Are Your Employees Involved in Your Employee Engagement Efforts?

It’s no big secret, we live in a fast paced, ever changing world driven by technology and innovation. Technology is all around us and has been incorporated in almost every aspect of our lives. Companies all around the world are constantly investing copious amounts of money in new technology and/or upgrading existing assets to make them faster and more efficient. Technology is a commodity that is becoming more affordable and accessible to everyone.  Thus, its impact on an organization’s competitive advantage is diminishing every day. However, when was the last time you made a serious investment in the people within your organization, the ones who utilize your technology and serve your customers?

What will give you a competitive advantage in the years to come?  -PEOPLE

As the world continues to evolve, companies and organizations will continually expect more out of their people. Therefore, an organization’s competitive advantage will stem from maximizing the contribution of employees. This in turn will require an investment and conscious effort towards greater levels of employee engagement.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is more than a management metric or score tallied through surveys. Although many different definitions exist, it’s best described by the results it produces – higher levels of performance, productivity, commitment, retention of effective and engaged employees, and willingness to go beyond the call of duty. This is achieved through a strong connection employees feel towards their work along with the organization’s vision and goals. In other words, rendering their work more meaningful and intrinsically rewarding.

Who is responsible for employee engagement?

Should managers be responsible to engage employees or should employees be responsible to engage themselves? It is easy to think that employee engagement is the sole responsibility of management. However, employee engagement is about your employees and how they view, share and align themselves to the values, vision and purpose of the organization. Forging a personal and emotional connection and commitment towards one’s work is simply a choice controlled by each employee. Nevertheless, management and leadership play a key role in providing an effective framework and facilitating the alignment process, leading to stronger connections between employees and their work. Therefore, the responsibility of employee engagement falls on the shoulders of every member of the organization and thus, management must involve their employees if they want to achieve any real long-term results.

How do you increase employee engagement?

You can’t force someone to be engaged nor is it a desired set of results you can simply buy or expect from your employees. Any effort to improve employee engagement without involving employees at all levels of the organization will simply suppress engagement and strip employees of their control over the connection they have with their work. That being said, the personal connection requires a supportive framework, which is created and sustained by management. Therefore, employee engagement is achieved through the creation of a supportive framework and employee development.

The specifics of the framework will be as unique as the people who make your organization. However, a supportive framework will require a culture geared towards building trust and loyalty through open communication, active coaching and the development of personal leadership. The intent is to empower employees to take ownership of their career development in addition to maintaining the culture and levels of employee engagement. This in turn, will forge a dynasty of long-term high performance. In order to encourage greater employee alignment, the organization’s goals, vision and expectations must be clearly articulated to develop mutual and beneficial understanding throughout the organization. Thus, within this framework, managers and leaders are coaches and champions of communication. Organizations must evolve to involve their employees in their efforts of increasing employee engagement and establish intentional hiring practices taking into account alignment with the established framework.

Once the framework has been established, managers must shift their focus towards empowering employees to not only take ownership of their career development but of forging positive connections with their work and working environment. This is achieved through guided self-exploration and reflection in order to increase awareness of personal and unique career needs and wants in order to learn how to align them with the organization’s needs and wants. Higher awareness enables employees to better understand the internal factors required to unleash the forces that contribute to their success and maximizes their contributions in the workplace. Thus, empowering employees to seek out and create opportunities for their unique abilities in addition to transfer or learn new skills leading to higher levels of performance contributors, such as critical thought, innovation and passion.

Can we afford not to invest in employee engagement?

The reality of the current economic landscape limits employee counts within an organization. So the question is, can we afford to have or retain lower contribution levels from disengaged employees? In my view, no. It’s time we unleash the power of people.

Written by Robert Presley

Consultant, Coach, Facilitator and Speaker with Legacy Bowes Group

He may be reached at robert@legacybowes.com or (204) 934-8838