Simplified Wellness – Workshop 5 (Elevating Engagement)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Simplified Wellness is provided by Mrs Sciortino Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
If you would like to view the Client Information Hub (CIH) for this program, please Click Here
Learning Provider Profile
Mrs Sciortino is a Certified Learning Provider (CLP) with Appleton Greene. An internationally renowned author, Simplicity Expert and Professional Speaker, she spent almost two decades as a high-functioning, award-winning executive before she experienced a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question: ‘What if there’s a better way to live?’.
Embarking on a journey to answer this question, she uncovered a simple system to challenge the status quo and use the power of questions to purposefully direct life.
A highly accomplished businesswoman, she is an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council, has received nominations for the Top Female Author awards, was awarded a prestigious silver Stevie International Business Women Award, named as the recipient of a 2022 CREA Global Award and has also been awarded over 20 international awards for the uniqueness of the tools and resources she offers.
Sought globally for expert comment by media, she’s been featured in podcasts, Facebook Live, YouTube, blog articles, print media and in live TV and Radio.
She works globally with corporate programs, conference platforms, retreats, professional mentoring and in the online environment to teach people how easy it is to live life in a very different way.
When not working, she can be found in nature, on the yoga mat, lost in a great book, meditating, hanging out with her husband and her house panthers or creating magic in her kitchen.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
Elevating engagement – One of the greatest issues organizations face is the lack of engagement from their workforce in the organization’s strategic goals. The workforce is more disparate than ever before and most people aren’t connected with themselves or their own lives, let alone with the aims of the organization they work for. This module takes you on an adventure into the world of engagement and explores what it is, how you can use it to support your wellness, what effective engagement looks like, how to develop it for yourself, your team and collectively for your organization, and how to create an end goal that develops intrinsic motivation within your teams.
Objectives
01. Engagement Theory: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Engagement Theory in the Workplace: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Types of Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Stages of Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Components of Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. The 5 Cs of Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. The 5 Keys to Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. The 5 Methods of Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. The 6-Step Engagement Cycle
: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Engagement Strategies: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Strategic Engagement Models: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. 4 step Engagement Plans: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
01. Engagement Theory: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Engagement Theory in the Workplace: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Types of Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Stages of Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Components of Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. The 5 Cs of Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. The 5 Keys to Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. The 5 Methods of Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. The 6-Step Engagement Cycle
: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Engagement Strategies: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Strategic Engagement Models: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. 4 step Engagement Plans: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
Tasks
01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Engagement Theory.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Engagement Theory in the Workplace.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Types of Engagement.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Stages of Engagement.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Components of Engagement.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze The 5 Cs of Engagement.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze The 5 Keys to Engagement.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze The 5 Methods of Engagement.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze The 6-Step Engagement Cycle
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10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Engagement Strategies.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Strategic Engagement Models.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze 4 step Engagement Plans.
Introduction
Introduction
The fifth workshop in the Simplified Wellness Program – Elevating Engagement – focuses on understanding the role that engagement theory plays in the workplace.
One of the greatest issues that organizations face is the lack of engagement from their workforce in the organization’s strategic goals.
The workforce is more disparate than ever before and most people aren’t connected with themselves or their own lives, let alone with the aims of the organization they work for.
This module takes you on an adventure into the world of engagement and explores what it is, how you can use it to support your wellness, what effective engagement looks like, how to develop it for yourself, your team and collectively for your organization, and how to create an end goal that develops intrinsic motivation within your teams.
History
The idea of employee engagement is credited to Kahn, who published an article titled “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work” in 1990.
The majority of significant digital companies that provide employee survey platforms still operate on the principles of this academic management theory.
The focus of Kahn’s article was on employee engagement and disengagement in the workplace, specifically on the “harnessing” and “uncoupling” of individuals’ self-identity from their professional duties.
His theory was that employees have aspects of their identities that they like expressing through their job performance and tasks; disengagement is the elimination of that feeling of self in their work lives, which results in work that is “robotic” and devoid of creativity and vitality.
With the creation of specialized 12- to 14-question surveys by analytics businesses like Gallup, employee engagement entered the business world. Census surveys with lengthy question sets (50-100!) quickly followed, including those by Aon Hewitt.
Beginning in the early 2000s, a technological revolution occurred, with businesses like Survey Monkey providing free tools. David Cameron created the “Engage for Success” movement in 2011, which emphasizes the connection between participation and revenue. Employee survey systems are now widely available, with the majority still emphasizing employee involvement.
Current Position
Employee engagement theory is currently in the ‘buzz word’ stage.
It has aroused interest within the scholarly world and is becoming the topic of more and more research studies that are showing the significant impact that having strong employee engagement models in place can have.
As is always the case with new models and theories, there are a number of early adopters of employee engagement models and the results they are showing are promising.
With every employer in every industry competing for a select group of quality talent, organizations are moving to try and find a competitive edge that will not only attract top employees but will make them ‘sticky’ and want to stay.
Employee engagement is on a rapid rise to becoming a ‘must have’ focus in every organization.
The success of your employees, and organization as a whole, depends on measuring and controlling engagement. Employees that are more engaged are happier, more loyal, less likely to miss work, and more productive.
Using their Q12 Engagement Survey, Gallup has tracked engagement levels globally for a number of years and has found that the most crucial elements of engagement are:
• Overall satisfaction
• Knowing what is expected
• Materials and equipment
• Doing what you do best
• Receiving recognition
• Someone caring at work
• Someone encouraging development
• Opinions counting at work
• Mission/purpose
• Commitment to quality work
• Best friend at work
• Talking about progress
• Learning and growing
When organizations get all, or most, of these components right, their workforce will have higher levels of engagement and their business will operate more efficiently.
Outlook
There are now as many definitions of engagement surveys as there are techniques for creating and measuring engagement. It’s challenging to determine which census surveys – long or short, pulse or quarterly – are the most effective.
But the future will require organizations to go further and be much more sincere. Employees are far more savvy than ever before; they know what is possible and they’re determined to find the workplace that can provide them with a culture that aligns with their needs and beliefs.
Organizations will need to be able to prove to their employees that they are committed to developing and maintaining a form of organizational fitness.
This will involve implementing a comprehensive method of evaluating employees’ experiences – from their perceptions of leadership and role fit to how well the organization is doing on inclusion and purpose – and all because we are intimately aware of our people as a competitive advantage.
In this focus area you will look at the ways that being aware of your people gives you a competitive advantage and the things you will need to consistently do well to engage your people.
Executive Summary
The fifth workshop in the Simplified Wellness Program – Elevating Engagement – focuses on understanding the role that engagement theory plays in the workplace.
One of the greatest issues that organizations face is the lack of engagement from their workforce in the organization’s strategic goals.
The workforce is more disparate than ever before and most people aren’t connected with themselves or their own lives, let alone with the aims of the organization they work for.
This module takes you on an adventure into the world of engagement and explores what it is, how you can use it to support your wellness, what effective engagement looks like, how to develop it for yourself, your team and collectively for your organization, and how to create an end goal that develops intrinsic motivation within your teams.
This workshop has 12 focus areas. Here’s what they cover:
Chapter 1: Engagement Theory
Employee engagement theory is the formally accepted notion that organizations may boost employee satisfaction and staff productivity by challenging, assisting, and motivating workers.
According to this hypothesis, businesses with high levels of employee motivation and loyalty gain from employee engagement in the form of less absenteeism and turnover, improved customer satisfaction, higher bottom lines, and more innovation and creativity.
In this focus area you will look at what engagement theory is and why it is important to have it in your organization.
Chapter 2: Engagement Theory in the Workplace
Abraham Maslow and his ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ theory are certainly recognizable to you if you’ve ever worked in management or are a psychologist.
The fulfilment of needs in a particular order, according to Maslow’s theory, determines human mental health and wellbeing. This leads to what Maslow refers to as “self-actualization”, or the capacity of an individual to pursue their own personal development.
In this focus area you will look at how Maslow’s hierarchy applies to the workplace and how you can use it to reveal the type of motivation needed by your workers.
Chapter 3:Types of Engagement
Although “engagement” is a buzz word today, it’s frequently interpreted in the business world as an event rather than a state of being.
This conventional manner of interacting is motivated by a lack of understanding of consumer behavior across all channels, segments, and timeframes. Until recently, transactions were the sole method for an organization to define engagement.
In this focus area you will look at why engagement is a long-term strategy rather than a one-off event.
Chapter 4: Stages of Engagement
Every employee travels a path on their way to total engagement with an organization’s goals and objectives. This path has four stages and each stage increases the level that employees actually care about the work they complete and the organization they work for.
Engaged employees means better wellbeing and performance.
This focus area looks at the four stages of engagement and the emotional connection employers are required to create, develop and maintain.
Chapter 5: Components of Enagement
In today’s cut-throat workforce, motivated employees are a priceless asset.
You are aware that motivated workers are dedicated, passionate, and inspired – and that they motivate others by setting a good example.
However, how can you encourage employee involvement within your own company?
In this focus area you’ll learn about the components of engagement that help you to create an engaged and loyal workforce.
Chapter 6: The 5 Cs of Engagement
It goes without saying that retaining staff is essential to a company’s long-term success. So how do you take a regular staff and turn them into elated brand ambassadors?
Smart businesses continually strive to engage staff members so that they look forward to coming into the office each morning, and they’re aware that motivated employees will contribute to the success and longevity of the business.
In this focus area you’ll see how using the 5Cs can make it easier to create long-term engagement throughout your workforce.
Chapter 7: The 5 Keys to Engagement
Engagement among employees is a significant issue. After all, a disengaged employee is detrimental to that team member’s wellbeing. Additionally, it’s bad for business.
Businesses with engaged employees often have a 21% higher profit margin.
Achieving high levels of employee engagement requires commitment, dedication and attention, but they are essential – especially in a society where workers are stepping into remote and/or hybrid working situations.
In this area you’ll look at the 5 keys to engagement and why they’re important to helping you create engagement over the long-term.
Chapter 8: Methods of Engagement
Engagement among employees can be cognitive, emotional, or physical.
Physical involvement is determined by how hard an employee works at their job. Employees who are physically active see work as a source of vitality.
Employees who are emotionally engaged are enthusiastic about their jobs and have a good outlook on the future.
Employees that are cognitively engaged focus more on and become engrossed in their task.
Whatever the cause, motivated employees are committed to their jobs and perceive how their efforts contribute to the overall mission and success of the university. They also feel a sense of connection to their work.
In this focus area you’ll deep dive into the different methods for creating engagement in the workplace.
Chapter 9: The 6-step Engagement Cycle
Effective employee engagement plans can be implemented through the use of 6 engagement steps.
Utilizing these steps provides you with an opportunity to create an irresistible workplace that your employees with fall in love with.
Creating employee engagement is almost always process driven, but it is driven by the heart of the employee.
In this focus area you’ll look at the different steps in the engagement cycle to better understand how the process works.
Chapter 10: Engagement Strategies
Executives have realized that they need to focus on the entire employee lifecycle in addition to acquisition and recruitment as a result of the emergence and growth of the knowledge economy.
They understand how critical it is to identify workable employee engagement techniques in order to maximize their human capital investment and transform their workforce into high-ROI assets for the company.
Effective employee engagement strategies will enable employees to enhance not only their performance but also the organization as a whole, resulting in greater profitability, better customer retention, improved talent acquisition and retention, lower employee turnover, and a safer workplace.
This boosts the organization’s bottom line and secures its long-term success.
In this focus area you’ll look at the ways that engagement strategies can be created to best suit the needs of your organization.
Chapter 11: Strategic Egagement Models
Strategic engagement models are a plan for increasing an employee’s sense of value, empowerment, and productivity at work.
They serve as the foundation of corporate culture, and entail putting engagement policies into practice and exhibiting the proper managerial and senior leadership behaviors.
Such policies, which span anything from general wellbeing to career prospects, aim to improve an employee’s quality of life at work.
In this focus area you will look at the different types of strategic engagement models and the ways you can use them in your organization.
Chapter 12: 4-step Engagement Plans
What is an employee engagement plan?
A framework for connecting with your employees to help them feel appreciated, trustworthy, and happy at work is provided by an employee engagement plan.
It serves as the foundation for your company culture and influences your management style and workplace policies.
You can improve your efforts by being more strategic and avoiding the launching of individual initiatives that are probably not going to be as effective or significant on their own.
When an appropriate employee engagement model is included in your engagement plan, it promotes a happier and more compassionate work atmosphere, boosts employee satisfaction, and boosts productivity.
In this focus area you’ll understand how using a strategic engagement plan, supported by the most appropriate employee engagement model for your business, properly promotes a happier and more compassionate work atmosphere, boosts employee satisfaction and boosts productivity.
Curriculum
Simplified Wellness – Workshop 5 – Elevating Engagement
- Engagement Theory
- Engagement Theory in the Workplace
- Types of Engagement
- Stages of Engagement
- Components of Engagement
- The 5 Cs of Engagement
- The 5 Keys to Engagement
- The 5 Methods of Engagement
- The 6-Step Engagement Cycle
- Engagement Strategies
- Strategic Engagement Models
- 4 step Engagement Plans
Distance Learning
Introduction
Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling in the Simplified Wellness corporate training program.
You will be learning using our special distance learning facilitation approach, which will allow you to put everything you learn in school into practice. The techniques and resources used in your program have been created and developed to guarantee that you get the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible.
We hope you enjoy the curriculum and find it both thought provoking and enjoyable. But if you’ve never studied remotely before, you could be feeling apprehensive about the task at hand. In order to get you started, we will provide you with some fundamental knowledge and instructions on how to use the modules effectively, how to handle the materials, and what to do as you go through them. This manual is intended to put you in the correct path and assist you in developing your skills as a successful distance learner. Before you begin studying seriously, spend a few hours reading this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students and taking notes.
Study environment
To study, it’s often best to choose a space that is both private and peaceful. Preferably, this should be a room where you have easy access to isolation from outside distractions. Make sure the space is well-lit and has a relaxed, inviting atmosphere. Doing this will give you the opportunity to create the right frame of mind when you do spend time to studying.
A lovely fire, the option to play calming background music, mild but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if it’s possible, and a good-sized desk with a comfy chair are a few examples of ways to make your study space more inviting.
Make sure your family is aware of your study schedule and is familiar with your study guidelines. Your learning environment is crucial. If at all feasible, having a separate study area that you can dedicate to yourself is great. If this is not possible, you will need to devote much more time to creating and maintaining your study plan because it will have an impact on both you and other people. The more attuned to learning you space is, the more easily you will be able to study.
Study tools & rules
Make an effort to ensure that your study materials are adequate and in good operating condition. You will require access to a computer, scanner, and printer as well as internet connectivity. You will require a good filing system in addition to a comfortable chair that supports your lower back.
Spending valuable study time trying to remedy unreliable or improperly designed study tools can be highly irritating. Make sure your study aids are current. You should also take a few study guidelines into account. You will be subject to some of these guidelines, which are meant to help you be more organized about when and how you study.
After reading this guide to distance learning, spend some time creating your study rules. You will also need to come to an agreement with your family, friends, or anyone living with you over some study guidelines. To be able to help you as you study, they too will need to practice discipline. It’s crucial to include your family and friends as active participants in your study group. Their encouragement and support may prove to be a vital factor in your ability to successfully complete the program.
Successful distance-learning
Since individuals can learn in their own way, at their own pace, and for their own purposes, distance learners are not required to attend regular classes or seminars.
