2009 Emerging Workforce Study that despite the significant change workers have witnessed over the past few years, there is surprisingly little change in how they perceive the employment relationship.  While people may stay at an organization because the current economy demands they do so, holding a job and being motivated in that position are two vastly different things. 

So, how can organizations prepare for the stormy employer-employee relationship in 2010?  Three things: 1) concentrate on the social-emotional connection, 2) offer developmental opportunities that link to the organizational mission, and 3) take advantage of social media.

          Focus on the social-emotional connection.  One of the greatest causes of misery for employees is the feeling that the organization they work for isn’t interested in who they are and what goes on in their lives.  Combat this by training supervisors in social-emotional intelligence.  No matter what the business climate, the generation of the worker, or the technology available, all people want to feel important.  The Hawthorne Studies of 1924 found that if managers paid more attention and cared about employees, it raised morale and increased productivity.  That still holds true today: a recent worldwide engagement study that found that organizations with the highest percent of motivated employees increased income 19% and earnings per share 28%.  Creating the social-emotional connection also means that basic HR programs have to be in place to meet employee needs.  This includes having a decent compensation and benefits package, providing accommodations for the disabled; offering flexible work arrangements, establishing special-interest networks, and presenting good career prospects.

          Provide developmental opportunities that link to the organization’s mission and vision.  The “perfect storm” of the emerging employment contract implies that there will never be job security, that employment will be contingent on added value, and that workers have the right to demand the freedom and resources to do their jobs well.  So, if workers are to add value, help them by providing ample opportunity to improve skills and capabilities.  There are many ways to do this such as through education and training, job enrichment or enlargement, coaching and feedback.

          Take advantage of social media.  Social media is the new way of connecting and tech-savvy workers are using it to keep in touch with friends and family, share information, surf for a new job, and provide opinions on their work and their workplace.  Social media is a virtual conversation and because of this, business is now a virtual conversation.  With the advent of social media, an organization’s brand or reputation can be literally one comment away from disaster – from a Twitter blurb, Facebook post or Epinions review.  Someone out there is talking about the organization and they can say whatever it is they want.  What you can do though, is help manage the conversation.

Managing the conversation however, does not mean telling employees what to say.  It means creating an authentic atmosphere where people can initiate a conversation.  In the era of business transparency, empowering people to tell the truth can be risky, but also rewarding.  Think about how your organization can use social media to its advantage.  Introduce rules of engagement for employees and encourage them participate with an understanding of those rules.  Use social connections to share information about the company – create organization Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, or company wikis and blogs where people can share information, celebrate accomplishments, trade opinions. If something bad pops up, have a person in the organization accountable for responding to it appropriately.  Just keep the conversation going.

While workers may be staying in their respective jobs due to the economy, if the relationship is not a strong one – or is abused – when the storm is over, employees will leave for greener pastures.  Whether it’s today or tomorrow, organizations that invest in their people will find that their people will invest in them.

Once again I must thank my mentor, Cesar Millan, for the inspiration for this week’s blog.  He said that “when humans bring a dog into their lives, they are most often looking for a companion; what they may not realize is that they are getting a teacher as well.”  This is true in a business sense, too.  When we bring a potential leader into our organization, we should be getting someone who can teach or positively influence others.  But teaching goes both ways…is it really possible to teach someone to be an effective leader or is it just genetics coming into play?

Many organizations decide they want to implement a leadership development program because they need better leaders or people who could be put into some kind of succession plan.  The HR department gets the charge to put “something together” and manages to get someone to run the program, get people into it and maybe even toss in a measure or two to try to link the success of the program to a business goal–all within a few months.  Is it any surprise then, that so many of these programs lose steam after one year or fall flat due to budget cuts?  Aside from the timing and operational issues, the real question centers on whether or not leadership development programs truly teach people to be good leaders.

Leadership by its definition is a very complex.  Some say that leadership is a natural thing, that we are born with the innate qualities it takes to be a leader.  Psychologists have continuously searched for the personal attributes that would describe leaders and differentiate them from the rest of the pack.  A large body of research supports the theory that the “Big Five” of personality traits underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. In addition to providing a cohesive framework, research has also found strong relationships between the Big Five and job performance, especially in terms of successful leadership.  It’s no surprise then that tools like the Myers-Briggs’ MBTI® or DiSC® tend to be a part of LD programs.

More recent research shows that effective leaders have emotional intelligence (EI).  Daniel Goleman found that high levels of EI predicts high performance.  I would even go so far as to say that the combination of EI and the Big Five trait of extroversion defines charisma.  A definitive study conducted in 1999 on the personalities of two executive management teams found that over a period of five years the charismatic personality of the executive manager and of the team he selected was key to understanding a company’s rise or decline in the market.  

Hmmm.

Now on the other hand, behavioral theories focus on identifying the specific behaviors that differentiate leaders from nonleaders, which implies that these behaviors can be taught, i.e., leadership is a competency that can be broken down into concrete sets of trainable skills.  The most comprehensive of the behavioral theories resulted from research conducted at Ohio State University in the late 40s where the researchers narrowed a thousand different leadership dimensions into two categories: (1) task/structure and (2) relationship/consideration.  The managerial grid developed by Blake and Mouton and the contingency leadership theory developed by Hersey and Blanchard in the 1960s serve as the landmarks for situational leadership theory today.  The Hersey-Blanchard theory in particular focuses on the leader being able to select the right behavioral style based on followers’ willingness and ability.   

