In the latest instalment of her series for AMBITION, Jane Sunley addresses ‘the Big E’ in the workplace – employee engagement
So many people are unsure what employee engagement means and maybe it means different things to different people.
My version of a simple, generic definition would be: ‘An engaged employee is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work and thus will act in a way that will further the organisation’s interests.’
If your employees are engaged, they will be more productive and more likely to stay with you, to thrive and progress – therefore they will deliver a better brand, business and bottom-line.
Employee engagement is directly related to the people promise. People promise or not, good employers do the right things to engage their people – even if they’ve never heard of the term ‘employee engagement’. Having willing,
enthusiastic and committed people simply makes
good business sense. Yet according to Gallup, 13% of employees across the globe
are engaged. In the US alone, Gallup calculates this costs the economy
approximately $500bn every year.
- goes beyond motivation and job satisfaction
- is involuntary and cannot be requested or demanded
- is a state of mind whereby employer and employee understand and honour their commitments to one another
- is brought about by the employees’ desire to act in the best interests of work and colleagues
- is brought about by delivery of the employer brand.
As with all important business aspects, what gets measured gets done. There’s much ambiguity around measuring how engaged individuals feel. Happiness scales are useful, though used in isolation are not a reliable indicator. You really have to look at a range of metrics and then compare them with business results. A simple way of measuring engagement is to find out by asking people how engaged they feel, or running a one-off, or ongoing ‘pulse’ survey (as they are sometimes known) in four areas:
- Satisfaction – do people like it here, do they feel fulfilled, are they happy here, do they like coming to work?
- Feel-good factor – do they love their jobs, feel proud to be here and are enthusiastic about what the organisation stands for?
- Staying power – how long will they stay, how happy do they feel to be part of this?
- Advocacy – do they say positive things about you on social media and recommend you to their friends?
A cohesive ongoing effort
Imagine employee engagement as a virtual bank account whereby every time something positive happens, a bitcoin is deposited. And vice versa – coins are removed when negative experiences arise. So employee engagement becomes an ongoing, cohesive effort by all concerned to ‘keep people up there’.
Too many organisations rely on disparate initiatives to engage their people, and it just doesn’t work. That’s why Gallup’s findings also tell us that 87% of employees do little more than just show up for work each day.
So think of it as a flow.
Engagement starts way before people actually start working with you. When someone hears about your organisation for the first time, if you’ve created a great place to work, then you’ll clockup a few bitcoins.
Then someone sees a compelling and exciting job opportunity online and it encourages them to apply – another coin.
They research your company and read about your people promise, your values and the opportunities you offer. More coins…
A really helpful person, with a friendly voice, invites them over the phone to come in for interview. (Kerching!)
The interview inspires them and they really want to join you. (Kerching! Kerching!)
They come to a second interview and you give them feedback from their psychometric test (which they find really interesting and useful – even if they don’t get the job). Also, you reimburse their travelling expenses. (Enough of the kerchings – the engagement value is mounting up).
They receive an exciting job offer from the friendly, enthusiastic voice (yet more coins). Of course, they accept the role.
And then – the wow factor – two days later, they receive a well thought-out induction plan full of rich experiences to allow them to get under the skin of their new organisation. They’re sent the latest company news, asked to do some pre-work so they can hit the ground running, they’re offered the opportunity to choose a ‘settling in’ buddy. You get the picture…
Or even better – they were invited to download an app containing all of the above information, as well as tips from colleagues on where to pick up the best coffee on the way to the office.
Then some of their new teammates drop them a welcome email or post on their Linked In profile or the company Facebook page…
And on it goes…
You invite your new recruit to next week’s BBQ, cinema trip or whatever event is happening, or just to meet their colleagues ahead of day one.
Doing all of this should earn you a good few bitcoins… Imagine: if you didn’t do any of this, what a huge opportunity you’d be missing…
And, of course, all your good work will be for nothing if the reality doesn’t match up to the hype once they’ve started. Being accountable for people is a massive responsibility and should not be taken lightly. This is why employee engagement is not something ‘done by HR’; it is the ongoing responsibility of everyone within the organisation.
Engagement isn’t just about the first few days of an employee’s experience with you. It is a journey, and as such, a continuous thing. It has to be something that’s nurtured, stratagised and developed the whole time an individual is with you.
So having made good progress in engaging your people from day one, it’s necessary to keep building on this, ensuring they are both enabled and empowered. It’s great to engage them in the first 100 critical days (when people decide how long they will stay with you, if at all), you then have to keep it up.
This can be tough, but it is necessary. So make double sure that all line managers and other leaders are fully on board with clicking up the engagement bitcoins.
