Yes.  Three exclamation points.  Count ‘em.  Yea.  Three.

I know. Extra Special Friday Edition AND three Exclamation Points.

Whew.

Anyways…

Ooglin’ the Google

The folks at Google are worried about employee retention.  Google.  So, like only Google could, they developed an algorithm to identify which of its twenty thousand employees were most likely to quit.

The article in the Wall Street Journal went on to say “The inputs include information from surveys and peer reviews, and Google says the algorithm already has identified employees who felt underused, a key complaint among those who contemplate leaving.”

Yikes.

Google’s algorithm helps the company “get inside people’s heads even before they know they might leave,” said Laszlo Bock, who runs human resources for the company.

Yikers.

The WSJ article says that the company is losing talent because it is harder for employees to make an impact as the company grows older and more established.  Others indicated the organization had little formal career-planning while some felt that human-resources had become to impersonal.

Yikest.

It doesn’t matter how big or small of a company you work in, once employees believe that h.r. is too impersonal, there are some things that need to be fixed.  And fast.

Green With Envy… Again.

For the second time in  as many years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the highest overall employee satisfaction and commitment among large government agencies.

Get it… “Green with Envy”?  That right there is some high quality writing.

Staying in the number two slot, the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, the “government watchdog agency”.  The group that determines if the government agencies that are getting our money are spending it wisely and if laws are being complied with.

The Securities & Exchange Commission’s employee satisfaction and commitment dropped from third best to eleventh over the last two years, while the Small Business Administration improved over thirty-percent over the same time frame.

The Department of Homeland Security had the third biggest improvement in satisfaction and commitment, however that still landed them in twenty-eighth place.

Not That Different Half-Way Around the World

According to a just released study, the three top drivers of employee engagement in Asia were: Good Leadership, Company Image, and Career Development.

Effective Senior Leadership, Reputation Management, and Training & Development  all drivers of engagement in biennial benchmarks on employee engagement my company, Employee Hold’em  has been conducting for the last decade or so.   It’s the same assessment we use as the foundation for the customized solutions we bring to our clients.

Other drivers of engagement included empowerment, compensation and benefits, quality, performance appraisals, working relationships and operating efficiency.

It’s nice to see that some things translate all around the world.