Employee Surveys
Employee EngagementEmployee Survey
4Cs Employee SurveysEmployee Survey BenchmarksSurvey Samples4Cs Employee Survey BlogGet a QuoteClientsAbout Insightlink CanadaContact Us
Employee Opinion Surveys
Header Strip
Employee Surveys

4Cs Blog: Happy Employees = Happy Customers


Don't Let Money Prevent You From Hiring The Best

9 Strategies for Hiring the Talent you Can't Afford


Hiring new talent is a tremendous sign that you are growing and prospering.

You want to hire the best you possible can to keep that momentum going but how you define ‘the best’ could be costing you more in the long run. On paper you may decide that you can only afford to pay a new hire x amount of dollars and you may also be aware that talent costs more than you can afford to pay. Do you lower your expectations? Absolutely not. Our research has shown consistently for over 20 years that pay is not what motivates people. In fact compensation is at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs for employees. This is important to know when you are looking to hire ‘the best’ so you don’t let the number interfere with who you want to hire, first of all. Second, you need some strategies to help attract top talent, the people who want more than just a dollar figure when it comes to finding the right job.

 

Read full post

The Value of Employee Pride

Employee Pride: What Is It?

A client recently asked us whether, as part of their employee survey action planning, they should deliberately encourage their employees to take pride in working for their company. As it turns out, their results were fairly low on this measure so they were wondering if building employee pride is something they should focus on.
This question led us to look more deeply into the importance and role of pride within organizations. We started first with asking “what is employee pride anyway and is it important to work?”


We quickly realized that there are two distinct definitions of pride in workplaces – one form is taking pride in the work that they do, which employees develop when they feel good about themselves, trust in their abilities and are confident in managing the tasks and responsibilities expected of them. We believe that this type of pride is strongly linked to job satisfaction and commitment and, in our experience, employees who feel a strong sense of pride in their work are also:
More ambitious, energetic, focused and motivated,
More effective at tackling and overcoming work-oriented challenges,
Better able to set, achieve and maintain high standards and goals,
More likely to develop positive interpersonal relationships and to work as “team players,” and
Likely to communicate with more effectively their managers, peers and direct reports.

As with all action that builds job satisfaction and commitment, these strengths can translate into higher productivity, lower turnover and sick time and greater returns for organizations. That’s it’s important to concentrate on developing “pride in work” among their staff.
However, our client’s specific question was not about fostering pride in the work but, rather, about whether they should build the other kind of employee pride – that is, taking pride in the organization itself.

 

Read full post

Your Employees Will Appreciate You for Caring

Rosalyn Carter said ‘A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be’.


An organization that wants to promote and cultivate a spirit of employee engagement, like a great leader, should be looking beyond what employees say they want, and giving them what they need. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies when it comes to knowing what is best for us and that applies to the places where we work.
At work, most of us find ourselves sitting at a desk. We may sit there for hours and there is scientific proof that it is killing us. So while many of us know we need to get up once in a while, most of us get lazy and days turn into weeks and before we know it, we are not getting out of our chairs the way we should.


And the consequences of sitting too much are really quite scary.

Consider these statistics:
• 24% higher risk of dying from any cause;
• Risk of having cardiovascular disease increased by 14%, while risk of having cancer increased by 13%;
• Risk of diabetes almost doubled.

 

Read full post

Tactics to Make Onboarding New Employees a Huge Success

You put so much effort into recruiting top talent but do you keep the momentum going after that talent signs on with you? Too often, managers place so much emphasis on recruiting, they neglect to make sure that they make a good first impression starting with their new employees’ onboarding and their first day on the job. You only get one chance to make a first impression yet many managers fail to make it as good an impression as it needs to be.
According to SHRM Foundation:
• Half of all senior outside hires fail within 18 months in a new position
• Half of all hourly workers leave new jobs within the first 120 days
• 30% of organizations use “passive onboarding” — onboarding that focuses mainly on compliance and little or no focus on clarification, culture, and making connections.

Connecting with new hires and making a meaningful first impression is vital if you want that relationship to thrive.

Beginning with day one, new hires should be connecting with their fellow employees and learning day-to-day procedures and learning the most important things they want to know.

Here are three great ways to make your onboarding process a great success:

 

Read full post

Older Employees Are More Engaged and Increase Revenue

The more engaged your employees are the greater your profits will be.


‘Digital natives’ is a term used in job ads that some lawyers say is code for ‘young worker’ suggesting that older people need not apply. Sadly these companies are missing out by narrowing their recruiting efforts against younger workers and excluding older workers.
In an article titled ‘Older Workers Are More Engaged, Boost Revenues’, author Dana Wilkie digs in to the study providing insightful facts about older employees that contradict the notion that older employees are more of a burden than a benefit to the workplace.

Misconceptions
1. Older workers cost companies more
Not true. The AARP study concluded that recruiting workers 50+ only increased a company’s total annual labor costs by 1 % or less.

2. Older workers aren’t interested in-nor are adept at-learning new things, such as technology.
Not true. The report found nearly 80% of older workers would be interested in learning new skills related to computers and communication technology. Older workers do not feel they have trouble keeping up with technology.

Employing older workers has other advantages too and include: experience, professionalism, work ethic, lower turnover, and knowledge.