But with a distant learning program, unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s job to make sure they manage their own study contribution.
Strong self-discipline, self-motivation, and a strong will to achieve are required for this. Students who prefer working alone, are adept at managing others, and are accustomed to controlling themselves are more likely to succeed as distance learners.
It’s crucial to understand your primary motivations for studying as well as the primary outcomes you hope to obtain as a result. When you need to encourage yourself, you will need to keep these goals in mind.
Keep both your short-term and long-term objectives in mind at all times.
You will need to find ways to motivate and appreciate yourself while you are studying because no one is here to spoil, take care of, or spoon-feed you information. Make sure to keep track of your academic progress so that you can be confident in your accomplishments and periodically review your goals and objectives.
Self-assessment
All of the Appleton Greene training programs are post-graduate degrees. Consequently, you ought to be a seasoned learner with a degree in a business-related field.
As a result, you ought to be aware of your academic talents and shortcomings. What time of day, for instance, are you most productive? Are you an owl or a lark? Which research techniques do you find most effective? Are you a diligent student? How do you maintain self-control? How can you make sure you have fun while studying?
If you want to apply yourself effectively, it’s crucial to understand who you are as a student. To do this, you’ll need to do some self-evaluation early on.
Make a SWOT analysis of your academic career. Describe your internal and external opportunities and threats, as well as your strengths and shortcomings as a student.
Later on, when you are making a study plan, this will be useful. Then, you can include elements in your study schedule to make sure you are playing to your strengths and making up for your inadequacies. Additionally, you can make sure that you take full use of your possibilities while avoiding any dangers to your success.
Accepting responsibility as a student
Training programs almost always entail a sizable investment, both in terms of money and the amount of time you must devote to studying, and the student bears the entire burden of responsibility for their effective completion.
This is never more obvious than when a student is taking a course remotely.
A crucial step in ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program is accepting responsibility as a student. When anything goes wrong, it is simple to point the finger at other people or situations. However, the reality is that if a failure is your fault, you have the power to correct it; the decision rests totally with you.
You are helpless to change the situation if it is always someone else’s fault. Due to the fact that each student is an individual and that what works for one student may not necessarily work for another, every student studies in a completely different manner.
You must take personal responsibility for figuring out how to create, carry out, and maintain a personalized study plan if you want to succeed. You are the only one to blame if you don’t succeed.
Planning
The sense of not being in control is by far the most important factor contributing to stress. Without planning, we have a tendency to be reactive and can stumble from one obstacle to another, hoping that all will work out in the end. Almost always, they don’t!
We must be certain of the steps we want to take and when we want to take them in order to be in charge. Additionally, we must take into account as many potential outcomes as we can so that we are ready for them when they occur.
Compared to emergent change, prescriptive change is much simpler to govern and control.
This also applies to distance learning. If you believe that you are in charge and that everything is going according to plan, it is much simpler and more fun.
Even if something does go wrong, you are ready for it and can respond to it without being overly stressed. It is crucial that you do take the time to carefully plan your academic schedule.
Management
It is equally crucial to make sure you oversee its implementation once you have created a clear study plan.
The majority of us often enjoy planning, but implementation is usually when things go wrong. We don’t know why goals aren’t being met.
At times, we are unsure even if our goals have been reached. We cannot simply draw the conclusion that the study strategy was unsuccessful. If it isn’t working, you’ll need to know what to do to fix it.
Similarly, even if your study strategy is working, you still need to know why so that you can keep getting results.
Therefore, you need to have self-assessment criteria so that you can consistently increase performance throughout the program. Your performance should continue to advance throughout the program if you handle things properly.
Study objectives & tasks
Creating your program objectives is where you should start first. These should feature your priorities and reasons for enrolling in the training program.
To avoid confusion, keep them brief and to the point. Don’t just jot down the first ideas that occur to mind because they probably overlap too much.
List potential department names like “customer service,” “e-business,” “finance,” “globalization,” “human resources,” “technology,” “legal,” “management,” “marketing,” and “production.” List as many goals under each heading as possible to generate ideas, and then rearrange these goals according to importance.
Finally, identify the most important item under each department heading to serve as your program’s goals.
Try to limit yourself to five, as doing so will help you concentrate. If the main goals are all accomplished, it is likely that the other items you stated will be as well. Simply go through the procedure once more if this is not the case.
Study forecast
Depending on your availability and ongoing obligations, the Appleton Greene Simplified Wellness corporate training program should be finished in 12 to 18 months.
Whilst the program is designed to be completed in a 12-month period, every student is an individual with varying commitments and production levels, which accounts for the wide variation in time estimations.
The fact that this is a distance learning program that integrates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program then magnifies these distinctions. Because every project study is based on actual data, crucial choices and trade-offs must be made. To guarantee that everything goes according to plan, you’ll need to be patient with your expectations. We would always advise you to use caution when making your own task and time estimates, but you must still create them and have a good understanding of what are reasonable expectations in your particular situation.
Regarding your time planning, think about how much time you can realistically devote to studying with the program each week. Then, using the guidelines provided here, estimate how long it should take you to complete the program. Finally, divide the program into logical modules and allot an appropriate amount of time to each one; these will be your milestones. You can make a time plan using a computer spreadsheet or a personal organizer like Mimio.
Refer to your list of tasks that must be completed in order to meet your program’s objectives when planning your tasks; Calculate each task’s implementation date in relation to your time plan, keeping in mind that you are not estimating when your objectives will be met but rather when you will need to concentrate on implementing the corresponding tasks.
You also need to make sure that each task is carried out in conjunction with the relevant training modules that are associated with it. the next step is to divide each activity into a list of particular to-dos, say 10 for each task, and add these to your study plan; Once more, you might create your study plan using MS Outlook to include your time and task management.
You could also use a project management tool like MS Project. Now that you know when you can anticipate being able to take action to complete the tasks necessary to fulfil your program objectives, you should have a clear and realistic prediction.
Performance management
Creating a study forecast is one thing, but tracking your progress is quite another.
In the end, it matters less if you meet your initial research forecast than how frequently you revise it to keep it reasonable and in line with your performance.
You will have a better understanding of your own performance and productivity levels as a distance learner as you progress through the program. You should reevaluate your study forecast after finishing your first study module so that it accurately reflects the amount of achievement you really accomplished.
You must first time yourself while practicing by utilizing an alarm clock in order to achieve this. Set the alarm for hourly intervals, and then record your progress throughout the course of each hour. After that, you can record your actual performance on your study plan and compare it to your forecast.
Then, whether they were good or bad, think about the factors that led to your performance level and thoughtfully change your future forecasts as a result. With time, you ought to begin routinely hitting your forecasts.
Time yourself while you are studying and record the actual time taken in your study plan. Think about your time-efficiency successes and the reasons for each success when reviewing future time planning. Think about your time-efficiency failures and the reasons for each failure when reviewing future time planning. Re-evaluate your study strategy.
You must consistently manage your time otherwise you will never finish your academics. This will either happen because you are not dedicating enough time to your studies or because you are using your study time less effectively. Keep in mind that if you let your studies go out of control, they can end up adding to your stress.
Consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning. Consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning. Time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan. If you don’t manage your tasks consistently, you won’t be able to tell if your program objectives are being met or not.
Keeping in touch
You will have access to qualified professors and tutors who are competent and experienced and who are in charge of giving tutorial help for your specific training program. Therefore, don’t be afraid to let them know how you’re doing. We save electronic copies of all emails sent in support of tutorials so that instructors and tutors can examine earlier exchanges before deciding how to react to a specific request.
Additionally, it means that all correspondence between you and your instructors and tutors is documented, preventing any needless repetition, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. Send them an email if you are experiencing any issues with the program.
Since they are more than likely to have dealt with a situation similar to yours before, they can frequently offer valuable advice and point you in the correct way. Please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide for more information on when and how to use tutorial support. This will enable you to make the most of the tutorial support that is offered to you and will eventually help you succeed in and enjoy your training program.
Work colleagues and family
It is important to share your program study progress with your family, friends, and co-workers.
The training courses offered by Appleton Greene are highly useful. It’s part of the program to seek out information from others, collaborate with others to plan, develop, and implement processes, and get feedback from them on the processes’ feasibility and productivity. As a result, you’ll have lots of chances to put your theories to the test and get feedback from others.
Don’t keep your feelings within; people are often understanding of distance learners. Get outside and spread the word! Your family, co-workers, and friends are probably going to gain from your efforts with the program, therefore they are probably more interested in getting engaged than you might imagine. Don’t be afraid to assign tasks to others who could gain from them. This is a fantastic method to get buy-in and understanding from those that you may later depend on for process implementation. Talk about your experiences with your loved ones.
Making it relevant
Making information relevant to your own unique situation is the key to learning effectively. You should constantly be attempting to draw connections between the program’s content and your personal situation. Remember that this is the most crucial and satisfying step in turning your studies into genuine self-improvement, whether you accomplish it alone or in conversation with your family, clients, or colleagues.
Be specific about how you hope to benefit from the program. This entails establishing precise study goals related to the course’s material in terms of comprehension, concepts, completing research or review exercises, and connecting the material to your own situation. As you progress through the program, it is understandable for your goals to change. In this situation, you should update your study plan with the new goals, so you always know what you are aiming for, when, and why.
Distance-learning check-list
• Prepare your workspace, materials, and norms for studying.
• Detailed self-evaluation of your capacity for learning should be done.
• Make a structure for your study schedule.
• Take into account your study goals and assignments.
• Make a forecast for the study.
• Analyze your academic performance.
• Review the prediction from your study.
• When organizing your study schedule, be consistent.
• For tutorial assistance, contact an Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP).
• Be sure to stay in touch with those in your vicinity.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Simplified Wellness corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Simplified Wellness program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Simplified Wellness corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Simplified Wellness corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Simplified Wellness Specialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Simplified Wellness – Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
In 1990, William A Kahn wrote a paper called “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement”.
You can read the full paper here here
McClelland’s ‘Need for Achievement’ Theory developed a long list of motives and manifest needs that are learned or acquired by the kinds of events people experience in their environment and culture.
You can read the full paper here here
Numerous studies on the relationship between personality traits and employee engagement have shown that there is a link.
You can read the full paper here here
According to the Theory of Social Identity, a person can recognize how they fit into a particular social group or organization and can feel a sense of emotional attachment and value improvement as a result of doing so.
You can read the full paper here here
The social psychology of work engagement refers to all the interpersonal processes involved in engagement – You can read the full paper here here
Course Manuals 1-12
Course Manual 1: Engagement Theory
Introduction
Employee engagement theory is the formally accepted notion that organizations may boost employee satisfaction and staff productivity by challenging, assisting, and motivating workers.
According to this hypothesis, businesses with high levels of employee motivation and loyalty gain from employee engagement in the form of less absenteeism and turnover, improved customer satisfaction, higher bottom lines, and more innovation and creativity.
Employee engagement best practices, employee engagement frameworks, and employee engagement initiatives are all strongly tied to this philosophy. Many employee engagement software platforms, employee engagement programs, and employee engagement activities are built on these theories.
Psychologist William Kahn created the employee engagement idea in the 1990s. According to this idea, each employee must be totally committed to, and enthusiastic about, their work in order to ‘give their all’ in helping the firm reach its strategic objectives.
This might seem obvious, but it is one of the key components of a well workplace that is seriously overlooked by most organizations when working towards achieving their goals. It is hypothesized that this is the case because employee engagement is often confused as being the same as job satisfaction and/or employee commitment (which are incorrectly used interchangeably all too frequently).
The creation of a workplace culture that is high in employee commitment and enthusiasm depends on a two-way relationship between the employer and the employee, which is one of the key components of the employee engagement hypothesis.
Employers must clearly communicate their expectations to staff members and foster a climate where they feel confident and prepared to perform their jobs.
The engagement theory of William Kahn
The term ‘employee engagement’ was first used by William Kahn, in his work titled ‘Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work’. In this work, Kahn defined employee engagement as ‘… the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.’
While Kahn is credited with being the first to coin the term ‘engagement theory’ in 1990, the roots of the idea can be found in the early history of team building.
Researcher Elton Mayo found that things like upper management concern, more pleasant physical conditions, and social connections with co-workers affected a worker’s mood and motivations, which in turn increased productivity and employee retention rates.
Mary Parker Follett, who investigated the human factor in industry and promoted the importance of morale and reciprocal connections in leadership, as well as Frederick Herzberg, whose motivational theories we will touch on further below, are two more possible psychological influences on the employee engagement theory movement.
Kahn’s research focuses on creating environments where workers can be their ‘full selves’ at work. Three key elements have been identified as being critical to employees being able to do this:
• meaningfulness
• safety, and
• availability.
All three of these influence whether an employee can meaningfully connect with the organizational mission, corporate culture, and day-to-day responsibilities of the function.
Meaningfulness
This term describes the motivation behind a piece of work. An employee is more likely to exert significant effort if they are aware of how their employer’s product or service benefits society and feel that they play a vital role in achieving that aim.
Safety
An employee is more likely to participate and feel good about their contributions if they feel psychologically safe in the workplace and do not dread receiving criticism or consequences from co-workers or those in management positions.
Availability
This refers to the ability of a worker to carry out a task both physically and cognitively. Every person has limitations. A worker should believe that the demands of the position are reasonable and within reach, even though challenge is vital for growth and satisfaction. One component that falls under the category of availability is work-life balance.
Kahn also described the physical, cognitive, and emotional facets of participation. In other words, employees can demonstrate various levels of commitment through their behavior and attitudes, including their level of daily activity, their assurance in performing their normal jobs, their creative contributions and decision making, their regard for the company, and their loyalty.
Through his work, Kahn helped to advance a more thorough understanding of employee engagement and the ways an organization can better understand holistic demands.
Overall, where an organization has employed employee engagement theory and adopted more coherent methods that aimed to assist personnel in all areas of need, they have seen a significant change in the effectiveness and efficiency of employees.
What elements comprise employee engagement?
Kahn believed that there were three critical elements of employee engagement that would allow his theory to be put into practice.
1. Physical Interaction
This refers to how staff members go above and beyond the call of duty to carry out their duties.
Employees’ degrees of physical and mental engagement are both referred to as physical engagement. Employee initiative and motivation at work are reflected in the quality of their job. When they are highly engaged physically and mentally, employees report feeling more confident.
Highly engaged workers enhance the overall work environment and corporate culture of an organization. A team member who is actively engaged physically can influence other team members’ levels of participation.
2. Cognitive Participation
The concept of cognitive engagement refers to how an employee interprets their place in the larger scheme of things to determine the significance and value they offer to the company.
Employee cognitive engagement depends on their comprehension of the established targeted business goals of their organization. Your human resources department must thoroughly explain each employee’s tasks and responsibilities in order to increase cognitive engagement.
Employees should be made aware of an organization’s principles and best practices early and frequently. To increase cognitive engagement, each employee must also be aware of the responsibilities of their teammates and how to work together effectively.
High-level cognitive engagement has long-term advantages, such as boosting employee confidence in their decision-making abilities and encouraging more innovation at work. Employees are more productive and engaged when they feel informed about and connected to their roles.
3. Emotional Connection
When it comes to the company’s values and missions, employees are measured for their emotional engagement, which tends to increase as mission alignment increases.
The emotional connection each employee has with their place of employment is referred to as emotional involvement. High levels of emotional engagement are encouraged within organizations through team building activities for the team members and effective management techniques.
