
Gaining Success Through Employee Engagement
25 Mar 2019
Published in: Member News
In a world where employment levels are and the world is uncertain, getting employees engaged has huge benefits to companies, this article discusses ways of getting positive engagement.
Employee engagement, a philosophy that has certainly grown in stature over the life of my career. What really is it though? Why is it more important than ever to have engaged employees? How does an organisation get employee engagement?
The Current Situation
Unemployment
in the UK as of mid-March 2019 is at its lowest level (4%) since the 1970’s, as
someone in their mid 40’s, I can’t remember it being this low.
By the laws of supply and demand a level of unemployment that low will lead to wage inflation in the areas where there are skill shortages and employees that are in demand can effectively choose where to work.
We
live in uncertain times thanks to BREXIT, 9 days to go and I’m as confused as
about what is going to happen as I have been since 2016. Politicians seem to be
the antithesis of leadership, whichever colour you are at the moment, these
must be the worst Government and opposition in a very long time but that is
another post entirely. The only certainty is confusion in labour markets and
where any shortfall is going to be made up from.
We
seem to be hitting a perfect storm as employers. It is certainly an employee’s
market at the moment and employers are competing for a relatively small pool of
talent when hiring but is also needs to be remembered you need to hold on to
the good staff that you have, so you don’t have to replace them.
What is engagement?
One
definition of employee engagement is ‘a set of positive attitudes and
behaviours enabling high job performance of a kind which is in tune with the
organisation’s mission’.
Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) suggest that the key behaviours and attitudes that determine the level of individual engagement are:
- vigour
(which includes displaying energy and resilience at work)
- dedication
(being highly involved in work, feeling that work has significance and
having pride in work)
- absorption
in the task (being fully focused on work)
Positively
engaged employees are those high performing teams that deliver results and
enjoy the roles that they have, they are supportive and to them work is a great
place to be, it is enjoyable and even fun.
It
sounds great but then you look at the Gallup surveys on employee engagement and
truly engaged employees might have been as low as 8% of the workforce in the UK
in 2016. I have to admit I found that a truly shocking statistic. That was down
from 17% in 2012, still not a good figure but a downward trend that needs
reversing.
We’ve
talked of engaged employees but what about the disengaged? According to Gallup
there are two categories, passive disengagement and active disengagement.
You’ve
met passively disengaged people, ask someone how work is and get the answer ‘it
pays the bills’ or it is just a job and it does for now’. They go to work and
probably do the bare minimum to keep their job. They probably are reliable,
certainly to clock in on time and out the door on time, but they don’t buy into
what the company wants to achieve, in modern parlance everything is a bit meh!
Then
there is the group that is actively disengaged, work is so bad for them they
will actually sabotage things and actively cause trouble, they will be the
thorn in your side a constant battle and will suck morale and performance out
of your teams.
Want
the bad news? About twice as many staff are actively disengaged as actively
engaged and the majority of people are just picking up a wage.
The Benefits of Employee Engagement
If I’ve not convinced you yet that employee engagement is a good thing, these are the benefits of employee engagement:
- Improved
customer service
- A more
efficient organisation
- Happier
staff
- Healthier
employees
- Less sick
days and presenteism
- Higher
turnover
- More
profitable
- Lower staff
turnover
- Lower
recruitment costs
- Higher staff
retention
- Less stress
- A great
place to work
If
you can achieve positive employee engagement the results are immense and so
much more preferable to disengagement. It is a no brainer, why would you not
want the benefits? Your employees are an asset to your company, by investing in
them you get the above Return On Investments (ROI).
How?
So,
if you are now convinced it is good, how is this done?
Firstly, it needs buy in from the top. If the most senior people in the organisation do not buy in or think they can just pay lip service to the process it will fail, that isn’t a maybe IT WILL FAIL.
This requires trust, integrity and belief to
achieve, it isn’t for the faint hearted and it requires conviction.
You
are senior leaders and you buy in? Read on (others can read on by all means,
you’ll just need to influence the top bosses.)
Engage for success talk of four enablers, a strategic narrative, engaging managers, employee voice and integrity. Personally though, I break things down into more detail and use eleven ‘pillars’ to build engagement on.
- Vision
- Opportunity
- Incentive
- Impact
- Community
- Communication
- Flexibility
- Equality
- Integrity
- Accountability
- Consistency
Vision
Why
does your organisation exist and where is it going? What are the values that
underpin the culture? This should be crystal clear and everybody in the
organisation should understand it.
Opportunity
If
your employee wants to develop and grow as a person professionally and
personally, what are you offering to help this? What are the long-term plans
for them? Can they see a route to progression? Is it planned out? Is training
available?
Incentive
Are
your employees fairly and adequately recompensed for their work? Although money
may seem important it is not the be all and end all, there are plenty of
benefits that can be offered without it being in the salary line, think things
like mentoring schemes.
Impact
How important is the employee’s job to the customer? Do they know that? Do they know the impact if they get it wrong? Do they know the benefits when they get it right?
Community
We
are social creatures and probably spend about 35% of our waking hours at work,
it needs a social element to keep people satisfied. In work and out of work
find ways to build relationships and get people engaged with each other.
Communication
This
is hard, I don’t think I’ve worked in a company yet that got communication
perfect, it is obviously easier in smaller teams in one location, but it is
vitally important that people are kept up to date.
Crucially
employees need a voice and not only need to be heard but actually listened to
and responded to. They are a great source of ideas and how to do things better,
nothing is more engaging than knowing that you can influence and be a part of
things. If employees give ideas that won’t work? Respond with sensitivity and
honesty as to why not, you’re not ignoring what they’ve said but giving reasons
why not, clarifying their understanding and/or giving them the chance to come
up with something better
Flexibility
Build
a culture with flexibility in it, whether this is hours, dress, annual
holidays, be creative just make sure they are things that will be appreciated
and used and that they work for the company, the teams and the individual.
My
pet hate is dress down Friday, I’ve seen companies think it is flexible (the
latest fad) and then introduce a whole raft of conditions on what can and can’t
be worn (no big logos for example). At that point just stick to the normal
dress code, why create problems?
Equality
What
is that literary quote about some ‘being more equal than others’? In my
experience nothing kills engagement faster than the injustice that certain
people can get away things or get special favours. It breaks trust, I’ve seen
different treatment of staff for those that go to the drink on a Friday
afternoon compared to those that don’t and it did nothing for morale or
engagement.
Integrity
Deal
with everyone openly and honestly, be able to explain all decisions and make
sure that they are made within the values of the organisation. That’s the basis
of integrity and it helps maintain the trust of the employees.
Accountability
There
is a lot of give and take in the process of forming positive engagement, but
people need to be accountable for getting their job done and to the right
level. Some organisation’s give unlimited holiday, but this comes with an
expectation that the job still needs to be done. This links to equality,
everybody needs to be seen to doing their share and performing to the right
level.
Consistency
All
actions and decisions need to be consistent to the vision and values. This is
very hard and should not be underestimated, it usually fails with the phrase
‘just get it done’ which means someone is breaking the system to get a result,
it might work temporarily but long term you will create problems. Step back and
fix problems not symptoms.
Conclusions
It is hard work, if it was easy every company would be doing it. The benefits and results though far outweigh the costs and effort to make it work.
Be
creative in ideas that can improve engagement but keep them consistent to the
vision and values and make sure that employees are involved and the changes
that you make are valued.
For further details or if you want a discussion on how to successfully implement an employee engagement programme, call me on 07943 291250, book a free consultation through the website www.bonafidebd.com or email wayne@bonafidebd.com .
Comments
Post A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment. Please click here to login.