Engagement Tool: Getting to Know You (or Me) Session

18 May 2021, Singapore: "Getting to Know You" is a very powerful tool to engage your internal or external audience. In my organization, it is a basic presentation deck that every people managers and team leaders must have. 

Instead of showing you in slides format, I will show you in a video format which I have up-loaded onto my YouTube channel "e-HRM" playlist.

Click the hyperlink: "Get to Know You" (1min 38s)

** The End **

TED Talk: Dan Pink on Motivation

02 April 2015, Singapore: This is a video (18 minutes) about motivation. I was introduced to the video when I enroll for the COURSERA course 'International Leadership & Organizational Behaviour'.

After viewing the video, I have to agree with the presenter Daniel Pink. As a HR Professional, now I know why some jobs cannot be rewarded with money! Watch the video!

Click the hyperlink: Dan Pink on Motivation

--The End--

Oxford Group: Why do Conversations Matter?

25 January 2014, Singapore: Received from my LinkedIn contact. The one page article talk about why having a conversation with people is important. It lead to trust and engagement. Click the hyperlink.

Oxford Group: Why do conversations matter? (PDF Format)

-The End-

Hay Group Whitepaper: Stop Your Best People from Walking

23 January 2014, Singapore: No harm reading the whitepaper. You might be asked to focus on talent retention after the 2013 bonus payout. Click the hyperlink.

Hay Group Whitepaper: Stop Your Best People from Walking (PDF Format)

-The End-

Organizational Development: Creating Positive Organization

21 January 2014, Singapore: An interesting article about introducing changes to our organization culture or practices. Is the senior leadership interested to create a "positive organization"? For company productivity and enhancing the employee engagement program?

Click the hyperlink:

Align Group Whitepaper: Creating Positive Organisation (PDF Format)

-The End-

Employee Engagement: Just Playing the Songs for Your Employees on Monday

21 January 2014, Singapore: The crazy thing that is driving most HR managers up the wall is the topic of employee engagement (EE). Most of the HR Managers will come-up with all the expensive activities on EE.

I have a solution ... just invest in pipe-in music at your workplace and play the following songs once a while on Monday.

Click here: Song recommended by Sandboxadvisors.com

-The End-

Report: Driving Stronger Performance Through Employee Recognition

10 January 2014, Singapore: In most organization, employee engagement (EE) is the key indicator to measure the leadership team. Usually, HR Department is accountable for the EE results but it is a shared responsibility or grfoup effort among the management team members.

I would like to share this report from SHRM-Globoforce. I believe the report will be useful to some of my colleagues and yourself.

Click here for details of SHRM-Globoforce Report

-The End-

Blueprint for Designing an Employee's Recognition Program

05 January 2014, Singapore: I dedicated this article to one of my ex-colleague who will be taking-up a new post focusing on employee engagement (EE).

I bum into this article that talk about a blueprint for employee's recognition. It highlighted the potential best practices for designing an employee's recognition problem.

It will be difficult for me to roll-out a recognition program according to the blueprint ... because the organization I worked for has a very comprehensive employee's recognition program but some of the practices is not according to the 'Globoforce' recommended blueprint.

What I can do is to share it with my peers (e.g., HRCMs, HRBPs, etc.) and check the pulse if they agreed with the blueprint ... if yes .. I will be busy ... if no ... I will need to look for another project to support their EE program.

For organizations that have not implemented an employee's recognition program ... I suggest their HR professionals to read this article ... if will be helpful and a value source of information  ... free information. Click the link: 

www.workforce.com: Globoforce Blueprint for Maximizing Recognition

-The End-

Tips on How to Become an Employer of Choice

17 December 2013, Singapore: Today was a long day at work. We were trying to finalized our HR CoE (Center of Excellence) 'Roadshow' presentation to the senior leadership and site HRCMs (HR Client Managers). My boss asked me to do a quick secondary research on the topic Employer of Choice. I found this article written by Marie Larsen from 'recruiter.com'. It is a short article and very easy to read for people like me with lazy eyes.

