For a long time, those of us at LeaderLabs have asked employers what they wanted to accomplish with their benefit programs. The most common answer: "To attract, retain, and engage employees." How does our role as benefit advisers fit into those goals?

Further intrigued by industry studies indicating that benefits have little, if anything, to do with employee engagement, we decided to see where we could fit into that part of the equation through a program we created that brings together CEOs in meaningful roundtable conversations discussing the connectivity between leadership, engagement, employee health and wellness, productivity and profitability.

Today, after nearly a year in development and more than six months of actual execution, we are experiencing growing momentum and gaining new knowledge. We have successfully engaged nearly 100 CEOs representing a broad range of industries from across the United States.

Participating CEOs' organizations have ranged in size from dozens of employees to thousands. This effort has been the most intriguing and positive experience of my 21-year professional career.

Structured to create a safe, intimate environment for frank conversation, each roundtable is limited to 10 CEOs at a time, and is facilitated by PhD-level professors from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

These facilitators are viewed as highly credible given their decades of experience in educating, training and developing empathetic leaders of character, both at the Academy and as officers in the field.

Focusing consistently on this important and challenging topic, we will probably include another 200 to 300 CEOs in these meetings before the end of 2010, and will update the results of these discussions periodically.

Following are some of the high-level observations we have made up to this point. We will talk about common themes, common challenges, and general perceptions shared - and disputed.

Before attending one of our events, CEOs are asked to come prepared to discuss their greatest "people challenges," their unique initiatives to engage their teams, the perceived difference between managers and leaders, and whether they feel leaders are "born or made."

Interestingly, despite the compelling data provided in various studies (including those from Gallup, Towers Perrin, Watson Wyatt, and a newly released report from the new Towers Watson) that indicate that nearly 80% of American workers are not engaged at work, most of our participating CEOs feel that their employees are the exception rather than the norm.

They feel that their workers do in fact come to work and bring their "A" game most of the time. On the other hand, they do have "people challenges."

The most commonly mentioned challenges fall into several recurring categories:

• * Engaging multiple generations in the workplace - how do you engage and challenge younger workers who have an "entitlement" attitude; how do you get older, more tenured employees to open themselves up to change or new ideas, or new ways of doing things?
• * Creating and sustaining a culture of transparency, and creating trust.
• * Maintaining a strong and scalable culture in the face of high growth.
• * Creating a "connected" culture.
• * Getting managers to lead and inspire.
• * How do we empower and inspire our top performers to want to stay and help us grow our business?
• * How do we retain or rebuild trust when faced with layoffs or cutbacks?

While the majority of these CEOs feel that they don't have an engagement issue today, almost all agree that without proactively addressing these challenges, they could face problems in the near term.

The idea that they are either creating connected teams that are fired up to succeed, or they will be left with disconnected, disenfranchised, burned-out employees heading for the door, is not lost on any of them.

An interesting part of these events is the discussion around the West Point model of leadership development (a 47-month curriculum focused on both character and competency skills, and employing a recurring training cycle of "learn it, do it, reflect on it," with ever-increasing degrees of challenge and responsibility) and the age-old question, "Are leaders made or born?"

In every group there are one or two individuals who staunchly believe that leaders are born, not made, but through discussion, the general consensus usually trends toward "both."

Basically, the consensus is that while an individual's training, life experience and practical application may predispose some for stronger leadership than others, most agree that anyone can be become a competent leader.

Using an operational definition of a leader - someone who inspires and challenges those around them to achieve the maximum of their potential - they agree that given basic skills, almost anyone can assume some level of leadership competency.

Using a basketball analogy, very few people will become Michael Jordan, but almost anyone can learn to run, dribble, pass and shoot a basketball sufficiently to enjoy the game.

So would any organization benefit from having an entire team that was aligned in the basic tenets of character, empathy, trust, and accountability? One CEO even raised a question around whether or not companies were hurting themselves by referring to their mid-level people as "managers" as opposed to "leaders" - the concern being that people will behave as they are defined.

In most of the roundtables, a standard working premise has emerged that we should manage things (data, processes, systems and machinery) but we should lead people. Too many of the participating CEOs feared that they had managers who couldn't really lead.

Finally, participating CEOs were asked to share some of the unique ideas and initiatives they are employing within their organizations to promote and inspire greater loyalty and engagement.

And while some CEOs do still believe that cash incentives and bonuses are their primary methods of creating engagement, there is a greater percentage of CEOs who are finding non-compensation methods to be more effective, longer lasting and better received by employees.

Here is just a small selection. As we compile a longer list, we will include those findings in our future roundtable updates.

• * Company-wide celebrations for significant achievements (new clients, met performance objectives, etc.).
• * Significant gifts from the company for weddings, births and anniversaries (just to let the employee know that the company knows and cares who they are).
• * Leaders of all levels that make it a priority to get out among their teams; know them, talk to them, inspire them (a favorite question of the facilitators is "do you know the name of the person who empties your trash at night?").
• * One company with 400-plus employees eliminated their vacation policy. Employees were told, "We trust you to take the time you need." That company has seen a reduction in actual days taken and an increase in productivity.
• * Several companies brought in chefs and provided free breakfast and lunch to employees.

The fact that this many CEOs would be willing to spend time with some benefit advisers is nothing short of amazing in a world in which we are typically required to start with the HR director or the CFO.

This validates my assumption that there is a genuine thirst and desire for leadership in industry, and there is a growing number of chief executives who recognize this need.

Whether this desire is born of a sincere desire to do the right thing, or as the business strategy of the moment, only time will tell. I certainly hope it is the former, but regardless of the motive, just getting CEOs to the table to discuss this important topic gives us optimism that we can positively impact more and more lives in the marketplace.

I would love to hear from you about policies, practices, and structures being used to inspire employee health, trust and engagement.

Opportunity in retirement ed

Those who make a living educating others to think analytically and learn lessons from history aren't exactly taking a page from their own book when it comes to retirement strategy, according to a recent ING Web-based survey.

Of the higher education community employees at colleges, universities and post-secondary schools across the U.S., 40% have never changed their retirement plan investment mix and 28% have not made any adjustments in the past year.

Additionally, of those respondents to the October 2009 poll who have never sought advice from a financial professional, only about one-quarter (26%) are considering doing so.

The majority (62%) of all respondents - who varied in age, sex, salary and job function - report less confidence about living comfortably after retirement than they had before the 2008 downturn; however, 63% have no plans to delay their retirement to compensate.

Similar numbers show that abut two-thirds (64%) have calculated their retirement income needs at some point in life, but as many as 30% had not done so in the past year and more than one-third (36%) have never calculated those needs."

This study demonstrates that more can be done to help higher education employees better understand how to prepare for and reach their retirement goals," says Brian Comer, president of Public Markets for ING U.S. Retirement Services. "Working with a trusted professional can help employees become better educated to make decisions and improve their chances of achieving a successful outcome."

To better manage their retirement strategy, many respondents would welcome aid from plan providers offering more advice, information and proactive communication, according to the survey.

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