employee engagement

Misfits in the Workplace

If you are involved in hiring, or if you do research about hiring, one of the terms that you consistently encounter is “person-organization fit”. That term describes the idea that in a successful hiring, the values of the employee match the values of the organization. However, in turbulent labour markets, job seekers may be less concerned with finding a “fit” and more concerned with just finding a job. On the other side of the equation, employers may be less worried about “fit” and more worried about finding someone who’s capable of adequately performing the job. Those priorities can result in more and more workplace  “misfits”  – employees who don’t feel like they belong in the organization, or who don’t want to be there, but who don’t feel they have the option to leave.

A research article published late last year takes a very interesting perspective on the “misfit” experience.  It seems reasonable to assume that because misfits are unhappy at work, their job performance would be poor, and they would tend to be disengaged from the organization. However, this study proposes that, (more…)

Employee Engagement Surveys (And Doing Them Well)

2015 was a really bad year for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). At the start of the year, business correspondent Amanda Lang was accused of being in a conflict of interest for her reporting on an issue involving the Royal Bank of Canada while having a personal relationship with a RBC executive. (Lang later left the CBC for a new job with Bloomberg TV.) Then radio host Jian Ghomeshi lost his job because of incidents that resulted in him being charged with one count of choking and five counts of sexual assault – and CBC management’s awkward handling of that situation led to the firing of two top executives. And then TV host Evan Solomon was fired after allegations that he exploited his work-related connections to sell high-priced artworks. (He found a new job on satellite radio and as a magazine columnist.)

There was one bright spot for the CBC in October when the decidedly anti-CBC Conservative party was defeated in the Canadian federal election. The potential for change in the CBC’s relationship with Canada’s federal government, which funds the CBC’s operations, was characterized by retired CBC journalist Linden MacIntyre as “the people that are the custodians of this publicly owned institution no longer seem[ing] to hate it” – but the CBC is still struggling with the fallout from the traumatic events that marred its reputation in the past year.

An external review of the CBC workplace was commissioned after (more…)