Comments

Love is the answer in our organisation & ALWAYS has been - we love to recognise our wonderful associates. Love,

Posted by Contraire at February 17, 2009 8:25 PM

Thanks for the good post. I agree that an engaged workforce is the most important factor in business success. But it's easy to focus on the tasks rather than the people. Thanks for the reminder.

Posted by Mike Henry at February 17, 2009 8:48 PM

Ruth,

Well done on your first post, if I read that right. As you reported, there are pockets, albeit few, of employees that are engaged. As you also reported, many employees are merely running for their lives right now. I believe, at least based on my experience, that productivity is at an all time low in the organization I work for. There are many closed doors and several front line employees just wonder when it's their turn to pack up and go. The reassurance or confidence from management is lacking.

The funny, yet ironic thing is, management continues to try and engage the workforce with hokey department meetings and corporate nonsense. Many of these hokey meetings discuss how employees need to be more committed than ever to the cause of big business, when two days later they're cutting another 15% of the labor. I also believe that if managers were tossed out dollar for dollar with wage earners, front line employees (the ones that matter), would have more engagement in the betterment of a company.

You bring up a good question and I've had great success vetting out issues with my English friends over the past several months over the net. Keep up the posts and try not to get weighed down in data that really becomes overwhelming with regard to "what employees are experiencing". The best way for me to tell is to go into a coffee shop, department store, or attempt to get service on-line. I'm happy to report that a Canadian with Apple (Mac) provided me with some great computer service today. Even though I was vague in trying to explain my computer's hiccup, she knew what the problem was and gave me the solution to fix the issue. She was pleasant, intelligent, and a pleasure to work with...I almost forgot the world was in the midst of a recession while working with her.

Posted by Candy Man at February 17, 2009 9:25 PM

It's very easy for cynicism to take over and sap engagement, when people are seeing their company lay people off and cut benefits. Being forced to do more with less, organizations throw engagement out the window and settle for firefighting prowess.

I think, like you say, the real secret to engagement begins in the relationship between managers and direct reports. If you can somehow extend that into engagement at a corporate level that's great, but just building a strong set of connections among individual teams is challenging enough these days.

I was discussing just this topic earlier today with several other individuals at EMC. How do you build a chain of respect from both the bottom up and the top down? It's tougher today than ever.

Posted by Dave Spencer at February 17, 2009 9:40 PM

Ruth, if you haven't seen this TED talk by Barry Schwartz, you will find it very relevant.

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html

Posted by RobCH at February 18, 2009 2:05 AM

Ruth – congratulations from a fellow Brit on your excellent first post. I hope there will be more and I love the spelling of course Cathy :-)

This is a subject very close to my heart. I have been plugging away for years about the bottom line value-added importance of engaging with and valuing front liners. Frankly I don't understand why we don’t understand this. It is so simple. The front line is where the work is done and where the value is added. Our leaders who are hidden away in comfortable offices at HMS “Corporate HQ Comfort Zone” are missing so much to enrich their working lives. I recently travelled on a Virgin train and was told by the young man running the train shop that Sir Richard Branson regularly appears on the train to talk and listen to his employees and indeed the customers. He also said Sir Richard serves the tea and coffees. The young man said he found it easier to talk to Sir Richard than he did his line manager. I am totally with Candy Man that we can very easily over complicate this issue with data and numbers – it’s far too simple for complex wordy reports – Talking and listening to your workers - you either get it or you don’t surely?

A front line worker in healthcare recently said to me hearing is a function of the ear and listening is a function of the brain – I like that.

'Part engagement' of employees at the front line is like saying you are half pregnant in my opinion. Engagement with workers is cultural in good organisations in my experience … and in poor organisations engagement is given lip service and is a box ticking exercise. There can be no in-between. ‘No surprises’ is the culture of good organisations in my opinion. I had a friend who was recently told over the phone that he was no longer required and a month later he still had no explanation of why he was not required. He is now working for another company where he feels valued and is OK about working for less money because he feels valued again. It’s a no brainer and I fail to see the problem in engaging employees – I can only assume it is about pretentiousness – and arrogance – two of my pet hates.

