In February, there were two events of interest to HR professionals in Canada. The first was Report on Business magazine’s ranking of the Top 35 Employers in Canada. The ranking of “best employers,” produced in partnership with Hewitt Associates, is gaining interest, with 86 companies participating in the assessment compared to 62 in the first rankings last year. Brian Toda of Hewitt Associates remarked, “the competition simply got tougher.”
The second development was the announcement by Nortel Networks — Report on Business’ number one best employer — that the firm is laying off 10,000 employees in spite of forecasting 15 per cent growth. (Whether or not Nortel’s forecasts were accurate is another matter.)
After all the publicity about Nortel’s human resource practices, I find it personally difficult to accept that this is “model behaviour” for the best employer in Canada.
Companies that made the list have every right to be proud of the accomplishment. Some are already promoting the achievement on their corporate Web sites. There is no question that at least 86 companies in Canada believe they are among the best employers. However, are these companies really the best employers in Canada?
In my opinion, the answer is no.
Unfortunately, there are a number of weaknesses in the ranking process that limit the usefulness of the results.
The first deficiency is that the process is limited to organizations with at least 300 employees and well-established human resource programs. Second, employers must apply and participate in a time-consuming assessment process. According to Hewitt, a significant number of organizations fail to complete the process and therefore are not considered in the ranking process. Because of these factors many medium and small organizations, as well as relatively new organizations, are eliminated from the ranking process.
Another weakness is that the overall ranking is strongly weighted towards the results of a survey sent to 250 employees of an organization. Given a response range of 40 to 60 per cent, the rankings are based on the opinions of 100 to 150 employees selected by the employer.
Although using employee feedback is an excellent aspect of the ranking process, it is open to abuse because a company gets to choose who gets sent the surveys. Without independently controlled surveys, such rankings are unreliable.
Another major contributor to the ranking is the evaluation of the organization’s human resource programs using Hewitt’s proprietary People Practices Inventory. Although this survey provides excellent coverage of standard human resource management practices, it does not appear to fully address the significant impact that managers, supervisors and team leaders have on the quality of work life and the attractiveness of an organization as an employer of choice.
In spite of my criticisms, I don’t dismiss the process entirely. An organization can gain a great deal from participating in such a process if it approaches the opportunity as a learning experience. However, organizations should not assume that the highest ranked employers are necessarily best organizations to use as benchmarks for improving their own attractiveness as an employer.
For example, Nortel has one of the poorer Web sites from the perspective of attracting new employees or highlighting how important employees are to the company. I have reviewed Nortel’s annual report and its Web site (www.nortelnetworks.com) and find that there is very poor coverage or acknowledgement of the role of employees or what the firm is doing to be an employer of choice.
Several of the other organizations on the list present much better examples of Web sites from the perspective of providing information to prospective employees. Interesting examples of Web sites that provide significant information for prospective employees are Maritime Life Assurance Company (www.maritimelife.ca) and Delta Hotels (www.deltahotels.com).
Thanks to further analysis of the results of the rankings by Hewitt Associates, we have some understanding of what differentiates organizations that did well on the employee surveys. Hewitt found that the key factors that differentiated the highest scoring organizations included: organizational culture and values, relationships in the workplace, leadership, challenging and interesting work activities, quality of life, opportunities for growth and development and total compensation.
Hewitt has also used the results of the ranking process to evaluate the significance of engaging employees in an organization. Engaged employees feel inspired by their employer to be their best, feel truly appreciated for the contribution they make, do more than is required to help customers, rate their company as a better employer than others in the industry, feel they get sufficient opportunities to improve their skills and assume greater responsibility and are resistant to opportunities to leave their employer.
In the end, the success of every organization rests on its ability to engage a significant portion of its employees.
Brian Orr is managing director of OrgArchitect Inc., which helps organizations enhance the value of their people, knowledge and systems. He can be reached at (416) 453-8633 or by e-mail at [email protected].
The second development was the announcement by Nortel Networks — Report on Business’ number one best employer — that the firm is laying off 10,000 employees in spite of forecasting 15 per cent growth. (Whether or not Nortel’s forecasts were accurate is another matter.)
After all the publicity about Nortel’s human resource practices, I find it personally difficult to accept that this is “model behaviour” for the best employer in Canada.
Companies that made the list have every right to be proud of the accomplishment. Some are already promoting the achievement on their corporate Web sites. There is no question that at least 86 companies in Canada believe they are among the best employers. However, are these companies really the best employers in Canada?
In my opinion, the answer is no.
Unfortunately, there are a number of weaknesses in the ranking process that limit the usefulness of the results.
The first deficiency is that the process is limited to organizations with at least 300 employees and well-established human resource programs. Second, employers must apply and participate in a time-consuming assessment process. According to Hewitt, a significant number of organizations fail to complete the process and therefore are not considered in the ranking process. Because of these factors many medium and small organizations, as well as relatively new organizations, are eliminated from the ranking process.
Another weakness is that the overall ranking is strongly weighted towards the results of a survey sent to 250 employees of an organization. Given a response range of 40 to 60 per cent, the rankings are based on the opinions of 100 to 150 employees selected by the employer.
Although using employee feedback is an excellent aspect of the ranking process, it is open to abuse because a company gets to choose who gets sent the surveys. Without independently controlled surveys, such rankings are unreliable.
Another major contributor to the ranking is the evaluation of the organization’s human resource programs using Hewitt’s proprietary People Practices Inventory. Although this survey provides excellent coverage of standard human resource management practices, it does not appear to fully address the significant impact that managers, supervisors and team leaders have on the quality of work life and the attractiveness of an organization as an employer of choice.
In spite of my criticisms, I don’t dismiss the process entirely. An organization can gain a great deal from participating in such a process if it approaches the opportunity as a learning experience. However, organizations should not assume that the highest ranked employers are necessarily best organizations to use as benchmarks for improving their own attractiveness as an employer.
For example, Nortel has one of the poorer Web sites from the perspective of attracting new employees or highlighting how important employees are to the company. I have reviewed Nortel’s annual report and its Web site (www.nortelnetworks.com) and find that there is very poor coverage or acknowledgement of the role of employees or what the firm is doing to be an employer of choice.
Several of the other organizations on the list present much better examples of Web sites from the perspective of providing information to prospective employees. Interesting examples of Web sites that provide significant information for prospective employees are Maritime Life Assurance Company (www.maritimelife.ca) and Delta Hotels (www.deltahotels.com).
Thanks to further analysis of the results of the rankings by Hewitt Associates, we have some understanding of what differentiates organizations that did well on the employee surveys. Hewitt found that the key factors that differentiated the highest scoring organizations included: organizational culture and values, relationships in the workplace, leadership, challenging and interesting work activities, quality of life, opportunities for growth and development and total compensation.
Hewitt has also used the results of the ranking process to evaluate the significance of engaging employees in an organization. Engaged employees feel inspired by their employer to be their best, feel truly appreciated for the contribution they make, do more than is required to help customers, rate their company as a better employer than others in the industry, feel they get sufficient opportunities to improve their skills and assume greater responsibility and are resistant to opportunities to leave their employer.
In the end, the success of every organization rests on its ability to engage a significant portion of its employees.
Brian Orr is managing director of OrgArchitect Inc., which helps organizations enhance the value of their people, knowledge and systems. He can be reached at (416) 453-8633 or by e-mail at [email protected].