It’s a key part of the modern manager’s role. In the same way that a restaurant is only as good as its latest meal, your company is only as good as its last touch point with the employee.
The 10 things an organisation should do to ensure leaders, managers and others do
- Ensure people are very clear about what’s expected; both in terms of behaviour and work performance.
- Agree goals, targets and what a good job ‘looks like’. Agree how these will be measured and do it.
- Set people up to succeed to get their confidence up.
- Make sure people have the tools and knowledge to become productive as quickly as possible; and to address this fast if not.
- Offer ongoing support and guidance.
- Trust people, leaving them to get on with things; show people respect, respect difference.
- Allow people to safely try new stuff (even if it fails).
- Review progress, offer coaching for great performance.
- Offer interesting and stretching challenges.
- Generally take care of team members, setting them up to progress and contribute.
JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR YEARS, THEY CAN’T BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
Engaging people when they join you is just the beginning. It’s a ongoing ‘labour of love’. If line- managers and others keep the dialogue open, they can keep track of ‘what makes people tick’ and therefore do the right things to keep on engaging them. People’s lives and priorities change. This is why ongoing one-to-ones are so important.
And just because people have been around for years, they can’t be taken for granted. It might be that, for someone who’s competent within their role and doesn’t have any aspiration to do something else, you’ll have to become a little creative about engaging them by looking outside the main remit. One organisation I know offers ‘extra curricular activities’ such as Spanish lessons and cookery classes to ensure people stay involved and evolving.
Think about the whole employee life cycle as a continuous journey and consider all of the touch points (as you would with the customer journey) and how people could remain engaged throughout.
Don’t just take it from me
“It’s really important to have an engaged workforce. According to Towers Watson, organisations with high engagement levels enjoy 6% higher profit margins, and according to Kenexa, engaged workforces mean five times higher shareholder returns for their employers.’
VLATKA HLUPIC, PROFESSOR OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER
“We are number one in our field for customer service in the UK – and we came from the bottom. We attached the objective to get to number one to our engagement strategy. People in the call centre were engaged with offering great customer service; tech support was engaged by making sure all the systems were in place to provide a great customer experience. We focused on this strategy from high level right down to day-to-day operations. We made sure all staff were aligned in this vision and it worked well.’
ROBERT
PURDY, DIRECTOR
OF IT, CUSTOMER
MANAGEMENT AND DELIVERY,
EE
“You need to be clear and consistent when engaging either customers or colleagues. Before they join, we make it known to recruits that ‘we want to have a relationship with you and make you a ‘fan’’. Therefore good employee engagement starts with an excellent recruitment team who have the ability to make people feel great about us, even if they don’t get the job.
“Our recruitment team are so important because they need to find who can fit culturally and can do the job. At Metro Bank, we hire for attitude and look for what we describe as ‘zest’. This ‘zest’ is a positive energy that’s transferred to everyone. We therefore engage people right from the start, and in our recruiting days, we tell people that we’re looking for the ‘M Factor’.
“We explain from the very start that our people need to take responsibility for what it’s like to work in their team. Yes we survey, yes we measure scores, but we’re interested in what we can do for our colleagues to make this a better place to be. This creates empowerment and we encourage people,
if they find a stupid rule, to challenge us, or tell us when something doesn’t make sense.
“We encourage people to do the right things and treat people like adults. If you do this, then your people will use their initiative – a key sign of an engaged workforce.”
DANIELLE
HARMER, CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER, METRO BANK
“Employee engagement is about getting all employees aligned and working towards a common purpose. As a huge football fan, it is that moment when the World Cup is about to kick-off and you can feel a buzz around the whole country. Anticipation, excitement, a bit of apprehension too. Everyone joined together in a shared vision, that sense of expectation. We are all clear on what the aim is and it’s time to get out there and achieve. Together. While the football analogy ends there, the sense of belonging, community and desire to succeed and celebrate together – that is my definition of true engagement.’
ALAN
MELLOR, HEAD OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT,
PENTLAND BRANDS
“Lots of companies measure engagement; we go beyond that as we prioritise engagement as a precursor to sales. I know that if team engagement is strong and I can see it living and breathing in the business, it tells me our sales results in three months’ time will be equally as strong.’
BRIAN MCCARTHY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, VALOR HOSPITALITY PARTNERS
Jane Sunley is a CEO, celebrated author, lecturer, speaker and mentor as well as an established and renowned authority on ‘all things people’.
She is a non-executive director and a visiting fellow at two UK universities as well as speaking and writing extensively on the subject of people and HR.