Posted by Trevor Gay at February 18, 2009 3:25 AM

How refreshing to read an article with no spelling mistakes (lol)!

However, before somebody else points out a slight error, even in the UK a manager isn't a manger although "dog in a manger" applies to more than a few managers.

Posted by Stuart Jones at February 18, 2009 3:28 AM

This is a big challenge - especially as savvy employees are going to try to appear to be engaged right now even if they are not.

I agree with candyman - I hate the "it's important that we all remain focussed right now" type messages. Symptom bashing at it's worst.

It's at times like these that managers need to look at their core values and treat people as decently and honestly as they can.

It can be a challenge for managers too. Often the best managers (I am talking front line here) are the ones with genuine desire to do the right things - they are the ones who have to look people in the eye during the day and at the same time have meetings which are discussing the future of some behind closed doors - also knowing full well that their own fate is being decided in a similar process.

If you can do all that without batting an eye and carrying on as business as usual then, frankly I wouldn't want to be managed by you.

Obviously that doesn't mean that a leader can simply fall to pieces and true leaderhip is about rising above that. There is no doubt in my mind though that people will give genuine leaders a great deal of leeway, respect and understanding in difficult times. Like a brand much of that respect is built in the good times.

Posted by PaulH at February 18, 2009 3:35 AM

Thanks for the responses.
On reading through them, the concepts of authenticity, love, care, values, courage, relationships and from Barry Schwartz (thanks for the link) moral wisdom, made we question what is meant by the term ‘employee engagement’.. it does not seem to capture the essence of the words. Then I went on to thinking what term would I use; I have ‘creating a workplace ‘community’’ in my mind…

I do get the sense that many managers are trying to do the right things; trying to engage with the people they work alongside, and it just isn’t working for them. Maybe one of the issues is that managers are trying to implement new processes on existing ways of working. If we help the conversations go beyond the term ‘how do we engage employees’ to 'how can we create our workplace community'; maybe we can encourage people to move beyond implementing processes (meetings and employee surveys) to explore the underlying values different people have in different workplace communities and how they can work together.

Maybe it would help managers to pay attention to who, and what, they are being, while they are doing what they are doing; encouraging co-creating a way of working.

Posted by Ruth Smith at February 18, 2009 6:16 AM

Ruth, someone said that not many people go to work thinking "how can I screw up the company?". I suggest the natural human default is engagement, or at least a wish for it, and management then makes a pig's ear of it all. So one question might be: what on earth are we doing that DISengages staff? And then stop it.

Posted by RobCH at February 18, 2009 6:26 AM

Ruth - much of the current recession is simply flawed business models playing out - employees must also engage themselves in reality. 21% of USA GDP was the flawed financial model (thankfully shrinking fast); 16% flawed healthcare (& growing). 70% of the USA model was consumption driven - shrinking back to reality.

2002-06 we added 100M square feet of retail space each year - whoops - now most job losses are retail & consumption driven.

Does the employee have any reality check need to say "hey - I am in a flawed model - I must save & invest because layoffs are part of the process?"

The UK is hit hardest in all of Europe in this recession - why is that? Maybe employees need to engage themselves - say "I'm smart & know how to be a valued free agent - if engagement comes that is a benefit - meanwhile I create family wealth 1st."

Posted by Contraire at February 18, 2009 6:42 AM

Employee engagement is a two way street. I agree that organizational leadership and management have an important role in setting the stage and enabling this type of activity or emotion, depending on your point of view. However, what responsibility does the individual employee have? Assuming that an employee that is not engaged is the fault of the organization seems to be an over simplification. Employees that are not engaged should take responsibility and move on to another job or employer. To stay and spoil the batch with cynicism and attitude only creates more disengagement. Kind of like the media, I think that I am happy and doing well until the media tells me that life is terrible and the depression is just around the corner. So my question to you is; are you doing everything to enable the engagement or waiting for some memo or survey to tell you that you are now free to engage.

