Tag: Digital Workplace

Recommended jobs via LinkedIn is a sure miss, and AngelList is smarter

For some reason, LinkedIn sends me its recommended jobs via e-mail a few times a week. And each time it is a sure miss compared to what I have described on my LinkedIn profile. The last e-mail I received took some wild guesses:

For sure, here are several interesting companies, but it is closer to a random draw of jobs than something that would help if I actually was looking for a job. Microsoft sure has a few things to do with the LinkedIn AI before it can help both companies and job seekers meet.

Another initiative that I found via Tim Ferriss, is AngelList. It matches the jobs in startup companies with the people who could match:

It costs nothing, saves people’s time, and leads to awesome matches. A true way of working smarter, which could easily be done for other companies than start-ups. For the people looking for jobs, a feeling of hit and miss or missing opportunities should be avoided. And given the enormous costs for companies to recruit the right people, we must look at better solutions going forward.

Using an intranet to increase engagement

Disengagement at work is a real and big problem for companies. According to Gallup’s 2011-2012 numbers, only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged in their jobs. The rest is either Non-engaged or Actively disengaged.

Gallup’s definitions of these groups, featured Gallup’s definitions of these groups, featured in Harvard Business Review (HBR) here, are:

  • “Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.”
  • “Not engaged employees (we use “unengaged” on our map) are essentially checked out. They’re sleepwalking through their workday putting time — but not energy or passion — into their work.”
  • “Actively disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.”

According to the map provided via the HBR article above, the figures are quite astounding (here are three examples):

France_disengaged Sweden_disengaged US_disengaged

In Sweden, this would mean that on average about every 6th person you meet is engaged, drives innovation and moves things forward. The absolute majority (3/4 of all) are just there to pick up the paycheck by doing an ok job and are basically sleep walking. Finally, about every 10th person you meet are unhappy and shows this actively in action and spirit by destroying the morale and business of others. Of course, this varies strongly between companies. None the less, these figures are alarming.

Disengagement at work is not only annoying and sad. As Stephan Schillerwein noted, also the productivity loss due to active disengagement is huge:

Productivity_loss

Also, as Chris McGrath and Ephraim Freed pointed out in their Social Intranets and Employee Engagement, the level of engagement has real business impacts:

Top-quartile companies have 37% less absenteeism, 25% to 49% less employee turnover (depending on the type of organization), 27% less shrinkage (employee theft), 18% higher productivity and 16% higher profitability.

Using the intranet to create engagement

We who are in charge of an intranet and other digital workplace tools must do what we can here. If we can help decrease absenteeism, decrease big turnovers, and increase productivity and profitability, we are sure doing a good thing.

To get started, we can look at Harvard Business Review’s Achievers Report. Here, they asked 550 executives to rate the importance of different activities on employee engagement. Some of the actions that were most important were:

  • Business goals communicated company-wide and understood
  • Senior leadership continually updates/communicates strategy
  • Recognition given for high performers
  • Individuals have clear understanding of how job contributes to strategy

This also goes fully in line with what Nonlinear Enterprise reported in their excellent article How to improve employee engagement with a great intranet:

… but virtually all of these studies agree that employee engagement increases when three things happen:

  1. Employees clearly understand how their job contributes to the corporate mission – how they can personally make a difference
  2. High performers are publicly recognized for their efforts
  3. Leadership closes the loop, providing frequent, transparent updates on the success of corporate initiatives and changes in corporate strategy

Nonlinear Enterprise then goes on to mention three tactics we can use today to improve employee engagement:

  1. Make celebration special, and clearly recognize when people are doing a great job.
  2. Show how the contributions from individuals really matter when achieving the goals.
  3. Clearly show the status of the company for all employees to see if what we are doing now is leading us closer to, or further away from, the goals.

