More Talent Management Facts #32

“42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.” 

Steven Wright

Another addition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.

Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. Research from the Aberdeen Group shows that only 31 percent of organizations have a formal strategy for designing, implementing and measuring employee engagement. And when companies do measure engagement, it is usually done through an annual survey, which can often give a false sense of security. Additional research from the Aberdeen Group shows that 65 percent of top-performing organizations have programs in place to deliver real-time recognition and ongoing feedback to their employees.

2. According to a survey by the American Psychological Association (APA), employees who feel valued report higher levels of engagement, satisfaction and motivation, and 93 percent of respondents who report feeling valued said that they are motivated to do their best work. There was also a significant increase in the percentage of employees reporting that they feel motivated to do their very best for their employer compared to the last annual survey (72% vs. 66%).

3. A new study confirms that employees don’t leave their jobs, they leave their bosses. Wayne Hochwarter of the Florida State University College of Business, surveyed more than 700 people who work in a variety of jobs about their opinions of supervisor treatment on the job.  He found the following:

• 31 % of respondents reported that their supervisor failed to give credit when due
• 39 % noted that their supervisor failed to keep promises
• 27 % noted that their supervisor made negative comments about them to others
• 24 % reported that their supervisor invaded their privacy
• 23 % indicated that their supervisor blames others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment

4. According to new research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), 75% of employers report a lack of leadership and management skills and too many managers have an inflated opinion of their ability to manage people.

• Six in ten (61%) of managers claim they meet each person that they manage at least twice a month to talk about their workload, meeting objectives and other work-related issues. However, just 24% of employees say they meet their managers with such frequency
• More than 90% of managers say they sometimes or always coach the people they manage when they meet, while only 40% of employees agree
• Three quarters (75%) of managers say they always/sometimes discuss employees’ development and career progression during one to ones, but just 38% of employees say this happens

5. The SHL Global Assessment Trends Report 2013 was completed by 592 human resources (HR) professionals from companies headquartered throughout the world. Key findings included:

• Engaging the workforce (55%) and developing leaders (52%) remain top priorities for organizations in 2013
• While approximately 60% of companies use or plan to use social media searches as a hiring tool in 2013, less than 30% believe the data is useful in determining candidate fit, and only 11% believe it is critical to hiring decisions
• 72% use assessments (e.g., personality inventories) for external hiring/recruitment and 41% for ledership development
• Skills/knowledge tests are the most popular assessments used for pre-hire (91%) followed by personality inventories (84%), cognitive ability tests (84%), situational judgment (69%), job simulations (68%) and interest inventories (48%)

6. Research from Accenture reveals what professional women want to feel successful at work. Greater work-life balance takes the lead over financial gains, with many people (men and women) turning down roles when this could be negatively impacted. The survey reached 4,100 business executives from medium to large-sized organisations in 33 countries with a minimum of 100 respondents from each country.

7. According to the 2012 National Study of Employers conducted by the Families and Work Institute, 77% of employers offered at least some flextime to employees in 2012.   63% of all organizations surveyed allowed employees to work regular paid hours at home occasionally and 33% on a regular basis.

8.Did you sleep two hours less than you need last night?  This translates into about 17 minutes the next day of cyberloafing compared to someone that slept their normal amount of sleep.  Lack of sleep seems to be a serious contributor to slacking among other things.

9. A genetic marker, the 7R allele of the DRD4 gene, is associated with “customer orientation”—a willingness to interact with customers and learn about their problems in order to meet their needs according to a team of researchers led by Richard P. Bagozzi, of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. The team also found that the A1 variant of the DRD2 gene, sometimes considered to make people cognitively inflexible, is associated with a “sales orientation”—the tendency to try to persuade customers to buy a given product rather than listen to their needs.

10. An interesting study just published by Bart Willie and colleagues (2012) from Ghent University explored how aberrant personality tendencies are associated with career and financial success.  The authors used a well-established five factor personality inventory called the NEO PI-R on a sample of college alumni (257) and followed them for 15 years.

Several findings were noteworthy:

• Obsessive-Compulsive tendency was largely unrelated to career outcomes
• Antisocial and Narcissistic characteristics tended toward higher hierarchical and financial attainment (i.e., they rose higher in job levels and made the most money).
• FFM aberrant personality tendencies showed incremental validity in the prediction of career outcomes beyond FFM general traits

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)