Max’s note: We’re proud to present this guest post by SuccessFactors’ Director of Research, Erik Berggren.  

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What’s the best way to be productive? I wager 99% of you just thought to yourself – “waste less time.” After all, if we used every minute efficiently we could build skyscrapers in days, right? Maybe.

According to a new salary.com survey, young people are wasting more time than ever before (2.1 hours/day) at work and the insinuation is that this is major cause for concern. But, it’s not quite as simple as all that. Productivity has a numerator and a denominator. The denominator is time. There’s only so much in a day. The numerator? Output - how much stuff is getting done. To improve your productivity you could work on either or both sides. But it’s a balance, a single minded focus on the denominator is at best somewhat limited.

SuccessFactors’ stated goal is to increase worldwide productivity by 50% and I can tell you that we’re not going to get there by identifying slack time and eliminating it. Peter Capelli ( a SuccessFactors Research thought leader pictured left) shared his thoughts on this survey this morning on Morning Edition on NPR. Click here to listen.

Peter and I had a great conversation around productivity and HCM last week in preparation for his upcoming webinar highlighting some interesting findings from his coming book “Talent on Demand.” There is much more to driving productivity than cutting slack out of the workday and I invite you to join our webinar next week to find out why and what to do about it from one of the greatest thinkers in this area.

With all this talk of the war for talent, it often goes overlooked that an organization’s best place to look for employees is among the employees it already has. In other words, if you can make sure to hang on to the ones you’re already got, you’re a step ahead.

How to do that is of course the age old question. Is it pay? Is it meaning? What is it employees need to have in order to stick around? According to a WSJ article today, it’s coaching.

From the article:

A key differential between a staffer who feels like a valuable part of a company and one who is disengaged is the quality of leadership in their workplace. Most engaged employees work for managers who spend a big chunk of their time helping their subordinates succeed. Managers who focus on talent assign their employees to jobs that play to their strengths, make sure they have the resources they need to perform well, respect their opinions and push them to advance.

To source, screen and hire a new employee is an expensive proposition. Getting managers to spend more time managing and thinking about the people they already have may not cost a dime, but can make all the impact in the world.

A humble post at Execupundit entitled “Note from boss to employees.” 

An excerpt:

1. I am sometimes under enormous pressure from upper management; pressure that you seldom see. Anything that you can do to make my job easier will be greatly appreciated.
2. Your interests are important, but please remember that I also have to juggle the concerns and feelings of a bunch of other people, including individuals outside of the department.
3. I may not have been given a huge amount of training before being named to a supervisory position. As a result, I’ve had to learn through trial and error. That’s not always bad. Many of my responsibilities can only be learned through practice.

It’s often difficult for front line employees to put themselves in the boss’s shoes. Perhaps a bit of humility along these lines could go a long way.

A ways back, I had some thoughts on the wearing of ties in the workplace. Apparently so did you.  After more than 250 votes in our sidebar poll, it has become clear that a fair percentage of readers (~61%) feel the tie still “definitely” or “probably” has a place in today’s work environment. This is very much to my dismay, but I’m willing to accept being in the minority (so long as I don’t have to wear one.)

A new poll coming soon….

Need a good argument for why thinking about employee retention is worthwhile? Via Auren Hoffman’s blog comes a slightly different take on it than you’re probably used to. The story goes something like this:

1. Man wants to work for company X
2. Man ACTIVELY CAMPAIGNS to work for company  X (including setting up a website/blog specifically for the purpose)
3. Blog becomes big hit at company X
4. Man gets hired at company X on “its most important project”
5. Project is killed off
6. Man is fired
7. Man goes on 3 month vacation with severance package
8. Man comes back from vacation
9. Man is hired back at company X on a different project

My view on the lessons to be learned from this:

1. It’s worth knowing who your best and most talented employees are (performance evaluations)
2. It’s worth doing what you can to retain these highly motivated people (pay for performance / feedback, etc)
3. It’s worth knowing what competencies are needed at your company and which employees have them (competency evaluations) – so you don’t get rid of people who are needed and
4. It generally (there are exceptions) makes no sense time-wise, cost-wise or productivity-wise to fire someone you think enough of to hire back at a later date.

Any other thoughts?

There’s been a ton of coverage relating to Bob Sutton’s new book – The No Asshole Rule, which I wrote about recently after Bob came to speak at our last company meeting.

From The Today Show to Guy Kawasaki, Bob’s book is burning up the airwaves and the Internet. Lucky for us, he thinks our company is cool. Why? Because we have a strong, stated no-asshole policy – and it’s something we take very seriously.

