June 2005

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June 2005 Bringing Work to Life Volume 2, Number 6

In This Issue

· The Real Scoop

· What’s Geography Got to Do with It?

· Quote

· Upcoming EOR Events and Recent Mentions

· About EOR

Elsdon Organizational Renewal (EOR)

www.elsdon.com

renewal@elsdon.com

Tel. 925 838 2362

Ron Elsdon, Ph.D., is founder of Elsdon Organizational Renewal, which focuses on supporting organizations enhance effectiveness through revitalized workforce relationships and leadership practices. Prior to establishing his practice, Ron held senior leadership positions at diverse organizations. Ron is also co-founder of New Beginnings Career and College Guidance, which provides caring and personalized help to individuals and families in career guidance, coaching and college planning.

Ron is author of Affiliation in the Workplace: Value Creation in the New Organization (2003), a book describing leadership approaches to integrate the needs of the individual with the needs of the organization for the benefit of both. Ron holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in Chemical Engineering, an M.A. from John F. Kennedy University in Career Development and a first class honors degree from Leeds University in Chemical Engineering. With his co-author he was awarded the Walker Prize by the Human Resource Planning Society for the paper that best advances state-of-the-art thinking or practices in human resources.

Welcome

Welcome to the latest issue of Bringing Work to Life. In recent issues (www.elsdon.com/newsletters.htm) we explored the topics of:

o Listening to the organization (May 2005)

o A kinder, gentler place (April 2005)

o Accelerating into your new position (March 2005)

o Workforce leadership (February 2005)

o Searching for success (January 2005)

o Ethics and leadership (Year End 2004)

o Linking workforce development to value creation (November December 2004)

o How to decide if an organization will be a good fit for you (October November 2004)

o Confronting one of our fears as leaders - the fear of public speaking (September October 2004)

o Bringing meaning to our work lives (August September 2004)

o Seven key aspects of the organizational and business drivers for workforce development (July 2004)

This month we look at getting the real scoop about our organizations.

The Real Scoop

In working with successful organizations ranging in size from small, family-owned enterprises to large corporations I find a similar thirst for knowledge and understanding of employee concerns and issues. From this knowledge we can create better workplaces that are more fulfilling and productive. In an information and service based economy, workplace effectiveness is a key area of distinction for organizations. Last month we described building knowledge about the workplace as listening to the organization and we looked at different ways of doing this well. Since effective listening in our personal conversations needs skill and commitment, it is not surprising that we find listening at an organizational level doubly challenging. This month we look at one approach that, when done well, quickly and effectively identifies workplace issues and concerns as a basis for action.

That approach is the use of exit interviews. We might ask, why talk to people after they have left, wouldn’t we be better off talking to them while they are still with us? The answer of course is we must talk to people while they are still with us. But this gives us incomplete information about underlying concerns. Indeed the issues causing people to leave are easily masked by the broad existing population and can be lost in the noise of the data. Exit interviews on the other hand are like a finely tuned instrument that hones in on specific areas of importance. They illuminate rather than disguise the concerns. They also provide a solid basis for designing action steps, avoiding the traps of simply responding to one or two anecdotal comments, or becoming stuck in inaction because there is not agreement about core issues.

Let’s look at the characteristics of effective exit interviews. These observations are based on experience gained over a number of years conducting exit interview projects in a wide range of sectors for example healthcare, high technology, retail, financial services and utilities.

Why conduct exit interviews?

Conduct exit interviews only if there is intent and commitment to act on the results. Information gathered without action will increase frustration in the organization. Conversely information gathered followed by action can dramatically improve the workplace environment.

Who should be interviewed?

Focus the interviews on people who have left voluntarily, including early retirees, as they provide primary insights into workplace concerns.

Who conducts the interviews and under what conditions?

