A Carol Kallendorf, Ph.D./Jack Speer Publication

Co-Departments or Co-Dependants…  The Choice is Yours, and So Are the Consequences

By Marc Drizin

Human resource practitioners and researchers agree with company managers on a simple truth:  Too many departments in an organization continue to operate as silos, more interested in their own well-being than the departments they work with to help ensure customer delight.  Too few departments are willing to dramatically change their processes to facilitate improvement in another area of the company.  Too many managers attempt to retain their best employees by refusing to let them transfer to a better job in another department or division

And too few senior leaders recognize another simple truth:  A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships.

How Many Employees Bring their Bodies and Minds to Work?--It Might Surprise You

According to the 2008 Employee Hold’em National Benchmark on Workforce Engagement, the situation has improved little in the last five years and in some cases has gotten worse.  An examination of two departments from the national benchmark indicates that today’s businesses have a long way to go.

Only 43% of today’s employees are fully engaged:  ready to go the extra mile for customers and willing to stick with their organization even when offered a little more money to go somewhere else.  In a review of six departments, Engineering has the highest levels of engagement (54% Fully Engaged), while Operations engagement is weakest (41%).  The reasons are simple.  Engineering employees have the most favorable opinion of their relationship with their supervisor, company communications, and fairness at work, while employees in Operations are least favorable.  The story gets more compelling…

Who Is Happiest?  Who Wishes They Weren't in Their Present Job?

In seven of the eight areas in which employees were asked to compare their job to employees with similar jobs in other companies, Operations employees scored lowest.  Only in the area of compensation did employees in other departments (Administration and Finance) provide lower ratings than Operations.  Conversely, Engineering was rated highest in five of the eight areas. 

As in the two previous national benchmarks conducted in 2004 and 2006, Effective Senior Leadership is a critical component of workforce engagement, and subsequently the desire of employees to work hard on behalf of their department and organization.  The more effective the employees perceive their senior leadership, the stronger their engagement with their organization.  Senior leaders need to better understand the importance of:

• Appropriately valuing and rewarding employing loyalty

• Presenting a clear vision for the future of the company

• Providing a strategic direction that is satisfying to the organization.

In each of these areas, Engineering employees rate their senior leaders most positively, and Operations rate senior leaders most negatively.

Getting Engaged Employees in the Right Roles

Finally, an often overlooked area related to engagement and ultimately the likelihood of employees to work hard with other groups to meet and exceed customer expectations is the area of workforce selection.  Critical to workforce engagement is the area of Recruiting:  Finding the Right Talent for the Right Job at the Right Time.  Employees in Operations were least positive in their assessments in all areas of selection, from having a job that provides the right amount of challenge to their belief in whether their organization is interested in hiring a diverse workforce.  Operations employees are also least likely to believe their organization hires employees who hit the ground running and are good hiring decisions. 

In many cases, “department dysfunction” is a result of a lack of workforce engagement among some or all of the employees.  When companies concentrate on the areas most critical to the engagement of their employees, and more importantly take concrete steps to improve them, employees will in fact stay longer and work harder on behalf of customers.

Carol Kallendorf, Ph.D.

It's my pleasure to announce our Myer-Briggs Type Indicator Conference.

Austin, Texas

Courtyard Marriott Hotel, Downtown.

October 23, 24, 2008

You'll be receiving more details, but if you are interested, please mark your calendar.
 
Those who know me also know that one of the fundamental tools I use for coaching professionals and building teams is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

If you want a great tool that will help you for a lifetime at home and in your organization, the conference is an excellent opportunity for you.