“42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.”Â
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. According to the CIPD/Halogen Software Employee Outlook survey, 33% of employees in the public sector stated they believed their company’s current performance management process, rating, and compensation system was unfair.
2. New research suggests that rushing to complete tasks just to get them over with can cost you time and energy in the long run. Psychologists from Pennsylvania State University recently conducted a series of experiments that suggest that the desire to lighten our mental load (e.g., long list of things to do) is so strong that we are often willing to expend quite a bit of extra effort to get some very difficult things done “just to get it off their plate.” This finding suggests there might be a concept we can call pre-crastination that is defined as hurrying to complete a task as soon as possible.
3. Leaders account for at least 70% of variance in employee engagement scores across business units, Gallup estimates. This suggests strongly that leaders make the most significant impact on talent productivity, retention, morale and customer satisfaction. This variation is, in turn, responsible for severely low worldwide employee engagement. Gallup reported in two large-scale studies in 2012-2013 that about 18% of all workers are actively disengaged at work.
4. Do you emphasize interests, “signature strengths”, experience, intellect or personality as most important for hiring and promotions?  Hyper Island surveyed more than 500 leaders and employees and discovered that overwhelmingly, companies rated “personality†as the most desirable quality in a job candidate. More than three-fourths (78 percent) of respondents rate personality as important, while 53 percent say cultural fit is key. Only 39 percent said that “skill set†matters most.
5. A recent survey of 2,200 hiring managers and HR professionals asked the top staffing challenges facing them in 2014 (Harris poll conducted on behalf of CareerBuilder). The results were: 1) Retaining top talent (32%); 2) Lifting employee morale ((31%); 3) Providing competitive compensation (27%); 4) Reducing worker burnout (26%); and 5) Maintaining high productivity levels (25%).
6. Happiness makes people more productive at work (especially if it involved chocoloate), according to the latest research from Professor Andrew Oswald, Dr Eugenio Proto and Dr Daniel Sgroi from the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick.The researchers found that productivity increased by 10 percent to 12 percent in the chocolate-consuming group or comedy-watching test participants over a placebo group who were given nothing before being asked to do a cognitive test.
7. Want to mminimize absenteeism in your organization? Findings from a recent study of 15,000 men and women aged 24-35 who were followed since they were ten years of age found that the more physically attractive men and women are rated, the more unlikely they were to suffer from a wide range of health problems, from high cholesterol to depression.
8. In a recent global survey of talent by SilkRoad on 3,743 HR professionals (The State of Talent Management 2014), respondents asked about what job seekers wanted suggested the following:
- Millennials value flexible work arrangements and a passionate, engaged workforce.
- Generation X favors work-life balance/integration and opportunities for professional development.
- Baby Boomers more often chose good benefits and recognition and rewards for achievement.
9. The recent 2014 HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey results by Towers Watson suggested that about a third of all companies are now using results from their job satisfaction/talent engagement surveys to influence business decisions directly. The entire report can be downloaded for additional findings and insights.
10. The “Staying@Work” report by Tower & Watson (2014) found that almost 70% of the 200 U.S. employers surveyed reported an increase in spending in employee health promotion and wellness programs in the next two years. 17% reports a significant increase in spending. ROI of wellness programs continues to be clear with current research suggesting a $1-$3 return for every dollar spent (about 71% of all companies currently reward or penalize employees for healthy biometric and behavioral targets like tobacco use, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight and exercise.
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)
