Wednesday 11 January 2012

Employee engagement - can we trust the data?

An interesting article in December '11 issue of the Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology - Muller, K, Voelke, M.C., & Hattrup, K.  (2011)  On the relationship between job satisfaction and non-response in employee attitude surveys:  A longitudinal field study.  What makes this study particularly interesting is that it was based over 4 years in business setting, so about as real as you can get.  Although employee engagement is an increasingly popular activity in organisations there are problems with definition of 'engagement' and of measurement.  One such difficulty is non-response.  If the non-responders are not a random sample then it is likely that the results of the survey will be biased in some way.  (For example, if all the employees who were dissatisfied with the company chose not to respond, the results of the survey might give an over-optimistic view of the current state of morale of the workforce).

Muller et al.'s study showed that employees who did not respond to the first survey were also less likely to respond to subsequent surveys.  Likewise, job satisfaction aslo was a good predictor of response, with those employees reporting high job satisfaction more likely to respond to survey requests.  Another important factor that influenced response rate was the level of satisfaction that the employee expressed regarding his/her supervisor and the authors highlight the importance of the supervisor's role in the success of employee engagement interventions, including the communication of information before and after the survey has been conducted.

The obvious implication of measuring employee engagement is that the organisation's leaders will want to act on the results, but in order to take appropriate action they need to be able to trust the data.  This report gives a fascinating insight into how any data need careful interpretation before an action plan is created.

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Hockney on the power of questions

An interesting interview with the artist, David Hockney on BBC 1's 'Countryfile' on Sunday 8th Jan 2012.  The interviewer asked him how it was that he saw so many colours in the landscape.  His reply was enlightening.  He said that he often gets asked that question and he told a story how a friend of his had asked him that same question during a car journey.  Hockney's reply was to ask his friend 'What colour is the road?'  Hockney's argument is that it is only when we are asked the question that we really begin to look.  He implied that you may see all the colours that there are or you may just continue to see the road as black, but 'At least you have to ask the question'.  I thought this was a great metaphor for the power of coaching.  It is the asking of the question that offers the potential to heighten awareness.  The information may be around you all the time, and you may even think that you know it is there, but it is only when someone asks you the question that you really pay attention to your experience.

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Enthios New Year Newsletter

2011 Summary
Not a surprise to find that in 2011 our clients were very much focused on managing costs and generating more from what they already had.  Whether that was in terms of business generation, clients, productivity & efficiency, staff or all of the above!  Many of our clients took a good look at both their people and processes and were keen to put their investment in training where it could give tangible returns - which was music to our ears.  As a consequence, much of the work we have done this year has been highly focused on meeting specific objectives and often as a reaction to adverse events.  We’ve noticed a move to working one-to-one with clients on specific issues.  In addition, we continue to increase the amount of mediation and conflict-resolution work we are being asked to do.  We found that the coaching work we were involved in was extremely complex and demanding; a true reflection of what people and organisations were experiencing first hand.