The article writes about the 5 steps a company should take to be an employer of choice.

Click here - How to become an Employer of Choice/

-The End-

Employee Engagement: Lesson Learned # 1

16 December 2013, Singapore: I am disgusted (avoid technical wording please) on what happen to my employee engagement (EE) plan. I am not going to name the company. The team put in a lot of efforts but end of the day, the report card only show a one (1) percent (%) increase. Listed below are some of the areas identified for the failure, I stand by it. In the near future, I will do it differently ...

• EE is a 'shared responsibility' - just because you are accountable for it, doesn't mean that you have to do it alone. It is a role every managers and supervisors must play a part in it.
• EE required the senior leadership to be visible at the shop-floor / production area. If your senior leadership is only interested in running the show from the ivory tower - my advice, have a private session with him. If he / she is still not interested, it is better to start proper documentation to cover yourself.
• Internally, the management may call or label an EE program as 'employee engagement' program but please (x2) don't market it as an EE to the employees. Better call it 'well-being' or other wording which employee can associate with.
• Don't just create an EE task-force or committee but if you have the manpower - create a small team who can help you publicized your EE program in a coordinated manner.
• Develop a simple motto for people to talk about .... I personally like the word "well-being" compared to engagement.
• Defined your organization meaning of Engagement and get every managers and supervisors aligned.
• EE program start with a simple 'Thank You'. It is harder to get the managers and supervisors to say 'Thank You'.
• Fight for your budget and utilized ... there is no point saving the EE budget to show a better EBIT or meeting business plan. End of the day - Finance will meet their business plan while you are blamed for failing to meet your EE obligation.
• Incorporate other 'well-being' model into your EE program ... e.g., Gallup's five (5) elements of Well-being ... [ Click here for Gallup 5 elements of Well-being ]

-The End- 

Engaging Employees: What is APAC Region Motivation Factors?

08 December 2013, Singapore: I will probably use this report to justified some of recommendation for a particular set of engagement strategies. Maybe HR professional need to learn to use secondary reports / research to influence and sell their action plans.

I am still learning the trade .... 

(source: http://inside-employees-mind.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1428975)

-The End-

Engaging People in a Positive Way

7 December 2013, Singapore: Came across this article by headhunt.com.sg about engaging people in a positive way. I understand the concept very well but how to get the leadership into the act is another big challenge. Anyway, let us be positive and read this article.

Click the link: -

• The article: Engage People in a Positive Way
• www.headhunt.com.sg

-The End-

Video: Well-being and Engagement

04 December 2013, Singapore: This article is for readers who hates reading lengthy write-up.

• Mind webinar: 'HR policies for improving mental well-being and employee engagement'
• Gallup: Well-being defined

-The End-

"Well-being" the Emerging Tool in Enhancing Your Employee Engagement Program

04 December 2013, Singapore: Recently, my organization conducted a world-wide employee engagement survey and we found out that one of my sister company results was super high. They scored more that 85%. When I interviewed their leadership team and visited their organization, my key take-away were: -

• Engagement is a Shared Responsibility among the management team and the shop-floor supervisors;
• Making engagement fun, less format and think out the box .... stop viewing engagement from a 'Standard Work' perspective and stop setting criteria for every engagement activities. Just enjoy it.
• Deploying well-being program to enhance their employee engagement program.

Gallup (source: Well Being: The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath & Jim Harter) cited that there are five essential area of 'well-being' an organization can focus: -

• Career Well-being
• Social Well-being
• Financial Well-being
• Physical Well-being
• Community Well-being

I guess with this article - people will understand why I advocated on 'well-being' to enhance employee engagement program. 

