Posts Tagged ‘Case Study’

Employee Engagement at Western Union Malaysia – A case study

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Starting with 2002, Malaysia has taken important steps in recognizing the importance of knowledge, by launching a Knowledge Based Economy Master Plan directed towards transforming Malaysia in a knowledge based economy. One of the most important aspects considered in the plan was the increased importance that had to be showed to productivity and innovation, supported by effective management of both tangible but also intangible resources, such as human capital and knowledge (Husin et al, 2009).

In this context, one of the topics discussed during the conference “Performance Measurement & KPI for HR” organized by Asia Business Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between 29^th November-1^st December was employee engagement. One of the highlights of the conference was a very interesting case study about employee engagement measurement at Western Union Malaysia.

As it emerged from the presentation and later discussions, measuring employee dynamics in general and employee engagement in particular is of grate importance for informing all the business actions that need to be taken in order to improve performance at Western Union Malaysia.

According to Anand Kadakol, country manager at Western Union Malaysia, the organization conducted two engagement surveys in the last 3 years. The main rating areas considered were:

Attrition risk due to external factors
Pride of working for the company
Personal growth and skill development story
Effort vs available resources

As the results of the survey showed, high scores were recorded on all rating areas of the employee engagement surveys making the organization to conclude that : „employees love to work for the company in Malaysia and are proud of it” .

Key Drivers of engagement at Western Union Malaysia

Among the most important aspects the management of the organization focused in order to increase employee engagement as the country managing director of the company put it were:

Trust – „ the foundation of employee engagement”
Idea pot/innovation – „is not whose idea is better, it is WHICH idea is better”
Focus on people problems – „individual issues need to be ALWAYS handled in isolation with development as focus”
Doing the right things at all levels – „ a leader need to focus on not to try doing the right things all the time”
Vulnerable leader – „ the harbinger of trust…line between hierarchy blurs”

Engagement driven results at Western Union Malaysia

Largest transaction country in Asia Pacific Region among outbound transaction markets within two years
Largest customer base country in Asia Pacific Region among outbound transaction markets within two years (Anand Kadakol, 2010)

References

Kadokal, A (2010), Sweet Success thru Employee Engagement, proceedings of the conference Performance Measurement & KPI for HR, Asia Business Forum 2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, representing Western Union (Country Director – Malaysia)

Husin, N.M., Hooper, K. Olesen, K. (2009), Assessing Quantity and Quality: The Case of Intellectual Capital Reporting in Malaysia, Department of Accounting, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Additional Resources

smartkpis.com (2010), Employee Engagement Index, smartkpis.com Blog, available at http://www.smartkpis.com/blog/2010/03/03/employee-engagement-index, (accessed 22 January 2011)

smartkpis.com (2010), Gallup’s Customer Engagement Index, smartkpis.com Blog, available at http://www.smartkpis.com/blog/2010/03/11/gallups-customer-engagement-index, (accessed 22 January, 2011)

smartkpis.com (2010), Employee engagement and organizational performance, smartkpis.com Blog, available at http://www.smartkpis.com/blog/2010/08/06/employee-engagement-and-organisational-performance, (accessed 22 January 2011)

Tags: Case Study, Employee Engagement, Key Performance Indicators, Malaysia, Western Union
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Let’s Do It! – Clean a Country in One Day – Performance Measurement Case Study

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

The “Let’s do it! ” initiative, a country clean-up project, was born in Estonia in 2008. By mobilizing the wider community, a team of volunteers succeeded in cleaning the waste deposited in many places across the country. Realized exclusively with volunteers, good-will and with the support of technology, the project was of a great success, replicated or in the process of being replicated in 7 other countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Portugal, India and Italy.

Here are some of the project’s performance measures:

More information

[I] http://www.letsdoitworld.org (accessed on 12 April 2010)

Tags: Case Study, country clean-up, Estonia, KPI example, Let's do it, Performance Measurement, Performance Measures, Target
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From Performance Measurement to Management in the Local Government – ICMA Case Studies

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

The Center for Performance Measurement from the International City-County Management Association (ICMA) published in 2008 the book intitled „What Works: How Local Governments Have Mad e the Leap from Measurement to Management”.

This resource from ICMA is directed towards helping local public administrations to deal with and improve their performance measurement initiatives, by putting under the reader’s attention no less than 70 case studies featuring successful practices in the field of performance management and measurement, all coming from ICMA members.

Source: Center for Performance Management, ICMA, 2008

The book is divided into 16 individual chapters, presenting case studies in 15 areas of local public administration service, from Code Enforcement, Facilities Management and Purchasing to Human Resources, Information Technology and Youth Services.

One featured example in this book is the City of Albany, Oregon, represented by its Albany Fire Department and Albany Public Library. The Fire Department showcase illustrates that, for the year 2006, 97% of citizens rated the quality of contact with the Department as excellent, whereas the figure was of 96% in respect to the contact with the Department’s emergency medical center, both numbers being above the national average. The results represent an evidence of the Department’s staff efforts and customer-service trainings, as the Albany’s emergency call volume on a per capita basis makes the city one of the busiest in the state of Oregon (City of Albany, Oregon , 2008).

The Albany Library case study reported circulating an average number of 22.1 items per borrower, against a national average of 12.4 items, due to the strong community support and the increase in the Library’s budget for acquisitions.

Note:

The International City-County Management Association (ICMA) was founded in 1914 to provide technical and management assistance, training and information resources to its members and the local government community. Its mission is to create excellence in local governance by developing and fostering professional local government management worldwide (Center for Performance Management, ICMA, 2008)

References:

Center for Performance Management, ICMA (2008), What Works: How Local Governments Have Made the Leap from Measurement to Management, ICMA, Washington, DC.

City of Albany, Oregon (2008), „Albany Featured in Performance Measurement Book” press release, available at: http://www.ci.albany.or.us/services/news_releases/show_item.php?id=819 (accessed 10 April 2010).

The Center for Performance Measurement from the International City-County Management Associations (ICMA) published in 2008 the book intitled „What Works: How Local Governments Have Made the Leap from Measurement to Management”.

The books is divided into 16 individual chapters, presenting case studies in 15 areas of local public administration service, from Code Enforcement, Facilities Management and Purchasing to Human Resources, Information Technology and Youth Services.

One featured example in this book is the City of Albany, Oregon, by its Albany Fire Department and Albany Public Library.

For example, the Fire Department showcase illustrated that, for the year 2006, 97% of citizens rated the quality of contact with the Department as excellent, whereas the figure was of 96% in respect to the contact with the Department’s emergency medical center, both numbers being above the national average. The results represent an evidence of the Department’s staff efforts and customer-service trainings, as the Albany’s emergency call volume on a per capita basis makes the city one of the busiest in the state of Oregon.

Note:

The International City-County Management Associations (ICMA) was founded in 1914 to provide technical and management assistance, training and information resources to its members and the local government community. Its mission is to create excellence in local governance by developing and fostering professional local government management worldwide.

References:

Center for Performance Management (2008), What Works: How Local Governments Have Made the Leap from Measurement to Management, ICMA.