Employers ought to develop and carry out an action plan that strives to improve the working conditions for every employee. Ensuring that staff members are aware of the company’s fundamental principles and goals is also crucial.
Employees are more emotionally engaged when they feel respected and safe in their position. An increase in emotional engagement not only benefits an employee’s team and immediate workplace, but it also enhances the culture of the business as a whole.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement should be a top priority for many reasons, but perhaps the most significant one is the intimate connection between employee welfare and engagement. People’s contentment and overall feelings about their lives increase when they arrive at work and genuinely are in alignment with the purpose that they are meant to fulfil.
To give an example, only 31% of engaged workers in Europe report feeling stressed, compared to 51% of disengaged people. It is obvious that employee engagement has an impact on both physical and emotional health.
Employees that are depressed, melancholy, or stressed (personally or professionally) are likely to be less attentive to their work. Without the aid of technology, it is essentially impossible for an HR leader to continuously monitor the ever-changing circumstances and feelings of every team member.
A wellness platform can give you this data on a regular basis so you can decide where to focus your efforts on enhancing the physical and emotional wellbeing of your staff, which will have a beneficial effect on employee engagement levels.
Additionally, it has been demonstrated that organizations with more engaged workers perform better. The study came to the additional conclusion that workers who feel more engaged had more favorable opinions of their own abilities, resiliency, and self-efficacy.
This research helps to explain why motivated individuals have more self-confidence and can thus create better results for the company as a whole.
Goal setting theory and employee engagement
A key element of employee engagement is goal setting. Employees should not only be happy with their current working environment, but also be excited and upbeat about the future.
One commonly known motivating factor for employees is the desire for advancement. Although it is natural for people to want to improve themselves, often they need help (through a push, encouragement and mentoring) and they also need a clear vision for where they’re going and how they’re going to get there.
While members of a team will often have personal goals that they want to achieve, they should also be aware of their respective tasks and have a common purpose in order to perform at their best and be successful.
There are multiple resources available that offer advice and instructions on the best ways to go about creating great goals, just as there are many resources that go into the minutiae about why goals are essential for motivation. One of the most well-known theories of goal-setting is the one put forth by psychologist Edwin Locke. In this theory, Locke lists five key components that are required for setting goals:
1. Clarity
An objective must be simple to comprehend, obvious, and specific.
2. Challenge
Goals should challenge workers, but not to the point where they get overwhelmed. A goal that is too simple or difficult might demotivate workers.
3. Commitment
Employees should support the purpose and work tirelessly to achieve it from the outset.
4. Feedback
To keep the process moving or promote development, leaders should offer feedback and guidance at various points.
5. Task Complexity
When dividing larger projects into smaller, simpler tasks with steps, goals, and regular evaluations, leaders should set acceptable expectations.
In his theory, Locke said that objectives should be specific and not ambiguous. For example, instead of telling staff they need to ‘improve the customer experience’, a leader could focus their group on boosting the number of five-star reviews by 20% by the end of the quarter.
Another best practice is to give employees incentives to meet the goal. Although prizes can be effective performance drivers, rewards in the form of money are not the only ones. Giving a goal significance and justification can leave a lasting impression. The general manager of a restaurant, for instance, can encourage the waitstaff to uphold service standards and put the needs of the customer first by portraying the dining experience as a treat that the patrons might save money for and look forward to.
Another great motivational tool is to approach goal setting as a collaborative activity. Instead of being the sole responsibility of the manager, creating a collaborative process that gathers the input of all the stakeholders involved in the activity engenders an environment where everyone is more willing to work together to achieve a shared objective.
Setting goals is a crucial part of motivating and gratifying employees. Teams are more motivated to commit to the outcome and invest in the company’s success when you help them understand the objective of the organization and create a clear plan of action together.
How to assess employee engagement
Measuring employee engagement levels enables businesses to gain valuable insight into their workforce. It can be difficult to assess employee engagement because different organizations have varying conceptions of what it truly includes.
Employee engagement is generally defined by Kahn as a worker’s connection to their job and company, taking into account the three dimensions of employee engagement. While many organizations just utilize the findings of yearly surveys to gauge employee engagement levels, there are better methods they may use.
Employee engagement surveys, either internally developed or contracted out to a third party, can be used to measure employee engagement. Employing a third party for an employee engagement survey has advantages, including access to their experience and engagement metrics.
The fact that the survey administrator only actually gets one chance to ask a question is a common problem with internally produced employee surveys. The results will unavoidably be biased and artificial if the survey’s initial questions are revised or amended.
An internal survey may not be adequate for gauging employee engagement levels if your human resources department does not have a psychometrics expert on staff. Survey questions can be difficult to create and word. For instance, open-ended survey questions might be challenging to measure, which makes it more challenging to improve your engagement strategy.
Exit interviews with team members departing your company are a great way for your human resources department to get internal engagement statistics, especially if your company has a high rate of employee turnover. Long-term improvements in staff retention rates and job happiness can be achieved with the help of this insightful employee feedback.
Having said that, it is imperative that an organization doesn’t rely solely on information gathered in exit interviews to gauge the levels of employee engagement within the organization. Departing employees have often checked out of the company’s goals and don’t always share their thoughts in a complete sense. It is far more effective to gather information from employees who are still engaged in the outcomes of the organization and use that information to determine a more effective way forward.
Employee motivation and engagement
Although the term ‘employee engagement’ became popular in the 1990s, the idea is based on numerous earlier psychological theories of motivation, such as:
The Maslow ‘Hierarchy of Needs’
The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, a very well-known pyramid depicting the universal needs of society as its base before moving up the pyramid to more acquired emotions, was designed by psychologist Abraham Maslow and classified human needs in terms of significance.
Basic wants like food and shelter are at the base of the pyramid, while less urgent demands like self actualization are at the top. The most fundamental requirements must first be met in order to satisfy the wants at the top of the pyramid. For example, in the context of employee engagement, an employee cannot perform to their greatest capacity without help and protection.
Hertzberg’s ‘dual-factor theory’
According to Hertzberg’s theory, which is also known as the motivation-hygiene theory and dual-factor theory, there are two main categories of workplace conditions:
• those that contribute to workplace satisfaction; and
• those that contribute to workplace discontent.
According to Hertzberg, employee satisfaction is influenced by motivators, or psychological and emotional elements, like autonomy, the chance for personal growth, demanding work, and acknowledgement.
Employee unhappiness is also influenced by hygienic variables, or physical circumstances, like the office environment, compensation and perks, and management style.
According to Hertzberg’s thesis, an employer must deliberately focus on both hygiene and motivators and avoid assuming that enhancing one will inevitably have an impact on the other.
Vroom’s theory of expectancy
According to expectancy theory, a person decides how to act based on the expected outcome of that action. Victor Vroom outlined the theory’s three components:
1. Effort and Performance: the conviction that certain results are possible with enough effort. This factor is influenced by the worker’s self-assurance, how challenging they think the goal is going to be, and how in charge and autonomous they feel.
2. Performance – Outcome (P–O): The notion that the person will get something in return for completing the objective, like cash, recognition, status, or self-satisfaction. The recipient must have faith that the awarders will follow through on their commitments and fairly assess and distribute prizes.
3. Valence V(R): Valence is the significance that the person gives to the objective. A worker must believe that the reward justifies the additional effort or that the reward justifies the effort. The person can assess how well the organization’s goal fits with their own requirements and ambitions.
Vroom came up with these variables as constituents of an equation that when multiplied together resulted in a score that he called motivational force. In essence, Vroom reduced motivation to a mathematical equation, where people would choose their behaviors based on which action would result in the response with the highest value.
Although there are innumerable other scientific studies that support beliefs regarding motivation, the ones mentioned above are some of the most popular and reliable ones that have influenced employee engagement theory.
Case Study: How Google Boosts Its Employee’s Engagement
Why is Google’s culture and working environment so popular right now? Google is one of the most powerful and important businesses in the world. Instead of creating a corporate culture, the company has deliberately created a unique and distinctive culture.
Google’s only stated culture goal is to maintain staff happiness and productivity.
On Fortune’s annual list of the ‘Best Companies to Work For,’ Google has frequently ranked first. And according to Forbes, Google is also frequently rated as having the finest culture among tech companies. They also maintain a 4.4 rating on Glassdoor which is based on feedback from more than 6000 employees.
How Does Google Maintain Productive and Engaged Employees?
Making a genuine difference is the key differentiator. To demonstrate to its employees that it is investing in both their present and future, Google provides a variety of benefits.
• free organic meals (breakfast, lunch, and supper) made by a chef;
• free dental and medical examinations;
• complimentary and unlimited dry cleaning;
• discounted massages;
• a number of stations for video games, ping pong, and foosball;
• doctors on-site;
• subscriptions to gyms and swimming pools;
• free haircuts from stylists that are qualified;
• household sleep pods;
• death benefits for the families of dead employees, and
• incentives for hybrid vehicles.
Google was also one of the first organizations to ‘know their staff’ and provide complete flexibility. Google’s staff set their own schedules so they can be more creative and productive while working. Google knows this works because they tested it. They conducted a number of laboratory experiments to determine the productivity of their staff. There were 700 volunteers in four distinct tests. All of the staff members received complimentary beverages, fruits, and chocolates in addition to a comedic movie trailer.
As part of their evaluation, they also asked a few of the participants about their family traumas. Following this, they discovered that 12% more productivity is caused by happiness.
They also support a creative, diversified organizational culture that has permeated the lives of its staff members. Google provides its employees with a secure and favorable working environment that keeps them at ease and content while at work. The idea that working for Google entails being intelligent and sensible inspires people to think critically and keeps them focused.
What steps does Google take to maintain the productivity, inspiration, and motivation of its staff?
Google’s approach to maintaining productivity, inspiration and motivation is to allow each worker to spend up to 20% of their workweek on endeavors that excite them.
This enables individuals to focus on things they enjoy or are enthusiastic about, which motivates them to engage at a deeper level. It’s been shown to stop burnout, cut down on turnover, and boost engagement.
Google offers a robust, innovative, and successful professional progression program that ensures all workers’ long-term success. The Google career development program makes sure that incentives are given to employees in order to meet their professional and personal advancement.
They have also devised a distinctive strategy to encourage the professional growth of every employee. CareerGuru is a career coaching service that gives employees all the information Google’s executives have about working in a certain position inside the company.
Google is a pioneer in encouraging creativity in its employees. They are free to share their thoughts on any issue as a remedy. Additionally, workers are encouraged to work in any location in the office that makes them feel comfortable. Google has a system where they aim to hire people that are typically curious and interested in learning rather than just looking at an applicant’s professional background.
Google values employee trust because it makes their workers feel more valuable. Additionally, it can increase job satisfaction and lower the staff turnover rate.
To develop a positive culture, it is essential to foster a sense of community. The business has set up a number of micro kitchens throughout the entire workspace where employees can mingle briefly. Everyone can eat wherever they choose because Google offers a variety of lunch break areas.
Every Friday, the company organizes a meeting where the managers respond to the most well-known questions of the week.
A charting tool called Google-O-Meter is used by leaders or managers to gauge the popularity of different worker pieces of advice and leaders organize ‘Fixits’ which are 24-hour sprints where team members focus solely on finding solutions to specific problems—to understand large, important challenges.
Exercise 5.1: What does success look like?
Course Manual 2: Engagement Theory in the Workplace
Introduction
Employee engagement is defined as the interest and zeal that employees have for their jobs and workplaces.
You may monitor and manage employee perspectives on the critical components of your workplace culture with the aid of employee engagement.
You can determine whether your staff members are genuinely invested in their work or are merely putting in the required time. You can also determine whether your team-building exercises and human resources procedures have a good business impact, or if there is room for improvement.
And with the appropriate technique, you can discover ways to strengthen the bond between your staff members’ jobs and your business.
Engaged employees in the workplace are important because every day, employees make choices and perform actions that have an impact on your team and organization.
The way you treat your staff members and how they interact with one another can have a positive impact on their behavior, or it can put your firm at risk.
Based on decades of research on employee engagement, Gallup studies show that regardless of industry, firm size, nationality, or economic conditions, engaged workers outperform non-engaged workers in terms of business outcomes.
However, the Gallup research also shows that just 21% of workers globally, and 33% in the US, are considered to be ‘engaged’.
So, whose job is it to engage employees?
The answer isn’t a clear cut, simple solution, and without effort from employer, manager and employee it is next to impossible to achieve. Having said that, studies conducted all over the world consistently show that the manager alone determines 70% of the variation in team engagement, and without engaged individuals it isn’t possible to have an engaged team.
One of the number one tasks a manager should be focusing on is to engage their workforce.
It is the responsibility of managers to make sure that workers are aware of the tasks at hand, to offer assistance and support when required, and to explain how their efforts contribute to the success of the company.
The employer must make sure that a safe work environment is provided, that the basic needs of employees are met and that the managers have the tools necessary to conduct continuing coaching dialogues with staff members if they are to succeed in that duty.
Without the proper resources and guidance, most managers are unable to make frequent discussions meaningful, which makes it more likely that their activities would be perceived as micromanaging.
Therefore, executives cannot simply instruct managers to take ownership of employee engagement and to teach their teams.
For employee engagement theory to be successfully implemented into a workplace, leaders (at all levels within the organization) need to:
• Ensure that the expectations and roles of managers are defined and clearly understood.
• Ensure that managers are provided with the education, materials, and support they need to mentor and uphold those standards.
• Establish evaluation procedures that assist managers in measuring performance correctly, holding staff accountable, and coaching for the future.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is treating employee engagement as a one-time effort to boost morale, generally just before an upcoming survey.
Yes, we do refer to engaged workers as “enthusiastic” … and surveys are quite important for gauging employee satisfaction. But it’s not quite that easy.
People desire meaning and purpose in their employment. They desire recognition for their strengths.
The main forces for employee engagement are as follows:
• purpose
• development
• a compassionate boss
• continuing discussions
• highlighting strengths.
Even if it makes people reply favorably on a survey, a nice income and a brief warm-fuzzy feeling are insufficient incentives for employees to invest in their work and produce more for your business.
In addition to desiring meaning and purpose in their employment, people aspire to be recognized for their distinctive qualities. Engagement among employees is fueled by this.
They also seek connections, especially with a manager who can guide them to the next stage. This person is what motivates worker involvement.
Employee involvement factors include prior paychecks, boss satisfaction, annual reviews, shortcomings, and job.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and how it relates to employee engagement in the workplace
Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs theory are recognizable to almost everyone that has worked in a management position, worked as a psychologist or studied any form of psychology.
According to Maslow’s theory, the fulfilment of needs in a particular order determines human mental health and wellbeing. This leads to what Maslow refers to as “self-actualization”, or the capacity of an individual to pursue their own personal development.
All of the other wants of an individual are being satisfied, so they are able to do this. So, how does Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and employee engagement connect to one another? The Hierarchy reveals a lot about the type of motivation needed by workers.
Maslow identified the following as the prerequisites for human development and survival:
1. Survival: Having enough food, water, shelter, and rest.
2. Safety: Protection from the elements, law and order.
3. Belonging: Friendship, love, closeness, and affection.
4. Importance: Skill mastery, independence, and respect.
5. Self-Actualization: Realizing one’s own personal development and accomplishments.
These requirements may have been set down for the bare necessities of human existence, but they also apply to employee engagement and the degree to which employees are ‘motivated’ to take part in both required and optional corporate activities.