Posted by RTodd at February 18, 2009 6:56 AM

While it is essential to support employee engagement for all the reasons you cite from your work Ruth, in truth corporate leaders have given this issue far more "lip service" than action. When tough times arise, the knee-jerk reaction is to downsize the company and lay-off staff, showcasing the absence of employer engagement (loyalty) between employers and employees. Add in elimination of employer sponsored benefits and retirement plans, inept managers and it's no wonder employees are disengaged. While we must also pay attention to the people who are staying in the business, it will be exponentially more difficult to engage them. They will surely be overwhelmed trying to keep up with their own work in addition to picking up the work left behind by those now standing in unemployment lines. It's corporate folly at its finest.

Posted by Kerry Stackpole at February 18, 2009 9:15 AM

I think the problem is that corporate loyalty no longer exists (on both sides). The modern work force is perhaps more brand you.

Therefore the most effective thing a line manager can do is not to try and build the model corporate drone but to coach and develop the brand you in the employee - helping them to understand their talents, abilities and potential and prepapre them for thier next role which may be outside of the comapny.

The loyalty asect ironically is often much more to the line manager than the company. The employee is enagaged because they are gaining experience etc that prepapres them for challenges (which may include loosing their job) rather than prepares them to continue their job ad nausium

Posted by PaulH at February 18, 2009 9:46 AM

I agree that employee engagement is key to success, I have experienced both highly engaged and non-engaged employees over the years. I have to struggle with this everyday as a small company owner for a highly stressful service industry. As a small business owner I am very involved with a fair amount all of my staff day to day. I believe that from my observations over the past 20 years that true engagement comes from within the individual. People who feel responsible for their own lives and happiness tend to be engaged in whatever they do. Those who are looking for someone to tell them what they are supposed to think, feel, do, each day, get disconnected because they don't take, or know how to take responsibility for themselves. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that a company cannot make you feel a part of something. What I am saying is that one must have the will or the tendency to be that person who really cares about what they do each day. Business is tough everyday, and getting tougher. I am not so sure that an organization working hard to be the staff's mommy and daddy is is actually going to change people into engaged team members. My question is how can we shift from a society of people who expect a company to engage them, to being a society of people who strive to fit in and be happy in a given circumstance? And if they are not, they change the circumstance. Why have we given up trying to be masters of our own destiny?

Posted by Ken Ribotsky at February 18, 2009 11:04 AM

stuart,
thanks for the eagle-eye pickup of the man(a)ger typo.

-erik

Posted by erik at February 18, 2009 12:08 PM

Great article Ruth. It appears that whether it's a large global organization or small company we all suffer with the same issues -- how to engage employees? I like the comment that no one goes to work planning to do a bad job. At least we hope not. However, with all the information coming at us today, it's easy to feel anonymous. The challenge is to make people feel their opinion counts and figure out a way to back this up.

We're attempting a blog pilot to test how well these might work. Rather than top down messaging, I'm hoping a more informal 'water cooler' type chat that will get people to open up and begin a two way dialoge to share ideas. This I believe is a good first step for us on attempting to 'engage' employees.

That said, anyone have any information on key drivers for engagement specific to IT?

Posted by Candace at February 18, 2009 5:54 PM

The C Love organisation in this time of radical downturn - engages early & often with: "... you are fired ... and not only that but right now security is going to haul your subprime, lazy backside out & kick you to the curb - how dare you try to bankrupt merry olde England with your hooligan ways ..."

Once we have put the fear of the Almighty in our associates/minions - so they know any minute they may be suddenly dispatched from our esteemed organisation - then we have reached 100% engagement. Love & a pint of Cool Ade to you all,

Posted by Contraire at February 18, 2009 7:52 PM

thx..

Posted by adam at February 18, 2009 11:17 PM

Ruth keep up the spelling without a zeeee

Posted by Patrick at February 19, 2009 2:54 AM

Totally agree patrick and if Ruth can also fit into one of her entries that the study of maths is a plural that would be fab too :-)

Posted by PaulH at February 19, 2009 4:37 AM

PaulH makes some great points about the changing nature of the bond between employer and employee. I agree that for many companies/organisations the unspoken promise (we'll offer you a secure job in return for moderate wages, if you keep your nose clean) has been well and truly torn up. In some cases, that is a massive betrayal, and employees are angry about it. It's not surprising that there is a lot of disengagement around!

