Octavio,

You are (as usual) right on target with the insights regarding today's environment and its impact on employee engagement.

While there may be 20 or more "drivers" for engagement, don't you think we should be able to simplify the equation? I think the approach from the large consulting/research groups is fairly Newtonian in format. They are trying to break things down into smaller and smaller pieces and be able to say definitively that "this" is it. Then, we can create action plans, checklists, strategies to ensure that each and every person is "engaged"?

I don't think so. I do not think that analysis will help at all. We have allowed our analytical efforts to infringe on and change things that are not meant to be analyzed. We are talking about relationships and there is no equation...there are only people and each one is different.

I think we need to be authentic and transparent with people in any/all environments. We need to connect to each other and be who we are at all times. We have created these problems with assuming we can create systems that will engage people. People engage people. The real answer is that if people are not engaged, it is for one of the following reasons:
1. They have decided not to engage
2. The leaders in the organization are not engaging them

It has always been and will always be about people and that cannot be systematized.

posted July 11, 2009

When the ship is in a crisis situation,
whether caught in the "eye of a storm"
or becalmed, above all, the captain
needs to maintain confidence and to
constantly reassure the crew that the
ship has the ability and the resources
on board to weather the storm (or to
wait for the wind to return), and that
it will reach its planned destination.

This demands constant communication
which is honest and transparent, so
that the crew and all passengers feel
safe, protected, reassured, and fully-
motivated to keep going.

posted July 11, 2009

Octavio,

Simple answer to your question, regardless of what's happening with the economy is this: anyone can be immediately engaged and it will sustain if they have a reason to get out of bed in the morning and to feel like whatever they are doing makes a difference.

That's it. If any person in any position can feel like their work and their contribution means something they will engage themselves.

Sorry, I don't buy into the whole list of 20 as it concerns engagement. Give people some meaning in their lives, show them how they make a difference, remind them of it now and then and they will do it because it's important. People want to feel valued. Important work is valuable work.

Make people feel as though they don't matter and they won't matter.

It's so simple. Let's not make this discussion any harder than it needs to be. Oh, right, I forgot, some people like to turn something fairly simple into a complex science to prove that they've got more answers than the rest of us. That's not engagement - that's egotism. Big difference.

posted July 11, 2009

Octavio,

I tend to agree with Kevin, that in most situations we seem to want to overcomplicate the problems at hand. The current economic climate is certainly not helping to engage employees as most of them have seen their collegues, friends, and family be directly effected by it. In order to change the tide from pessimism and disengagement to an engaged workforce a strong and consistent communication plan is required. This communication needs come from all levels of organizations and be consistent above all.

The focus of the communication plan has to be the importance of the employees to the organizations they are working for. If employees understand, that their work matters and they can make an impact to the bottom line results and success, they will be motivated and engaged. One thing managers today need to do is go back to the basics which is to:

- praise good work
- repremand bad behavior

This needs to be consistently applied and delivered at the time of action. Don't wait until the annual appraisal cycle.

Bottom line is "lead your team" through action and communication. This will make them feel appreciated and thereby motivate and engage.

Hauke

posted July 11, 2009

Information, good and bad, being communicated regularly. The good provides hope and motivates the team. The bad should imply an open forum for creativity and suggestions for improvement from all levels of the organization.

Clarity so that everyone understands the goals and direction being taken in the same way. This allows an organization to move forward as one – one heartbeat – one drummer.

Consistency in the mood of the environment which is a direct responsibility of the leadership group. Borrowing from Harvey, leaders should be a thermostat and not a thermometer.

Encouragement of individual and team development, risk taking, creativity, and innovation.

posted July 11, 2009

Octavio,

I truly appreciate your question.

In my little consulting experience, I have realized that most employee engagement tools give an organization a measurement on " How Engaged is the Employee" ...i other words " Is the Culture and Behaviour of the organizations healthy to keep people engaged?" This analysis to my mind is very restrictive to get a clear picture of what truly is going on in the organization.