Here’s how an employee’s psyche relates to Maslow’s needs:
1. Survival: This is the most fundamental need. People in general, including employees, require food, clothing, and shelter, hence they require compensation that covers these costs.
2. Safety: Beyond simply having a job, employees must have a fundamental sense of employment security. With the way the employment market rapidly changes year on year, this is more crucial than ever.
3. Belonging: This need manifests at work as a desire to be a part of a group and something that an employee perceives to be ‘bigger than themselves.’ They must also believe that the business values the unique contributions they provide. They require a sense of significance.
4. Importance: This demand slightly overlaps the ‘belonging’ desire. People need to understand that whatever they are doing is a vital part of who they are. In a larger company where it’s simple for employees to feel lost inside the system and frequently overlooked, this requirement is particularly crucial. When someone feels this way, they lose motivation and may also make others around them less engaged.
5. Self-Actualization: Employees can finally begin to reach their full potential when they have access to the education they need, the resources they need, and a structured atmosphere where they feel like they belong and can contribute significantly. By motivating others to do better at their jobs, they begin to contribute ideas, take the initiative, and draw others along for the journey. Employees who achieve this level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs display the kind of behavior that is contagious and very advantageous to have at your business.
To simplify this to the next level, the Hierarchy of Needs can be related to employee engagement as follows:
1. Survival: If your employees depend on their pay to survive, then pay them enough to cover their basic needs. You shouldn’t expect your staff to care all that much about maintaining a healthy balance sheet if you don’t pay them enough to cover their basic living expenses.
2. Safety: Your staff shouldn’t feel as though their jobs are in jeopardy with every choice they make. Untold amounts of unnecessary stress are added as a result, and productivity, morale, and overall profitability may suffer as a result. Change the management or your behavior if you have managers who make your staff feel this way.
3. Belonging: Foster an inclusive environment with a strong team-oriented culture. Teams and individuals will be more inclined to do better in the future if you recognize them for their achievements.
4. Importance: In this situation, it is crucial to recognize your employees’ contributions. Employees might learn that they are performing well, that their efforts count, and that the organization values them by receiving public or internal recognition from you.
5. Self-Actualization: When you give your staff the resources, training, atmosphere, and stability they need to fulfil their potential, they can do so. They perform at their peak and inspire those around them when they get to this level of involvement, which is ideal for business.
Applying employee engagement theory in the workplace
Before applying employee engagement theory in the workplace, it’s important that you comprehend employee needs and how they affect motivation. Each need in the Maslow Hierarchy builds on the last, which allows an employee to feel more fulfilled and which fosters motivation and original thought.
1. Physical requirements
The most fundamental human requirements are referred to as physiological demands in this hierarchy. To believe their most fundamental needs are being satisfied, employees must have access to essential services and opportunities while they are at work. You must have access to a bathroom, a location to get water, breaks for meals and snacks, and a relaxing work environment. A stable income to sustain oneself and pay for a place to live, food, utilities, and other necessities is also one of your physiological demands in the job.
2. Security
Another essential necessity that can affect how satisfied an employee is with their job overall is safety. Concern for personal safety, as well as the safety of those an individual cares about, is normal. For instance, it might be normal to put your family’s safety first, which is why you work so hard to meet their needs for a safe place to live. It’s crucial to feel valued and prioritized at work in terms of your physical safety.
Employees should have confidence in the security and protection of their assets and personal property. Providing ergonomic office equipment that supports your employees properly and lowers their chance of injury, as well as safeguarding the premises to keep out potentially harmful individuals, are two ways to provide a safe workplace.
Feeling emotionally secure and supported is another part of job safety. It is more difficult for an employee to find motivation to advance to the next level in the hierarchy and give their best effort if they are concerned that they will lose their job as a result of layoffs or budget cuts. Future uncertainty also contributes to lower working morale.
3. Belonging and love
In contrast to other areas of life, the workplace falls under the love and belonging level of Maslow’s hierarchy. An employee will likely not be interested at work or as driven to achieve if they don’t feel like they belong.
It’s not always simple for people to start and maintain relationships at work. Companies that conduct social events and provide more chances for networking away from the workplace typically have greater employee engagement rates than those that don’t place as much of an emphasis on these work-life balance issues. It is simpler for an employee to be inspired to work hard and get results when they feel like they belong and fit in within their workplace and their team.
4. Esteem
Esteem is the conviction that an employee’s individual efforts are appreciated and that they are advancing a greater cause. In the workplace, it’s critical for an employee to feel as though they’re developing, moving forwards, and producing results, and that those around them are aware of these accomplishments. They are more likely to succeed when they believe in their ability and self-confidence and when they get support and encouragement from others.
In the end, an employee’s self-worth affects their level of participation as a whole. Even when an employee is having difficulty, showing consistent gratitude for the work they are doing can have a good effect on their self-esteem. Employee esteem may deteriorate if feedback is solely given in the form of an annual evaluation.
5. Personal development
Self-actualization, or reaching one’s full potential at work, is the highest level in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In the end, everyone wants to believe they are doing the greatest job possible for their circumstances, since this inspires them to pursue their careers and flourish. A self-actualized employee experiences trust and power, which promotes development and engagement.
Giving employees the chance to achieve is one of the keys to ensuring that this desire is satisfied. While assisting them in looking for opportunities to progress their careers without pressuring them into positions they won’t be happy with, managers should concentrate on the skills and competencies of their staff members. You need to be pushed at work but not overburdened or overwhelmed to feel self-actualized.
Using Maslow’s Hierarchy to implement employee engagement theory in the workplace
It is imperative that both employer and employee understand the individual nature of each person employed by the organization. Every individual is unique and therefore requires a unique solution to meet their needs.
An employer needs to introduce a process that allows each individual to identify their key characteristics and then create a solution that works uniquely for them.
For example, the process may help an individual identify areas where their professional life can be improved and then apply Maslow’s hierarchy as an overlay to assist the employee in creating goals and steps that allow them to meet their needs along the way.
It is also important for each individual to understand their needs and to make sure that the goals they set can feed those needs. For example, moving to a job in sales can make it very hard for an individual to meet their needs if they have a hard time accepting rejection.
Reaching the top of the hierarchy
Before an individual can achieve the highest level of motivating philosophy in the workplace, they must be self-actualized, which means that they recognize their skills, abilities, and what they are capable of handling.
It is the people who have ascended to the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that make up an engaged workforce.
Individuals can improve their chances of success by being able to recognize their wants and make sure they are positively met. Individual attitudes can have an impact on others around them at work and that attitude tends to be positive, inspiring and motivational when they feel secure and supported, connected, and self actualized.
In the workplace, a group of people who believe their needs are being met can foster a more upbeat, engaging culture. Engagement and motivation are frequently team-based attitudes.
Motivation and job satisfaction
Low engagement among employees is frequently accompanied by greater turnover rates, as well as concerns with low morale and dissatisfied workers. A company can raise satisfaction while raising engagement and motivation, which in turn impacts productivity, by investing in the general wellbeing of its workers.
An employee’s needs are important and valuable, so an employer investing time to understand what those needs are shows an employee that they are cared for and valued as an individual.
Going one step further and finding strategies and solutions that will assist employees to improve their professional life and establish a stimulating workplace environment will engender engaged employees.
Case Study: Why Current Engagement Programs Fail
Research conducted by Gallup shows that despite increased efforts from businesses, about 80% of employees globally are still neither engaged nor are actively disengaged at work.
The biggest reason why an employee engagement program fails is the widespread belief that it is ‘an HR thing’. Front-line employees do not understand it, nor are leaders expected to own it or managers to expect it.
Leaders who are at a loss for answers may point the finger at the methodology, measurement, philosophy, or environmental aspects they think to be specific to their problems.
However, the implementation of workplace employee engagement programs by organizations is probably to blame for the seeming failure of employee engagement initiatives.
Common errors made when trying to implement an engagement strategy include:
Making things too complicated
By concentrating on factors that are frequently outside managers’ control and frequently have no bearing on satisfying employees’ basic psychological needs at work, leaders overcomplicate engagement measurements.
Using the wrong metrics to measure
Employing a low-bar ‘percent favorable’ methodology that inflates scores, causes blind spots, and gives the impression of great engagement in the absence of significant business outcomes.
Using surveys way too much
To obtain quick feedback, they frequently use pulse surveys, but they rarely act on the findings.
On the other hand, leaders who use the following levels of engagement in their models find it much easier to implement and maintain engagement strategies over the long term:
Based on four different employee performance growth needs, this four-level hierarchy:
Basic, individual, teamwork, and growth levels are at the summit of a green pyramid, which represents the four degrees of employee engagement.
By addressing the demands at the three basic levels, managers and staff can maximize the top level of personal growth by working in a supportive and trusting atmosphere.
With each level building on the one before it, these levels offer managers a roadmap for inspiring, developing, and improving the performance of their teams.
Phases are not represented by the levels. Managers don’t ‘finish’ the first level before going onto the next. In order to address the demands on the second, third, and fourth levels, they must make sure that employees are aware of what is required of them and have access to the necessary tools and resources.
Managers should continuously identify requirements and challenges with their team members and, ideally, take action before issues hinder their employees’ performance.
Exercise 5.2: Engagement in the Workplace
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Course Manual 3: Types of Engagement
Introduction
According to Wikipedia, Engagement in relation to the human emotional state is the ‘… feeling of being compelled, drawn in, connected to what is happening, interested in what will happen next’.
Although ‘engagement’ is a much-used term today, it’s frequently interpreted in the business world as an event rather than a state of being. This conventional and, some may say, traditional way of approaching engagement is motivated by a lack of understanding of employee behavior across all channels, segments, divisions, departments and timeframes within an organization.
Until recently, transactions were the sole method for an organization to define engagement.
That is no longer the case.
Employers who want to comprehend, predict, and monitor employee engagement levels – not just transactions – and marry disparate data points together to create a real-time picture of how various types of employee engagement affect their business outcomes, and ultimately their overall brand, now have countless options thanks to new technologies like employee-management platforms.
It’s crucial to remember the enormous impact engagement has on an organization’s chances for success, as executives try to comprehend what it takes to engage people and develop engagement strategies to counteract the difficulties that lack of engagement and active disengagement can create.
Because it has an impact on a variety of variables such as performance, productivity, earnings, and business sustainability, employee engagement can make or destroy a company. It is crucial for attracting and keeping top personnel and has a substantial impact on staff wellbeing and customer service abilities.
Employee engagement is equally vital for employees as it is for employers, since it increases job satisfaction, provides employees a sense of purpose in their work, makes them feel appreciated and that their particular contributions are crucial to the success of the company, and enhances both their professional and personal wellbeing.
Employee engagement is associated with happier personal and professional lives. An increase in job satisfaction will result in an increase in performance, loyalty, and cultural alignment as well as a genuine commitment to the purpose and vision of the firm.
Employees feel content with and proud of their efforts and the potential influence of those contributions in organizations with high levels of engagement. They are driven to deliver excellent work for the benefit of the company.
This results in a joyful, peaceful workplace, excellent morale, and enhanced profitability. Additionally, it encourages innovation and teamwork across the entire organization.
The three characteristics of employee engagement should be kept in mind while implementing an effective employee engagement plan. A high-performance team that is fully engaged and capable of thriving can be created when you are able to engage them cognitively, emotionally, and physically.
Three types of employee engagement
Although the focus on employee engagement is only relatively new to a lot of organizations, those that used engagement techniques previously and believed that they ensured engagement and job happiness are now finding those techniques to be mostly ineffective.
Financial incentives no longer serve as the primary motivators for employee engagement, and many organizations have moved towards hybrid and remote work settings, which have diminished the appeal of on-site office amenities. As a result, managers struggle to come up with fresh strategies for involving workers in the ‘new normal’.
Given how crucial engagement is to organizational success, it is critical to understand the three types of employee engagement in order to ascertain what people need from their engagement and how to best address these needs moving forwards.
In 1990, Kahn wrote a paper called ‘Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement’. In this paper he referred to three main types of employee engagement, being:
Cognitive Engagement
The level of cognitive engagement indicates how much attention employees give to their task. An employee is better able to concentrate on their task even when there are distractions and other work disruptions when they are cognitively engaged.
Engagement of this kind has to do with how an employee feels and thinks about their work and the company. As a result of its connection to how employees view the values of the company, it may be the most significant kind of employee engagement.
Employees that are intellectually engaged support the organization’s mission, strategies, and goals and are aware of what has to be done to contribute to the achievement of those goals. Understanding the organization’s mission in-depth and supporting its cultural values are prerequisites for this kind of participation.
Additionally, it necessitates that employees are aware of their objectives and have a solid grasp of their duties, expectations, and contribution to the success of the company.
When examining the cognitive aspect of engagement, Kahn took into account the significance that workers attach to their work and made the argument that workers who were more knowledgeable about their employment exhibited greater creativity and made more self-assured decisions.
Emotional Engagement
Emotions and engagement are intricately linked.
Emotions can impact and be influenced by an employee’s need to feel dedicated to the organizations they work for, valued, and that they are making a meaningful contribution.
An employee’s emotional engagement is influenced by how they feel about their company, their co-workers, and the leadership. It is influenced by how the person feels about their “in-the-moment” experience of working.
The level of engagement a worker exhibits at work is influenced by how they feel about their position, duties, co-workers, superiors, and the company. Employees who are emotionally engaged feel good about their jobs and will apply those positive feelings and emotions to their work.
Employees that are emotionally involved put more effort into their work and are more likely to be satisfied with their careers. High emotional involvement can also help create a productive workplace where it is simpler for other employees to become involved in their work.
Employee emotional engagement can be significantly impacted by leadership, both positively and negatively. Take employee recognition as an illustration.
We recently had a conversation about the significance of recognition in either demotivating or encouraging people with author Paul Marciano:
“People fundamentally want to be acknowledged and valued for the work they put out. You want to work harder when you put in a lot of effort and are rewarded for it. It is quite discouraging for us when you aren’t, or even worse, when someone else receives credit for your labor.”
Employees will build favorable feelings towards the company and help to lower stress and bad feelings related to their jobs if they receive regular feedback, recognition, access to physical and mental healthcare, coaching, and a good work-life balance.
Physical Engagement
The employee’s attitude towards their work, participation in work-related activities, and the amount of physical and mental effort they put out while doing their employment all fall under the category of physical engagement.
These actions reflect their dedication to their work. Kahn found a correlation between higher confidence and the amount of mental and physical effort one puts into their work.
Employees who are physically active are enthusiastic about their work and have a growth mentality. Employees who are physically active may also be more inclined to take advantage of opportunities for learning and growth.
Physical (and mental) wellbeing is correlated with physical involvement. Employee engagement is largely influenced by how much they believe their leaders care about them and are interested in their health and wellbeing, as we covered in a recent piece.
We already know that engaged workers are more likely to feel supported by their employers when they feel valued by their employers. Employees will be more physically engaged in their employment when they are in better mental and physical health.
Because it demonstrates that the company supports them both professionally and personally, a culture of health and wellness and engagement activities that put a priority on wellbeing make employees feel valued and appreciated.
Employees who are emotionally involved have an emotional connection to their work, while those who are cognitively engaged are committed to their jobs and physically invested in them.
What does an organization need to ensure is in place for employee engagement to occur?
The degree to which employees are emotionally invested in the company and its mission can be used to gauge their level of employee engagement.
A worker’s degree of engagement is influenced by their perceptions of their work environment, how they are treated by management, whether they feel a sense of purpose in their work, and whether they believe that the company is committed to an authentic vision.
