Is it Steak or just hamburger?

Is it Steak or just hamburger? We all know that beef comes in many different forms; 7-bone, Porterhouse, Prime Rib, Hamburger, Top Sirloin, etc. If you want an upscale dinner you’re probably not going to want hamburger? So why do we treat employee training as just beef?
Have you ever been in a classroom when someone in the room just didn’t “get it”? How frustrating was that to you and others. There is always that one person that needs more time than others.
If you are not looking at learning style as you set your training schedule, you are wasting time, money and resources. You may be providing beef when you need T-bone or need only hamburger. Learning style is extremely important. How many times have you sent someone to a seminar or other training only to have them come back with no apparent effect on the job performance or behavior you were trying to change or improve?
Understanding how someone learns—fast or slow or somewhere between is critical not only the learning environment in the seminar or learning session, but also to the cost of your training budget as a whole. People who learn at a slower pace are not stupid but they require information in smaller chunks over a longer period of time. It makes no sense to send them to a seminar that gives a week worth of information in one day? On the other hand you wouldn’t want to put a very fast learner through a 3day learning session—when they have grasped the information in the 1st day.
The bottom line is to know the learning style of each of your employees! It is important for the day to day operation of your business, important for how employees progress, Important for your training budget, and important for your overall company productivity.

Workforce Engagement Survey

Most of us are aware that in the near future we will have to deal with work place shortages, mostly, due to the mass exodus of the baby boomers from the workforce. The real challenge is to keep these vital employees around long enough to prevent the “brain drain” from all those year of talent and knowledge, and to keep them as mentors and coaches to help narrow the knowledge gap. One of the tools to do that is a workforce engagement study or survey.

A Workplace Engagement Survey™ (WES) measures the degree to which your employees connect with their work and feel committed to the organization and its goals. This gives you and your management teams a detailed view of what influences engagement across all of your workforce segments and how your employees compare statistically to the overall working population.
In addition, the WES measures “satisfaction with employer” and “satisfaction with manager” across your entire organization and gives recommendations for your organization to improve.

Why survey your employees?
Employee surveys are becoming a popular management tool. They not only help management investigate whether employees align with corporate values, but they identify problem areas and elicit information to increase engagement. Employees who are highly engaged:
Excited and enthusiastic •
More focused on their work than “watching the clock” •
Give high levels of discretionary effort •
Emotionally involved with the company •
Mentally involved with company •
Not easily distracted •
Stay focused •
Highly productive •

Did You Know?
Disengaged employees are 53% less productive than • their engaged counterparts.
Disengaged employees are 24% more likely to remain • at their current employer

How does the Workplace Engagement Survey work?
Our clients deliver the WES to their people over the Internet—an HR administrator simply forwards a link to the manager and his or her employees. The assessment does not need to be monitored, so the candidate can take it from any computer with Internet access. All responses are completely anonymous. Information is aggregated in a centralized database and reports can be accessed by authorized people.