'Keep It Simple And Natural For Great Work Platforms'

Taking care of good employees is important to prevent them from lobbying. Niel Nickolaisen, Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer and Steve Fairbanks, Vice President - Software Product, O. C. Tanner believe better communication between employees can yield better results.

How important is timely and frequent recognition for employees, and its importance to businesses?

We do a significant amount of independent research into employee recognition and its impact on employee engagement and retention. We conducted a research asking employees “What motivates you to do your best work?” The answers ranged from “Promote me” for 4% of the employees to “Pay me more” for 7% to “Give me autonomy” or “Inspire me” – both at 12% to “Recognize me” for 37%. What is the impact when the company or our manager formally recognizes the work we are doing? How much more engaged with and committed when the organization appreciates our effort and results?

Thus, timely and frequent recognition results in lower employee turnover and improved outcomes. The data shows that those with the most effective recognition programs have lower turnover than their industry peers.

What are some of the employee engagement trends across the world?

The most important trends are that, in general, employee engagement is low (according to the Gallup Employee Engagement Survey around 33% in the United States and around 13% worldwide) and has not increased or decreased much over the past years. The research also shows that organizations with high employee engagement achieve much better results in the marketplace than those with average engagement. One more important trend is that as the connection between employee engagement and results becomes clear, human resource professionals and organizational leaders are making engagement and culture higher priorities.

What are the secrets to a workplace culture to attract and retain employees?

We believe that there are several factors that create a culture that attracts and retains employees. We call these factors the “Talent Magnets.”

They include:

Purpose – People are attracted to organizations that have a compelling reason or purpose to their work. This goes beyond Mission or Vision or Values. This purpose is the value that the organization’s products and services deliver to the marketplace.

Opportunity – People stay with organizations that give them the opportunities to develop and improve their skills and pursue a career. This includes training and development as well as the opportunity to participate in projects and on teams that expand their capabilities.

Success – People like to be on a team that wins in the marketplace.

Recognition – As I described above, recognition and appreciation are critical drivers of retention. Timely, meaningful recognition cements the relationship between the person and the organization.

Wellbeing – Employees stay with organizations that care about their whole person. This means emotional, social and physical wellbeing.

Leadership – You might have heard the phrase: People don’t quit their organization, they quit their manager. Thus, improving the leadership abilities of managers in critical in attracting and retaining employees. If an employee trusts their leader, enjoys their relationship with their leader and their leader creates a positive culture, great work and outcomes result.

What can be done to bring parity in employee appreciation and make them feel comfortable in the workplace?

Organizations willing to settle for a world class program and culture, they can make employee recognition a priority. They can train leaders and managers to provide meaningful and sincere feedback and appreciation designed to improve the relationship between the manager and employee. They can be clear as to their purpose and use that purpose to inspire employees and help them connect their work to the purpose. They can encourage and support employees as they improve their skills and work on critical projects. And that can care, deeply, about the well being of the employees.

What are the expansion plans of O.C Tanner in India and what has been the absolute growth in the last few years?

We opened our sales and client support office in Mumbai about three years ago and operate a number of Indian companies as clients. Our engineers in Hyderabad do customise our software products for our larger clients and manage Android mobile app development.

We will continue to add employees at our Hyderabad office and give them additional software engineering tasks and projects. Over the next 12-18 months, we will approximately double the number of employees in Hyderabad.

How will innovation help in evolving great work platforms? 

Our product innovations will come in several ways: Make it easier, simpler and more natural to recognize great work and outcomes, Develop compelling products that align with our Talent Magnets, and, by using leading edge technologies (machine learning, block chain, micro-services, et cetera) to deliver higher impact to our clients.