People need to have certain needs addressed in order to be engaged, enthusiastic, driven, and devoted, whether in their personal or professional lives.
Some of these requirements for the workplace include technical and managerial proficiency, autonomy, recognition, a sense of purpose, and the perception of being a valued employee.
Technical ability
Technical competencies are the expertise and abilities required to perform work duties. Depending on the industry, these can be learned in a classroom setting or on the job.
To do their jobs effectively, employees must have the necessary knowledge and skills, which, in certain situations, companies supply or assist employees in acquiring through training or other learning opportunities.
Managerial ability
Employees need to be competent general managers in order to advance in their careers. Employees that are actively engaged will look for possibilities for personal and professional development that will advance their careers.
This is why it’s crucial for sustaining engagement to incorporate continuous learning into your organization’s culture. It satisfies the demand for growth and development and aids employees in achieving managerial competency.
Additionally, it can assist a company in addressing its present and long-term talent demands.
This process is referred to as ‘career pathing’. Through this approach, the organization’s talent demands and an employee’s possibilities for professional development are brought into alignment.
When the Human Resources (HR) function works with the employees of an organization to help them create maps of the types of jobs and opportunities that are of interest to them and that can help them grow and develop, the system becomes a living thing that people can tap into and are more interested in seeing where and when opportunities come up.
Autonomy
More and more workers are requesting autonomy from their companies, and it’s become even more crucial for remote workers.
It has also been noted as a significant influence on specific generational groups’ hiring practices, with 42% of millennials saying they would choose a position that allowed them to work independently on projects of their choice.
Allowing employees to work independently – even encouraging it – as well as providing them with the resources they need to succeed at their jobs are all aspects of autonomy.
An employee needs to be trusted to do their job well without micromanagement impeding the process, especially one with an entrepreneurial spirit and innovative mindset. Engaging employees in their work requires showing faith in and confidence in their abilities, judgement, and judgements.
Recognition
Any engagement strategy must include recognition as a key element. There is compelling evidence to support the idea that rewarding employees with recognition increases their sense of self-worth and personal competence.
Because it satisfies a fundamental need for both the employee and the management, recognition is so potent. A great business culture must address this requirement because doing so improves performance, job satisfaction, employee engagement, retention, and the standard of work.
A Strong Notion that there is Purpose
Employee engagement rises when workers feel as though their work matters and they have a sense of purpose. When workers are passionate about their work and approach their occupations with greater excitement, they will find their work to be meaningful.
A strong foundation for a high degree of engagement is provided by having a shared sense of purpose with one’s co-workers and feeling a connection to an organization’s goal, vision, and values.
However, in order to truly increase participation, organizations should genuinely show their commitment to the declared core values by concrete, significant activities.
Sense of Value
Maintaining employee engagement also depends on giving them a sense of value. Employees won’t be as devoted to a company that treats them like they’re disposable and simple to replace if they don’t feel valued by high management.
Loyalty and engagement among employees will increase if employers show concern for them and give them a sense that the work they are doing is crucial to the company’s success.
When these requirements are satisfied, businesses will see higher levels of employee engagement, which will boost productivity, profitability, and retention rates.
But understanding employee requirements is just one aspect of engagement. To decide how to effectively address employee demands, leaders must also be aware of the various aspects of worker engagement.
Four types of employee engagement levels
Both employee engagement levels and workforce demographics vary widely. Therefore, we must assess each employee’s level of participation in order to incorporate them. Let’s examine the main forms of employee engagement that would raise your workforce’s productivity:
1. Employees who are neither committed nor engaged
The first group of employees, whose engagement levels are low and who have little loyalty to their employers, is this one. This kind of employee necessitates the greatest amount of your work.
2. Committed employees
Although committed employees are crucial to a business because of their intense commitment and emotional attachment to it, they are likely not fully engaged for a variety of reasons, including financial insecurity, pressure from their families, and others.
3.Engaged employees
Employees who are actively engaged in their work and who are most excited about it are considered to be engaged; yet, they do not have a strong sense of loyalty or emotional commitment to your business.
4. Engaged AND committed employees
These kinds of employees are a valuable addition to your business because they are not only driven and actively involved at work, but they also have a strong sense of loyalty and trust for your firm, which is evident in their behavior.
What Can Be Done to Improve Employee Engagement?
What makes you believe that some workers are more involved than others? There are a number of elements that influence employee motivation and engagement.
1. Group Exercises
Plan extracurricular events for your staff members to provide variety to their normal workdays and boost motivation. This will help foster a sense of friendship among your staff members and enhance teamwork.
Exercises like walking groups, Yoga, Pilates, or Zumba programs improve engagement while also caring for the health of your staff.
2. Mental Health initiatives
Your employees may not give their jobs their best effort if they are suffering from stress, anxiety, or another mental health problem. Employees’ mental health may suffer significantly due to a poor work-life balance or feelings of insecurity about the future, which will hinder them from being involved in their work.
Making arrangements for talking therapy sessions, employee counselling, and mental health education seminars help address these issues and raise employee engagement levels.
3. Complete Health Coverage
The best way for you to demonstrate to your staff that you care about their wellbeing and are prepared to invest in their futures is to provide them an all-inclusive insurance plan. After all, actions speak louder than words.
This would encourage your staff to be more invested in their work by ensuring their future financial and medical security.
4. Provide Rewards
Recognizing the work your employees do for your business and expressing your gratitude to them can be done through rewards, perks, and employee recognition programs.
Case Study: Career Growth, Employee Engagement and Organizational Identification
Employee engagement is an individual’s active, integrated, and committed state at work. To be more precise, it can show up as whether employees create listless, excessive, and other undesirable behaviors or whether they have high psychological qualities, lots of energy, and great excitement in the tasks they complete daily.
Today’s younger generation of employees grew up during a time of fast technological advancement, a developed market economy, and a lavish material lifestyle. They are very concerned about their own professional development and are willing to take advantage of further training chances to advance and improve.
The Theory of Need for Achievement states that when businesses provide new generation employees with a specific professional growth area and enough possibilities, they can partially satisfy their demands for growth and their desire for success. Doing so will undoubtedly increase their vigor and commitment to their profession, allowing them to devote themselves to it more and have a higher level of engagement with their organization.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the connection between professional development and job satisfaction. Individual psychological resources like self-respect and optimism can accurately predict how engaged a person is at work, according to Bakker’s (2008) study on the relationship between psychological traits of employees and work engagement.
Employees who work for the organization will be motivated to have a positive emotional experience as a result of the accumulation of professional values and self-satisfaction they experience there.
Larger aspirations for self-centeredness (self-employment and self-expression), as well as a larger sense of self-efficacy and subjective initiative, are indicators of an individual’s greater psychological resources.
Career growth affects organizational employees’ use of work resources (such as perceived organizational support, environmental freedom perception, innovation support, organizational justice, and matching perception) in addition to the psychological effects on the individual through increased abilities, shifting social and economic status, and other factors.
Research studies have also shown that individuals who are well-matched to their organizations or jobs are more likely to adjust rapidly and engage in productive work. The organizations’ growth chances (such as difficult assignments and skill utilization) for career management would increase workers’ work input and quality.
Work engagement is significantly influenced by organizational commitment-related elements as well. Good psychosocial safety perception has a favorable effect on work engagement. In order to improve their work output, employees’ career progression might boost their understanding of safety, resource management, and self-development.
Career Advancement and Organizational Recognition
According to most academics, organizational identification is the members’ emotional and psychological dependence on and affiliation with the organization.
When employees support the organization’s strategy, culture, and values, they are more likely to perform in ways that are psychologically and behaviorally congruent with the organization.
Individual characteristics, organizational characteristics, and environmental characteristics can be used to categorize the antecedents of organizational identification. Of these, organizational characteristics are primarily manifested as organizational image, organizational climate, organizational culture, and organizational support.
It is up to employees to make use of any development platforms and challenges offered by organizations if they wish to increase their income, develop their skills and abilities, advance in their jobs or in terms of social standing.
However, in addition to their own efforts, employees needed the organization’s support in order to advance their careers. The process of producing internal identification of the organization’s goals is just one aspect of an employee’s intra-organizational career advancement. Another is the increasing bundling of self-behavior and organizational development.
According to various research studies, organizational commitment is significantly positively impacted by employee career advancement.
That is to say, employees will be more regarded by the organization and more ready to stay in the organization by working harder towards their goals if they feel that they are respected enough in the organization, are able to increase their self-worth, and can better achieve their professional ambitions.
Additionally, they will give the organization more in return, improving its benefits in the process.
Organizational Identity and Work Engagement
According to the Theory of Social Identity, a person can recognize how they fit into a particular social group or organization and can feel a sense of emotional attachment and value improvement as a result of doing so.
As a member of the organization, when employees feel a sense of emotional dependence on the organization and a sense of belonging, they will take the organization into consideration, examine its options, and work to maximize its benefits.
When they feel like they belong, employees often invest more time, effort, and resources into furthering the goals of the company.
Some researchers have discovered that there is a strong correlation between organizational identity and employee engagement. Organizational identity can have a large impact on the vitality an employee brings to the workplace and their emotional identification with the organization has a very significant beneficial impact on all three dimensions of employee work engagement.
Numerous research has also demonstrated that organizational identification will significantly improve organizational commitment, employee suggestion behavior, and organizational citizenship.
Exercise 5.3: Common Things
1. Write down an answer for each of the following:
– What are your hobbies?
– What are your favorite foods?
– What adventures have you been on?
– What are the top 5 things on your ‘bucket list’?
– What are your top 3 special talents?
– What is your funniest memory?
– What story do you always tell people?
2. Present your answers to your group.
3. What are the common themes amongst your group?
– Are there similar things your group members like to do?
– Are there similar foods your group members like?
– Have you been to similar places, or had similar adventures?
– Do you have similar ‘bucket list’ wishes?
4. Present your common themes to the main group and take note of any common themes that arise between the groups.
Course Manual 4: Stages of Engagement
Introduction
Work engagement has gained so much traction in recent years that it has supplanted job satisfaction as the key concept in organizational psychology literature.
Employee engagement is a positive and highly activated kind of employee wellbeing, in contrast to job satisfaction, which is a positive outcome but is low activating when it comes to an employee being actively engaged with their role and their organization.
Employees that are engaged are typically totally absorbed in their professional activities and feel energized and happy about it. People who are fully engaged at work are also able to put in a lot of effort and maintain intense focus.
Because of this, it is not unexpected that employee engagement is now a stronger predictor of job performance than job happiness, which contributes to the growing acceptance of the employee engagement concept.
According to multiple research studies, people are most likely to be engaged at work when they are given high levels of workplace challenges along with high levels of job resources. People appear to thrive and achieve at their highest levels in these circumstances.
However, employment requirements and resource availability may change significantly during the course of a person’s career. It is crucial that employees are given the training and resources required for them to be able to constantly adjust to the work environment in order to sustain person-job fit and work engagement.
The way your employees view your company doesn’t remain constant; they go through many stages of engagement during the course of their employment with you.
Organizations shouldn’t merely concentrate on employee engagement at the beginning of a person’s career. Engagement at work varies and studies show that this variance can occur over longer periods of time as well as on a monthly or daily basis. Therefore, companies must first develop the engagement strategy that works all the time, before trying to implement anything into the organization.
Employee involvement and tasks
According to some psychologists, engagement comes from task-based activities. According to internationally renowned organizational psychologist Arnold Bakker, for instance, employee engagement varies according to the type of work they are doing and how much influence they have over their activities.
Effective collaboration technologies can help by allowing users more control over their workflow and task progression.
Variations in workplace engagement have a variety of causes, and sometimes an organization cannot fully regulate them. Additionally, according to Bakker, a worker’s personal resources on a given day can affect their level of engagement.
In a larger sense, workplace psychology views the levels and phases of employee involvement as changing over time. These may function as a positive feedback loop, allowing engagement to continue as one stage feeds into the next.
However, from an organizational viewpoint, it’s critical to comprehend how engagement functions because it impacts profit, productivity, and practically everything else you can think of.
Involving employees from the start
For workplace engagement, getting buy-in to your organizational culture is essential, and the early stages are key.
A critical understanding here is to know that even before someone works for you, they become engaged.
Finding and retaining the right staff is the first step. In order to attract the right candidates, the organization must present a positive and sincere image of itself during the so-called ‘attract’ phase.
Getting the early going right
The ‘acquire’ portion of the new employee’s induction must continue the engagement process. The perception the organization portrays in the marketplace needs to match the reality of the workplace for new hires to feel comfortable.
Therefore, if an organization makes claims in public about who they are, what they stand for or what it’s like to work for them, they must therefore provide evidence to support those claims once someone begins to work for them. This is especially important if an organization wants to position their business as a transparent, highly responsive, collaborative workplace that attracts Gen Y-ers.
Continued involvement
Engagement in the workplace doesn’t stop there. An organization must maintain its ability to draw in new employees. For example, having a single platform that allows employees to have the ability to connect and collaborate with each other will underpin the constant sense of belonging that is so important in preserving engagement with an organization.
Long-term partnership
Throughout an employee’s tenure with you, this phase should continue, with their sense of inclusion feeding towards attracting and integrating new hires.
Employees must feel like they are progressing for a long-term partnership to be in place. Additionally, this goes beyond simply raising salary or promoting employees. It involves creating a culture where employees believe they can advance and thrive within the firm.
According to research, millennials value this sense of ongoing learning and advancement above everything else in their professional lives.
Therefore, it is essential for creating effective employee engagement to have the appropriate tools to provide them with feedback and connect them with the rest of the organization.
The four stages of engagement
There are four specific stages that employees move through during their association with an organization. It is critical for an organization to understand the specific needs of each of these stages so that they can ensure that their employees are engagement at all stages of the relationship.
Stage 1: Basic requirements
Every first day on the job has a few fundamental questions, the most essential of which is, ‘What do I get from this role?’
No matter what position an employee has been hired to fill, there are fundamental questions that are present when the employee/organization relationship begins.
Although it is a very broad and generalizing question, the responses are crucial to how your job is viewed, how much the team and the organization appreciate you, and what benefits you can individually derive from successfully assuming your tasks.
Most employees will reach a conclusion as to the answer to these questions on the first day, or within the first week, at the very least. The answers result from the employee’s interactions with other team members, the tasks assigned to them, and the way leadership conveys the organization’s present and long-term objectives to them.
Every employee wants to believe that their work counts, and this is what their basic requirements are intended to achieve.
Ideas to help improve engagement at this stage include:
• Ensuring your employees are aware of their duties and what is expected of them.
• Update any contracts and employee handbooks as well as job descriptions as often as required.
• Establish employee communication channels to make sure that employees have access to the information they require (such as organizational charts, handbooks and corporate information).
• Provide your employees with the equipment, tools and resources they need to complete their work efficiently and effectively.
• Update your procedures and infrastructure.
• Provide managers with the necessary training so they can interact with their colleagues and grasp the main duties of each function they oversee.
Stage 2: Contributions and viewpoints
In this stage a different set of fundamental questions start being asked by employees. They include things like:
• Does the employee feel that the work they did at the office was a total success?
• Is there anything about their current position that they would change?
• Are they making the best use of their unique skills?
• Do others appreciate their efforts, or do they get overlooked?
This stage often prompts a lot of queries about one’s value as a person and need for adulation, criticism, and recognition. On the one hand, if an employee doesn’t think they’re putting in enough effort, then this may cause them to question if that is because they’re unhappy in their current position or whether the company isn’t providing them with enough in the way of fulfilment.