Developing the Brand You mentality would certainly be an alternative approach, and one that some leaders are applying. But in my experience, Brand You is definitely a double edged sword. If an employee learns to take responsibility for their own work life development, what do you know, they raise their expectations of their work, and begin to make demands.

So, for leaders who decide to adopt the BY approach, be ready for a completely different relationship with your people. Altogether more adult, but therefore altogether more challenging AND rewarding.

Posted by Madeleine at February 19, 2009 6:11 AM

Totally agree Madelaine. If the employee raises their expectation thats great - you also have an honest conversation with them about raising their value to the org if they want to demand stuff. The odd thing is that the more yo develop people and try to push them away the more they stick around (in an engaged sense)

Posted by PaulH at February 19, 2009 6:17 AM

PaulH Agreed with a Degree in Maths it has always sent me Bonkers! patrick

Posted by patrick at February 19, 2009 7:36 AM

I know a few people who 'left the company' years ago- raise the cynical eyebrow at the newest management edict, stuff the 25-years-with-the-company plaque in the closet unopened kind of disengagement- and yet are still passionate about their clients.

From their rants I gather it's miscommunication- management talks to them in numbers and they talk to management in customer service.

Posted by Lois Gory at February 19, 2009 2:36 PM

A lot of companies also seem to forget that freelancers and independent contract staff are some of their most valuable employees.

http://thejaminthemiddle.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/engaging-contract-staffengaging-contract-staff/

Posted by Gary at February 19, 2009 3:25 PM

Dear Ruth,

Japanese anthropologist Jiro Tanaka spent three years living with the San hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari Desert, a group of human beings living the old way--the way our ancestors lived during the last ice age. The employee engagement best-practices you describe in your post resemble the egalitarian leadership policies of the San.

In San societies leadership is a fluid concept. There are not leaders per se, but there are individuals who are respected for their exceptional skill within certain domains, such as hunting, tracking, textile-making, tool-making, etc. The opinions of these experts carry additional weight and they often guide decision-making within their domain of expertise. Here is a brief excerpt from Tanaka's book.

"A great bowman who is young and sturdy may become respected as a famous hunter, and his opinion in hunting matters will carry much weight. There are also people skilled at incantations to cure illnesses, or at making tools, or at storytelling, and while they do not become specialists, they do take a leading position in activities in their sphere of ability and receive prestige.

There are, then, experts who take a leading role in various phases of daily life, and people who can bring the group together, solve problems, and settle disputes in certain situations. These people play an important part in the workings of the society; they become leaders, however, only in those particular situations or contexts, and in no way does anyone function as a “chief” who could regulate the whole society.

The words of these individuals definitely carry weight in the areas of their prestige, but only as nonbinding suggestions, and there is no compulsion to follow these suggestions. The major decisions in the social life of the San are taken at the “conferences” in which anyone living in the camp may participate."

We can’t physically go back to our lost hunter-gatherer habitat, but we can incorporate elements of our lost lifestyle to make the modern workplace more productive, rewarding and human-friendly. I call this better-way "natural management."

Human beings are designed to be self managing, self organizing and self motivated without the need for a thick rule book or an army of overseers when they are embedded within committed and tightly-bonded workgroups. Companies that recreate this sort of natural, low-bureaucracy, low-oversight ecosystem, I suggest, unleash human potential instead of stifling it.

The basic tenant behind this back-to-the-basics approach is remarkably simple--align the workplace with human nature and thereby hit the high-productivity sweet-spot inherent within our psychological makeup.

I describe this back-to-the-basics approach in my upcoming book, "Primal Management (www.primalmanagement.com)."

I intend to start a natural-management revolution. Traditional, hierarchical, command-and-control management is unfit for the tumultuous, 21st-Century global economy where companies need to be nimble and innovative. It produces a world where only 29% of employees care about their work (Gallup). Traditional command-and-control management is like a lumbering dinosaur and it has got to go!

President Obama suggested we extricate ourselves from the current financial crisis by looking back to the values of our founding fathers. I suggest that we look even further back and emulate, at least to some degree, the intensely bonded, egalitarian lifestyles of our ice-age ancestors. If you would like to explore the natural-management concept, just send me an email (peherr@primalmanagement.com), and I will send you some chapters to preview. This offer goes for anybody who is interested.

