Engagement in ecommerce - the eBay way

It's said that a day is a long time in politics, a week can see fortunes reverse in sport and 2009 proved that a year is a very long time in business.

Over 12 months, the Australian based eBay team felt the impacts of the GFC, turned around eBay's relationship with local users and demonstrated a close to 20% increase in staff engagement (from an already high base). Redundancies were followed quickly by growth into new areas in a rapidly changing sector.

Along this frenetic ride eBay pulled a number of engagement levers in order to reach our goal of building Australia's favourite place to buy, sell and work.

Culture - the bedrock of engagement

I firmly believe that effort put into building the right culture pays dividends in engagement.

Given the fast paced nature of the online world, eBay recruits people who can easily adapt to change and once on board we ensure roles and/or responsibilities change regularly. With line roles staffed by smart, change orientated generalists it is possible to align the strongest performers to the biggest opportunities.

Building a team that is comfortable with frequent change is not the same as creating numbness to an 'annual' reorganisation. A business strategy that evolves on an annual basis ensures that the organisation structures are always broadly aligned. Where a genuinely significant change in strategic direction occurs then transformation may be necessary - I'll come back to this theme.

One challenge that faces many Australian organisations is creating career paths for specialists where these functions are small or have a very flat structure. At eBay, there have been two learnings on this:

- It is imperative to include specialists in the business planning. Understanding of the business strategy is critical to delivering value. Asking functional leads to own the development of key business strategies has been a good example.
- eBay aspires to move staff between functional specialist roles and the business unit. Not every lawyer, finance manager or PR specialist aspires to lead a business project or take a line role, but careful hiring and then careful development planning and rotations can create such opportunities.

To reinforce the culture, eBay ties it's four behaviours into annual performance reviews. The five values are:

1. Lead completely
2. Practice judgement
3. Trust each other
4. Keep it human

The fourth behaviour (keep it human) focuses on the individual's needs and is strongly supported throughout the organisation. When this is not possible we must be clear why. In the words of the current St.George commercial..."Just because you're big doesn't mean you have to act like it!"

eBay now aims to personalise rewards for our people - a parent may appreciate an extra day of leave on their child's birthday more than a generic retail voucher. There is another upside of this personalisation - it requires managers to show a more caring and personal awareness that has a far greater benefit on employee engagement.

The tough times - Maintaining engagement during redundancies

In late 2008 eBay embarked on a global job reduction program. The Australian business was impacted and locally used this difficult time to realign resources against priority activities.

Our greatest learning from this period was making tough decisions early. Leadership was adamant that we had one opportunity to make changes and that we weren't going to undertake a phased approach to role reductions.

This was the first time that many of our people had been within a business undergoing a reduction in force. A number of common concerns were raised.

1. Security - Is my job secure, are more cuts coming?
2. Stability - Where do I fit into the new structure and how do I prioritise my workload?
3. Growth - Will eBay facilitate career progression, growth and development?
4. Critical Path - Does my work matter? Does what I do contribute to eBay's success.
5. Success of the Strategy - Do I believe in the strategy/direction the organisation?

To answer these questions and manage the process eBay again looked to the values. All staff, impacted or not, received a face to face meeting with their manager. eBay adopted above market packages and leaders communicated openly the impact of the changes for them. The departing employees spent two further weeks in the business and while not a highly productive time this did, importantly, allow 'mourning' to occur and ending a celebration for all. A video presentation including each leaving staff members and an afternoon party were very visible and emotional opportunities for people to say good-bye and come to terms with their new situation. This was relevant for the people leaving and staying.

The key learnings:

• Give your people clarity to the five questions above - these are the bedrock of engagement in tough times.
• Keep it human - people don't engage with a corporate. Remember the individuals and support both exiting and staying staff.
• Trust your exiting people. Good people take pride in their work and legacy.
• Make time to say goodbye and celebrate your people's time with the business. This is important for both leavers and those staying.
• Work hard to find alternate roles and go above any beyond in providing external outplacement. This is visible and important for all your staff.

Building the business - Managing the journey back to growth

Immediately following the changes eBay faced an even bigger challenge, improving business effectiveness in new leaner organisation and maintaining employee engagement.

The short term priority was ensuring clarity of strategy and establishing a direct link to new roles. Regular meetings outlined and reinforced the strategy, key projects and accountabilities.

From a leadership perspective, a very directive style was required. With an organisation in shock, leaders stepped out of their consultative styles and adopted a directive approach. This was counter-cultural but allowed activity to continue - the new strategy was formed, people were able to deliver on the priority projects despite the usual daze that follows significant change.

Leaders heard every day that the change was painful and that their people needed more clarity. They continued to apply the engagement strategy, gradually moving back from the directive approach to a more consultative style, where appropriate.

In the weeks following the changes our people undertook an employment engagement survey. While the results were surprisingly positive in a number of areas, including the engagement dimension they also provided focus for our activities for the coming months. Measuring engagement was a critical first step - "if you don't measure it, you can't manage it".

With clarity on the areas of required focus eBay set about re-engaging the team:

• Focussing on leadership - personal, team and organisational
• Communicating - consistent strategy updates, team meets, metrics barometer
• Greater flexibility on resource - backing successful projects and prioritising ruthlessly
• Investing in training - leadership, project and resilience skills
• Increasing local innovation - trading on Australia's reputation as a global innovator
• Involving people in decision making and contributing to strategy
• Re-employing exited staff as the business grows. Well managed exits can deliver a talent pool for the future.

eBay also focused on low cost/ high value benefits - study support, celebrating success,  increasing sports, charity and community participation, taking on job-support (a person with a disability to undertake office duties), regular themed team events and quiz nights.

The outcomes:

Nine months later a second survey was undertaken demonstrating a highly significant increase in engagement (close to 20%). The activities outlined saw us drive loyalty and retention, create a team of fighters who want to compete and win and built a culture of trust.

Based on our experience at eBay, below are our key learns for all levels of the organisation:
 
As an individual
Top 4 things you can do:

1. Be self-aware of your own personal levels of engagement and optimism. 
2. Strive to find the necessary information to link your work to the organizational strategy
3. Identify ways to re-engage with your work and sustain your energy and optimism: connect with your peers, manager or others who are able to provide guidance and support
4. Make great efforts to understand the business strategy and intent

As a manager
Top 5 things you can do:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate
2. Articulate the short and long term vision; link the work of the team and the individual to organisational success
3. Set realistic performance expectations and provide clarity and focus on what is expected
4. Take the lead on guiding the team to adapt to new circumstances
5. Recognise and reward employee contributions (in a personal way): encourage collaboration, ideas and problem solving

As a team member
Top 5 things you can do:

1. Be supportive of each other by collaborating, partnering, listening and caring
2. Problem solve broadly; Help find solutions for individuals, within and across teams
3. Demonstrate a passion the succeed by sharply focusing on the top priorities needed to succeed
4. Work together to attain necessary information, resources and technology
5. Help each other put the facts of org simplification and cost reduction into the context of the organisation/department/team objectives

As an organisation
Top 7 things you can do:

1. Communicate frequently and widely with employees
2. Demonstrate integrity by staying consistent between both words and actions
3. Cascade/translate strategy into expectations of teams and individuals
4. Make employee growth, career and development a priority
5. Share success stories of how the strategy is on track and succeeding
6. Keep it human!
7. Remember that many small consistent actions have more impact than one big one.