Ultimately, this leads the question to become about whether the employer is recognizing the employee’s contributions and/or providing the, with the performance feedback you desire.
If an employee does feel as though they’re putting in the right amount of effort or even going above and beyond what is expected of them, the next step is to determine whether or not their employer is doing so as well.
Ideas to help improve engagement at this stage include:
• Implement a system for managing performance that includes frequent feedback.
• Provide managers with instruction in providing and accepting feedback.
• Train your managers to be effective managers; good managers care about their employees’ welfare both at work and in their personal life.
• Request that your managers look for genuine occasions to commend or recognize their staff for a job well done.
• Encourage your staff to advance professionally and in their careers.
Stage 3: Feeling like You Belong
After moving through the first two rungs of the hierarchy, an employee’s attention starts to shift from their job to the people they hang out with.
At this point, employees start to question whether they appreciate their surroundings and are content with the connections and interactions they have with their co-workers.
For an employee, having teammates they can confide in, knowing their work as a group is of the greatest caliber, and feeling like they belong on the team are all equally as vital as their role inside an organization.
When trying to determine how invested they are in the firm and those around them, this difference in atmosphere might be a defining issue. This can ultimately affect their entire work efforts and earnings per share.
Ideas to help improve engagement at this stage include:
• Find candidates who will make your teams happy to work with them and who exhibit the attitudes and principles your company supports.
• Resolve problems and problematic behaviors in a timely and efficient manner.
• Provide your staff with opportunity to socialize with one another and form lasting bonds at work.
• Give employees a voice through team meetings, staff forums, or HR software. Highly engaged workers believe that their employers value their thoughts and opinions.
• Ensure that staff members are aware of the company’s goals and mission, as well as how they can contribute to them.
Phase 4: Room to Develop
Stage 4 of the hierarchy, which is the most sophisticated, is all about lifespan.
In this stage, employees start to ask whether their company provides them with the resources they need to excel in their current position and advance professionally?
In addition, employees start to ask questions about what processes exist that enable them to communicate their thoughts and put new ideas and systems into practice?
In this stage there is often a disconnect between an employee’s personal motivation and the actual possibilities as defined by the firm they work for, which can create feelings of stagnation in their career. This frequently results in a gradual drop in their willingness to deliver on every level.
Innovation, growth, and improvement will eventually become a focus for employees that are truly committed to their job since committed employees want to grow with the firm rather than stand by and watch it happen without them.
Ideas to help improve engagement at this stage include:
• Offer your staff specialized internal and external training and development possibilities.
• Look for opportunities for employees to get involved in projects and work outside of their regular day-to-day activities that provide them opportunities to grow and develop their abilities.
• Find ways to demonstrate to employees the career routes that are accessible to them if they wish to succeed in their careers.
As you can see, each of the four stages has a distinct goal that relates to how much workers want to feel accepted and engaged by the companies they work for.
As a result, once organizations are aware of these crucial stages, it becomes easier to gather data on the engagement of your employees, analyze the information and then make informed deductions about what is needed to ensure engagement at all stages.
The Four “E’s” of Employee Engagement
According to Gallup, actively disengaged US employers’ costs alone range from US$483 billion to US$605 billion in lost productivity every year.
Simply put, employee engagement refers to a worker’s readiness to put forth extra effort on their own initiative, going above and beyond the call of duty. Engagement is a mindset that shows up in behavior.
There are four essential components that an organization needs to get right to ensure that they can sustain engagement with their employees over the entirety of their careers.
These four stages include:
1. Enablement
Because the employee views it in the context of her own experience, enablement is a subjective concept.
Say I’m an auditor and I like using a desktop calculator because it helps me do my job more effectively. I could type precise calculations using a desktop calculator without having to glance at a specialized keyboard. However, my supervisor advises me to utilize the computer’s built-in calculator.
But that’s not how I function best. I have to type the figures into the computer calculator using the top of my cumbersome computer keyboard. A desktop calculator may only save a few seconds of work and save the odd error, but it significantly improves my comfort and sense of effectiveness.
The true cost is that my supervisor just informed me that a cheap device that would increase my productivity wasn’t worthwhile. What does that mean for my worth?
This seems like a very simple situation that really shouldn’t have any impact, but the reality is that this simple situation creates a significant flow-on effect that, over time, will likely develop into a serious engagement issue.
Without employee enablement, even the most motivated employees run the risk of becoming irritated, restricted, and ultimately disengaged.
To work through this, organizations need to find ways to enable their employees to create effective and efficient processes that work for both the employee and the employer, that put them in a better position to succeed, and that underpin the engagement of the employee as the primary outcome of every situation.
2. Energy
Often, when companies expect more performance from their employees, the employees frequently respond by putting in more hours at the office. In short spurts, and for specific projects that are completed in short periods of time, this method can be affective, however, creating this cycle and embedding it as situation normal almost always works against the long-term outcomes for the organization.
Instead, to create a situation normal that supports the long-term engagement of employees, businesses need to focus their efforts on assisting each individual to control their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy.
Human beings aren’t machines. You can’t simply plug them in, click a few keys and then leave them to produce output for you continuously without any rest required. Humans require regular reset of their energy resources to be able to continuously operate at their peak.
Specifically, the following energy sources need to be constantly reset to allow humans to perform at their best:
1. Physical energy – the amount of energy that is available to a person to keep moving.
2. Emotional energy – the type of energy created by emotions, which can be either positive or negative.
3. Mental energy – the capacity to concentrate on one thing at a time. It is a potent tool for accomplishing tasks more quickly.
4. Spiritual energy – the drive we get from knowing that what we do matters. When something matters, an employee is much more motivated.
Employee engagement and productivity significantly increase when energy management is done well. Helping people manage their energy instead of their time makes more sense. If all an organization focuses on is employees appearing to be dedicated because they give more time then they will be competing for a finite resource that eventually runs out. If instead, they help their employees manage their energy, then the employees will be more engaged and will have higher energy levels to dedicate to the time they do spend on work related tasks.
3. Empowerment
Another factor that fosters and maintains engagement over time is empowerment. The ability to produce results is transferred from the manager to the employee through empowerment. An employee is empowered to assume responsibility, make choices, and use those resources once they have access to the proper resources.
Accountability’s base is empowerment. It is the capacity to keep one’s word. Employees who are motivated and productive are, by definition, given the authority to produce results.
4. Encouragement
Another human component that contributes to an engaged workforce is encouragement. Simple forms of encouragement like a word, a brief nod of acknowledgement, an act of appreciation, or an expression of thanks practically cost nothing.
Additionally, even though it might not be expensive, the value of rewarding staff with gratitude cannot be overstated.
Encouragement is a gesture of appreciation or recognition that figuratively ‘gives courage’ to a worker to act, go above and beyond the call of duty, depart from the rigid parameters of the position, and take chances.
When you recognize an employee’s actions, they are given the freedom to put forth extra effort – that is what engagement is all about.
Encouragement as expressed through thankfulness can empower employees to heal, energize, change lives, and drive cultural change in the workplace.
Businesses that employ social recognition to instill encouragement and thankfulness in their culture foster a more inspired work environment. Employees are then engendered and given the freedom to perform their finest work ever as a result. Employees become more enriched, fulfilled, and productive when they are recognized for who they are and what they accomplish by supervisors, peers, and direct reports.
The social psychology of work engagement
The focus of social psychology is on interpersonal and group interactions. It creates and puts into practice psychological ideas that explain how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors affect others and are impacted by others.
Social influence, conformity, social norms, leadership, power, and group dynamics are significant issues in this branch of psychology. Analyzing individual behaviors and interpersonal interactions is crucial for understanding employee job engagement and productivity because the products and services that organizations offer are the result of the effort put out by all of its members.
Case Study: Human Resources Checklist for Employee Engagement
With a focus on future sustainability of employee engagement, the CSR HR Checklist provides a 4-stage approach for organizations to follow to create a lasting engagement platform for their employees.
1.0 Incremental
At the incremental level, a small group of employees who volunteer take part in CSR initiatives with the objectives of cost reduction and education.
2.0 Strategic
In the Strategic level, a CSR division oversees sustainability initiatives that boost internal operating effectiveness; sustainability starts to be incorporated into business objectives.
3.0 Cultural
With a better integration of sustainability into the product and business, the cultural step aims to promote staff health, wellness, and sustainable behaviors.
4.0 Transformational
Additionally, the organization integrates the community and industry as it moves into the transformational stage, putting a strong emphasis on shared value and sustainability in the business model.
When an employee’s work contributes to the company’s core operations and its ongoing performance in terms of innovation, sustainability, and overall success, employee engagement is at its highest potential. The benefits of corporate sustainability will be greatest when a majority of the organization is actively involved in CSR, albeit it may start at the grassroots or CSR department level with a small number of employees.
How to raise employee engagement is a frequently asked question in more recent times. There are many theories on how to make this happen, and connecting sustainability to corporate strategy, operational procedures, and job responsibilities, involve mid-management, and making it applicable to one’s ‘day job’, are all great places to start.
Another really great way to engage employees is for the organization to find shared value between the organization’s goals and the needs of the community. Shared value involves finding the intersection between the purpose and goals the organization is wanting to achieve and the way that those goals can positively impact the community.
Then, the organization creates a pathway that enables it to achieve its goals whilst also providing solutions, products and services that meet the community needs.
This shared value creates a sustainable pathway forward for relationship between the organization and the community and also establishes an environment where the health and wellbeing of the community is aligned with the health and wellbeing of the organization.
Organizations that can operate in a shared value environment create opportunities for employees to become a part of something that is bigger than them, something that makes a real difference and something that creates positive change.
Where’s the bed?
The term “embedding” sounds great, but where does it actually happen?
There are many embedding strategies available for organizations to use. The strategy that best matches a company’s corporate culture, goals, and vision should be used.
Four main methods for consideration are as follows:
1. Transaction and compliance. Management systems, policies, practices, personnel management systems, and communications are all embedding points.
2. Technique. KPIs, business and performance planning, and incentive schemes are examples of embedding points.
3. Competencies and knowledge. Competency models and trainings are examples of embedding points.
The business plan. The corporate purpose, vision, and mission are all embedding points.
Exercise 5.4: Steps to Employee Engagement
– Agile thinking
– Innovation
– Creating positive change
– Enthusiastic response to challenges
– Between co-workers?
– Between manager and team members?
– Team building events?
– Motivation and energizing activities?
– On an organizational level?
– What measurement is done?
– How often are measurements taken?
– What is done with the information gathered from measurement activities?
Course Manual 5:Components of Engagement
Introduction
Over the years, business owners and managers have devised a wide range of plans and initiatives to demonstrate that they are ‘good employers’ and to try and give themselves the reputation of being a better place to work.
Some of these rewards have been things such as:
• a birthday bonus (like a gift voucher, or an extra day’s leave)
• contribution towards a gym membership or exercise classes paid for by the organization
• a beer fridge or Friday drinks
• complimentary fruit provided in the office
• a ‘proper’ coffee maker or coffee machine in the kitchen
• table tennis or foosball in a breakout area
• a monthly massage
• company/team building outings
• a holiday gathering
And lots of other sorts of ‘one-off’ events, activities or rewards.
So, what is wrong with these things?
The answer is: nothing specifically. It’s not really about the thing that’s offered, it’s more about the environment they’re being offered within and sometimes, it’s about whether or not the thing may inadvertently create seclusion for some employees. For example, Friday night drinks might create a problem for employees who don’t drink (for all sorts of reasons) and/or for those employees who can’t attend because they have other obligations.
So, if that’s the only reward your organization offers, then it’s only rewarding some of your employees and it might not be rewarding the employees you really want to acknowledge.
The biggest issue to note here is that most organizations hold these things up as evidence that they have an active engagement strategy. However, the reality is that these benefits should never be confused with creating engagement.
Although they undoubtedly contribute to a sense of belonging and can help employees feel appreciated, rewards must be viewed as a part of a larger plan in order to be genuinely effective. The entertaining thing makes up a very modest part of employee engagement in a firm.
The excursions and benefits are ultimately pointless treats if none of the necessary elements are there. In fact, if rewards alone are the entirety of an organization’s engagement strategy then the organization has failed to plan effectively.
The 6 Components of Engagement
1. Employee Wellbeing
Making sure your employees’ physical and emotional wellbeing is a priority is the first step in fostering employee engagement.
Productivity will inevitably suffer if your workforce is not in good health. Even while the financial toll that missing days take is significant, this is only the beginning.
People frequently continue to report to work when they are not feeling well, which may be OK if they only have a slight cold. However, if individuals endure their misery for an extended period of time, motivation and productivity will inevitably diminish.
Presenteeism, or working while sick or disengaged, increases business expenses. According to data from health insurer Vitality, the UK economy lost a little under £92 billion in 2019 as a result of presenteeism and illness-related absences from work.
According to the Vitality research, three-fourths of this sum can be linked to elements like poor mental wellbeing and bad lifestyle decisions, which can be addressed by businesses through the efficient implementation of health and wellbeing programs.
Ergonomic issues that create a comfortable work environment for employees like making sure that workstations, chairs, and equipment are appropriate for the task at hand and don’t interfere with posture or cause back issues is the bare minimum place to start.
Poor mental health is more difficult to recognize. Workplace stress increases the likelihood of depression, which in turn promotes exhaustion and lethargy in employees.
How can you gauge how stressed out your crew is? Asking them is one method you can use. One of the best ways to assess the mental wellbeing of your team is through an employee survey. If you make the survey anonymous you’re more likely to get an honest answer that bypasses any stigma that may be in place around mental health.
2. Communication
Communication to your employees is a crucial component of an employee engagement strategy. A successful business depends on effective communication.
Businesses must express their core beliefs and recent developments. Managers must support their teams and explicitly describe their responsibilities. Teams should be organized so that peer-to-peer communication is simple.
The process of communication is two-way. Managers and leaders should pay attention to what their teams have to say and be ready to act when necessary.
A community grows through communication. Morale lowers and false rumors can spread if people feel neglected or kept in the dark. People value openness and transparency, which increases their propensity to support the objectives of the company.
3. Leadership
Another important element of employee engagement is leadership.
A Robert Half survey found that approximately 50% of professionals (or working people) have left a job due to a terrible boss. People quit a manager, not a company, as the saying goes.
Leadership is about taking responsibility, getting to know your people, listening, inspiring, and modelling positive behavior.
Great leaders tend to exhibit the following seven qualities:
• Listen before you act.
• Request input and provide one-on-one meetings.
• Set the example – do what you ask your people to do.
• Provide attainable targets.
• Be reliable – your demeanor shouldn’t change just because the level of challenge does.
• Avoid micromanagement.
• Gratitude for the actions and efforts of the team.
4. Personal and Professional Development
Personal development is just as important as professional development to the majority of people.
It’s true that some people only want to report to work, complete their tasks, and receive payment at the end of the month. However, lots of people desire the opportunity to grow and learn in personal and professional areas.
Organizations with high levels of employee engagement genuinely know whether their staff members are aspirational and seek challenges or whether they want to remain in their familiar surroundings.
Having the chance to learn new abilities and skills is crucial for ambitious workers. A well-organized training program is essential for both professional and personal growth.
Another thing to think about is mentoring. In addition to assisting with skill development, a mentor may encourage your staff members and help them feel appreciated.
