Topsy turvy management, active dis-engagement and the return of the supervisor in this week's Three To See.

My first pick is Put Your Employees First, an interview with Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd, for Harvard Business Review in which he talks about engaging employees by 'inverting the management pyramid.'

Staying on-topic, my second pick, published by Gallup Consulting, is Employee Engagement: What's Your Engagement Ratio? 

The paper explores how top-performing organisations have adopted the systematic improvement of employee engagement as a core strategy to achieving critical business outcomes and suggests that the Engaged/Actively Dis-engaged Ratio has a significant bearing on this.

There is some interesting content here, including a comparison of the distribution of engaged employees in average and world class organisations:  

• Engaged: 33% in average organisations compared to 67% in those considered to be world class
• Not Engaged: 49% in average organisations compared to 26% in those considered to be world class
• Actively Dis-engaged: 18% in average organisations compared to 7% in those considered to be world class

Paul Hebert posted my final pick to the Fistful of Talent blog: More Supervision, Less Management is a wry reminder of the difference in emphasis of the two in which Hebert urges us to "Quit Managing".

I hope you enjoy Three To See this week.

In Three To See this week; new social stats, HR hate abates and employee fear-fatigue.

My first pick came via Luis Suarez on the Content Management Connection blog: Social Media Revolution 2 from Socialnomics.

There are some interesting stats in the clip but one that stood out for me was the claim that "80% of companies use social media for recruitment" and that 95% of these use LinkedIn, prompting me to ask recruiters the question - does this reflect your experience?

In his post to the Harvard Business Review blog, Bill Taylor explains Why We (Shouldn't) Hate HR:

"The real problem is that too many organizations aren't as demanding, as rigorous, as creative about the human element in business as they are about finance, marketing, and R&D. If companies and their CEOs aren't serious about the people side of their organizations, how can we expect HR people in those organizations to play as a serious a role as we (and they) want them to play?"

Taylor isn't letting HR off the hook with this statement, rather he is defining the valuable role that the profession can play in a way that outsiders can understand:

"You can't be special, distinctive, compelling in the marketplace unless you create something special, distinctive, compelling in the workplace. Your strategy is your culture; your culture is your strategy. The most successful companies I know understand that the most important business decisions they make are not what new products they launch or what new markets they enter. What really matters is what new people they let in the door — who they hire — and how they create an environment in which everyone in the organization can share ideas, solve problems, and develop a psychological and emotional stake in the enterprise."

My final pick: Bueller... Bueller... Bueller... Your Top Talent Is Bored Stiff with Being Scared Straight.  Time to Create Change was posted to the Fistful of Talent blogging community by Dawn Hrdlica. It is possibly the longest blog post title that I've come across so far, but also the most descriptive and I chose it because it offers a slightly different perspective on the ongoing conversation about employee engagement and talent retention.