I believe an organization's health should be determined by 3 elements: Strategic Intent, Business Process and Culture & Behaviour. We need an effectiveness tool..which is more of a diagnostic oriented than measurement oriented. The latter leaves it to the organization to find out what's not going good in the organization. However, an effectiveness tool highlights what's going wrong, what are the interconnected reasons/ effects ( of the 3 elements) and therefore what can be the most appropriate corrective measures.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Trupti

posted July 11, 2009

Octavio

Once again you pierce the complex and ask about the core.

Those of us who work directly with organisational change, re-design and re-structure, will tell you that this is not just a question for recession time, it prevails throughout organisational life span.

Employee engagement is an ongoing process with multiple names: 'talent management', 'employee relations', 'staff retention' etc etc. We shouldn't need a recession to make us aware of this; but it appears more visible during these times, hence more pressing an issue.

If you use this analogy: what use is the land without the people to work in it, no matter how expensive the land and machinery therein. It is the human capital which grinds the cogs to make the product that people buy.

Investment in developing people's skills, training in people's knowledge, understanding people's holistic make up is what makes them feel valued. Research shows that this impacts directly in their productivity, attendance and loyalty, this is the key. During up times, there is a buzz of feel safe, during down times the feeling is of being valued and important to the production or service of a company. Yes people get complacent when all is sky high like the order book, but that is for management to monitor performance Vs productivity.

Incentives such as earn less this month, but learn for a year or life or add something extra to today's order and add something forever to your reputation forever could go a long way. Counselling for employees may help with anxieties about redundancies and fear of job loss; this is another form of investing in employee value. The message is very powerful.

Those who felt valued, protected and safe during tough times are those who stand by you during the next rough patch, they demonstrate staying power and are energised by your input in to their value. And if developed and trained well, will be well positioned to hit the ground running during recovery.

Invite me to come along and smile.

posted July 11, 2009

Great question. From my experience, employee empowerment boils down to getting it right in three key areas, the work, the supervisor, the leadership.

The Senior Leadership – To ensure empowerment senior leadership must clearly articulate the vision and the reason for ‘being’. Employees need to perceive that the company is in control financially, respected by customers and that the product or service is important or relevant. To make a ‘real’ connection with employees that will drive empowerment and alignment the Senior Team must be ethically grounded to create credibility, trust and respect.

The Immediate Supervisor – Supervisors need to be the informed, motivated, passionate communicators of the corporate vision. Empowered employees will be involved, respected and recognized. Regular communication and a trusted two way relationship with the supervisor / manager is a must. Never underestimate the intrinsic needs of human beings.

The Work – The work needs to be either, challenging, interesting or meaningful and make a contribution to the organization. The job itself needs to have some degree of independence, latitude or perceived control by the employee. Every employee needs to have a reason to go home and tell their family why they are proud of what they did at work.

Tim

posted July 11, 2009

The employees’ engagement depends upon how his supervisor walks his talk. Does he stay positive even when the economy is down? Is he able to build trust by doing what he preaches?

Another thing which requires employee involvement is the knowledge that their work is making positive impact on the company’s bottom line. Does the company empower its employees to make the positive contribution to the bottom line? The company should train the employees to give them skills in this direction.

Last but not the least there should be honest communication (as has been rightly pointed above). There should be 2 way communications which will bring in transparency. This in turn strengthens trust which goes a long way in employee engagement.

posted July 11, 2009

Hi Octavio,

Great question! My response is as follows-

Let us consider two scenarios. One, where the current economic crisis has affected the industry as a whole eg. financial services industry where until recently laying off employees was a norm. Two, the industry is somewhat evergreen eg, healthcare industry and there is still a demand for qualified employees.

Drivers of engagement will be different in both the scenarios. One is employer driven and two is employee driven. It's a whole economic cycle of demand and supply.

In case of scenario one, employers should be cautious of not taking undue advantage of the situation, let employees know that they care for them.

An open communication may prove to be worthy for eg, a few companies in Singapore has dashboards to show employees real time data about the facts whether company is doing good or bad.

Inviting employees to co-invest in the prosperity of the organisation's future that will be built on the basis of trust and hardwork by employers and employees. I think good performers will buy in the idea of co-creation if they are made partners-in-progress.