A great way to think about this is to ask: how can you expect your employees to be interested in the company if you don’t show any interest in them?
5. Feedback
Although it is a crucial component of leadership and the communications strategy, feedback deserves its own category to emphasize how important it is.
Employee engagement is largely dependent on providing open, honest feedback. Finding methods and tactics to enhance working conditions is necessary, and this process must continue. Waiting until the annual review to solicit feedback, or worse, until an exit interview as an employee is on their way out the door, is insufficient.
Employees must feel secure to give honest feedback without fear of retaliation in order for it to be effective.
Regular staff surveys are effective instruments for obtaining real feedback. Even though surveys are not typically anonymous when determining a person’s needs for training and development, anonymizing the survey’s response section may be an option.
6. Employee engagement and work environment
The work environment plays a massive role in whether employees are engaged with the organization.
If the company spends no money on the provision of comfortable work premises with a pleasing aesthetic, then employees will feel that they aren’t valued by the organization. Similarly, if the company overspends in this area and then employees perceive that they lose out on salary increases and/or bonuses then this can create disengagement as well.
Some of the questions organizations can ask themselves around this component are things like:
• Do their employees desire to work there?
• Are their employees at ease there?
• Is the setting comfortable?
• Are employees able to focus?
• Is the temperature in the building too hot or cold?
In today’s highly competitive talent market, people are no longer willing to tolerate raucous and soulless offices, especially since they have become accustomed to the freedom of working from home.
The function of the workplace is an ever-evolving thing and people want to know that their workplace is something that supports and nurtures them rather than something that treats them like the human version of a battery hen.
Ultimately, it takes work to create a workplace culture where employees are motivated and engaged. The managers and leaders of the company must be committed to it and it has to go beyond simply offering rewards and goodies before employees will feel they are supported.
However, the entirety of employee involvement must be embraced in order to improve a positive culture.
A company’s culture must be built on effective communication, a dedication to hearing everyone’s ideas and acting on them, empathic and inspiring leadership, a sincere interest in everyone’s wellbeing, and spending money to create a physical environment that prioritizes the needs of its employees.
The 8 Elements that Support Optimal Employee Engagement
Employee engagement can be hard work to get right, but there are key elements that can support the development and sustainment of long-term engagement for an organization.
1. Leadership
Managerial ties are extremely important to employees. Research studies show that receiving praise from a direct manager, or from their manager 2-3 levels about them, is roughly twice as effective at motivating an employee as giving them stock options.
Importantly: compliments are free! In actuality, the relationship between employees and their managers is the single most important indicator of employee engagement, or whether those employees will stay on at your business. It cannot be emphasized enough how important effective management is for employee engagement.
2. Communication
What constitutes an effective manager? Start by being communicative. Making sure managers have regular, honest, and open communication with their staff is a critical element of employee engagement.
Managers should especially avoid keeping their staff in the dark about company failures. If anything, keeping them in the dark regarding the truth about what is going on will undermine their trust in you.
3. Company Culture
Employees that enjoy working for a company want to report for duty every morning. Additionally, a company will be more profitable the better its culture. Research conducted by the University of North Dakota found that investing in businesses from ‘Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For’ routinely produced returns that are higher than those of the general market — higher even than those of the S&P 500.
4. Recognition and rewards
More than 75% of workers claim that if they received more recognition, they would work more. This covers both official forms of appreciation, such as programs honoring employees of the month or years of service, and informal ones, such as business ‘points’ or thank-you notes. Employers can effectively distinguish between strong and poor performance with the help of a well-defined recognition and reward system that links praise and incentives to the actions that are crucial to the organization’s success. What is familiar is repeated.
5. Personal and professional development
Having the chance to learn new abilities and skills is crucial for ambitious workers. The majority of staff development takes place on the job as part of new tasks or responsibilities, but it can also take the shape of regional conferences, new readings, or certification programs. By asking your staff how they would like to grow and providing them with the right opportunities for that growth, you can keep them engaged.
However, if an organization is going to offer its employees access to a professional development program, then they must ensure that accessing the program is simple and efficient. When employees have to fight tooth and nail to access a program that is marketed as a benefit it completely disintegrates any goodwill and engagement the program was designed to have.
6. Responsibility and effectiveness
Everyone wants to play on a team that succeeds. People who perform well are proud of both themselves and their workplaces. However, they require coaches who can give candid criticism, just like any other squad. Instantaneous affirmation strengthens desired behaviors, and timely criticism can stop future issues before they escalate.
7. Goals and principles
Employees who are engaged are aware of the big picture and their place within it. Employees have something to unite over when their basic principles and mission are made apparent and they are much more willing to go above and beyond to support that higher mission if they feel that they are a part of something greater than themselves.
8. Corporate social accountability
Employee engagement levels are twice as high among those who express pride in the charitable partnerships their company has in place. Successful businesses typically have strong relationships with their local communities, are dedicated to charitable giving, and support employee involvement in worthwhile initiatives that improve the world.
Case Study: Investing in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for in America
Researchers at the University of North Dakota set out to determine whether there was a correlation between the level of engagement of employees at Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for in America and the returns that investors could achieve when investing in these same organizations.
The Holy Grail of investing, or the method to find companies that generate higher risk-adjusted stock returns than a market portfolio, has long been sought by investors.
The underlying concept of the Holy Grail is that by carefully analyzing a company’s financial accounts, one may ascertain the firm’s value and anticipate the future performance of the stock.
Since 1998, Fortune has compiled a ranking of the top 100 companies based on the quality of their employee-employer relationships.
The Great Place to Work Institute compiles the list by looking at five factors that affect employer-employee relationships: credibility (values, internal communication), respect for workers (training, recognition programs), fairness (equity in pay, diversity), pride (social impact of products and services, philanthropy), and camaraderie (celebrations).
Companies must have been in business for at least seven years and have at least 1000 full- and part-time employees in order to be eligible for the list.
Additionally, businesses must be prepared to conduct an employee survey and respond to a management questionnaire.
At least 400 randomly chosen employees receive the employee survey, which comprises of 57 statements that are positively written and address each of the five dimensions.
The management questionnaire assesses a company’s culture and asks for basic data on employee demographics, company finances, and benefits/perks provided to employees. A number of open-ended questions are also posed to management, allowing the company to examine how its practices affect the five components of positive employer-employee relations.
The results of the management questionnaire and employee surveys are then utilized to create a ranking, with two thirds of the ranking based on employee feedback and one third on an analysis by the Institute.
The research conducted by the team at University of North Dakota found that firms that have been named on this list, were found to have outperformed other firms in the areas of financial ratios, market values and cumulative returns.
The study showed that if someone had purchased a portfolio of stock in the firms on the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America list in January 1998 and kept the entire portfolio until December 1999, then the performance of that portfolio would have been 68% relative to 13% for a matched sample of firms.
While of course only time can tell the ultimate results and performance of a stock, this study showed that being named on this list may well be an indication of superior performance for an organization.
Exercise 5.5: Engagement and Reciprocity
– Is this guaranteed for every employee?
– Is it easy and efficient to access?
Course Manual 6: The 5C’s of Engagement
Introduction
“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute”. Simon Sinek
It goes without saying that retaining staff is essential to a company’s long-term success. So how do you take a ‘regular’ staff and turn them into highly engaged brand ambassadors?
Any company will inevitably have a few workers that would be classified as ‘sleepers’.
They get up, go to work, go to their desk or station, and depart for home at the end of the day; they lead a routine work life. When workers aren’t productive at work, they turn into liabilities rather than assets for the business. Too many sleepers in an organization spells big trouble.
Smart businesses continually strive to engage staff members so that they look forwards to coming into the office each morning and prevent the growth of new ‘sleepers’. They are aware that motivated employees will contribute to the success and longevity of the business.
Research studies have repeatedly shown that those organizations that sit in the top quartile of engagement see around 10% higher customer metrics, approximately 17% higher productivity, 20% greater sales, and 21% higher profitability.
With metrics like these, it becomes mission critical for every leader’s vision and everyday activities to include engaging the workforce.
A significant portion of workers find their jobs monotonous. When asked, HR managers will always say that the most difficult part of their job to get right is the employee engagement piece.
The days of being able to throw money at the engagement problem as an effective solution are long gone. Extra money provides a short-term band aid but struggles to keep workers on board for an extended period of time.
When money stopped working as a major incentive, managers had to think of other ways to motivate employees … so we saw the evolution of Friday drinks, picnics away from the office, birthday or anniversary games of cricket or football, cultural festivals, competitions for painting and quizzing, childcare for employees’ children, movie tickets, and coupons for discounts at local stores, among many others.
Some of the larger and more prosperous organizations brought special services in-house. For example, Google is known to offer its staff free, wholesome, and professionally prepared meals. They hire skilled and knowledgeable chefs so that their staff can enjoy delicious meals at work.
It’s one method of encouraging employees to be happy at work, but it doesn’t solve the engagement piece on its own, and as a standalone perk it won’t be enough to keep workers around for very long.
Employees must feel emotionally invested in their work and in the organization for them to stay for a long period of time.
So, in addition to all of the well-known methods stated above, there are other factors that are crucial in raising employee engagement levels.
There are five commonly accepted “C’s” of employee engagement that organizations can use to enhance the role of engagement in their employees:
1. Care
At the top of the list, caring is recognized as the best managerial skill that allows leaders to instill a sense of ownership in their workforce. Managers must have empathy for others, be attentive to their needs, and comprehend their unique issues. Employees are made to feel that they belong to the business and that the organization belongs to them by tiny, everyday acts of kindness.
Employees will quickly understand that the company isn’t only about making money or expanding market share at the expense of everything else when a manager openly demonstrates their concern for their team.
Employees will be aware that the organization they work for cares about their welfare. This creates a team of individuals who actively care about each other’s physical and mental health, which leads to increased levels of productivity, happiness, and profit for the business.
2. Connect
Ensure that employees are satisfied with everything in their immediate workplace by connecting with them through regular informal conversations and performance appraisals or reviews. You can also ask them about the workplace environment, their opinions of their co-workers, and even their workload and daily tasks.
Employees will feel at ease approaching their supervisors honestly and without bias when organizations demonstrate that they appreciate criticism and use it.
3. Coach
Instead of giving instructions or micromanaging their staff, effective leaders are frequently observed to actively coach and guide their teams and organizations. This kind of encouragement will help you retain, empower, and develop your brilliant workforce. They have a propensity to remain longer, are happier, and are a great way to motivate staff.
Employees will feel useful and want to perform or try harder the following time, rather than feeling ignored, if you consistently work to coach your team. For information on how to do this, see our post on effective employee coaching techniques.
When people join a company, they hope to advance their careers there. They will feel like they belong to the organization if the top management and immediate managers invest focused time in establishing the careers of its personnel. When the management encourages them to advance their professions, they feel motivated.
Through job rotations, rewarding them with meaningful responsibilities, difficult assignments, and promotions, an organization can give its staff the chance to advance professionally. Additionally, they should be allowed a certain amount of power and independence so they may make their own judgements.
If companies actually invest in advancing the careers of their employees, a completely new breed of workers is produced.
4. Contribute
Employees should be encouraged to contribute on their own and to contribute their own ideas. Employees want to feel that their ideas are valued equally to those of management and that they have a real impact on the success of the business. There’s an ancient saying that goes, ‘No idea is ever a stupid idea’.
Therefore, if you feel that an idea brought up by the team does not fit, do not immediately dismiss it; rather, thank the person and then provide an explanation of why you believe the idea may not work well for the company. Employees often avoid contributing in the future because they are terrified of being rejected again when ideas are rejected without explanation.
Competence is all about having the capacity to improve. Employees need to receive regular workshops and training in order to advance their knowledge and abilities. The development of marketable talents ought to be the main emphasis. After a few months, the majority of employees start looking for ways to further their careers and gain new skills within the firm. While a career concentrates on actual advancement in terms of title, pay, benefits, and power, competency is the capacity to advance by taking advantage of opportunities.
5. Congratulate
You should work on developing the practice of consistently praising or congratulating those workers who have performed admirably, whether it was at work or in their personal lives. Giving congratulations to staff members in front of their co-workers also greatly boosts their self-confidence.
Employees will get recognition and a sense of purpose in the workplace if this is done. You might get more knowledge by reading this article about the value of peer recognition.
Simon Sinek is a well-known voice in the field of employee engagement and what organizations can do to motivate their employees in new ways.
You can listen to Simon’s thoughts on how to motivate the un-motivated by watching this video:
The 5 C’s of Employee Retention
You’ve probably heard that keeping an existing customer costs less than acquiring a new one. Keeping your employees can be placed in the same boat. Some research puts the cost of replacing an employee at up to 60% of their annual income.
To put it simply, it is expensive to hire new workers.
The correct candidates must be sought out, candidates must go through a selection procedure, and resources must be spent onboarding new employees. The business line and a social impact organization’s capacity to fulfil its mission are both negatively impacted by these costs and lost productivity.
Hiring the greatest applicants for a position and keeping them in that position for the longest amount of time is the optimal strategy for all organizations, especially mission-driven organizations that are focused on social impact.
Spend money on your employees. It can’t be stated in simpler terms.
At least 40% of American adults, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, have a bachelor’s degree or more, and the number is rising year on year. However, finding great employees isn’t always simple, especially in today’s competitive employment market when the high-quality applicant has the upper hand, and the employer doesn’t.
The most qualified candidates are in a better position and can shop around for the ideal position with the ideal company. Additionally, people who are unsatisfied in their jobs can quickly find another one.
The greatest approach to make sure your organization retains excellent talent (and avoids the pricey next hiring process) is to invest in your staff.
The five C’s of staff retention can help guide you in ensuring your organization has a strong retention mindset:
1. Compensate
We frequently presume that people don’t accept positions that have a significant financial benefit but instead choose them because of their amazing, good societal impact, and we downplay the significance of pay. The best employees are driven by the purpose of their work, but they also need and deserve an appropriate pay that recognizes their degree of responsibility and caliber of work. After all, intelligent job seekers are aware that they can have both a mission-driven employment and a respectable salary in today’s market.
However, indirect pay also contributes to the overall package you offer new personnel and is a form of compensation that employees value in addition to direct compensation. Different indirect compensation models have different financial costs. In any instance, you design a benefits package that makes them feel appreciated at work and reduces their likelihood of considering leaving.
You can use indirect pay like the following as an investment in your team:
• Allow employees to work more frequently from home or entirely remotely.
• Provide free or discounted parking, if applicable to your organization.
• Provide medical and dental insurance.
• Provide a retirement plan with retirement matching.
• Provide generous paid time off and holidays (giving people their birthday off is always a favorite).
• Cell phone stipend/reimbursement
• Gym membership or discount
• Tuition or student loan aid
• Childcare
In the end, it’s preferable to invest the time and money up front in building a fantastic compensation package that retains your best workers rather than using resources to go for new hires with a questionable track record.
2. Commend
The mission-driven work of nonprofits and social enterprises, including those in the education sector, keeps people focused on reaching organizational goals and truly making an impact within a community. However, sometimes managers and supervisors forget about staff appreciation as they strive to ensure their team completes work quickly and effectively.
Dr. Gary Chapman, a New York Times bestselling author, has written a lot about romance and relationships, including those at work. Chapman writes in his book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, that a team member’s level of appreciation at work has a significant impact on how motivated they are to work.
This isn’t a new idea, but Chapman takes his argument to the next level—employees feel appreciated in different ways.
