Genos Employee Motivation Case Studies

Maintaining Employer of Choice Status: A Global Telecommunications Company

Significant improvements in employee engagement results from a program for leaders of people on how to drive engagement at an individual level.

Background

A global telecommunications organization was looking to freshen up their approach to achieving high levels of employee engagement. Previously the organization had been conducting an employee engagement survey and driving initiatives to improve and maintain high levels of employee engagement on that basis. However after a number of years of doing so they were noticing:

• Some apathy towards the survey. Over time the initiative seemed to have shifted from being something that engaged employees to something they were beginning to regret — “not the survey again”
• An expectation mindset developing — “what is the organization going to do to engage me this year”
• Hit and misses with their initiatives, sometimes initiatives they put in place to improve engagement worked and sometimes they didn’t.

The Genos Solution

Genos designed a program for leaders of people in the organization around our individual drivers of motivation model. The program up-skilled leaders on how to take a more individualized approach to enhancing engagement by conducting individual engagement reviews with their staff. Genos conducted a Train-the-Trainer of the program with the organization’s internal facilitation team who rolled the program out across all leaders of people in the business.

The program, entitled ‘Motivating and Engaging Your Team’, provided managers with a framework for having discussions with individual employees about their motivation. Specifically, discussions about what employees feel passionate about; what type of leadership they find most motivating; and finally, what they would like more or less of from their team and the organization itself.

Results

The organization achieved a significant six point improvement in their engagement scores and maintained their capacity to attract, retain and engage talent. The company encourages every one of their unique employees to develop their life and careers within the organization. Participant feedback demonstrated that the program has certainly helped managers grow this component of the organization’s culture. One manager said:

the program helped create a more sharing atmosphere where [he] and his staff felt more comfortable having open and meaningful discussions about what was and wasn’t working

As a result of these conversations, managers in the organization feel their staff are more engaged with the company strategy and that their coaching and mentoring skills have moved to the next level. As one manager put it:

I know their expectation of me and I can now adopt my style accordingly.

Improving customer loyalty and profitability: A full service airline

A motivational fit initiative identifies how to improve the engagement of cabin crew. Actions the organization takes result in the airline wining best domestic carrier in it’s region, improving from 4th place the year prior.

Background

Successive decreases in customer service scores and loyalty were impacting on profitability and market share. The airline knew part of its issue was with its cabin crew — there were considerably low employee engagement scores in this area of the business. The company was becoming particularly concerned as it had made significant investments in initiatives designed to improve cabin crew engagement and customer service without sufficient results. Genos proposed to the airline that their existing engagement survey and process was not examining individual drivers of motivation that could be impacting on cabin crew engagement and service standards.

The Genos Solution

The Genos Employee Motivation Survey was used to examine what cabin crew were motivated by. In focus groups these motivational profiles were used to surface new insights into how to improve their engagement by comparing them to what they were experiencing in their work. The findings revealed:

• in the Role area of the survey, cabin crew were not motivated by Customer Interaction
• in the Manager area of the survey, cabin crew were not motivated by Rotating Management (regularly working with different managers)
• in the Team area of the survey, cabin crew were not motivated by Rotating Teams (regularly working with different team members).

Focus group findings suggested cabin crew engagement and customer service could be significantly enhanced by:

• providing some learning and development to cabin crew on ‘personal resilience’, how to put the smile on the dial day in day out — something the airline had not done previously
• moving from a model where cabin crew were regularly rotating teams and managers to one where they were with the same crew and manager, on the same aircraft and on the same route for longer periods of time, e.g., three months.

The airline proceeded to roll out a 1-day program focused on building personal resilience with its cabin crew. They also changed the nature of their work so that the same crew started working for longer periods of time, on the same aircraft and route.

Results

As a result of these initiatives customer service scores dramatically improved (results withheld for commercial reasons) on the routes where the same crew are present for three month periods and cabin crew managers reported greater capacity to performance manage staff. The airline won best domestic carrier in its region, improving from 4th place the year prior.

Attracting and Retaining Graduates: A Global Logistics Company

The Genos Employee Motivation Assessment provides insights into graduate motivation that results in an outstanding attraction strategy and the full retention of graduate talent.

Background

A large global logistics company was looking to re-establish their graduate program, something that had not been formally operating for 10 years. Their dilemma — how to attract and retain new graduates in a tight and competitive section of the labor market? Adding to their woes, market research with this demographic found their views of the organization were that it was dull, old and boring.

The Genos Solution

To help the organization attract graduates Genos collected motivational data from over 1,000 graduates using the Genos Employee Motivation Assessment. Collected in partnership with a graduate jobs website, this data showed the organization what type of day-to-day tasks, leadership styles, team and organizational characteristics different types of graduates were attracted to and motivated by. These characteristics were used to design and shape a truly different type of graduate program that would meet, in part, the motivational needs of this demographic of the labor market. A marketing campaign was also created on the basis of the data and used to attract key talent.

To help the organization retain their graduates all managers receiving them in the organization were taken through a development program on graduate motivation. They were taken through the overall graduate motivation data, the science of human motivation, and a role-play exercise around their specific graduate’s motivational data. In the role-play mangers learned how to facilitate a great one-on-one conversation with their graduate about motivation and ambitions, preferred working styles, leadership and the organization itself. Within the first month of their employment all graduates received this one-on-one session with their new manager.

Results

The Genos solution combined with all the trimmings of a top class graduate program (including personal and professional development for each graduate), resulted the attraction of an overwhelming response from the graduate labor market. Hundreds applied for 45 graduate positions with the company. Feedback from managers receiving graduates suggested they were of a high caliber. As one manager who had been working with the organization for 25 years put it:

…the graduate recruitment team have selected some of the best new hires I’ve seen in my history with the business

Over the two-year graduate program all 45 of the graduates were retained. The graduate recruitment manager said:

…the motivation data really helped us create a program and recruitment campaign that stood out from the crowd. The motivation program for managers and follow-on conversations our managers had with their graduates really helped accelerate their bond and understanding of each other. While many of the graduates moved from this original manager, many remained connected with them in a mentoring capacity. Undoubtedly this, combined with the program itself, all contributed to an outstanding retention rate.