In case of scenario two, engagement will depend on many issues like clear career progression path, challenging work, compensation and benefits, relationship with supervisors etc.


Hope this helps!

Regards

Jayantee

posted July 11, 2009

Hi Octavia,

It time we re looked at the definition of employee engagement. Irrespective of the of the business vertical and the position what is imperative is that we instill a drive of a acceptance, self confidence and transparency. Its difficult have an engaged employee when he suddenly find his colleague being redundant. The communication channels very clearly set the tone for what lies ahead for the existing work force, where are we heading who is going to get us there and how are we going to get there. The mile stones might change but the acceptance that i am required and the transparency that certain positions will not stay bring a sense of confidence in the management among the work force to achieve their objectives.

Hope this helps
Amit

posted July 12, 2009

Something I've observed over the years: Humans create complexity out of simplicity to justify their perception of their self-importance. As a result I always assess if my actions or recommendations create complexity out of simplicity. If they do I re-think them.

From my observations the fundamental employer/employee relationship has to do with the degree of difference between the employer's have to list and the employee's want to list. Engagement is a word for the degree of difference.

I get an initial sense of engagement from the amount of management infrastructure in a company. One with a high degree of engagement has less of this infrastructure. When the employee can achieve their want to list, because it's compatible with the employer's have to list, less management infrastructure is required because you have more self-managing employees. Their desire of what to achieve is in-line with what the company needs to achieve. To put it another way, the emotions of the employees and the mission of the company are compatible.

Engagement doesn't happen when the hands of the employees are made to do what their hearts do not desire. When this happens more oversight must be created in the infrastructure to continually make the hands do what the hearts don't want to do.

In my judgment the job of CxOs is not the numbers of the company it's the people in the company. Financials are a trailing indicator, the hearts of the people are a leading indicator. CxOs need to attune the emotions of their people and the mission of the company in order to create a desired affect on the financials.

posted July 12, 2009

I agree with Kevin Burns and go further-

Employee engagement is about loving your work. It is simple.

Are you hiring the right people for the job? Look at your own hiring criteria for any position, and reanalyze whether that person you selected is actually the person you thought you hired after you've had sometime to observe them in the job.

In addition, people who are micromanaged generally are unhappy and disengaged. Look at who you are as the leader and whether you are able to differentiate and communicate to each individual what you perceive their contributions and strengths are to the entire community of workers. People should be given tasks to do with a framework of the time and expected outcome - how they get from point A to point B should be left to them as long as they do the work and take pride in the end result. If it isn't what you want or expect, you have teachable/leadable moments to help you uncover who you are as the leader and who they are as your teammates.

Think about which of your teachers inspired you to be a creative and inquisitive thinker, and then try to remember how they did it.

posted July 12, 2009

The Crisis Behind The Current Crisis

Wealth is what we want, money is simply a way of moving wealth around. In practice they are usually interchangeable but they are not the same thing. The disadvantage of looking at money as wealth is that it obscures what business really means. People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage – just shorthand for whatever people want. What businesses really do is make wealth – they do something people want. We have lost interest in
creating wealth and real value together.

Global studies confirm that the development of authentic leadership within an organization is the key to greater profitability, productivity and growth. Leaders must master the developmental process in themselves first. This is especially true for leaders who seek to spearhead organizational transformation. Until you are in touch with yourself, you cannot ask others to become conscious of their potential to contribute to an evolving workplace.

Warm regards, Phil

posted July 12, 2009

Octavio:
I have been working with organizations to create "engagement" for years. At its most simplistic I create the following framework:
- Start with a foundation of trust
- Hire people whose values are aligned with the organizations values period.
- Build in the critical elements of respect, responsibility, information, rewards, and loyalty.
I have written several pieces and an entire book on the "elements" of reinforcing those key principles, but at the core those have worked conmsistently for me in multiple industries and over a number of years.
Engagement is built and sustained by trust based relationships not technology or capital.
You also do this over time and with a commitment to your principles. Unfortunately they don't teach this in B school.

posted July 12, 2009

I would imagine this question to be very relevant and top of mind for many organizations. I liked many of the answers and I’d like to add my two key considerations:

1) Work on removing fear and build courage and confidence in people
What will make a difference to engagement and culture in this economic climate is to move away from fear driven behaviours as much as possible. It would be natural for many to be fearful of job loss in this climate, but the consequence of people being fear driven is risk aversion leading to status quo, not innovating, not experimenting, perfectionism potentially leading to analysis paralysis, etc. When leaders can help people build courage and confidence it will make a huge difference in their outlook and approach to work – towards a more engaged, love and passion driven approach.

