Responsibility For Employee Engagement, Leadership Insights From Pixar Co-founder, Money As Motivation, And The Risks Of Sedentary Work

While we were getting ready for our website makeover and content update for Hppy (which I invite you to explore in detail), we managed to sneak a few breaks for some truly inspirational and eye-opening articles.

Take a look at this week’s finest articles from the world of employee engagement and HR:

Joint responsibility for employee engagement

Accountability is an essential part of any strategy. Employee engagement make no exception. If you’re determined to investigate the engagement level in your company or if you already know where you stand and are willing to improve it, you have to know who takes responsibility for making it happen.

After writing a LinkedIn article on “Who is responsible for employee engagement”, Torben Rick followed-up with a series of comments and responses he got, which can give you some great pointers on determining accountability for employee engagement in your company.

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Staying one step ahead at Pixar: An interview with Ed Catmull

In this interview with McKinsey’s Allen Webb and Stanford University professors Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton, the cofounder of the company that created the world’s first computer-animated feature film lays out a management philosophy for keeping Pixar innovative.

An inspiring story on how to manage a business that’s inherently built on creativity:

“The fundamental tension is that people want clear leadership, but what we’re doing is inherently messy. We know, intellectually, that if we want to do something new, there will be some unpredictable problems.”

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Why More Money Won’t Motivate Your Employees

Pay is an important work hygiene element. Ideally, it should not be the main driving force behind an employee’s efforts, productivity or motivation, but that’s only true when it fulfills its role as a hygiene factor. Beyond that point, it definitely falls behind key engagement drivers such as meaning, learning opportunities, recognition, peer relationships or leadership.

Pau Sabria, cofounder and CEO of Olapic, continues this discussion to show why money and power will keep some people at a job, but they won’t inspire the best employees to do their best work.

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Get up, stand up: evidence on sedentary working shows employees need to get moving

A very well-researched article that lists the overlooked reasons why prolonged sitting is the most underrated health threat of modern time. It seems that office workers sit on average 10 hours each day, and 70% of the total time we spend sitting is at work, increasing our chances for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even depression.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recognizes this as a worrying trend and has even published a physical activity strategy for the European region with recommended workplace adjustments.

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Join us next week as we share more of our favorite articles. We’d also love to know what articles made your week and what topics you’d like us to talk about next week so comment away.

Happy weekend!