Just got back from the Indiana SHRM conference…  I gave the Rise-n-Shine speech this morning at 7 am.  Yea, a big-ol’-dose of Drizin is what you need at the crack of dawn.  But the 150 brave souls heard my speech on employee employment and satisfaction and the impact of supervisors as Engagement Agents.  They laughed, they cried, they applauded wildly.  OK, only one of those was true…

The session was sponsored by my colleagues at LHD Benefits here in Indianapolis.  LHD Benefits helps companies through their insight and innovative technology to create unique benefit strategies that protect employees and company budgets.  I’ll be conducting another speech for LHD Benefits on September 11 on the importance of benefits as a part of a total reward strategy.

ANYWAYS…

Ensure A Good Fit

According to the 2008-09 Employee Hold’em National Workforce Engagement Benchmark, 70% of all employees agreed there was a good fit between their skills/interests and their job.  The same number indicated their job gave them a feeling of personal accomplishment.

I hate marketing.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  There are parts of marketing that I really like.  I enjoy determining the target markets, doing the research to decide on the types of companies and industries that can best use the products and services my organization provides.

I love doing the creative, writing copy, outlining the mail/email/phone strategy…

But I’m an architect, not a builder.  I like designing, I don’t like the “doing”, the actual execution.  It isn’t a lack of skill or knowledge, I know how to press the buttons, make the database “do what I want”, integrate the results from Salesforce into Outlook.  I just don’t like to do it.  And so I don’t, even to my own detriment.

So I’m going to bite the bullet.

I’m deepening my relationship with Right On Interactive, my email marketing partner.  Instead of beating myself up for not uploading a database of contacts from a conference I attend or a speech I give, I’m going to give it to Luke to do.  It’s not that I can’t do it, but Luke will do it better, faster, and ultimately cheaper than I will… and more importantly it will get done.  Emails will go out on schedule, follow-up calls will be scheduled in Outlook for my follow-up, reports will be generated and reviewed.

I’ll be able to concentrate on the activities important to me and my clients.

Now that’s what you do when you know a person’s interests do not match their job.  You accommodate.

Reward & Recognition… NOT!

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one quarter of workers have no paid vacation time, jumping to 30%  of workers at small companies (less than 100 workers).  Just 10% of employees at large companies lack paid vacation.  Nothing says “we care” like a boss that provides no paid vacation.  Why would employees ever feel valued, ever feel that the organization treats them like their most important asset when they can’t even squeeze out a couple days of paid time off.

The Effect of Going Green

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland has recently asked the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) to review the opportunity for the federal government to shift to a four-day workweek, following a decision by the state of Utah to do just that. It’s all about going green, shuttering buildings for a full day.  And in another “icing on the cake”, employees who believe they work for a green company are twice as likely to be Fully Engaged and half as likely to be Unengaged.

Being green makes you a ton of green… or, it makes dollars and sense!