Here, I would also add what Newsweaver mentioned in their 10 quick tips to improve employee engagement on your intranet:

Ensuring the intranet is accessible to remote workers. If you want all employees to use the intranet, then it must be mobile-enabled so they can access it wherever they are. Don’t cut corners in your mobile design. It is frustrating for those working remotely to not have access to the full functionality of the intranet – and gives them a reason to not use it.

In companies with a lot of production workers and traveling staff, we sure need to reach them with the celebrations, company goals, and strategies.

To conclude, low engagement is a real threat to companies and we need to deal with it constructively. Make sure you also use the intranet to:

  • Display and describe the company strategy and goals on your intranet, and keep them updated.
  • Make sure each individual understands and sees how they as individuals plus their departments and teams contribute to the bigger picture.
  • Praise people in front of others, and have them share successful stories with others.
  • Enable access for all employees, no matter where they are.

We will continue this journey, and look forward to hearing more about how others succeed.

A quick guide to instant intranet solutions in a box

During the last weeks, I have had the privilege to read reports on ready-made intranet solutions:

The above three resources give you a very good overview of what is available today. They also update these overviews regularly, so keep your eyes open for new versions.

When I browse the descriptions of such intranet solutions, many vendors sound the same. Yes, they all sell the same products, but still, something is missing. I wish more of them came from an organizational psychology / change management / sound workplace angle. And that they show they really know how to code SharePoint, as in jaw-droppingly cool.

Many of them still tell us what we can read from Microsoft’s site: There are search and libraries, it can be online, you can integrate with other services, and so on.

It would be awesome if some vendors took this to the next level, such as:

  • Since we know SharePoint search so well, we have tweaked it via the search engine and web parts to make your daily life easier. Our search experts make sure no one will complain about the search again.
  • Since we know SharePoint, but don’t know you, we always start all projects having coffee and listening to your stories. Once we know you, we present the technical solution.
  • Since we know the hybrid environments so well, we have of course already integrated Delve in your on-prem solution, and can integrate it in your Win 10 installations for a smooth experience.
  • Since we know the current discussions about digital workplaces, that is the start of our talks. We are not here to sell you a platform. We are here to help you work more effectively, lessen your stress, and help you save money no matter where you are.
  • Since we like you, we invite you to meet us and other clients over a coffee or a beer regularly, to socialize and network.

It will be interesting to see if any vendors take such steps. My guess is that, if they remain talking just about the technology, they could be outmaneuvered by others.

Create – the fifth C and the humane digital workplace

This is the sixth post on my journey towards working with a humane digital workplace. It started with “Building a humane digital workplace” (listing the 5 Cs) and was followed up with “Connect“, “Communicate“, “Collaborate“ and “Coach“.

The fifth and final C is Create, and the 30.000 feet overview of our intent with Create is that we:

  • Are responsive, adaptive and open to new ideas
  • Dare to do things differently
  • Challenge the traditional ways of working
  • Come up with continuous improvements

Over the years, all companies change and create new ways of working. The idea here, is to being in charge of these changes, instead of only letting the outside world demand them from you. And these new, creative ways of working don’t always need to be revolutionary. For example, upgrading to a very well functioning intranet can make paper forms and administrative tasks a distant memory. Virtual teams distributed in time and space can work together, complementing traditional structures. And by introducing tools such as Yammer, we can replace some of the dark silos created by e-mail.

As a customer oriented company, we also constantly see if there are new ways to innovate. Also here, it is not always about revolutionizing everything at once. Rather, we constantly make sure our processes, tools, and skills evolve. Here, I also come back to the people that inspire me to do more and better:

  • Use Working Out Loud by John Stepper to bring ideas in to the open, and see where they take us.
  • Be inspired by other ways than e-mail to collaborate thanks to Luis Suárez, and others.
  • Use the current methods for communicating internally and externally thanks to experts like Rachel Miller and Gloria Lombardi.
  • Don’t journey alone. Let the Digital Workplace Group (DWG) and their friends guide you in modern ways of working.
  • With a new world comes a new way of learning. Let Harold Jarche and others guide you on this journey.
  • Collaboration is at the center of everything we do, as Oscar Berg and others clearly emphasize.

