Only one in five global workers "engaged"

Only one out of five employees of major global corporations is engaged in his or her work, and top managers may be to blame, according to a study released by a global professional services firm.

A survey of 90,000 workers in 18 countries by Towers Perrin HR Services, US-based consultancy, found that only 21 percent of employees are engaged in their work, while 38 percent are disenchanted or disengaged. The study defined "engagement" as being willing to do more than is required to help their employers succeed and measured it by their responses to questions about their feelings about work, as well as their behavior.

Mexicans proved to be the most engaged, followed by Brazilians and Indians. U.S. respondents ranked fourth. The least engaged workers were the Japanese, followed by residents of Hong Kong and South Korea.

The study found that worker engagement was most driven by senior managers -- not by an employee's upbringing or relationship with a direct manager.

"The organization itself is the most powerful influencer of employee engagement," says Julie Gebauer, of Towers Perrin. "People's views about the company are also shaped more by what senior leaders say and do than by what the individuals' direct bosses say or do."

By cross-referencing the survey data with the financial history of 40 companies whose employees were polled, the firm found that companies with the most engaged employees tended to do better financially than those whose workers were disengaged.

Despite the high level of disengagement, many workers say they are happy in their employment situations, with 86 percent reporting that they like or love their jobs and 84 percent saying they enjoy challenging work.

The survey was conducted in May and June, 2007.

Source: Reuters, October 22, 2007

Note: A fuller version of this report can be obtained by writing to manedge@gmail.com

Additional detail about the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study is available at www.towersperrin.com/gws

Companies face looming leadership crisis - IBM study

Companies worldwide face a looming leadership crisis due to the retirement of baby boomers (see text at the end of this post) and rapid growth in Asia with half fearful they cannot develop the skills they need, a study released on Thursday (Oct 18 2007) said.

The survey by IBM's consulting arm interviewed 400 HR executives from 40 countries and suggests companies are putting growth strategies at risk if they cannot identify and develop the next generation of leaders.

Baby boomers will drain companies of valuable knowledge when they retire, while multinational firms need to find people to lead their businesses in booming markets such as India and China, the study said.

"You've got this perfect storm of leadership crisis that is hitting the mature and maturing markets," said IBM's Eric Lesser, one of three co-authors of the study

"Companies are really crunched both in terms of their current capacity of leadership and also their ability to develop leaders in the future. Three-quarters of the people who responded said this was a significant workplace issue."

The study found 88 percent of companies in the Asia Pacific region are most concerned with their ability to develop future leaders, followed by Latin America (74 percent); Europe, Middle East and Africa, (74 percent); Japan (73 percent); and North America (69 percent).

Fifty-two percent of HR executives say their organizations may be unable to rapidly develop skills to meet current or future business needs. The study also found 36 percent of firms said employee skills fail to meet company priorities.

With competition for talent on the horizon, younger job applicants might want to list online gaming skills on their resumes, Lesser said. Many can be translated to realities of the new workplace.

"It requires using virtual communication techniques, everything from voice over IP to instant messaging to e-mail," Lesser said.

Source: Daniel Trotta, Reuters, October 18, 2007

A baby boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964 in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Following World War II, these countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly known as the baby boom. The term is iconic and more properly capitalized as Baby Boomers.
Source: Wikipedia

Kumar Mangalam Birla on Leadership

PLUGGING INTO PEOPLE'S MINDS AND HEARTS

The criticality of the human element is today more pronounced than ever before. What sparks and sustains the success of an enterprise is its people. This is a universal truth. It’s no different in India.

Leadership is all about plugging into the minds and hearts of people, about rallying them around to a compelling and exciting vision of the future. It is about upping the quality of imagination of the organisation. It is about encouraging a spirit of intellectual ferment and constructive dissent so that people are not bound by the status quo, and mavericks are given space and free play. It is about building the highest levels of empathy, without compromising on fairness and running a popularity contest.

As I look ahead, I believe the war for talent will intensify and that could become a major speed breaker. There is an acute competition – rather a scramble for inducting and retaining people with the competencies apposite for a globalising corporation. When a company globalises, its internal demography transforms into a socio-cultural potpourri. There is an inherent instability. Corporations that embark on this growth trajectory will face churn and uncertainty amidst change. On such a journey success will come to those corporations where the leadership is alchemical and values-driven.

Source: AlumniNews, London Business School, Issue 112 July - September 2007, pp31