Talent Management - November 2008 - (Page 32)

recruitment & retention assessment & evaluation compensation & beneﬁts performance management learning & development succession planning comes from measuring an indicator that affects growth. While the NPS is purported to connect recommendation levels to company growth, no formal research has shown a correlation between the ENPS and key performance indicators for employee retention. Gallup developed its Q12 benchmark speciﬁcally to correlate its measure of employee engagement to worker productivity, customer loyalty and sales growth. Gallup consultants sifted through hundreds of questions in hundreds of surveys before choosing 12 with the highest correlations to external measures. Topics covered include workplace expectations, supervisory relations, even working with a best friend. The ratings from all 12 of these questions are combined into an index that can be used to segment employees into three categories roughly analogous to ENPS promoters, neutrals and detractors: engaged, not engaged and actively disengaged. Walker Loyalty From 12 questions and simple segmentation, we move to 80 questions and a quadrant analysis. Walker Information ﬁelds its own employee engagement benchmark consisting of 80 questions across eight sections: attitudes toward the organization, work-related behaviors, questions about the organization and your work, more information about work factors, other general opinions about the organization, rating the inﬂuence of work factors, opinions about the integrity of the organization and comments in your own words. The results of key questions are used to segment employees by attitude and behavior: • Truly loyal: Positive attitude, positive behavior. These employees plan to remain employed by the company and want to work. • Accessible: Positive attitude, negative behavior. Accessible employees want to remain employed but may not be able to because of outside circumstances or better opportunities elsewhere. • Trapped: Negative attitude, positive behavior. Trapped employees plan to remain employed but would prefer to work elsewhere. • High risk: Negative attitude, negative behavior. High-risk employees do not plan to remain employed and no longer want to be employed by your organization. In 2007, Walker reported 34 percent of U.S. employees were truly loyal, 7 percent were accessible, 23 percent were trapped and 36 percent were high-risk. Besides its segmentation of employees by attitude and behavior, Walker Loyalty also segments attributes into strengths and areas for improvement: Top Priorities (high performance gap, high inﬂuence on employee engagement), Lesser Priorities (high performance gap, low inﬂuence on engagement), Leverageable Strengths (low gap, high inﬂuence) and Other Strengths (low gap, low inﬂuence). This quadrant analysis makes it easy for organizations to determine which attributes they should focus on to improve employee engagement. Companies such as Roche Diagnostics, Lance and Brightpoint use Walker Loyalty Reports, but the following criticisms can be made about Walker: While the attitudinal index used in the segmentation is derived from four questions — giving it greater accuracy and stability — the behavioral measure is based on the answer to one question. The survey is only used to benchmark U.S. organizations, and little independent research has been done to attest to the predictive validity of Walker’s loyalty segmentation. No single benchmarking system is right for all organizations, but ENPS, Q12 and Walker each offer different opportunities and strengths. If talent managers’ primary concern is around recruiting, ENPS can be a good choice. ENPS is simple to im- A benchmark’s value often comes from measuring an indicator that affects growth. • Engaged employees work with passion. Because they feel a strong connection to the organization, they work hard to innovate and improve. • Not engaged employees do the work expected of them, but do not put in extra effort. • Actively disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy; they spread unhappiness to other staff. The Q12 database — with 5.4 million responses — is by far the largest employee benchmark available. Gallup clients can benchmark their organizations’ employeeengagement levels against research across 620,000 work groups, 504 organizations, 16 major industries and 137 countries. Gallup backs up its benchmarking with a full human resources consulting program to help organizations use the results to improve employee engagement levels. Best Buy, International Paper, Swissôtel and B&Q subscribe to the Q12 benchmark. Gallup is a widely accepted benchmark with a few notable criticisms: It is unlikely these 12 questions have equal value to every organization. For instance, one large government organization found only ﬁve of the 12 questions differentiated the top 10 percent of workgroups from the bottom 90 percent. Further, not all measures are actionable. For instance, the measure relating to having a best friend at work is not actionable, as an organization cannot provide a best friend. Little independent research has been done to attest to the predictive validity of the measures used. 32 November 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - November 2008

Talent Management - November 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Recruitment & Retention Assessment & Evaluation Compensation & Benefits Performance Management Learning & Development Succession Planning Insight Dashboard Application Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - November 2008

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