 

Read full post

The Number One Reason People Quit Their Jobs

It’s interesting that marriages often fail for the same reason people quit their jobs. At work when our time and efforts are not appreciated or respected, we don’t feel valued or that what we are doing has meaning. Over time, we start not to care anymore. The same is true in our relationships with significant others, where the most common cause for divorce is a lack of respect, which, over time, also brings couples to realize that one or both simply do not care for the other anymore.
But this is not new news. We asked tens of thousands of workers to participate in our employee survey as part of our annual independent research project and found the same results. The number one driver of employee satisfaction is the level of reward and recognition they receive but employees are not getting sufficient reward and recognition where they currently work.

Read full post

Ignoring Employee Problems Won't Make Them Disappear

Employee problems get worse when they are ignored.


And while they are getting worse you can expect to see lower productivity, declining retention, higher turnover, and poor customer satisfaction. So what can be done?
The biggest challenge is admitting there is a problem. The second is doing something about it.


Based on our experience the only way to know for sure what is wrong is to measure it….you don’t want to take the word of your squeaky wheels, you want to hear from everyone what they think is really going on. Choosing an employee survey company may be a bit daunting since there are so many and we know you have a lot of choices for survey companies, so what are some of the things that you should look for in an employee survey company?

 

Read full post

Bosses Who Make The Difference

The Many Advantages of Working for a Highly Sensitive Person


As a leader, the greatest skill you can possess is the ability to earn, build and maintain trust. It may come as something of a surprise that the people best suited to be great leaders are those individuals who are known to be highly sensitive. In fact, some of the best leaders in business today, the ones who personify this valuable skill the most, are ‘highly sensitive’ people. In her article titled “8 Advantages Highly Sensitive People Bring to Business”, Sherrie Campbell celebrates the qualities that differentiate highly sensitive people from the masses and shares the reasons why they are the people you want running your business or being your boss or manager. In her own words, “An emotionally sensitive person is someone who creates environments in which employees are given the tools and resources to challenge the status quo, push boundaries and achieve growth”.


The 8 characteristics of these individuals who are known to make a difference include:
1. Emotional Awareness
2. Great Empathy
3. Dedication to fairness and justice
4. Leadership
5. Passion
6. Need time and space to themselves
7. Innovative
8. Generous

 

Read full post

How Money Can Ruin a Good Time

Learning to value our time over money is a key ingredient in job satisfaction

Benjamin Franklin is to blame. He is the one who coined the phrase ‘Time equals Money’ and started us all on the never-ending quest to work more to make more. But as so many research projects and real-life awakenings have shown, money can’t buy happiness, yet many of us can’t get past the idea that if we aren’t making money we are wasting our time.
People who work all the time, though, are quite often miserable, which is not just an observation, it is a fact.

In a recent study done at the University of Toronto, researchers found that people who look at their time as money had difficulty enjoying their free or leisure time and are, ‘ more likely to feel impatient when they’re not using it to earn money. And that hurts their ability to derive happiness during leisure activities’. Treating time as money “can actually undermine your well-being,” says Sanford DeVoe, one of two researchers at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management who carried out the study, which is to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.


The key finding of their research showed that people who think of their time as money experience time differently.

 

Read full post

Why Getting a Raise Won't Make You Happy

What if Employee Engagement became the norm and no longer the goal. 

Research shows success does not bring happiness. Happiness brings success.

 We all chase happiness. We all think we’ll be happy when we get that promotion, happy once we get that raise….Stop for a minute and think about how you feel while you are chasing those goals and what price you may be paying physically, emotionally or socially to achieve whatever we define as success. Some of us are chasing goals with so much discipline and drive we become fiercely determined, potentially causing real self-harm because we may eat poorly, get little sleep, pull excessive overtime at work, ignore family and friends, all to prove we deserve the next promotion because that is the goal. Research has shown, though, that getting the promotion only makes us feel happy for a short time until we find another loftier goal to pursue. We become like mice on a wheel spinning like crazy and going nowhere. Can that be considered living?

Shawn Anchor, author of The Happiness Advantage has developed a fascinating case for putting happiness first.
Anchor found that when you achieve a goal, you’re briefly happier… but then you’re looking toward the next big thing. That happy feeling doesn’t last. Anchor’s research showed that when you flip the formula and focus on increasing happiness instead of achieving the goal first, you end up increasing success.

Read full post
« Previous  ( 1 ...  48  49  50  51  52  ... 69 )  Next »





About

Insightlink Communications are experts in employee survey design, data collection and analysis. Since 2001 we've helped companies of all sizes measure and improve their employee satisfaction and engagement.



4Cs Blog Home

Recent Posts


Connectivity and Collaboration: Building a Strong Business with Remote Staff

What is an Employee Survey? Are They Important in 2024?

Celebrating 23 Years of Partnership: Wishing You a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year in 2024!

From Burnout to Bliss: Employee Wellness Through Transformation

The New Machine Era: Navigating the Future of Workflows and Processes

Categories


Advancement (3)

Commitment (10)

Communication (15)

Compensation (15)

Culture (132)

Employee Surveys (85)

Engagement (99)

HR Practices (82)

HR Technology (29)

Management (41)

Miscellaneous (43)

Mission/Vision/Values (3)

Motivation (40)

Performance Reviews (2)

Recognition (19)

Training (16)

Work/Life Balance (35)

Favorite Links


Engaged Employees Blog

HR ToolKit Guide to Employee Surveys
Good info on how to write surveys

Insightlink 360
Makes 360 assessment surveys easy.

HR & Skills Development Canada
Canadian Labour Market Information

Statistics Canada
Labour Market Activites

SHRM
Society for Human Resources Management

HRPA
Human Resources Professionals Association

Harvard Business Review
Essential Information for Leaders