While we continued to win business through our existing clients and referrals, we are also being contacted by those who have no previous knowledge of Enthios and as I’ve said before if I knew how it was happening we’d do more of it!
Type of work we’ve been involved in 2011
·         Managing Performance
·         Executive and Management Coaching
·         Assertiveness Skills
·         Operations Managers Workshops
·         Executive Development Programme (now in its 4th year)
·         Time Management
·         Advanced Presentation Skills
·         Team Building and Purposeful Away Days!
·         Project Management Skills
·         Managing Change
·         Telesales Techniques (new for 2011 and very much in demand)
·         Effective Delegation
·         Communication Styles
·         International Telephone Coaching with Psychometrics
·         Targeted Management Programmes
What else we’ve done…
·         Began to tweet and blog thanks to Miles we’re catching up with the technological revolution – well maybe a bit!  You can find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/enthiostraining and follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Enthios-Training-Development-Ltd/186738851365133 and Linked in at http://www.linkedin.com/company/enthios-training-&-development-ltd Also continue to check out the Executive Lounge section of our website for latest developments, book reviews and hints and tips on leadership.
·         Won a place on the AGMA (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) Workforce Development Provider Framework for 2012 – 2014 after a very extensive and demanding tender process over 3 months, where 120 providers pitched for the People Management lot.
·         Became approved providers for the Business Enterprise Groups Leadership & Management Funding, (the fund is ending in March 2012 so make your requests early if you’re eligible)
·         Became members of the Mentor Focus Group following the NWDA Mentoring Programme we were heavily involved in with a number of providers through 2010 - 11.
·         CIPD – Miles took over the running of the Lancashire CIPD Consultants’ networking group.
·         Added to a number of our teams skills this year with accreditations in both coaching (ILM 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching & Leadership Mentoring) and mediation (ONC Certificate in Workplace Mediation); areas we feel will be tightened in the future, (while quality is not yet officially regulated, the NHS is leading the way with its stipulation of ILM accreditation in formal tenders). A Sports Psychology Masters for Miles after many months of hard work juggling both delivery and study – phew!  At first sight you might wonder why he did this (at times, so did Miles!).  It’s all about the study of excellence and there is a huge cross-over between sport and business. 
·         Moved the business premises on the 19th of December and hopefully none of you experienced any difficulties even though it was not without its challenges (I think that’s what we’re supposed to call them!)
Playing out? Very important to us!!
·         Well some time spent in France continually trying to conquer the language, alpine and cross country skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, cannoning and anything else the country can throw at us, of course allowing a little time for an apero!
·         Liz has been busy this year competing in the National Cheerleading Championships held in the mecca of the North, Blackpool and her squad walked away with the first place in Masters Stunt (yes that is the one where you throw people around in the air!) She has also been perfecting her crack-shot abilities and won her regular clay-pigeon shooting competition a few times in 2011- here is to more trophies in 2012!
·         Motivated by the need to keep up with his 6 year old son Simon learned to roller-blade, entered the village weekly summer time trial (over a demanding 4 mile circuit) and is slowly overcoming his fear of heights! Again inspired by his son he also wrote his first book for children (is he the new J K Rowley? Remember you heard it here first!)
·         Kate thought about a 10k charity run in under an hour but it wouldn’t do to have no goals left for 2012 so postponed that for another year.  Hum, is there an issue with commitment here?
·         Miles – a year of studying left little room for sporting challenges, but still found time to play out a bit, as well as buying a shiny new road bike.  Highlight of the year?  Maybe open water swimming in Lac Passy with Mont Blanc as a backdrop, while being nibbled by a fish (not in any way a spiritual experience!)
So what does 2012 have in store………?
As usual our commitment to personal and organisational learning is never over with more of the team going through the ‘ONC Workplace Mediation Accreditation’ and stepping up to another level with the ‘ILM 7 Diploma in Executive Coaching & Leadership Mentoring’ in the early part of the year. Oh and yes, Kate is going on a one day ‘Continental Bread Making’ course in June.
Big chunk..

We’re lucky enough to be in our 4th year of an internal ‘Executive Development Programme’ which focuses on working with senior leaders in the organisation who are selected as significant contributors within their business area.  This is self-directed learning on a one-to-one basis, a combination of coaching, mentoring, sounding board and training – whatever is required by the individual at the time. One of the most successful organisations we have worked with who have great people – game on!
Elsewhere we helped redesign a management programme in its second year across three sites aimed at up skilling middle and senior managers in handling change and managing difficult conversations – is this a sign of things to come?

An example of where organisations want to maximise the returns on their investment in training was with a large Council.  Building on the success of 3 workshops in 2011 around delivering the organisations PRD system, ‘Meaningful & Effective Goal Setting’, ‘Coaching Conversations for Success’ and ‘Meeting the Feedback Challenge’, we are now delivering the second wave of ‘Performance Management’ and hope to widen the work we do with this fantastic organisation.
We’re currently awaiting the outcome of a number of tenders around coaching and facilitation so fingers crossed Enthios’ national reach continues its progress to date.
Detail…
We still love working one-to-one with individuals whether they are running their own business or part of a wider organisation.  These relationships continue to cause us to raise our own professional standards to meet the demands of their ever-changing circumstances and environments. Thank you for the push!
And more thanks…
For those of you who know us well (or have taken a look at our website) you’ll know that one of our values is that we work with people we like.  While this may sound ‘twee’, it’s the best way we know how to do the work that needs to be done, in the most honest way possible and have a brilliant time which is enjoyable for everyone involved.  It’s how we build our own team and how we target organisations and individuals to work with.  So thank you for supporting us through 2011 and let’s have another brilliant year together in 2012.
Kate Peacock

Monday 2 January 2012

One page book reviews

At the start of each month we publish a 'One Page Book Review' on our website (www.enthiostraining.co.uk).  It's a way of keeping up to date with what's going on in business, without having to do all the reading!  This month we've reviewed 'Stop Talking, Start Doing' by Wasmund & Newton.  You can find this and other reviews by visiting our website and clicking on Executive Lounge