Engagement Excellence: Measuring Empowerment
July 29, 2008
Keeping employees engaged is great for your workforce—who doesn't want to feel interested and passionate about their job? But keeping them engaged will help fire up your business, too.
By Gary Berger
Challenge
Sony Electronics Inc. (SEL) is known for its market-leading consumer electronics products, such as BRAVIA TVs, VAIO notebook and desktop computers, Cybershot digital cameras, and Handycam camcorders.
SEL's executive management team believed the company would achieve even greater success if employees embraced opportunities of empowerment. "Empowerment" in SEL management's view, meant unleashing more of the capability that resided in SEL's employee population, but was for historical or cultural reasons, subdued. In 2007, SEL management made employee empowerment one of five corporate-wide strategic goals, putting the "softer" side of organizational development in a spotlight shared with critical product development and customer loyalty drives.
Towers Perrin's Global Workforce Study, conducted in 2007, reveals the more engaged a workforce is, the better the company is likely to perform financially. The hard part is defining "empowerment" and measuring whether it's making a difference.
Response
SEL's management team decided to take the challenge to employees. Sony Electronics hired Towers Perrin's employee research and consulting practice, to assess employee perceptions of empowerment and engagement. The survey was opened to all of SEL's employees across North America, including some working in manufacturing facilities in three Mexico cities.
The survey was developed in partnership with Sony Electronics executives and was designed to reveal employees' level of engagement, views on empowerment, and corporate strengths and weaknesses relative to Sony's stated business goals. Online and paper-based surveys were conducted during the fall of 2007, even while raging wildfires forced week-long evacuations of SEL's San Diego headquarters and surrounding neighborhoods.
Despite this significant distraction, 84 percent of SEL workers completed the survey. Results exceeded the management team's expectations and provided SEL with a solid baseline measure of employee perceptions. The survey analysis also pinpointed key cultural elements SEL would need to strengthen in order to achieve its goals of enhanced business performance through empowerment.
Results
Towers Perrin conducted three types of diagnostic analysis:
1. The opinions of SEL's employees were compared with scores from Towers Perrin's Global High Performance Companies Norm and the Global High Technology Companies Norm. The High Performance Companies Norm, a proprietary Towers Perrin benchmark, consists of companies demonstrating both superior financial performance and strong management practices. The Global High Technology Companies Norm, also a Towers Perrin benchmark, consists of high technology companies representing both hardware and software.
2. Towers Perrin conducted a key driver analysis to determine which cultural factors most influence employees' perceptions of engagement and empowerment. The four cultural factors that emerged as key drivers of engagement and empowerment at SEL are: strategy and leadership, inclusion, goals and objectives, and development. Based on this analysis, Towers Perrin determined which cultural levers the company would need to manipulate in order to improve current performance levels.
3. Towers Perrin examined the extent of consensus among the company's management on its effectiveness, behaviors, and strengths.
Towers Perrin's analysis reveals that SEL was already a high-performing organization with good employee engagement levels in comparison to the overall technology industry. With an outstanding response rate of 84 percent, SEL scored 70 percent or higher across all 15 categories; higher than Towers Perrin’s Global High Technology Norm on all categories and at or above the Global High Performance Companies Norm on half of the categories.
"When I reviewed the survey results, I celebrated for about 30 seconds, and then I moved on," says Stan Glasgow, president and chief operating officer of SEL. "We are a market leader for a reason, but we want to reach new heights of success, and the only way it will happen is through our excellent employees."
Within the key driver analysis, Towers Perrin identified three categories that will provide SEL with the greatest ROI on driving even greater employee engagement scores.
The analysis found the three most important drivers of engagement are strategy and leadership, inclusion, and goals and objectives. SEL scored four points above the Global High Performance Companies Norm in the goals and objectives component, ranking third in importance as a driver for engagement. This score shows that SEL employees have a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the overall business and their business unit.
When compared to Towers Perrin's Global High Performance Companies Norm, SEL scored only two points below the average on strategy and leadership, which ranked the highest in importance as a driver for engagement. This score demonstrates that although SEL's employees believe in top management’s business strategy, SEL still needs to close the gap compared to high performance companies.
When compared to Towers Perrin's Global High Performance Companies Norm, SEL scored four points above the average in development. As the top driver of employee empowerment, the development scores show that SEL employees feel they have a good understanding of their possible career paths within the company.
"While the data provided by the survey results is foundational, action is the true road to improvement and success. When the survey results revealed these three areas as the most significant motivators of engagement, we used the data to identify potential changes we needed to implement to strengthen these areas," says Donna Kaptain, vice president of human resources, SEL.
Opportunities for Improvement
While the analysis identified opportunities for improvement, upon reflecting on Towers Perrin's norms, SEL's lowest results still ranked high among Towers Perrin standards.
Towers Perrin's analyses reveal there are different types of engaged employees at SEL: engaged, at risk, and disengaged. At 62 percent, more than 3-in-5 employees at SEL are considered fully engaged. A mere 10 percent of employees at SEL are disengaged and had below-average scores on all components of engagement.
"We realize SEL cannot rest on its laurels and be satisfied with the initial results of the survey," says Jim Colby, regional human resources director, Sony Electronics. "Instead, these results have enabled our team to become laser-focused on our efforts to embed empowerment and engagement concepts as part of our efforts to drive financial performance, further strategic initiatives, and promote our employment brand."
The group of SEL employees targeted for improvement is the at risk group, representing 28 percent of its employees, whose scores reveal they are most likely considering leaving SEL and looking for another job.
"Statistics reveal that at any given time within any organization one-third of the population is open to considering moving to a new employer. Turnover is just a fact of life, but we now understand how to attack some of the factors that drive talented employees to look for greener pastures," says Kaptain. "Our ability to drive future innovations, and to remain a market leader, is reliant on the talent we manage and nurture. We are taking constructive steps to address these findings and ensure our employees are very much focused on company plans for the future."
Towers Perrin's analysis also established the different types of empowered employees at SEL: empowered, innovation opportunity, openness opportunity, and disempowered. The survey scores reveal 90 percent of SEL’s employees are considered empowered, which is a tremendous accomplishment for Glasgow and his team.
SEL also is targeting the 10 percent of employees for improvement whose empowerment scores fell within the innovation opportunity and openness opportunity groups.
As stated, the company's survey results were generally exceptional. Yet there were specific opportunities identified for SEL to further engage and empower its employees. One, SEL employees believing top management has a well-formulated business strategy for the present, a key driver of engagement, fell two points below the average score for High Performing Companies. Two, another opportunity for improvement is to make better use of recognition and rewards, other than money, to encourage performance among employees.
By challenging tradition, not dismissing innovative opportunities among employees, and openly discussing different opinions, SEL can further improve employee empowerment. Career development is a key concern among employees seriously considering leaving SEL.
"Empowered and engaged employees correlate significantly with many key business metrics, such as turnover, sales, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty," says Glasgow. "Clearly, it is in any company's best interest to ensure that its employees are fully engaged, and our management team will continue to support this as a corporate objective, knowing it is providing a demonstrable impact on our business."
Overall, Towers Perrin discovered a high percentage of employees that were both fully engaged and empowered. The empowered-engaged profile captures the greatest market share at 38 percent. Only four percent of employees are disempowered-disengaged.
Putting Engagement Into Practice
The largest gains will come from addressing the key drivers of empowerment and engagement among employees. SEL is now implementing culture change initiatives while striving to be world-class.
Gary Berger is Executive Director of Towers Perrin. He can be reached at Gary.Berger@isrinsight.com. To learn more, visit www.isrinsight.com.
|
RSS