There is generally a stark contrast between interviews conducted internally by an organization and those conducted confidentiality by a third party. For example, we have seen internally generated assessments of the reasons people leave indicate that less than 10% were dissatisfied. In contrast, later studies conducted in confidence with the same population, showed more than 70% of people leaving because they were dissatisfied. This difference is not surprising as people are reluctant to burn bridges, particularly as cycling through an organization more than once becomes more common.

The issues that surface during an effective exit interview are usually sensitive, emotionally laden, and the interviewer must use advanced interpersonal and communication skills to rapidly build rapport and explore such sensitive areas. This requires interviewers who are well trained in counseling and/or consulting processes.

Such person centered interviews lead to high engagement rates and representative sampling. Machine centered contact systems on the other hand, while working well with existing employees, are much less effective for exit interviews. For exit interviews, machine-based contacts are potentially subject to lower engagement rates and more guarded responses than person-centered approaches. This is particularly true today with so much unsolicited, machine-generated contact.

What should be included in the exit interview process?

There are several key components to an effective exit interview process:

An early step that gathers input from stakeholders and helps secure their buy-in.

A structure that provides response consistency from person to person, coupled with a process that supports in-depth probing by skilled interviewers to build a deeper understanding of topics that surface.

A combination of both qualitative and quantitative questions that address both analytical and emotional aspects, and provide the basis for a powerful call to action.

Questions designed to elicit input from more than one perspective so that response themes can be validated.

The ability to both aggregate results at the organizational level and disaggregate based on key demographic items such as:

	Job Function
	Department
	Gender
	Ethnicity
	Tenure
	Location
	Performance rating

What can you expect from an effective exit interview process?

A comprehensive understanding of issues and concerns, analyzed by key group within the organization to highlight group specific perspectives.

Greater understanding of the factors and processes that brought people to the organization, to aid in future recruiting practices.

Knowledge about organizations people join when they leave, to clarify the competitive landscape.

Fresh insights into people’s perspectives about their workplace and a likely confirmation of some of those hunches you already have about issues.

A clearly defined way to move from issues to action steps that strengthen the workplace environment.

Distinguishing the strategic from the tactical and the local from the global.

The ability to re-recruit people through the exit interview process. Our benchmark data shows that on average about 60% of people are willing to consider returning and a majority of this group welcome being contacted about such a possibility.

Generally exit interviews are conducted from 2-12 months after departure, sometimes longer after departure. These time frames allow emotions to settle and people to objectively assess their past experience in light of their new situation.

Increased productivity of the existing workforce as action steps are taken that enable people to move closer to their full potential.

A high return on investment for an exit interview study. Typically only one or two people need to be saved from leaving, or be re-recruited, to pay for a study.

A comparison of exit interview results with benchmarks provides additional insights. For example, the primary reasons that people look elsewhere can be quantified, as can indices that measure the nature of the workplace relationship. Here are some example indices from our benchmark studies that are part of a series addressing the nature and strength of workplace affiliation. In this particular case the scale can range from -50%, the most unfavorable, to +50%, the most favorable. The bars show the range of scores from a number of organizations. We see a broad spread of these three indices that look at organizational purpose, support for professional growth and development, and recognition.

This broad range of responses in the benchmark data underlines the unique workplace environment in each organization. For example, an organization scoring low on the first index, purpose, may need to focus on senior leadership’s ability to inspire, by framing and communicating direction and reaching out. An organization scoring low on the second index, support for professional growth and development, may lack an adequate development infrastructure, and reward systems may not address development as a key responsibility. A low score on the third index, recognition, which often occurs in a highly technical organization, may point to important areas of leadership development at the individual supervisor level. Exit interview analysis includes gauging the workplace environment against these and other indices, helping clarify strengths and opportunities for improvement. Qualitative questions, that are part of the exit interview process, provide the additional insights needed to fully understand the overall pattern of results, and from this understanding design effective action steps.

Deployment of an effective exit interview process, coupled with well designed follow through, can materially strengthen the workplace, enhancing both fulfillment for individuals and productivity for organizations. This will be critical in a future world of skill shortages, where the need to support each person in reaching his or her full potential will be ever more important.

