This post was written by SmartBrief’s Linsey Isaacs.
How Time Inc. used “office culture” to cut their losses ; why some companies are reevaluating their tuition reimbursement programs; and how start-up company can compete with big-name corporations to hire the best interns.
It’s all on this past week’s top 5 most-clicked links in SmartBrief on Workforce:
- Should you fire someone who isn’t a cultural fit?
- Whole-brain interviewing can lead to better hires
- A simple test to judge employee engagement
- Is tuition reimbursement worth the cost?
- How to recruit the best interns
Image credit: narvikk, via iStock Photo (read more…)
This post is by SmartBrief contributing editor Robert Jones, who is reporting from the 5th Annual Internal Branding & Employee Engagement conference.
For McDonald’s, earning an entry in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in 2003 was not exactly a marketing coup. The word was “McJob,” and Webster’s defined it as, “a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement.”
The company thought that was unfair, and it set out to change its employment brand in the minds of consumers, if not in the pages of the dictionary.
By surveying its 1.6 million employees worldwide, McDonald’s found that job-satisfaction levels topped 80% in most parts of the world — but public perception lagged internal perceptions by 40 percentage points or more.
“It was incredibly clear that our employees like their gig,” says Mike Balaka, McDonald’s director of Global HR Design, but the public wasn’t getting that message. To turn things around, the company again surveyed tens of thousands of employees, this time with a single question: “What do you love most about working at McDonald’s?”
Three themes emerged from these surveys. (read more…)
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Workforce — tracks feedback from leading managers and HR practitioners. We run the poll question each Wednesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: Do you think employee-retention surveys are useful?
- No, 54%
- Yes, 46%
An interesting split on this question for sure. I’m definitely down on the “No” side since many factors go into whether an employee stays with an employer (not just whether they answer affirmatively in a survey). Using it as a barometer for employee attitude is only effective if you have years of data to compare it to. Other then that, employers would be wise to take all factors into account before making any radical changes based on a retention survey.
Lance Haun is community director for ERE.net, the main guy over at Rehaul.com and a member of the SmartBrief on Workforce Advisory Board. (read more…)
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 150,000 business leadership. We run the poll question each Wednesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: What best describes your approach to doing favors for others in the workplace?
- I help out everyone who asks for favors whether I know they’ll reciprocate or not, 82%
- I’ll help anyone once but if they never reciprocate I won’t help them again, 14%
- I’ll help only people who are likely to help me in the future, 2%
- I’ll do favors only for people I know can influence my career positively or negatively, 1%
- I’m too busy to do favors for other folks, 1%
It’s an encouraging sign to see a workforce willing to lend a helping hand. A favor is a favor, and there should be no expectation of reciprocity. Hopefully once you say “yes” to helping you maintain this perspective. The cautionary note on your generosity is be careful of becoming an enabler of procrastination or lazy work. If you’re always around to help out in a pinch, you might find yourself getting taken advantage of and regularly cleaning up other peoples’ messes. (read more…)
This guest post is by Kevin Eikenberry, author, speaker, trainer, consultant, and the chief potential officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group. He is co-author of “From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership.”
Lately as I spend time with leaders in transition – especially those becoming leaders for the first time — I have become acutely aware that a major part of this transition is a transition of perspective. We see and experience different things and we have different expectations placed on us from every direction. While we may deal with those shifts relatively quickly, the five perspectives below don’t come automatically, and they don’t come in some sort of secret leadership rite-of-passage manual either.
- More future, less past. As a leader you are trying to move yourself, your team and your organization towards a desired future. Yes, we can learn from the past, but we can’t relive or wallow in it.
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