News

Jeff Kelly 16-Jul-09, 20:35

Dear Sir,

Employee engagement is clearly the road to success for any organisation, now that the engagement agenda is once again high on the list of priorities for human resource teams, both in the private and the public sector. But employee engagement is far from new; it has always been on the agenda. We have heard much about the need for engagement and the business case to support it, with many studies setting out what an organisation could look like once they have perfected employee engagement.

An engaged workforce can increase profitability and, conversely, research has demonstrated that an unengaged workforce can actually reduce profit margins. According to The Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study, highly engaged employees can outperform their disengaged colleagues by as much as 20%-28%.

So there is much evidence to demonstrate that it makes good, sound, business sense to ensure that employers engage effectively with their workforce but the key question is knowing how this can be done to maximise the potential of engagement.

For some, employee engagement is seen as acquiescence to the management agenda. Others might argue that the subjects to be engaged upon are cherry picked and that the workforce are not engaged on the really important issues facing them. Still others will say that it is a tick box exercise for employers to show that they have complied with the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations. Looking at engagement realistically, however, it is doubtful that any of these views would paint an accurate picture as any form of engagement is time consuming, resource intensive and not inexpensive and no employer would wish to invest so much in an exercise of compliance without seeing some tangible results.

Where the need for engagement exists, there should be open and transparent processes in place which make explicit the need for engagement, its purpose, the principles that underpin the process and detailed ways of working that will address behaviours that are expected from all concerned. There needs to be strong leadership from all parties with a commitment to the values and principles of the process, a communication strategy that is effective and multi-directional. Good communication is a critical 'person to person' skill in an organisation. Employees are most likely to be well motivated and to work hard for organisations where there are well organised multi-directional communication flows that enable employees to have a say in how things are done, feel confident that their views are listened to and taken into account in decision making and receive constructive feedback in a timely manner.

To enable a workforce and its management to commit to these principles and behaviours and have a clearly defined process of engagement, there would need to be a formal agreement, which would result in what is often known as a partnership agreement.

Unions and management benefit from partnership. Unions gain from greater job security and more involvement in decision-making. This can lead to a better quality of working life and more investment in skills and training. We also know that, where partnerships have developed, there has been an increase in union membership as partnership working raises the union's profile, enhancing its reputation and meeting the aspirations of both members and potential members.

If engagement of the workforce is to be valued and have the desired effect on an organisation's ability to adapt to an ever changing market, a formal partnership agreement is the best way of achieving this, where the values, principles and behaviours expected within the agreement are clearly articulated to ensure that they are adhered to.

An effective partnership takes time and commitment but now is absolutely the right time for employers and unions to work together in a new style of industrial relations built on the understanding that both have a critical part to play in the success of the business. In a country not renowned for its progressive labour relations, even Barak Obama commented on 30 January 2009 when he announced labour executive orders: The labour movement is not part of the problem, it's part of the solution. Strong, vibrant, growing unions can exist side by side with strong, vibrant and growing businesses.

There is now a real urgency for employers and unions to work together for the common good if businesses are not only to survive the current recession but to emerge in a position to take advantage of the new opportunities that will present themselves.

Jeff Kelly

Director

Partnership Institute

sean trainor 17-Jul-09, 10:08

David MacLeod believes “Whether we are in a downturn or in better economic times, engagement is key to innovation and competitiveness.

Lord Mandelson goes one step further "organisations that truly engage and inspire their employees produce world class levels of innovation"

Innovation is the key word yet I get no sense that this is high up on leadership agenda. In fact, the report says that leaders believe that innovation will become more increasingly important over the next three years yet managers appear to be increasingly less likely to encourage innovation in the workplace: less than half of all employees say that their manager encouraged and supported new ways of doing things, developing their own ideas or trying out new ideas (decline of 20% in the last year).

From the report there is no real evidence that engagement surveys that measure 'drivers' for engagement help drive innovation or management commitment to innovation in the workplace. This may be a case of "If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got" and conducting the same old surveys that tell us the same old thing year on year is hardly an innovative way of engaging employees.

