Are your employees disengaged?
Posted in Management on March 1st, 2010 by Karen Axelton – Be the first to comment
By Karen Axelton
Harvard Business Review posted a thought-provoking look at the future of work that has some key implications for how you manage your employees.
The recession has accelerated changes that were already happening in the work force, writes Tammy Erickson. It’s worth reading all of them, but if I were to boil the 5 trends Erickson pinpoints down to one word, I’d call it “detachment.” Employees are less and less confident that employers will provide benefits, stability, a regular paycheck or all of the things that used to be part of the deal. As a result, they’re giving less and less of themselves to the job.
Some aspects of detachment are good – like what Erickson calls “adult arrangements.” Simply put, this means treating employees like adults, such as letting them choose their own benefits or hours from a menu of flextime options. At some point in the future, she suggests, we might even give employees the freedom to set their own pay levels or take responsibility for their own performance reviews.
But others are bad—like the fact that increasingly, you’re competing with a host of other priorities for your staff’s “discretionary energy.” Already, Erickson says, holding multiple jobs or starting a side business is starting to become the norm—driven in part by the current trend toward employers cutting back hours to save money. Employees who are being told to only work 4 days a week naturally start to assess their work in a “by the hour” fashion, unwilling to give more hours than necessary to the job.
As employees start to become clock-watchers, you’ll struggle harder to engage them. But engage them you must. “More and more of the work in today’s economy cannot be done rotely — success requires a spark of extra effort, creativity, collaboration, and innovation,” Erickson writes. Ironically, removing employees’ incentives to spend their discretionary energy on you could sap their innovation just at the time when you need it most.
What are you competing with to get your employees’ discretionary energy?

There are days when running your business might seem like an Olympic challenge in itself. On those days, think of Ruben Gonzalez–who’s running a business while competing in the 2010 Vancouver games. Guest blogger Charlotte Jensen talked to Gonzalez (shown at right) about his strategies for excelling in both arenas.
By Karen Axelton
Today, the world’s most recognized online trust mark, VeriSign, announced an extension of its authentication and verification services. “We recognize what small businesses want is to establish credibility,” explained Fran Rosch, senior vice president of authentication for VeriSign. For Web sites that outsource their shopping cart or payment functions to third-party providers or for information-only Web sites, the new VeriSign Trust™ Seal will bring the same image of confidence and trust to customers that the long-established VeriSign Secured® Seal does. The VeriSign Trust Seal pairs the familiar VeriSign checkmark circle with the words “VeriSign Trusted,” enabling Web sites of any size to capitalize on displaying the highly-recognized and respected brand seen on well-established Web sites. For a small company, a reputation of trust can increase traffic and secure customer loyalty.
If a million entrepreneurs around the world grew their companies to $1 million in sales, it would add up to a global GDP of $1 trillion, and up to 10 million new jobs. So contends Sramana Mitra writing on
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