Beyond Employee Engagement
In today's business environment, there is one question that seems to create confusion..."Is the level of engagement from my employees enough to keep them from leaving?" There is ample data that suggests that a highly engaged workforce is a productive and happy one. But is employee engagement really enough these days to retain great talent?
First thing's first: it's a general consensus that consistent employee communications, great benefits and effective management are among the top reasons employees stay engaged and employed. Where "bad management" has been a prime focus of negative engagement and overall turnover, I don't believe it's the main reason people leave. A contributing factor, maybe, but the sole reason? No.
Thinking beyond engagement is the key to successful retention and productivity within your organization. Today, I'll drill down into what a positive employee culture could look like as well as a few actions you can take to elevate your "people experience".
Create a business partnership culture - In the industrial era, companies and factories benefited from environments with a high level of "command-and-control" work, (i.e. ensure employees produced the exact same thing over and over again), which made sense for the time. Today, companies need to ask employees to be agile, collaborative and innovative, be receptive to having more voices present at the decision-making table, and allow for great out-of-the-box ideas to be tested. It's critical to remember that there’s nothing wrong with shifting how you do business. More importantly, it's the change (if managed correctly) that will set your company apart and drive an overall improved level of people experience. Doing so also requires a shift in how you interact with your employees — a steady move away from the top-down approach and more toward building partnerships.
Create a company of business "owners" - The truth is, everyone is a business owner. Each individual is delivering a service or product to someone who is paying for that service or product. Setting people up to view their work as their own business will empower them to take charge of their future and approach their work more proactively. Just because the overhead and customer base is controlled by a larger company doesn’t mean they aren’t in charge of driving success. This kind of entrepreneurial thinking invites employees to be stronger partners with their own managers and team members, and take accountability to their own personal success. After all, if they are business owners, their managers are their key clients instead of simply order-givers.
Engage holistically - Involve your employees in problem-solving and decision-making based on who has the freshest perspective and deepest insight into an issue rather than who has the right title or position. This approach starts to dissolve the silos that occur when departments focus only on their area of responsibility or when leadership becomes disconnected from the realities of the day-to-day business. Encouraging cross-functional teamwork creates a more diverse and innovative knowledge base for the company. In turn, the people who work for the company feel connected to the bigger picture and are able to generate more holistic solutions to everyday problems.
Align on Performance Management - Data shows that employees care about more than just their own careers, and actually want to play a larger role in helping shape the future of the company they work for. Moving away from the more traditional “reward and punishment” approach to consistent and regular performance management puts the spotlight on how to get good work done . . . together. Be sure your performance management discussions focus on three things:
Creating the right goals
Identifying what’s helping or hindering performance
Improving the effectiveness of the manager-employee relationship
Be sure to draw S.M.A.R.T action plans when developing goals. (Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) This takes some practice, but truly helps the understanding and tracking of success on an ongoing basis. A good rule of thumb is to create a road map of; 1 Mo. / 6 mo./ 1+ year targets to work toward. Be sure to meet regularly to monitor the outcomes and make adjustments when necessary. Keep in mind that acknowledging small wins creates the momentum needed to achieve the greater goal.
Work in "fair trades" vs. rewarding people- This may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s important to move away from the idea that promotions and raises are the only ways to reward good performance. If you don’t banish this traditional view, you’ll never motivate your team members to see themselves as stakeholders vs. employees waiting for that next pat on the back. As a business owner, individuals look to find opportunities for fair trades; that is, getting something in return for innovative thinking or extraordinary effort. This can look like:
• Delivering a result to get access to work that better aligns with their goals
• Partnering with others to gain buy-in for change efforts that help make work easier
• Taking on expanded responsibilities for increased pay and/or access to more resources to do the job
The idea is that instead of employees constantly chasing a promotion to mark their loyalty or hard work, they now view positions as either helping or hurting them deliver on business priorities of the company, as well as build on their own "business." This approach is especially effective in flat or matrix organizations.
Creating a modern workplace experience doesn’t necessarily come with a huge price tag. Yes, updating technology to keep pace with the demands of the work can be costly, and keeping in-line with current benefit trends to stay relative is important, but the majority of what drives awesome employee engagement derives from the cultural norms around how employees are viewed and valued as partners.
All of these ideas and approaches won't change a business overnight. Truly committing to an improved and modernized employee ethos takes real action, with outcomes paying in dividends when done authentically. Let's face it, your people are spending as much time (if not more) at work than at home, so why not make it even more rewarding?