(Should you wish to know more about EOR’s comprehensive exit interview process, or in-depth process to gather information from your current workforce, please feel free to contact us at renewal@elsdon.com, 925 838 2362)

What’s Geography Got to Do with It?

In the April, 2005 newsletter we looked at changing patterns of U.S. unemployment rates, noting precipitous declines in some areas such as San Jose and the possibility of a perfect storm developing as these short term trends intersect with a longer term demographic of declining growth rate of the U.S. workforce. Central to addressing this changing environment is being able to create workplaces that invite people to participate – kinder, gentler workplaces. In past newsletters we have seen the business benefits of such workplaces.

Let’s look now at another aspect that can influence organizational and personal decisions we make. For example, organizational decisions about where to recruit people or locate facilities, and personal decisions about where to live and whether to move. That aspect is the changing workforce environment by location. We can use unemployment rate as a proxy for the local employment climate and then examine changes by location and time.

Let’s begin this journey in 1992 at the depth of the economic slowdown occurring then. The following figure shows 1992 average unemployment rates by county for the U.S., when the average unemployment rate overall was 7.5%. Darker regions signify higher unemployment rates.

There were many locations with unemployment rates of 7% or more. For most regions, other than those in a vertical band in the center of the country, high unemployment was a pervasive concern born by many.

How consistent are these patterns with the rising and falling of the economy? The following figure shows the picture near the peak of the last economic boom in 2000 when unemployment averaged 4% across the country. Not surprisingly there are many fewer counties with unemployment rates above 7%. The most challenged regions are somewhat more concentrated than in 1992, with pockets of higher unemployment in the Pacific Northwest, California’s Central Valley, parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah and regions of the deep South.

And now we come close to today, at a time when the latest economic recovery is in full swing. The following figure shows 2004 U.S. average unemployment rates when the average unemployment rate for the country was 5.5%.

We see a continued concentration of regions of high unemployment. The most concentrated being the Pacific Northwest, the Central Valley of California and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and a pocket in Nevada. Some counties in the deep South and the industrial Mid-West suffer from elevated unemployment rates as the map begins to take on some characteristics of the early 1990s. We can see from these three maps that unemployment rates are highly non-uniform across the country, varying in the extremes by almost a factor of 10 from the counties with the highest to those with the lowest unemployment rates.

Let me suggest how important it is to reflect on actions we take both collectively and individually to alleviate the distress caused by unemployment. These actions might relate to ensuring more equitable compensation within our organizations to help people weather the challenges of transition, to better including in our workplace those marginalized in our society, and to locating our operations where they can provide prosperity in regions by-passed by such prosperity. It is in making such decisions, in recognizing the broader social and communal impact of our decisions, that we can create a society that truly practices as well as preaches its principles. By creating workplace environments where all are valued we create communities in which we can all prosper, not just a select few.

Quote

“I belong … to a privileged minority. Everyone reading this sentence belongs, in fact, for only a small percentage of the world’s people has the ability and leisure to read and the resources to buy a book (or access a computer). How do we, the ‘privileged ones,’ act as stewards of the grace we have received? We can begin … by ripping off the labels we so thoughtlessly slap on others unlike ourselves. We can begin by finding a community that nourishes compassion for the weak, an instinct that privilege tends to suppress. We can begin with humility and gratitude and reverence, and then move on to pray without ceasing for the greater gift of love.”

PhilipYancey. Soul Survivor, in the Chapter discussing Dr. Robert Coles.