Guy Kawasaki actually posted what we call our Rules of Engagement in his blog post – and it unleashed a wave of comment. While some people like our "rules of engagement" a lot of the comments were very critical.

Here are a few of my favorite comments:

"I would question the viability of a company that feels the need for its employees to sign a "no assholes" agreement. In my experience, good companies build an environment where people don’t want to act like assholes – nobody needs to be bound by an agreement."

"Signing an irreverent-sounding no-ahole contract is IMO a bit like a town putting up a pithy "This is a drug free zone" sign with every local mucky-muck showing up to get their picture taken, then walking away."

"What a demeaning, patronizing, idiotic and stupid contract. How can anybody sign a contract that says shiitake like "I will have fun at work"? How can you even control that? Having fun at work comes from the workplace, not from the person working there."

"I am interested to know what the employees of "SuccessFactors" say about these rules when they are having a beer in the pub at night."

I think it would be silly to try to defend the rules of engagement in a well-worded and logical essay. I don’t think that would convince any naysayer and, to me,  the proof is in the pudding. So I went in search of proof. Proof that our Rules of Engagement has value to SuccessFactors employees - including and especially the No-Asshole provision. To find it,  I walked around our office in San Mateo and asked some colleagues if they wouldn’t mind telling the world what they think of our Rules of Engagement.

Here then, in their own words, is the value SuccessFactors employees find in our contractual "Rules of Engagement:"

Oh, and you can feel free to email them if you want, too -to find out more.

In this day and age, we should be more aware of how important our company values are, and by reinforcing these company values on paper, each person signing the agreement can feel a sense of accountability and ownership.  In short, signing a written agreement is much more significant than hearing someone drone about it in a lengthy 2 hour on-boarding snoozefest. The pen is mightier than the sword (or verbal agreement).
Christine Ng - Proposal Specialist

I remember my first interview at SF, and the “Rules of Engagement” were posted on the wall.  I read through them while I waited for my first interviewer, and then we ended up discussing them.  When you read “asshole” in a company document like that, it is certainly shocking at first, but eventually it put me at ease about the work culture.  A couple of weeks ago, the whole company got together and shouted “No Assholes” at the top of our lungs in front of our new headquarters.  It’s a crude, but direct expression of our goal to perform as a company but without the toxicity that is practically a given in other organizations.  It’s a worthy mission that others should adopt. But while the “no asshole” rule is important and certainly stands out, the other word I hear most often around the office with regards to the Rules of Engagement is “Kaizen.” 
Joe Cha - Product Management

"No Assholes is critical because as a frontline employee, it makes me comfortable that I can complain about a more senior person being a jerk. There’s no ambiguity about whether that kind of behavior is allowed for anyone."
Jake Adger - Marketing

 

Why do we need a contract (Rules of Engagement)?  It sets a clear expectation as to what we’re about. When you start here, read that document, sign it…. You’re thinking “yeah sure”.  But then you’re here for a week and you start to realize that everybody is living it.  It’s contagious.  It is not too good to be true.

Do we really live it? Absolutely.  Our people have integrity. We hire people with it and we’re allergic to people without it.  Complaining about a swear word in a blog is petty. Let’s focus on the content and what we can learn, instead of getting hung up on one word.

Measuring people is abusive? What happens when we don’t measure people? Heroes go unrecognized, unrewarded.  Misplaced talent goes unnoticed. Mediocrity ensues. Anyone that says this has never achieved much or is deluding themselves.  

Measuring people will make us “cogs”?  Automated Performance does sound a bit THX1138, but when you actually see it action, you realize that this is what will help put people in the right jobs at the right times, help people get rewarded what they should and breakdown the politics.
Cary Roll - Sales

"I saw the contract hanging in the conference room two minutes before my job interview with Lars, our CEO. The one I saw included a quote from Lars, "It’s okay to have an asshole, just don’t be one." And I felt like here is a place that values nice people… that don’t take themselves too seriously. At the end of the day though, you can have all the contracts in the world… and it won’t make any difference.  SuccessFactors happens to live and breathe these values and that’s what counts.
Alex Shevelenko - New Business Ops.

My own personal experience with no assholes is very simple. Once, my boss was being a jerk. I told him so – in those words. Instead of getting mad, he accepted the comment and we moved on. Later, he thanked me for telling him. My boss thanked me for calling him a jerk. Let me repeat that. My boss thanked me for calling him a jerk. Calling the behavior what it was helped everyone work better together and get more done. Can you do that at your company?