Now, the next step is to make sure we truly bridge the 5 Cs with the ideas from the digital workplace domain. The goal remains: Creating a humane digital workplace, based on our values and culture.

Connect – the first C and the humane digital workplace

A few weeks ago,, I published “Building a humane digital workplace“. It included a video from my employer Haldex, where we introduce you to the 5 Cs. These are 5 Cs that all employees should embrace and express in our work.

The first of these is Connect. Now I have started relating what we mean with Connect, to some items others have created regarding the digital workplace. Let’s start with the 30.000 feet overview of the meaning of Connect:

  • One Haldex approach
  • Connect the dots and understand the bigger picture
  • Connecting with each other to become a team

My first attempt at relating this to the digital workplace ended up in ideas like these:

  • Help all employees understand how we do business, so we move in the same direction.
  • We serve the users with news from the industry we act in.
  • Ensure people have full access to all necessary systems no matter where they are.
  • Ensure it is very simple to contact anyone directly, preferably from your mobile.
  • The Management Team should vocally support the Humane Digital Workplace.
  • The governance plan must include all aspects of the Humane Digital Workplace, and not only the intranet.
  • We must connect services to our mail, to draw the structural capital from individual mailboxes into open forums where we can discuss them.
  • Apply techniques like Working Out Loud (WOL) and Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) to let knowledge into the open and build a networking sharing habit.

Am I going in the right direction? Is something vital missing? This is hard but fun work, and all input is welcome.

What employees really need from our intranet

Following the advice from James Robertson (@s2djames) in his book “What every intranet team should know“, I have conducted interviews with 11 of my co-workers to find what they really need from our intranet. So, instead of asking them “Which features would you want?” resulting in answers like “a feature like Apple’s Genius”, we spoke about what they do daily, where the challenges lie, and how those could be dealt with. Many answers had nothing to do with our intranet, while others did (summarized below). This proved to be a great way to see if our intranet can make the daily work smoother.

Here are the major intranet subjects all 11 gathered around. Some of them can be matched to things we already plan, some are already around without people knowing it (the wonderful challenge of internal communications) while others need to be developed further.

  • Who knows what, and has which experiences?
    Our company is growing quickly and it is harder now to know who knows what. People just want to search for a subject, a competence, an experience and see a clear image of who does what. This includes current experiences and knowledge, as well as earlier work. And who is person X e-mailing me about this? Where in the organization is she, and what is her profession?
  • What did we do in project X, who did it, and what did it lead to?
    We already document what we do in the projects, but when growing, we need a central place to save this documentation, tagged with more than just the project name. “Here it is! You just needed to look for the Cinderella project…“.
  • What happens in project X, Y and Z now?
    Individual project managers already have the knowledge of what happens in their projects, but when there are hundreds of projects, how can a manager get a quick view of them all without meeting all the project managers every time?
  • How can I contact person X to ask a short question?
    People are tired of needing to e-mail each other for everything, resulting in full inboxes where things high and low gather. They want a global chat, where they see who is online, so they can reach out when needed for those short questions. Several chat platforms are already used, but it requires you to know a) which platform person X uses, b) what their cryptic log-in name is (“Ah! So, shetlandsheepdog76 is you?”).
  • Sorting what I want to listen to
    People want to see only what is relevant to them instead of more generic send-outs via mail or global news lists. The intranet should tell me what is new – I don’t want to look for it.

To most people working with intranets, this is nothing new under the sun. Meanwhile, the interviews were informative and refreshing. And I believe they are at the core of what people expect from a modern workplace. The answers create a framework for the future development of our intranet, along all the functions we in the team or the users already have asked for. Therefore, I can highly recommend others to do the same.