Bacal's Briefs: Why It's Impossible To Improve Employee Engagement

It's Impossible For Companies To Improve Employee Engagement Enough To Make A Productivity Gain

With companies planning to spend somewhere around three quarters of a billion dollars a year on increasing employee engagement, you have to wonder why suddenly, the world has forgotten completely about the decades of research on employee motivation, because, folks, companies are simply not going to succeed.

Why?

First, because both employee engagement (or what we used to call motivation) isn't under the control of the company, and the company has very FEW means to INCREASE IT. However, companies can decrease it, making it a "hygiene factor".

If You Call Yourself A "Thought Leader" You Aren't (Bacal's Briefs)

Yesterday I was chatting with a four year old boy, and I asked him that question that all kids eventually tire of. Him, not yet. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I asked. He replied: "A fireman, and a farmer", he answered. Obviously he'd heard this question before, since he really didn't have to think about it. He was adamant he would do both. You have to love youthful ambition.

So, I asked him if he'd also like to be a "thought leader". This stumped him for a moment, but for just a moment. "Do 'ought leaders drive tractors? was his question. I said, "Sometimes". That seemed good enough for him, so he said: "Well, I want to be a fireman, a farmer AND a 'ought leader."

I figure he must know as much about thought leadership as anyone. It really has no meaning, except to brand the phrase, when used about oneself, as a blatant attempt to sound much more important than one actually is.

Bacal's Briefs: Posting Articles On LinkedIn, Other Platforms Like Planting Flowers In A Stranger's Garden

When was the last time you spent several hundred dollars on flowers, and then planted them in a complete stranger's garden? No, not recently? Most likely never.

It doesn't make sense to do so, except as a kindness, because the flowers would be under the control of the stranger, who has no obligation, legal or otherwise, to tend them, keep them, and not trample them underfoot.

Yet, with the opening up of LinkedIn's long form posting, more and more people are posting articles there, presumably for the exposure, and for other business reasons. It's the same as planting flowers in a stranger's yard.

You'll have to decide whether using LinkedIn or other properties that you do not pay for is something worthwhile, but one thing we know now about various free social media platforms, including free webhosting.

• These companies run for their own self-interest (nothing wrong with that), and often tweak and alter what they do, and how they display things to suit their own purposes.
• They also remove features, often closing some down completely, and if a feature is something you rely on for exposure, you are out of luck.
• The RULES also change often. The perfect example is the SWAM, (site wide automatic moderating) that operates on LinkedIn and can completely choke off your ability to interact in discussion groups.

As a business strategy you need to look very closely at how much you depend on free services from companies that have no legal obligation to you. 

Bacal's Briefs: Are You A Generational Bigot?

If all of the people who insist on telling us what and who the various generations are; X, Y, Z, and Millennials, here's a challenge.

The next time you are tempted to speak about "the generations", replace the generation moniker with, oh, let's say, women, or African Americans, or Hispanics, or Jews. Take your pick.

Why is it acceptable to stereotype various generations based on when they were born, something they have no control over, yet, we (and yes, I mean me, too), have fought for decades to break people of the unpleasant habit of stereotyping.

If you don't quite get the issue, it's pretty simple. Stereotyping is the underlying basis for both discrimination (the really offensive stuff), AND persecution.

It's an epidemic of incredible stupidity that strikes so many people, from regular folks, right through to researchers who have no idea how to do research.

One thing. Some of us out here see your articles and posts, whether telling us great millennials are, or how lazy, or any of the other BS, and YOU immediately show yourself to be ignorant, and/or completely lacking in reflection about what you are writing.

You ARE entitled. But don't expect much congratulations for promoting discrimination. I know you don't mean it. You just...well, didn't think of it that way. And in my book, that's a sin.

Not even worth a long post. Just...

A Bacal's Brief