Some of the big business news this past week came out of Texas, where CEO Kevin Rollins left Dell Computer and founder Michael Dell returned. Back in the CEO slot, one of Dell’s first actions was to shoot this email out to his top staff.

Most notably were these few sentences: “Last year, we worked really hard and there were many sacrifices. Thanks! We had great efforts, but not great results. This is disappointing and it is unacceptable. The result is that there will be no bonus this year. I know this is a big deal for you and your teams. We’re going to fix that so that our efforts translate into great results and success for our teams. “

Pay for performance is a two-sided coin, and this decisive action by the founder makes it pretty clear that if the company doesn’t perform – no one is getting paid. It sends a pretty strong message of “we’re all in this together,” but he manages to say that with an optimistic, forward looking tone. 

But perhaps even more  interesting is what IS being done to reward people. Again, from the email:

“But we still have great people who made great efforts. It’s important to recognize your hard work, though our results fell short. Limited discretionary awards will be available to all but the most senior people. We can’t cover everyone, but it will be a tool you can use. And we are also budgeting for above-market raises this year.  For stock awards, we will shorten the vesting period from five to three years for future grants and move to restricted stock units. And we’re going to set the annual bonus plan against realistic targets. “

This strikes me as a very clever alignment of interests  between the company and its employees. Bonuses aren’t going to be widely distributed – but we can recognize special cases to continue to motivate those who have worked hard. We’re going to pay people more, so they understand that we think highly of them. We’re going to shorten vesting periods so that people will be able to see personal benefit from the results of their efforts and we’re going to make sure that bonuses are again available next year based on realistic performance targets for the company.

In any sort of turnaround situation, focusing on the people first seems like an excellent new beginning – and it looks like Michael Dell is doing just that.

This was a tidbit I couldn’t ignore. According to Money Magazine and Salary.com, being an HR manager is the 4th best job in America – following only Software Engineer, College Professor and Financial Advisor. Job growth for the position is forecasted at 23.5% over the next 10 years and average pay is over $70,000.

To come up with the rankings, they started with a list of positions projected to grow at an above average rate over 10 years and require at least a bachelor’s degree. Then they eliminated some based on salary, total employment and annual job openings. The remaining positions were rated by “stress levels, flexibility in hours and working environment, creativity, and how easy it is to enter and advance in the field.” You can see all the details here.

So what do you think the biggest issue for HR execs is in 2007 according to the ORC Worldwide HR Priorities survey. If you said talent management, you’d be right. Nice Job!

Find out more.

Dubs makes the very good point that satisfaction and engagement are not the same thing in his post on the “top 10 employee satisfaction indicators.” He has a point. After all, who cares if employees are happy, so long as they’re engaged with their work. But satisfaction does play a role in engagement. Even if the traditional markers of engagement (right tools, personal growth, common purpose, etc) are in place, it’s hard to see the benefits (more productive, profitable, customer-focused) if employees are caught up in nagging Dis-satisfiers.

This study on 2.2 million respondents at over 2,100 companies revealed some obvious and not so obvious elements of employee satisfaction:

1. Higher salaries – pay is the number one area in which employees seek change.
2. Internal pay equity, particularly having concerns with “pay compression” (the differential in pay between new and more tenured employees).
3. Benefits programs, particularly health/dental, retirement, and Paid Time Off/vacation days. Specifically, many employees feel that their health insurance costs too much, especially prescription drug programs.
4.“Over-management” (A common phrase seen in employee comments is “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians”).
5. Pay increase guidelines should place greater emphasis on merit.
6. The Human Resource department needs to be more responsive to their questions and/or concerns.
7. Favoritism.
8. Improved communication and availability (both from their supervisors and upper management).
9. Workloads are too heavy and/or departments are under-staffed.
10. Facility cleanliness.

If I asked you to guess what would be on this list, I’d wager you could get most of these right. Just about everyone wants to be paid more (1), to be paid fairly (unless they’re paid more) (2), to have more and better benefits (3), to work less (9) and to know more (8).

With that said, a couple of these answers jump out at me. First, #5 – Pay increase guidelines should place greater emphasis on merit. It’s almost as if employees are asking to have pay linked to performance. Second, #7 – Favoritism. How to eliminate favoritism? Have an objective mechanism for measuring and rewarding performance.

So even in a rather obvious setting, some insight can reveal itself. While it’s unlikely that you can easily do anything about the majority of these complaints, #5 and #7 give you a toe hold on the way to improving satisfaction and engagement.