Winning hearts and minds of staff is profitable

As the scramble for skilled professionals heats up in an increasingly competitive workplace, it is the companies that keep employees engaged enough to go the extra mile that get the best results. In a hunt to find the best employers in Asia, Hewitt Associates conducts a study every two years, measuring workplace practices, talent management and business performance in encouraging staff engagement. The results will be announced next year after an intensive study.

Launched in 2001, the Hewitt Associates Best Employers study began as a regional exploration into staff engagement. It has since grown into a worldwide research project that covers the Middle East, Europe, Canada and Latin America. The fifth round of Asia's study includes Australia, New Zealand, the mainland, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. With 750 organisations and 160,000 employees in the 2007 study, it has turned out to be the largest employee-research project and market-practice audit in Asia.

'It is quite a global undertaking for the firm and its genesis was a research project,' said Philip Wixon, general manager of Hewitt Associates LLC. 'Hewitt was doing a lot of employee-survey work, looking into whether satisfied and committed employees make a difference. Research reveals time and time again that there are tangible business results.' While there are always exceptions, the revelation that companies with a highly engaged workforce have lower recruitment costs suggests a link between employee engagement and profitability. The research has done much to uncover the dynamics of organisations that achieve positive relationships with employees, in terms of good CEO attitudes and sound people practices.

Surveys conducted to unravel the inner workings of employee engagement bring into account pay conditions, working environments, and colleague relationships. They also highlight the effectiveness of management techniques that demonstrate the long-term benefits of treating staff well. Participants answer 80 to 100 questions with a six point scale between 'strongly agree' and 'strongly disagree'.

'We are interested in what makes a company tick,' Mr Wixon said. 'What's under the hood of these companies, the stuff they do every day that really makes them a great company to work for. With real engagement, you've captured the hearts and minds of employees. It's enthusiasm and all of those things bundled together. When the customer says, 'can I have this tonight?' the kind of person who is engaged would not reply with, 'no, we shut at five'. They'd think that's going to look bad for the company. An engaged employee is willing to go that extra mile with the knowledge that it's benefiting the company.'

And finding out exactly what encourages employees to go that extra mile is the secret of corporate success, with an enthusiasm that permeates the workforce at every level. This includes bosses who find sophisticated ways to motivate staff without having to resort to heavy-handed management practices.

According to Mr Wixon, the study demonstrates a link between strong engagement and sound leadership, and this means an environment in which bosses are as enthusiastic about their work as employees.

'Engagement starts with leadership. More and more companies are recognising that,' Mr Wixon said. 'Leadership is not just about whether the boss knows the market or products, but whether or not he can engage the staff. It's still about being driven to achieve, but it's also about being able to give constructive feedback when things don't go so well. That way the staff don't walk away thinking they have been roasted. There's one boss that will criticise you and another that will say, 'great job, but you dropped the ball there but I know that's not typically you'. A person who is punished in a workplace, for one reason or another, is not learning. They feel they are just being browbeaten and that's not good for engagement.' And part of that Best Employer practice is nurturing staff to make employee engagement sustainable; that your workers are willing to contribute to the company in the long run. This means turning staff into assets who feel valued, and thus compelled to make a valid contribution to the company. The same dynamics apply at work when bosses wish to improve the overall standards of the company.

'Leaders have to be committed to change of any sort and this means not being tied to their inbox,' Mr Wixon said. 'It's a challenge for the senior leaders of any sized company to spend a lot of their time in the business with the talent, directly nurturing the next-level leaders. But this is where the focus for these senior leaders should be, and it's how they manage their bandwidth that's the biggest obstacle to achieving this focus.' And, according to Hewitt, this engagement is expressed in the three key behaviour responses. 'Say' - in which employees speak positively about the organisation to colleagues, employees and potential employees; 'stay' - in which a sense of belonging is expressed; and 'strive' - in which employees put in extra effort, doing more than what their basic job description requires.

Whereas staff engagement may vary with the employee's length of service, or level in the company, Best Employer organisations tend to be able to maintain consistency, varying little across the different demographic groups in their companies. The Best Employers study will continue to look at a spectrum of industries including media and communications, insurance, mining and hospitality. As more companies take part, an interest in changing the corporate culture in terms of better leadership is taking place.

'Leaders are becoming more enlightened,' Mr Wixon said. 'More companies are coming to us asking about leadership and development. There is the realisation that leaders have a significant impact to make on employee engagement and on creating great places to work. All across Asia, there's a growing interest in what leadership is.'