So, in my mind good leadership really is a combination of personality and environment. Which brings us back to our original question:  can people be trained in leadership?  The answer to me is an unequivocal yes.  Strong, results-driven leadership development programs worth their salt screen for the necessary Big Five personality traits and then provide adult-centered interventions to develop the skills necessary to:

• Run the task/structure of a business, such as strategic planning and financial management.
• Develop the relationship/consideration in teams, such as communication and conflict management.
• Understand the self and corresponding behavior by opening the Johari Window through extensive feedback, coaching and 360° profiling.

Another question:  if “nature” and “nurture” are important elements of leader effectiveness then, how does experience play a part?  Many believe that the value of on-the-job experience is a strong predictor of leadership effectiveness. Research, however shows that experience alone is usually a very poor predictor of leadership.  There have been numerous studies of military officers, shop supervisors, and school principals that demonstrate that experienced leaders tend to be no more effective than leaders who have little experience.  The problem seems to be in the variability of the situations a leader finds himself in that influence whether or not the experience will transfer to that situation.  Another problem is the assumption that the amount of time a leader spends in a particular position is really a true measure of experience.  So, LD programs need to provide education, training and experience through action learning.

Remember the heroes of September 11?  They may not have had the particular experience of being attacked by terrorists, but may have had the necessary personality traits and training in leading others and influencing them to action.

And that’s what we really need in any LD program.

This was originally published in HR Florida Review’s Fall 2008 edition.  I thought I’d share it here as it contains some great tips for training multi-generational adult learners.  By focusing on needs, we can focus on behavior.  And changing behavior is what training is all about, right?

You need to implement a training program to introduce a new system. Everybody has to get trained. This should be easy to do, right? After all, the training should be pretty straightforward.

But…it’s a typical Thursday at 8 a.m., the first day of training. You’ve got 30 people staring at you, waiting for the magic. There are four generations present and each one is thinking something different. “Oh no, I’m going to have to learn another system!” “I don’t need to learn anything!” “This is gonna be sooooooo boring!” “Dude; what a waste of my time!” Thank goodness for the Starbucks coffee and bagels you had the foresight to order for the day.

As prepared as you may be, if you don’t take into account the different generations sitting in front of you, your training will be doomed. Each of the four generations takes in information differently and processes it from a unique perspective. This means that if your training doesn’t speak to generational differences and needs, you might not get the ROI you’re expecting.

With four generations in the training game, how can you reach all of them at the same time with the same content? Aside from the different generations, people also learn in different ways. It’s critical that training be flexible and use diverse methodologies.

So, what can you do? Put the training into the Gens’ hands: the following training strategies will work well across all the generations.

Respect experience. Ask participants to share their past experiences. This is especially fun for the Matures and Boomers; they have a ton of knowledge they’re dying to share with their younger colleagues. Besides, they probably have some interesting stories to tell that will liven up the training!

Involve participants. Get the trainees involved by using experiential-type training. Use games and simulations to keep things interesting. All trainees, regardless of generation, will learn better and faster if they are actively involved.

Use coaches. Employ the “each one, teach one” concept by pairing participants with different generational partners. Each person will be accountable for ensuring that his or her partner is learning. It takes the stress off if there is someone available to support the learning on a more comfortable one-on-one basis.

Vary audiovisuals. Take advantage of the multitude of audio-visual tools and techniques available today. Enhance the training by using interactive computer-based simulations, multimedia case studies or synchronized slide presentations. Use pictures to help tell your training story. As the old saying goes, “a picture’s worth a thousand words” no matter what the generation.

Provide visibility. Let different people be spokespersons for small group work. Gen X and Gen Y may need the practice and many of them like to be up in front of the group. While public speaking may be #1 on the top ten things we hate the most list, it is an essential business skill. Understand that while some hate it, some do love it, so a little structured visibility can be a good thing for any Gen.

Give plenty of opportunity for discussion. Use discussion as a learning tool. Having participants talk about the subject matter and challenge one another provides for a great learning experience, especially for those who prefer an auditory learning style. Besides, knowing that the four generations will have four different perspectives on the subject, it will make for a fascinating conversation!

Try peer-to-peer training. Have the participants conduct the training instead of the trainer. Not only does it allow for creativity, but it helps participants “own” their learning, get prepared and improve their attention to the subject matter. Have a contest between groups with prizes. The more fun it is, the better people will learn no matter what the generation.

Utilize case studies. Try to find examples in your own organization that can be used to help participants apply the information being learned in a real-time situation. Case studies are particularly useful for helping younger trainees synthesize information – that is, take what they have learned in class and apply it to a problem that they may not have yet experienced in the workplace.

Deploy just-in-time training. Think about the learning needs of your multigenerational workplace and provide the training at the right place at the right time. Focus on what the trainee needs to know and let them have at it at their own place and time. Providing training in different media, such as internet- or computer-based, allows participants to learn at their own pace. Many companies are now utilizing internal television networks to provide just-in-time training. They can sign up for what they need, when they need it.

Allow opportunity for feedback. Receiving plenty of feedback is a must. While Matures may want to receive feedback in a particular time and place, Boomers are more apt to feel they are not getting enough. Gen Xers and Gen Y want to hear it immediately and honestly so they will know they are on the right track. Regardless of the generation, everyone wants to know how they are doing. Tell them and help them use that information to improve their knowledge or skill.

Use some of these strategies and you’ll be well on your way to playing the generational training game and realize a greater return on that training investment.