Upcoming Elsdon Organizational Renewal (EOR) Events and Recent Mentions

Upcoming Events

· California Career Development Association First Annual Author’s Showcase. Pomona College, Claremont

o Pomona College : CCDA Author Showcase

o Friday, June 10, 2005

· “Becoming Career Fit in Turbulent Times” for PMI-ISSIG PDS’05 Symposium, San Francisco

o http://www.pmi-issig.org/pds05/agenda.asp

o Tuesday, June 14, 2005

· “Building the Organizational Bridge for Career Development” Professional Development Institute for NCDA Global Conference, Orlando

o NCDA: National Career Development Association

o Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Recent Mentions

· Reviews of “Affiliation in the Workplace: Value Creation in the New Organization.”

o Harvard Business School

· HBS Working Knowledge: Organizations

o Global Diversity Institute

· Global Diversity Institute - The Journal of Diversity Praxis

o Journal of Asian Economics

· ScienceDirect - Journal of Asian Economics : Ron Elsdon, Affiliation in the Workplace: Value Creation in the New Organization, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT (2003) 280 pp. (hardcover), ISBN 1-56720-436-8, $49.95.

· The Alliance of Chief Executives

o Alliance of CEOs - Ron Elsdon

· “Reaching for Our Deep Gladness”

o Article in May, 2005 NCDA Career Convergence Magazine

· NCDA Career Convergence Magazine

· Review of MBTI Step II workshop

o CCDA News, April 2005

· California Career Development Association - Articles

· Recent mention in article on cost of turnover

o East Bay Business Times, April 2005

· Turnover costs exceed employers' estimates - 2005-04-25

· “Worklife Survival: Finding a Fit”

o Article for HR West, February 2005 (Northern California Human Resource Association)

· http://www.nchra.org/StaticContent/Download/EXT0205007.pdf

· Review of ICDC Global Issues Forum

o CCDA, January 2005

· California Career Development Association - Articles

About EOR: Our Value Contribution

We enhance your workforce, leadership and organization by:

· Using proprietary approaches to understand workforce and leadership challenges

· Creating tailored action plans and solutions to strengthen workforce and leadership practices

· Building individual capabilities and contributions

We enable you to focus on external results and building value, confident that your organization and leadership are operating at peak effectiveness.

Our Mission

To support your organization by enhancing performance, productivity and effectiveness through revitalized workforce relationships and leadership practices.

Our Approach and Values

We tailor our engagements to the needs of each organization with a process designed to surface critical issues, identify root causes, build effective solutions, monitor progress and implement.

With a scope that ranges from system and organizational interventions to work with individuals, our focus is on the heart of the relationship among the individual, the organization and the community. We believe that organizational and community prosperity are built on enabling each person to fulfill his or her potential.

Our Services

We work with individuals and groups in your organization to drive performance and development for both the short and long term. As a result people will choose to work in your organization and will prosper there.

We bring solutions when you need to:

· Reverse declining revenues and performance

· Revitalize your workforce

· Stem the loss of key talent

· Redirect your organization to new areas

· Stop losing customers or market share

· Penetrate new markets

· Combat aggressive competitors

· Handle major change

· Break down communication barriers

· Energize your leadership team

· Successfully build on an acquisition or merger

Our proprietary services include:

· State-of-the-art tools to take the pulse of your organization and then move to action

o Web enabled systems

o Experts to gather and analyze information, moving your organization to action

· Individual leadership coaching to give you world class leadership capabilities

o Leaders who know themselves and their aspirations, build their capabilities and become catalysts developing others

· Workshops to build interpersonal skills in your organization so that:

o Communication is timely, concise, accurate and personal

o People listen to each other

o Negotiations are quick and effective

o Differences create rather than destroy value

o Teams move forward, get results and quickly commercialize new products and services

o People understand and link their motivations to your organizational needs

o Your teams understand what it takes to create a committed, energized workforce

o People use their time well

· Systems that make it easy to drive performance and build capabilities by:

o Linking objectives throughout the organization

o Strengthening key competencies

o Making sure you have the bench strength where and when you need it

o Giving people tools to take charge of their own careers and development and have a major long term influence on your organization

· Proprietary simulation and modeling techniques that let you explore how to maximize the value of your workforce

o Move from guessing what might happen to looking in depth at the financial impact of different approaches

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