Best,

Paul Herr

Posted by Paul Herr at February 21, 2009 12:33 PM

Outstanding Paul - and simplicity is at the root of what you say. I have always had great faith in front liners who actually don’t need to be constrained. They need to be set free. Why do we still create silly and pointless management hierarchies where we put people into boxes instead of letting people free to express themselves? In the words of the great song "When will they ever learn?" The great leaders provide guidance, support and ‘being there’ but they are not shouting from the rooftops how good they are – and they certainly know how to let go of the stuff they are not good at. Good luck with your writing.

Posted by Trevor Gay at February 21, 2009 4:07 PM

Candace, if you're still checking in... When it comes to engagement I always think of "commitment vs. compliance." And that of course means finding a way to give people ownership of the work. If they feel like the work in question (the project, program, whatever) is THEIR baby you won't have to worry about getting them engaged, especially IT folks. Of course I don't know the specifics so I'm firing in the dark here, but if you can let some of your teams run with this (with just a little guidance from management - and a good meeting facilitator) you might be shocked at the results.

Hey Trevor, we can't go on meeting like this.

Posted by John O'Leary at February 21, 2009 8:36 PM

John. Great comment. I had the pleasure of seeing Marshall Goldsmith live a few months ago(if you ever get the chance take it - a very funny but thought provoking presentation). One of the areas he talked about was how much more you can gain if you resist the urge to improve someone elses idea.

Your improvement of the idea might add 10% to the idea. But you will loose 40% of the other person's motivation to carry out the idea (now that it's not totally theirs). Much better to run with a slightly imperfect idea and get that commitment.

Posted by PaulH at February 23, 2009 6:55 AM

Yes, Paul - I've seen managers who are sponsoring frontline teams bite their lip and let the team run with an idea that the managers KNOW is going to be an expensive mistake in the short term because (a) the manager wants the team to know they own the project and (b) the team learning will exceed the cost of the mistake.

Posted by John O'Leary at February 23, 2009 9:31 PM

Great (and important) post. A few other interesting findings from that report were:

"Despite growing board support for engagement, most employees still feel disengaged from their organisation – board buy-in has not yet, according to employees, been translated into action. Internal measurement lags behind external measures of performance – only 28% of board members claim to use robust internal measures of employee engagement."

These findings fascinate me. This “largest ever UK employee engagement survey” shows clearly show the value of engagement to company performance and the stated commitment of company directors to engagement efforts, yet little follow through on those commitments down to the employee level.

Julie Gebaur, one of the author’s of the Towers Perrin book "Closing the Engagement Gap: How Great Companies Unlock Employee Potential for Superior Results", recently said:

“When a company’s leaders and managers pull the right levers, employees respond with the willingness and ability to go the extra mile to help the company succeed. If the levers aren’t pulled, the potential for engagement lies dormant.”

So if boards believe engagement to be a key priority, but employees don't see it (and there is no real measurement), what this tells me is the levers clearly are not being pulled in many UK organizations. One reason may be that there is little internal measurement of performance. Using the principles of programs such as Six Sigma, what gets measured gets done. For engagement initiatives to actually lead employees to give more discretionary effort – become more engaged – senior leaders need to do more than set engagement as a priority. They must also set the metrics for success in their own organizations.

Getting your employees more fully engaged – willing to give additional discretionary effort to get the job done – is more critical now than ever. To rebuild productivity and win the war between good vs. bad morale companies in this psychological recession will prove to be a strong competitive advantage today and when the market turns.

One clear and positive way to do that is with strategic recognition -- employee recognition efforts that have clear guidelines for frequent recognition of efforts that help achieve the strategic objectives or reflect the company values. These programs must also be measured and reported on, allowing company leaders to see areas in the company where, perhaps, a group is not receiving recognitions in a critical area. Using these lagging indicators, training and reinforcement of messages and objectives can be instituted.

This also gives employees insight into how their daily actions help the company achieve those objectives -- which also helps them become more engaged.

I blog extensively on this topic at the link above for those who may be interested.

Posted by Derek Irvine, Globoforce at February 26, 2009 12:48 PM