August already, and thoughts of my younger son turn towards just one more week of sleeping late until he begins his Junior year in high school.  Time flies.  And it doesn’t matter if you are having fun or not.

In a Technology Tizzy

Ok, this isn’t important to anyone but me, but I got my new iPhone today.  No idea how to use it, no idea what all the buttons and slides do, it took me long enough to figure out how to use the charger.  But I did, without the help of my CTO (my chief technical officer, my 16 year old Max).  It’s almost as good as getting something from Staples (which i did yesterday)!

And, since this is my initial blog entry for the day (ok, for the week, back off!!!), you can tell how frighteningly important it is to me!  The only difference between men and boys are the size and expense of their toys…

Anyways…

Still Writing the Book

Ugh.  Ick.  Sigh.  Struggle.  Stress.

Yea, haven’t finished it yet.  It’s almost done, my colleague is going to review it on Friday, so I’ll have my second “draft” done by then.  Then Lisa gets her hands on it, and I get to decide if I want to use the “track changes”.  She normally reads it first and then calls me, suggesting whether I want to see the “track changes” in Word, or just talk about a couple of items she has questions on.

Usually the tone of her voice tells me how I need to answer.  I’m very well trained.  Ask my lovely bride.

So, I just got the last of my analysis from the 2008-9 Employee Hold’em National Workforce Engagement Benchmark related to industries and their specific key drivers.  Remember, “key drivers of engagement” are those specific interactions that you have with your employees which strongly impact their desire to stay longer, work harder, and recommend the organization as a great place to work.  This along with all the other demographic information is a data geek’s goldmine.  Imagine my joy.

Seriously.

I couldn’t wait to get the call from Dr. Larry (one of my colleagues).   He handles much of my analysis, and took care of this last bit of data for me.  I couldn’t concentrate all morning.

Seriously.

Me, a researcher.  Ah.  Acceptance.

So which employee groups look at Rewards & Recognition as more important to their satisfaction, retention, and engagement?

Overall, how companies perform in the R&R area is a top 5 driver of workforce engagement, the first time that has occurred in these first three biennial benchmarks.

(Yes, biennial, meaning once every two years.  I was tired of being wrong on biannual and semiannual, both twice a year, so I looked it up on Dictionary.com.  Wow, I’m all over the place today.  Back to R&R).

Rewards & recognition is a top driver of engagement for employees with 1-2 years of tenure, no other tenured group other than those with their organization 10-14 years feel as strongly.  Employees between the ages of 18-34 also consider rewards and recognition a top driver of engagement, linking strongly with the tenure of the employee.  Pretty much across the board, as employees get older and more tenured, their perceptions of rewards and recognition worsens.  OK, geeky research comment…

18-24 year old employees stay in their job about a year, 25-34 year olds about 3 years, which means their organization has that long to show how effective (or ineffective) their reward and recognition program is:

• While 55% of employees with their organization 1 year or less believed people are fairly rewarded and recognized for their contributions to their company’s success, just 43% of those who had two years of tenure believed the same.
• While 54% of 18-34 year old employees believed people are fairly rewarded and recognized for their contributions to their company’s success, just 45% of those 35 years of age or above believed the same.

Want another one?

• Only 55% of employees with their organization less than 90 days agree that excellent performance gets rewarded at their organization, dropping to 51% for those employees with less than 6 months tenure, 48% for those with 1 year of company experience, 44% for those with 2 years tenure, and 42% for those with 3 years tenure.
• While 56% of 18-24 year old employees agree that excellent performance gets rewarded at their organization, this drops to 45% for 25-44 year old employees,  and 44% for those employees 45 years of age and older.

Nasty stuff.  So, rewards and recognition which are key determinants of positive behaviors for the youngest and least tenured employees (sorry, still in geeky research mode) show gradual declines in satisfaction.  VERY NASTY STUFF.

As an organization, you want to perform better in areas that are more critical to employees in a particular group.  I never said that Rewards & Recognition is a driver of engagement or retention for more tenured groups (3-9 years) and anyone over 35… ’cause it’s not.   So why concentrate on it?

However, employees with their organization 2 years or less accounts for 45% of a company’s workforce, a significant investment in training and development, and a large pool of workers communicating directly with customers.   Nasty stuff.

Employees, especially those that are newer in their organization recognize and accept that their performance may not be good enough (at that time) for them to be considered an “A” and “B” player.  Although they may not be eligible for rewards and recognition, they want to know that the company believes in the concept of “pay for performance” and carries it out in their actions and deeds on a regular basis.

Looking at the national benchmark results, companies do a good job “talking the talk”, but a horrible job “walking” the walk.

I guess they’ll get their “just rewards”…..

m