Worker Engagement

Question 1

Maslows’ Hierarchy Needs theory suggests that people have five fundamental needs. The lower needs have to be satisfied before higher needs become relevant. What are the 5 needs? (1 - high, 5 - low)

Answer 1

1. Self Actualization
2. Ego/Esteem
3. Social Needs
4. Safety Security
5. Survival/Psychological

Question 2

In contract to Maslow’s theory of worker engagement, Hertberg asked a sample of employees to make a list of things that made them feel good and bad about their work. Based on this study, what were the two key ideas developed?

Answer 2

1. Job Satisfaction

2. Work Motivation

Question 3

Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model suggests there are 5 core dimensions:
1. Skill Variety
2. Task Identity
3. Task Significance
4. Autonomy
5. Feedback
How does these dimensions correlate with worker engagement?

Answer 3

The presence of these characteristics would correlate to a higher satisfaction with the job and create more engaged employees by developing meaningfulness of work, responsibility for work outcomes and knowledge of results and work perfumed.

Question 4

What is Need Salience?

Answer 4

Degree of urgency attached by an individual to satisfy a particular need. Example – a need that is important one day may not be as important the next.

Question 5

What is Reinforcement Theory?

Answer 5

Behaviour modification – people will continue to do things with a positive outcome and stay away from a negative one

Question 6

What theory suggest people will continue to do things when they have a positive outcome and stay away from tasks with negative outcomes?

Answer 6

Reinforcement Theory

Question 7

What is Economic Theory?

Answer 7

Extrinsic or economic return ($$) means more than intrinsic rewards (i.e. praise)

Question 8

What is Agency Theory?

Answer 8

Workers will always act in their best self-interest but not for the best interest of the organization, unless monetary is enough to refocus self-interest.

Question 9

What is Gallup (1999) First, Break All The Rules study?

Answer 9

Study asked 2 questions:
1. What do the most talented employees need from their workplace
2 How do the worlds greatest managers find, focus, and keep employees.
Findings - talented employees need great managers to select a person, set expectations, motivate, and develop.

Question 10

Who should ensure worker engagement?

Answer 10

Management. HR should only provide the framework.

Question 11

What is the HR Framework regarding worker engagement?

Answer 11

Management is key influencer to engagement. Make the development of every manager and supervisor a major priority. Coach management and workers in completing their tasks and provide opportunities for improvement

Question 12

To help with worker involvement and communication HR and management should set up meetings to involve employees. These meetings should be designed to engage, motivate, and reconnect workers to the organizations’ goals and objectives. The HR professional should strive to make the meetings dynamic, interesting and relevant. What type of meeting is this?

Answer 12

Town Hall Meetings

Question 13

What are the 10 steps to Work Surverys

Answer 13

1. Have a real business reason for the survey
2. Test The Water – ensure you are gathering the right information by collecting feedback from focused worker groups.
3. Communicate the surveys relevance – prepare the staff by informing them that the survey is coming and what the organization hopes to accomplish from it.
4. Ask the Right Questions – make sure the survey is direct and to the point. Survey the employees based on their experience and observation rather than their feelings.
5. Organize the Questions in a Meaningful Sequence – Make sure that the questions are organized in a logical manner that keeps the worker focused on the issues and on providing the most feedback.
6. Establish Useful Measures – Determine the types of metrics that are going to be used and test them out in advanced.
7. Don’t Rely too Heavily on Benchmarking – It is important that the organization you are comparing your self too is similar to yours.
8. Don’t Ask too Much or Too Often – the most effective and useful survey results are generally achieved when a company does not overwhelm the worker with too many questions. DO NOT CONDUCT TOO MANY SURVEYS.
9. Make Surveys Timely – survey workers when issues are still relevant in their mind.
10. Share the Results – if the organization is not going to share the results, why bother doing the process? Workers will only place faith in a survey if they feel it is important to them.

Question 14

Why should HR put together a focus group?

Answer 14

Better acquaint themselves with workers thoughts and ideas.

Question 15

What is the most common type of Feedback Interview?

Answer 15

Exit interviews. Generally, HR conducts these interviews. These one-on-one interviews can help establish patterns explaining why workers are exiting the organization.

Question 16

What is a Kaizen Initiative?

Answer 16

Involve workers in programs for continuous improvement and involve workers as key members on re-engineering or organizational development teams where they can share their expertise and knowledge of business processes and practices.

Question 17

How should you analyze the feedback and the results?

Answer 17

HR should play a key role in the analysis of the feedback (unless outsourced) and in making decisions based on the results. Feedback can come in any form – numerical results to general comments. In order to properly assess the results, the feedback should:
• Review and the results of various question categories should be sorted
• Ranked (if numerical) – HR should note similarities
• Sorted by positive and negative feedback

Question 18

What should be developed once the feedback has been analyzed?

Answer 18

HR should finally look into what action plan should be taken. The action plan should result in new organizational policies, practices and initiatives that will increase worker satisfaction. The results of the action plan should be communicated to the workers.

Question 19

Should all workers be treated the same?

Answer 19

No – treating workers the exact same manner as every other worker reduces a collection of individuals to a single entity. Yes, it is morally necessary but it does not mean the same. All employees have different levels of maturity.

Question 20

What is Hersey’s Situational Leadership theory?

Answer 20

Has a foundation of “teaching leaders to diagnose the needs of an individual or a team and then is the appropriate leadership style to respond to the needs of the person and the situation. The right style will depend on the person being led based on their situational maturity(M):
• M1 – Unable and Insecure – lack the specific skills required for the job in hand and are unable or unwilling to take responsibility for this job/task
• M2 – Unable but willing – unable to take on the responsibility however they are willing wiling to work on the task.
• M3 – Capable but unwilling – they are experienced and able to do the task but lack the confidence or the willingness to take on responsibility
• M4 – Very capable and confident – they are experienced at the task and comfortable with their own ability to do it well.
Every worker will shift from one maturity level to another. Therefore there are hour approaches to providing leadership/supervision:
1. Delegating
2. Supporting
3. Coaching
4. Directing

Question 21

What are the two types of mentorship programs?

Answer 21

Formal Mentorship Programs

Formal programs may have established criteria for selection of both mentors and mentees and for matching them together. A formal program may be established for a specific reason, such as an existing worker as mentor of a newly hired mentee. Some companies have internship programs.

Informal Mentorship Programs

Organizations with no formal program may recognize the value and provide some level of support – approved time for mentor pairs to meet for example. Informal programs may also occur after mentor pairs have participated in formal program.

Question 22

What do Mentors do? (5 common techniques)

Answer 22

1. Accompanying: making a commitment in a caring way, which involves taking part in the learning process side by side with the learner.
2. Sowing: mentors are often confronted with the difficulty of preparing the learner before he or she is ready to change. It is necessary when what you want to say may not be understood or even acceptable to learners at first but will make sense and have value when the situation requires it.
3. Catalyzing: when change reaches a critical level of pressure, learning can escalate. The mentor chooses to plunge the learner right into change provoking a different way of thinking.
4. Showing: making something understandable
5. Harvesting: creates awareness of what was learned by experience and to draw conclusions. “What have you learned?”

Question 23

An individual who actively worked to expand his/her pool of professional acquaintances in order to build a pool of resources who might reasonably offer some future tactical advantage in our mutual wanderings through the universe is involved in what?

Answer 23

Networking