Last week I published a blog looking at whether or not employee engagement makes a difference on the bottom line and why there is a certain reluctance to take it seriously. This week I will continue the theme looking at who’s responsibility ‘employee engagement’ should be and how to go about improving/implementing employee engagement within an organisation.
Who’s responsibility do you think ‘engagement’ is anyway?
Well it looks like nearly half of CEO’s view employee engagement as their own responsibility and a mere 13% believing that line and middle managers are chiefly responsible. This clashes with the view of non C-suite senior directors, only 16% of whom saw employee engagement as being the chief responsibility of the CEO.
Research by consultants Hay Group, for example, suggests that up to 30 per cent of variance in business results can be explained simply by differences in the work climate created by line managers.
Unfortunately, only around half of line managers are held accountable for their teams’ engagement levels, a shame because during this time of economic hardship managers are well placed to play a key role in supporting and motivating staff who may have problems outside of work.
Here at C2 Careers we often meet individuals who are looking to make a career change, not because they are ill-matched to their current role, but rather because either they feel that they are not appreciated within their organisation or because they have a bad relationship with their current line manager.
Managers in this way seem to be the missing link between measuring engagement and implementing engagement strategies.
How does an organisation go about engaging employees?
If not already, measure employee engagement through surveys etc. May sound like common sense but is not done in one-third of organisations.
Link engagement to business outcomes. In other words engaging employees can and does have an effect on the bottom line! These are not two independent variables, however roughly half of businesses seem to think they are. According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, barely more than 1 in 10 (of top executives and board members) say that their companies regularly take action to tackle staff with continually low engagement.
Invest in your Line Managers. These are the people in the position to drive employee engagement, give them the training to do this well. “What if executives’ bonus pay-out were dependent on achieving a certain level of employee engagement?” asks Michael Moran: CEO of Fairplace.
Have a clear communication strategy. You as a business market yourself to the outside world, why not to the inside as well? Be clear what your objectives/strategies are and have everyone clear about which direction to face. Listen to your employees also helps bring them on board. This method is specifically worth thinking about as it is a good ways of improving engagement at a low financial cost.
When we at C2 Careers deal with clients who have been made redundant from a restructuring process. we often find they are highly frustrated not necessarily because of the restructuring process itself but rather because it was carried out without any input from them. This kind of one-way-street communication can and does have a big impact on engagement, not only for those who are loosing their jobs, but also on those left behind. For an interesting article on this issue, click here
“It’s a long journey and there are no short cuts. You have to put in the resources, allow staff the time to fill in surveys and attend focus groups, do all the necessary training, coaching and communication. What’s vital is that you actually go out and act on the feedback,” according to the director of colleague engagement at Sainsbury’s: Jacki Connor. This according to her has had a palpable impact of the bottom line. “In our case, if a store is scoring well on our employee survey ‘Talkback’, it will also very likely be achieving high mystery shopping scores, which means well-run, and customer-focused stores boosting sales.”