(source: http://www.wbfinder.com/home.aspx)

-The End-

Emerging Trend: Well-being an Emerging Employee Engagement Tool

Nov 10, 2013 - Singapore: It is very funny for me. Two weeks ago, one of my business unit indicated that 'well-being' was one of the employee engagement strategy. Than I started receiving email about the effective of 'well-being' as a business strategy. Believe me, it is going to be a new trend or lingo for the HR community in months to come ... 

Listed below are some of the resources ...

• Business In The Community (BITC)
• Engage For Success
• www.acas.org.uk
• http://businessjournal.gallup.com
• http://www.workandwellbeing.com
• http://www.wellbeing.ac.uk/

Click Here to Download the Report on Well-being and Engagement

- The End -

Report: Is Social Media Good or Bad for Gen Y.

Nov 10, 2013 - Singapore: Read this report about what Gen Y think about social media ... 58% think it is distracting ...  

 

(Source: HR Insight With Hays Group)

Diversity & Inclusion: Micro-inequity

22 October 2013, Singapore: The first time I heard about 'Micro-inequity' was when my US boss came to Singapore for an all-hands HR session and the second time was at Singapore TAFEP (Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices) 'Creating an Inclusive Workplace' (CIW) program.

I am not subject matter expert (SME) on micro-inequity but like to share some of the resources available in the Internet ... please click the link: -

• http://en.wikipedia.org
• http://www.psychologytoday.com
• http://www.communicoltd.com
• http://web.mit.edu
• http://outandequal.org
• http://www.workingmother.com
• http://web.mit.edu/ombud
• Video: http://www.youtube.com

-The End-

GALLUP Report (Oct 2013): State of Global Workplace

23 October 2013, Singapore: Came across this Gallup report that claim only 13% of employees across 142 countries worldwide are engaged in their jobs. I felt like want to forward the report to my corporate office in US and asked them why they fix globally our employee engagement (EE) survey target at 65%.

Opps! Sorry the objective of this article is NOT to bad mouth my organization but to share with my readers that they can have access to Gallup report at the link shown below (click the link): -

http://www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/164735/state-global-workplace.aspx?goback=%2Egde_5069841_member_5798046292370284544#%21

Please take note that it is 122 pages, cover the following topics listed below - "happy reading"

• Worldwide, Only 13% of Employees Are Engaged at Work
• How Gallup Measures employee Engagement
• How Employee Engagement Drives Growth
• What the World Wants Is a Good Job
• Payroll to Population: A New Measure of Economic Energy
• Emerging Markets need engaged employees to grow
• Spotlight: China
• Three Ways to Accelerate Employee Engagement
• Linking Employee Engagement to Customer Growth
• Employee Engagement Varies Greatly by Region and Country
• What the Best Do Differently

-The End-

Singapore TAFEP Survey Report (May 2013)

22 October 2013, Singapore: Today, attended an exclusive training program on "Creating Inclusive Workshop" (CIW) by Singapore Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP) and Aperian Global. I am happy that I was invited to this program (valued at S$3500 - fully subsidized by TAFEP) ... now I have a framework to develop my company Diversity and Inclusive (D&I) training program. If can, I may just outsource it to Aperian Global (www.aperianglobal.com)

http://www.tafep.sg/index.asp

During our tea-break, I had the opportunity to read a joint survey report "The value of mature workers to organizations in Singapore" by CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) and TAFEP. Listed below are some of the findings ... please click the figure to enlarge it.

Note: for the full survey report, please click the link http://www.tafep.sg/assets/files/Publications/Value%20of%20Mature%20Workers%20to%20Organisations%20in%20Singapore%20FINAL.pdf

Who is Gen Y Ideal Boss ...

30 September 2013, Singapore: Today, a casual conversation with my former HR Team Lead started me to think what characteristic Gen Y is looking in their boss ... search the Internet and found this research from Hays Group

(source: http://social.hays.com/hr/talent-acquisition/who-is-gen-ys-ideal-boss/)

This would mean that coaching and mentoring will be an emerging skills / competencies required by supervisor or manager. They will need to brush-up in this competency.