EEW!: Empowering Entrepreneurship at Work

Exhibiting entrepreneurship at work is an attitude. No matter where and which place you are in, the attitude will never die. It challenges your inner thoughts and never asks you to adapt rather it embraces critical thoughts, reasoning, innovation and continuous improvement.

How do you empower your employees to be innovative and act as entrepreneurs in your organization? An engaged and empowered entrepreneur will not only increase the company’s profitability but also be more productive and satisfied. As always, The Culture of the organization defines these values and nurtures innovation. If innovation , freedom and democracy is in the core DNA of the organization it would never fail.

Now, how do you define or propagate this unique culture-

Promote wacky ideas- In the team meeting, do not put your foot down on some bizarre idea, rather as a mentor see the dollar value and nurture it. This helps in identifying the entrepreneurs and also brings those ideas to see the light of the day.

Act like an owner- Employees should be empowered to take decisions as in a democratic setup and they should be regularly mentored to tackle the issues at the core. Hence, the decision making should be simple and de-centralized.

Socialize the ideas- The idea that you believe is crazy may be apt for another situation and in future you could use it too. It would be worthy to archive and socialize those ideas for others to dissect and tweak as per their requirements. You never know, it may be a golden boot for others.

Regular Recognition- It is always a wise idea to recognize the ideators of your organization. Go for a social recognition platform and give them their due even though it may be a small idea for you. It helps in employee satisfaction and acts as instigator to think on something new.

Show the mirror- Communicating the right business updates in a timely manner is the key to innovation. Employees would not be able to give you cost effective methods if you don’t show them the real picture or how the future looks like.

Above all this is the leader’s capability to lead by example. If the leader is not open to ‘Open Communication’ channel or receptive to new ideas, you cannot expect your employees to be innovative and exhibit entrepreneurship at work.

  “A loss of entrepreneurial spirit often results in a less fun, creative and passionate work environment”- Michael Kerr (Humor at Work)

The 3Ps at Workplace

“And miles to go before I sleep…. And miles to go before I sleep”

We often wonder and struggle to catch up with miles we have defined for ourselves. Have we ever introspected or tried to find out what actually shapes these miles?

I firmly believe that Power, Positivity and Perseverance are the 3Ps which shape our life and career. Let’s figure out what and how these 3Ps affect our professional and to some extend personal life as well.

‘Power’ is a really strong word which impacts our life to a larger extent. Power as exhibited at workplace can be redefined and clubbed into the below types:

1. Social Power should be the typical characteristic feature of an established leader which I believe is all about leading from the front and giving individualistic authority to the team members. Working in a collaborated fashion will definitely achieve better results and in turn giving intrinsic motivation and recognition to the employee.

2.  Cloud Power is wherein the power and the authority rest at a particular level/person. It’s like clouds at different potentials if come together will end in thunder and lightning. In such type of work groups the decision is always in a top down approach and the team is not empowered which leads to lower motivation in the team.

‘Positivity’ in the ambience, culture and processes of an organization shape its goal and help achieve the targets. A positive workforce is more productive, efficient and innovative. Positivity cannot be inserted in an organization via an external force/method but it is largely governed by its internal practices.  Below are some examples which help reinforce positivity at the workplace:

• Recognition which can be external or internal by creating the relative worthiness of the job person is doing
• Effective Communication is another area which I have seen lacking in many leadership styles due to which there are corridor talks and ultimately leads to negativity around
• Leadership is very important because if as a leader you don’t see a problem at a nascent stage you won’t be able to provide a solution to it. Moving away from the problem is also not the correct leadership style to be exhibited which may send negative vibes in the team
• Listening to the personal and professional needs of the employee helps instill confidence in the leader and the organization
• Supporting your team when needed and helping them to achieve the targets/results create a sense of belonging in the team
• Mentoring is essential if you want to work along with the team to achieve the business outcomes and create an empowered positive workplace

‘Perseverance’ is an essential part which shapes your career. One has to be determined and not buckle down under pressure as it would not help in achieving long term career goals. The biggest obstacle in realizing your dreams is the person himself/herself. If you are confident about your decisions you would sail through even though people will debate, disagree and distract you from the path. Create a career path for yourself and even if you deter from the laid path learn from it and move on.  

  

I am sure the 3Ps will help us both as an organization and as a person to be introspective and create a balanced positive workplace.  

Employee Engagement - A Driver for Business Strategy

Employee Engagement is defined as “the extent to which an employee commits to work or something in the organisation, how hard he/she works and stays in the organisation out of that commitment” [SHRM] However, we often use the word Employee Engagement interchangeably with Job Satisfaction and measure the employee’s engagement level. Job Satisfaction is basically how the employee feels about the nature of work he/she is doing, work environment, pay or benefits.

Source: http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/

There exists a relationship between organisational strategy and employee engagement. It has been researched and proved that employees who are engaged in an organisation perform better and as a result contribute more towards the business strategy. Engaged employees work harder, are more loyal and likely to go extra mile towards the organisational objectives. They believe in the vision and mission of the organisation. The engagement of an employee is ‘Emotional’ i.e. how they believe about the company or the leadership and ‘Behavioural’. This behavioural factor is shown as how much effort the employee is putting towards the organisation which can be in terms of energy or time.

Here, while talking about the Employee Engagement, we should start differentiating between Engaged Employee and Actively Disengaged Employee. Engaged employees work towards the goals of the company while actively disengaged employees just come to the company and are more busy on acting out their unhappiness.