For me the priority for change in business is for leaders to adopt more innovative ways to engage their managers and their employees. That's not about micro-analysis of 'performance' measures and 'engagement' scores but encouraging innovation and ideas in the workplace that are focused on competitive advantage and differentiation of your brand. That's what inspires people. Even the micro-analysts will be inspired as they will be able to show an increase in 'performance' and 'engagement' metrics. A win-win.

Bennet Simonton 17-Jul-09, 13:39

The Macleod/Clarke report, 157 pages, is very worthwhile to read and can be found at

http://www.davidzinger.com/employee-engagement-macleod-review-this-is-required-reading-3523/

Best regards, Ben

Sian Clancy 21-Jul-09, 11:44

A well educated workforce is key to the success of a business. Therefore, focusing on effective communication delivery is something that every management team should be making a priority, particularly in the current economic climate. It is the key to improving productivity and improving services. Communication strategies should have in place regular and effective presentations to show employees how their efforts and hard work are having an impact.

Lyndon Nicholson, Article 10 Presentations

Mark Lascola 22-Jul-09, 23:16

Our take on this is: Here we go again.

There are no surprises here. This issue has been well researched, and the link between engaged employees and high levels of customer engagement leading to organisation performance has been established time and time again. We have some great summaries of the research in this area. The key issue for organisations is how to engage employees. Too many think it's about being nice to employees, or 'communicating' more (which often means telling people more), or spending more on training - or worse still, having the CEO spout on about people being the organisation's most important asset. All of these kinds of initiatives completely miss the point because they are investing in sub-optimization. They are thinking about the organisation in machine terms - i.e. there is the 'hard stuff' (the business) and the 'soft stuff' (the people).

The reality is that all organisations are systems that have a technical aspect (i.e. the physical elements such as plant, machinery, processes and other hardware) and a social aspect (i.e. how people are organised around the work, how they interact and how the work gets done). Leaders need to think about how to jointly optimise these two sub-systems. There are (again) well researched guidelines for developing high performing organisations through high levels of employee engagement. Successful managers should be able to differentiate the systems and apply existing research to maximize engagement in an efficient and productive manner.

Mark LaScola

Simon Davies

ON THE MARK

www.on-the-mark.com

Derek Irvine 28-Jul-09, 21:15

The MacLeod report has been all over the news and, consequently, frequently commented upon. Common themes from comments include: (1) there’s nothing new here; (2) there are not enough concrete examples of how to build engagement in organizations.

While there may be merit in these themes, one of the main problems with the concept and adoption of employee engagement is that there is no single, common accepted definition of what is, how you measure it, and when you know you’ve achieved it. As the report asks, “Is it an attitude, a behaviour or an outcome?” Some are saying that the answer – “Yes, to all three” – does little to alleviate the confusion. I disagree.

Employee Engagement is a complex concept that must not be taken lightly. Too many give up on the effort because they don’t want to go to the time or trouble of convincing their executives of the importance and value of engagement (another key problem of engagement) or believe they have attempted employee engagement initiatives but not seen the impact they desire. Driving employee engagement is not a one-time project. It is something that must be persued – relentlessly and endlessly – to achieve the results you want. However, you must also clearly define what you do want to achieve, how you will measure it, and what behaviours you will reward in employees who are helping to achieve your engagement goals.

So what definition does the report give for engagement? “A workplace approach designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organizsational success, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.”

Boil that down to – commitment, understanding, motivation, satisfaction. Are your employees committed to your company’s success? Do they even know how that success is defined, e.g., your goals and values? Are they motivated to deliver that? Are they happy in their work and satisfied to be with your organization?

If you can’t answer yes to all of these questions, you need to work on your engagement strategy and the tools you will need to achieve it. Need tips for how to do this? Check out these best practices: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/06/best-practice-institute-invites-me-to.html.