2) Focus on creating an organization where people can experience and express their values authentically
The other thing to keep in mind is the need to shift our attention away from extrinsic to intrinsic motivators. With tight budgets, extrinsic rewards are clearly not as available as it used to be. I think organizations which used to focus on keeping employees happy with bonuses, rewards such as holidays etc. would struggle now that they cannot provide as much any more. Understanding and creating cultures that tap into the intrinsic motivators of people in the organization is the way to go in this economic climate. This depends somewhat on the core values of the people you have – some are driven by achievement/excellence, some by growth/development, some by cohesion/connection, others by making a difference/purposefulness, for example (Values centre model helps us understand these). The key for leaders is to create an organization where people can experience and express some of these values authentically. That’s when you will have people wanting to come to work and give more than their best (ie. Engagement).

Both of the above requires a lot of internal development of both formal and informal leaders. Raising the level of consciousness that leaders are operating from will raise the organisation’s collective consciousness. (David Hawkins’ Power vs Force is what I’m thinking of.)

Links:

• http://www.valuescentre.com/
• http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php?cPath=47_48&products_id=147

posted July 13, 2009

Treat people with respect, earn their trust and never make them feel like they're just lucky to have a job during these challenging times. This is the time to build quality relationships, because you can't afford to pay more. Ride it out, share the truth and stay optimistic.

posted July 14, 2009

Hi Octavio!

That's a really big question and my answers are usually pretty short.

Few points about distressed organizations:

1 - At all times, but especially during a downturn - employees need to know how the company is doing financially. If your people don't know your sales and profit trends then something is really wrong. This minimizes the shock when you have to make cuts and gives workers an opportunity to help turn things around. I am amazed at how many companies still have not figured this out.

2 - Make sure everybody in your organization clearly understands the company's mission and what values or behaviors you expect each employee to address. Applaud, reward and promote those that demonstrate these values. Weed out the ones that don't.

3. Make sure everybody knows there place. I'm not talking about the org chart here, I'm referring a policy of stratification where each employee knows they are in the top, middle or bottom of their peer group. Allocate more of everything to the top. Train and mentor the middle with clear guidelines as to how they can move up. Don't waste your time or other resources on the bottom. Give them six months to a year to find another job. This is a much better solution that firing suddenly or worse just ignoring the problem.

4. My last point is the most important. Turnarounds and managing crisis are a team sport. No matter how bad things get, keep all your employees involved in the solution. Make decisions openly. Communicate constantly. Let them know the score. Keep everybody smiling and enjoying their work no matter how tough it gets.

posted July 15, 2009

Employee Engagement is one of the key drivers to overcome recession and have a clear path forward, once the good times starts. Employee engagement is very important during recession more so, as it helps the employee to participate in the company bad times, and develop a sense of belonging to the company. This participation ultimately bears fruits when recession is over and company is back with backlog of orders to have them executed. It also helps the employee to thinkthrough in their individual contribution role, and expand the same without any additional overheads to the company

posted July 16, 2009

If you are engaging your employees even during such troubled times, it reassures of your interest in them. They also understand that there is a cost involved in conducting such programs which the company incurs for the benefit of its employees. The employee perception of the company also goes through a change. Employee engagement to me is the overall experience the employee has from being a candidate till the time of exit. It involves his recruitment experience, induction, internal customer experience - training, development, welfare and finally a smooth exit at the time of leaving. If an employee has added value to himself and developed himself he is sure to have contributed to the company's growth.

posted July 17, 2009