As what SHRM describes, the levers of Engagement can be characterised by Vigour, Dedication and Absorption. Vigour means filled with high energy and passion, Dedication refers to a sense of pride and inspiration towards work and Absorption defines the feeling of happiness and engrossed in the work without being detached.  Employee Engagement is greatly influenced by the reputation of the organisation, its culture and also its internal communication. Internal communication is essential as the employees especially Gen Y believe in the values of trust and transparency as discussed in my earlier blog. It is often believed that ‘Culture’ is a soft lever. However, employees are far more engaged where there is a culture of innovation, job enrichment and safety. Culture is established through the organisation’s reward and recognition programs, its policies on work-life balance and the opportunities it provides for the career development and growth.  Engagement is heavily dependent on the Manager-Employee relationship as it is widely said “Employees don’t leave organisation, they leave managers.” The managers create the bridge between the employee and the organisation.

Now the question arises that how do we measure the employee engagement?

Organisations are widely using employee satisfaction surveys, focus group discussions and surveys. Out of these Gallup’s Q12 is the favourite and widely used employee engagement indicator tool. The common themes that are used for employee engagement measurement are: Job Satisfaction, Pride of working with the current employer, Learning and Development, Reward Programs, Relationship with the Manager, Understanding of the organisation’s Vision & Mission and Intention to Stay in the organisation.

As discussed in earlier blog Employer Branding plays a pivotal role in attracting the right talent. With the Gen Y workforce, organisations have to create more employee friendly and innovative workplace culture along with emphasising more on the so called softer elements of HR viz work life balance, job quality, flexibility, diversity, career pathing and freedom at workplace. These are the new factors which have to be accounted for getting the right talent and the engaged employees.

Like the Doctors, HR Managers should keep on checking the pulse of their employees so that they get to know the probable gaps which need to be filled before these gaps collapse and lead to attrition.   

Employer Branding: A Strategic HR Tool

Employer branding is a tool which is used by every organisation be it small, midsized or a transnational organisation. The organisations need to market themselves as the best place to work for if they want to get the right talent in this competitive market. Employer Branding is like Sales where you have to sell your practices, culture and your USP to the prospective candidates. You have to differentiate yourself form what the competitors are already offering.

The process of creating your brand in the talent market starts right from how you do the onboarding, what are your practices and procedures in the organisation till the employee exits from the organisation. The employer brand is not created in a single day or through a single advertisement. It’s a long process that is built step by step. Organisations often believe that by simply having the best entrance and stringent recruitment processes they will create their brand in the market. However, the employer brand is built on the basis of what you are going to offer him/her on a daily work day and through his/her career path.

Trust and Transparency in the organisation plays a vital role in creating a strong employer brand as the rewards and recognition does. The Gen Y specifically believes in this theory where they want that the organisation should have a total trust in them and in their work, a place where there is transparency in the system and processes. If the organisations can place themselves a transparent organisation Gen Y employees will flock that place. 

Many organisations design catchy slogans and advertisements to attract the right talent. But they forget that every organisation is doing the same in some other way. They have to search within themselves and analyse their own respective strengths and weaknesses. They have to identify their own distinguishing feature that separates them from the rest of the crowd. Based on that USP they can sell their brand to the prospective candidates.

Organisations have to constantly sell their brand to the candidates as it takes time to build brand as an employer. When the time comes for recruitment an organisation cannot build its brand in a week or two, they have to constantly keep on building it even though there have been instances where they have to give pink slips.

The best way to build the employer brand in today’s scenario is the social media where the organisations can post the testimonials from the employees on how their every day of work is which will help the candidates to understand better about the organisational culture and would make them a better fit.

By making a flashy recruitment process and showing candidates descriptive JD’s where there is every possible task to be performed for that role will not build the company’s brand. They can get the candidates for that opening but very soon such candidates after coming inside the organisation will start sending the resumes again !!!

Fun @ Work

Fun and Work are two characters that are inherent part of an organisation. However, we are not serious about these characters and consider these two as the North and South Pole of the organisation. If we talk about the organisational culture where in fun can be seen in all the spheres of the growth, then we won’t be able to find many organisations. There are few organisations which have integrated fun with their business growth. Some of these organisations are Google and Semco to name a few.

In a recent survey done by Adecco, UK nearly three fourths of the employees in UK prefer to work for an organisation where fun is fostered in its culture rather than a fat paying organisation. If the employees are working in a good organisational culture then their performance and productivity also increases. People are more engaged in their jobs and feel more committed.  

Google Inc. Is the pioneer in this philosophy. We can take any Google office around the globe for that matter. Google’s office in California is a jewel which integrates the fun @ work spirit. The employees have the option of all the gourmet food they can think about in the world and that too at no extra cost. They can take a nap in their own potheads whenever they feel like. This increases the productivity of the employees as there is no stress in such conditions. They can work out at the Gym and keep their body toned. The employees have the option to come to the office with a laundry bag which they can get it washed in the office. What more an employee can ask for.

If you are at Google you don’t need to take the stairs as you have the fire poles and slides to take you to your destination. One can see such culture at any of the Google’s office be it Zurich or Beijing. If the employee has to go out of office for an errand the employees can take the specially kept electric charged cars to get their work done.  This is what which creates the employer brand and helps to get the best talent of the world.

Semco is another such company which promotes an entrepreneurial mindset where the employees have all the power and freedom to make their lives happier and contended while at work. They can have all the paid vacations they want as far as their work is all done. They can take their pets to workplace and have their meetings not in closed doors.    

These days other organisations too have started realising the benefits of making the office culture as a ‘Great place to work for’. They have started organising sport clubs and other such meets to promote these ideals of fun at work. The question that now arises is that what are we doing to make our organisations a great place, wherein the employees look forward to coming everyday to office.

This is a thought on which we should start pondering upon!!!!