Five Links: Engaging Mish Mash

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Five Links: Engaging Mish Mash

Topics: HRExaminer, John Sumser, by John Sumser

Five Links: Data

The winds of change are whispering "Get competent is the ideas of statistics". It seems like drudgery (just like that coding language you should learn.) Here are this week’s crop of links.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics Platforms
This is a great, simple tutorial on what the larger market is doing.
The Economics of Engagement
Long term readers know that I bristle at the notion that engagement is some sort of organizational panacea. The latest surveys suggest that only 30% of workers are ‘engaged" (it means something like enthusiastic and happy). This surprises no one who has followed the wage and loyalty trajectories over the last 20 years. No raises and no security. Hmmm, The 30% who are engaged are the usual suspects.

The bigger question is why is it necessary to pretend to love your job?
The studies do not correlate engagement with stock price. There is no relationship. They also fail to correlate the most profitable companies and their employee engagement (What do you suppose the score is at Comcast, Verizon or ATT?)

"Employee engagement is the level of commitment and involvement an employee has towards their organization and its values (Vazirani, 2007). Engagement is the willingness and ability to contribute to company success, the extent to which employees put discretionary effort into their work, in the form of extra time, brainpower and energy (Towers Perrin, 2007). Often used as a synonym for motivation or motivation and retention; engagement is really more fundamental. Engagement is an employee’s decision to apply his discretionary effort to the goals of the enterprise, to accept those goals as his own and wholeheartedly commit himself to achieving them. (Fineman & Carter 2007)"

The way I read that, engagement means working extra without getting paid for it.
What UPS Drivers Can Tell Us About The Automation of Work
This piece is one of the standard prepublication puff pieces that float through wired. But, it’s a bit of fluff for an important new book: The Decoded Organization: Know Your Talent Better Than You Know Your Customer. This is what a muscular HR organization could accomplish. Understanding employees and their work enables organizations to help their team use informed intuition to make decisions. This is a book about harnessing information to drive the company.
Why Companies Are Not Startups
Steve Blank spends his time making a revolution in management. Lots of the time, he does this by clarifying the nearly obvious. In this case,
"We know that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. The corollary for an enterprise is: A company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model." Two completely different but complementary objectives.
Danah Boyd
If you really want to understand social media and the next generational landscape, you ought to be reading Danah Boyd. For starters, she’s put a free PDF of her current book, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens on her website. Scan it. Shes a fountain of useful insight.

Bonus Link: Great Free Courses

Making Sense of Data Starts on March 18. It’s a Google Course.
A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior. It’s sanctioned by Duke. Starts March 11. About improving decision making.

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is a principal analyst for HRExaminer, an independent analyst firm covering HR Technology and the intersection of people, tech, and work. John’s mix of experience over the course of his career gives him a broad and unique perspective on the industry. Like anyone trying to process a lot of information, he is two or three steps ahead in some areas and still learning about others. Sumser’s work includes deep research into the nooks and crannies of HR Technology to identify and explain rapidly evolving trends. Built on a foundation of engineering, design, and philosophy, John’s seeks to understand and advise clients on where their technology works best, for whom, and in what context. Each year, John examines the insides of hundreds of companies, their products, and ecosystems. He delivers vendor analysis by building the framework from which to deliver the critique. He is constantly connecting and making visible the front end of change. He can help you see the path of evolution and the risks on the journey. The HRExaminer is Sumser’s vehicle for understanding and explaining the inner workings of the industry. With three weekly podcasts, and written commentary, he covers emerging ideas, the state of the industry, and the executives who operate it.

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