The five languages of appreciation, according to Chapman, are:
1. Positive affirmations
Some workers respond positively to praise because it makes them feel valued. It doesn’t need to be excessive or insincere. Offering a ‘well done’ often suffices, but any words that affirm a team member’s positive qualities and contributions will do.
For example, you might let an employee know that you appreciate their hard work or dedication to students.
Using words of affirmation is a great way to show appreciation because it doesn’t cost you anything financially, yet it has a big impact. And remember – the more specific, the better. A concrete sentence or two of affirmation with a specific example is far more powerful than a general ‘good job’.
2. Time Well Spent
Another way some employees feel appreciated is when senior leaders give them quality time. Don’t make the mistake of misunderstanding a team member who wants quality time as someone trying to influence you or foster a friendship.
Some employees want to share progress about a specific project, offer feedback or give suggestions. When you take the time to sit down and ask them how it’s going, they feel valued when discussing things with you. You can provide quality time during the workday, take an employee to lunch or have an office gathering outside work.
3. Acts of Service
Another great way to show you value your employees is by chipping in or providing resources to help them get their work done. Actions speak louder than words, and offering a helping hand promotes a team environment and shows employees that you care.
4. Tangible Gifts
For some team members, a small token of your appreciation can go a long way. Depending on the situation, you can offer gifts to employees in various price ranges to show appreciation. Whether a gift card, organization swag or a cash bonus, for some of your employees these tangible gifts are what will truly show them that you value them and their contributions to the team.
5. Physical Touch
Chapman’s final language of appreciation, physical touch, is tricky in the workplace. You need to be careful and mindful when using physical touch to show appreciation at work.
The most important thing to remember is that what is comfortable physical touch for you might not be comfortable for your team member. Touching that typically affirms the team member without raising concern includes an extended handshake, a literal pat on the back, a high five or a fist bump.
Ultimately, you need to know your team members and find out what makes them feel most appreciated. When you take the time to learn how to communicate appreciation and commend them in an individualized way, you will notice increased employee retention. Those who decide whether to leave an organization often critically evaluate whether they have a good boss who appreciates them.
3. Challenge
After working for an organization for months or years, many team members become comfortable in their positions. The best employees are always looking for a new challenge because they want to learn and grow.
When team members get bored and fall into a routine, they start looking for new jobs. Assigning stretch work projects increases employee engagement while providing team members an opportunity to develop new skills.
Here’s the idea: assign team members projects that are just beyond their current capabilities. As they tackle new challenges, they become more engaged. Additionally, they learn new skills they can apply to future projects, ultimately advancing their career. Most importantly, this reduces their need to look elsewhere for opportunities for professional growth, increasing your employee retention.
4. Career
Hiring top talent often involves finding ambitious employees willing to engage in the hard work it takes to reach organizational goals.
However, ambitious people also want to climb the ladder because advancing their careers comes with more responsibility, influence and compensation. You need to show top talent the pathway to advancement within your organization. If you don’t make it clear that advancement opportunities exist and show them the steps they need to take, they will look to other organizations to advance their career.
The easiest way to begin this pathway is to ask your team members about their short-term and long-term goals. What kind of work do they want to do in one year? In two years? In five years? Use their answers to work with them to develop a game plan to build the skills and background necessary to reach each goal. Take the time to revisit their plan and help them stay on track. As time progresses, you have groomed a team member for internal promotion and avoided spending money searching, hiring and onboarding a new employee.
However, you should be prepared that your employee might tell you they want to work at another organization in a few years. Don’t let this deter you from helping them meet their goals; be happy you know their plans ahead of time, so you won’t be shocked if they leave after a few years.
When you work with them to help them advance their career, you will reap the benefits of having a more engaged employee. Additionally, other team members will appreciate your efforts, and it will likely result in greater employee retention when people see how much you care about your team.
5. Culture
Organizational culture plays a large role in employee retention, primarily because of its relationship to employee engagement.
Organizations with a strong culture have employees who are engaged and enjoy coming to work. The research is clear—engaged employees are far less likely to look for different jobs. In fact, a Gallup Poll found that engaged employees are 59% less likely to search for a job with a new organization over the next 12 months.
The staples of a strong organizational culture focus on nurturing employees’ minds, bodies and souls. However, culture varies among organizations, making it important for employers to define their culture and hire new team members accordingly. For some organizations, their organizational culture is part of their brand. Strong cultures often equate to strong, positive employee brands – making it easier for an organization to cut through all the noise in the talent marketplace and hire the best people who are a right fit for their teams.
Large organizations in all sectors are full of examples of programs and policies that help define and brand a strong organizational culture. For example, Google is one of several companies that encourages tired and burned-out employees to take a power nap. They have a nap area with individual pods where employees can catch some much-needed zzz’s during the workday.
Diversity and inclusion, or lack thereof, also influences an organization’s culture and can greatly impact employee retention. Leaders of color, for example, will often look for a new job when they don’t feel included at an organization. Even team members who are not from traditionally marginalized communities often prefer and seek out diverse workplaces to join. Research shows that strong teams are diverse, equitable and inclusive; this is especially important in the social impact sector given the diversity of people and causes we serve. A diverse team that gives everyone a voice benefits those we serve who also have diverse backgrounds.
Case Study: When the 5 C’s Goes Wrong
In April 2019, an HR Consultant began working with a bootstrapped business creating eCommerce-related SaaS-based goods and services.
They needed to generate initial traction by offering their services and verifying their MVP (minimal viable product) in order to stay lean till they raised their Seed Round of Funding.
So, the HR Consultant recommended that they use the 5 C’s of employee engagement (Care, Connect, Coach, Contribute & Congratulate) to help them establish an engaged workforce.
To keep the workforce lean (in alignment with the business strategy), they focused on hiring one experienced employee to four good interns and an additional four support staff roles (which were also intern positions).
Senior management used the 5 C’s to guide the process of interacting with their employees. They took care of the employees, built a strong connection with them, coached them on how to find and use the best resources, changes to technology, market trends and the like, encouraged them to contribute to decision making, brainstorming and ideas creation and congratulated them and praised them for any progress (big or small) that was made.
Things moved along brilliantly for the first six months. But things changed when the internships were over, and the individuals moved to being full-time employees – all with salaries higher than the industry benchmarks.
The company started to see their employees either leave or lose motivation. The managers noticed that when they asked the employees to create something (a new process, new technology and the like) or when they were asked to complete training of some kind the engagement and motivation was high. But when they asked the employees to show real results like sale of products and services the engagement dropped to the lowest of levels.
Where the company thought that they had established a structure that embodied the 5 C’s, the reality was that by hiring little experience and almost all interns they had created an environment where the employees believed they were doing the company a favor and that the company didn’t have the right to ask too much of them.
To turn this around, the company needed to change the way they applied the 5 C’s to their employees.
Care – they needed to create a culture of performance, not just goodwill. This meant that the company needed to create a benchmark of ‘how much to care’ and how much to allow employees to perform.
Connect – the company needed to get to know each of their employees so they could understand the mix of motivation, distraction, reaction, impulse, challenge, growth so that they could guide each employee in the engagement process.
Coach – the company needed to understand that in the early stages of business there isn’t the time or the money to provide continual training to every employee. Some training is needed, but the major focus has to be on creation and results.
Contribute – the company needed to find the line between encouraging contributions from employees and then finding the solutions they required to get to the business off the ground and running profitably. Understanding the level of contribution that can be gained from employees to achieve this in early stages was critical.
Congratulate – instead of praising every little act, detail and achievement, the company needed to keep their eye on the achievements that were helping move the business towards increasing productivity and achieving necessary outcomes.
By redefining the role of the 5 C’s and applying them to the unique workforce they had, the company was able to turn its workforce into an ally that helped them get to where they needed to be, rather than a force that was working against them.
Exercise 5.6: The 5 C’s of Employee Engagement
– Does this differ for different departments in the organization?
– If yes – why does it differ?
– At organizational level
– At department level
– At team level
– At organizational level
– At department level
– At team level
– Is something missing?
– What could be added?
Course Manual 7: The 5 Keys to Engagement
Introduction
Engagement among employees is a significant issue. After all, a disengaged employee is detrimental to that team member’s wellbeing. Additionally, it’s bad for business because disengagement can be infective and the energy of disengagement can spread to other team members as well.
As a result, organizations must constantly assess their culture and endeavor to create strategies that increase employee engagement.
Businesses with engaged employees often have around a 20% higher profit margin. High levels of employee engagement can be difficult to get consistently right, but they are essential—especially in a society where hybrid and working from home arrangements are the norm.
Organizations that adapt their engagement techniques to suit the demands of their workforce on an ongoing basis create internal trends where everyone is involved and a positive workplace environment is in place.
To be able to implement long-standing engagement processes, it’s critical that an organization comprehends the factors that drive employee engagement. There are five commonly acknowledged keys to employee engagement.
These keys were created based on over two decades of research and a database of over 50 million employee survey responses related to the employee experience.
The 5 Keys to Employee Engagement
Organizations may create an atmosphere where employees feel that their work has meaning, have the power to change their work and surroundings, are being challenged and stretched, see positive results, and experience a sense of belonging by concentrating on five keys to employee engagement.
1. Recognize employees for a job well done
Do this frequently, in the moment, and in the manner in which they would prefer to be recognized.
According to various research studies, seven out of ten workers who claimed they had received some sort of acknowledgement from their managers expressed satisfaction with their positions. Without acknowledgement, only 39% of people claimed to be content.
By praising your employees’ accomplishments, you can help them feel appreciated inside the firm and motivated to perform at their highest level.
Building employee recognition into your company culture will help you get the best performance out of your workforce since, according to research, 86% of employees are driven by recognition and 65% think they would work harder if they were better recognized. By praising employees’ efforts, you will also encourage the activities and behaviors you want to see more of.
Employee appreciation can be done in a variety of ways, from verbally applauding good work to writing thank-you notes and giving presents.
It is crucial to treat every employee fairly when developing an employee recognition program so that everyone who exhibits a particular behavior will be recognized for it. Additionally, you want to make sure that the acknowledgement reflects the effort made and the outcomes achieved while also conveying your sincerity.
2. Culture-based communication
Speak to your staff in a manner consistent with your culture. Don’t email them to death if your company supports work-life balance. Implement technology that promotes teamwork, prompt communication, and a simple way for staff to locate the information they require.
Maintaining engagement at work may depend on creating a positive workplace culture where people feel at home and at ease.
A company’s culture is shaped by a variety of factors, including its values, systems, beliefs, habits, and relationships. Although developing a strong company culture is more difficult than it sounds, there are some things a leader can do to foster a productive workplace, such as showing respect for staff and involving them in business decisions, giving employees some degree of freedom, valuing hard work, and making work enjoyable.
Since 88% of workers prefer a collaborative work environment to one that is competitive, there is a win-win situation for both the business and the employee when there is some degree of openness and idea sharing.
The relationships people have at work have a big impact on how happy they are there. In fact, 70% of people say that their work friendships are the most important factor in a good working life. Peers can also inspire employees to put in extra effort at work.
3. Learning and development
Fostering a culture of learning is crucial to boosting employee engagement, which benefits the company as a whole. In the competition for talent in today’s workforce over skills, modern businesses that provide learning opportunities have an advantage. Employers must provide their employees the freedom they need to succeed. Because performance improvement is an ongoing activity, businesses must build procedures that get better feedback, encourage productivity, and support workers rather than just evaluate them. This necessitates imagining novel employee-manager connections.
No matter what generation they belong to, people want the chance to learn, grow, and develop. We all seek guidance, criticism, mentoring, and support. Do you work with a mentor, an adviser, or an advocate? If not, how do you intend to acquire one? Do you actively promote mentorship as a company? Do all of your employees have development plans that are regularly reviewed, discussed, and updated more frequently than once a year?
The modern employee seeks input and feedback frequently. The aims and skill set of your workforce must change along with the goals and direction of the organization and the market.
The desire to make an impression and develop swiftly among the younger generations in the workforce is a significant change. They take a more holistic, matrixed, and immersive approach to their professions than the conventional “ladder model” does. They want to collaborate on projects and teams, learn, and develop.
How many project teams that span different functional areas and generations do you have? Does your company encourage staff to switch up their roles, responsibilities, and locations? Can employees who exhibit exceptional achievements, performance, and potential ascend swiftly into extended and advanced roles?
4. Effective leadership
This section has two primary points. The first step is to convince the leadership of the value of employee engagement. How to get CEOs on board with engagement efforts is a subject that is frequently posed because many organizations struggle to convince leadership teams of the value of engagement. The solution is to converse in their language. Think about ROI. Showcase the advantages of funding employee engagement programs. Consider how employee engagement affects the bottom line of the company.
Making ensuring managers are sufficiently prepared for the workforce is the second. Put procedures in place to fill up the holes in your leadership skills and to receive employee feedback on your leadership abilities.
Giving workers some autonomy and control over their time can increase their happiness and productivity.
In several research studies, a little under 80% of workers say it’s important to them to feel in control at work, and by choosing their own timetables or methods for finishing tasks, workers report higher job satisfaction.
In an effort to foster a sense of autonomy among their employees, many businesses have started implementing flexible work schedules and the ability to work from home. According to one survey, 74% of workers would prefer such a schedule. Making an informed choice about whether this might work inside your organization is vital because some people need a little extra guidance while others work well independently and thrive when taking responsibility for their own job.
Having said that, it is likely that employees will be happier and more productive if given the flexibility to make decisions at work and to take responsibility for them.
5. Simplicity
Just two of the ways organizations can assist employees in lowering personal and professional complications are by fostering flexible work environments and work-life balance. individual engagement will be maintained via an organizational culture that allows each individual to perform at their highest level both at work and at home.
Employees want to feel as though they are contributing significantly to the organization and that they have a purpose there. The ability to make a difference is a crucial quality that people look for in a role while looking for a job.
In particular, millennial workers seek this level of fulfilment from their work, and two-thirds of university graduates think that their next job should allow them to make a difference, even if that means forgoing a raise.
Your staff will be more motivated to perform at their highest level and remain engaged at work if you demonstrate how their work has a positive impact on the business.
Determine and state your organization’s purpose. What are you trying to achieve and/or become? Who do you want to become? What is your brand and value proposition? Are you able to define and explain this? Be succinct and explicit.
Go through the procedure to completely identify your mission if you haven’t already; it connects to and motivates everything you do. Your mission, vision, values, and strategies should develop as your purpose materializes; these elements will be linked to how you will carry out your purpose. Your purpose is the reason people want to work for you, why they want to succeed, the cause of their strong emotional attachment, and a major reason why they want to stay.
Your goal, vision, mission, strategy, and expectations should all be clear and succinct. Where you are now, where you were yesterday, and where you are heading. Numerous Times! People must continuously be aware of their current line of sight because everything is shifting and moving so quickly. December-set objectives are easily out of date by March. Are your goals and expectations flexible enough to be updated and changed? How does this relate to your immediate and long-term objectives? Keep on communicating, then keep on communicating some more. The majority of organizations don’t actually do as much as they think they are. Use a variety of communication channels, such as an intranet, a website, emails, posters, town halls, management meetings, team meetings, brown bag lunches, etc.
What would everyone in your organization say if you polled or asked them about their understanding of their roles, responsibilities, and how they relate to the overarching mission, vision, strategy, and goals of the company? Do you believe they would be aware? Would the responses be uniform throughout the company? Always ask!
In order to better comprehend your own mission, you can increase your self-awareness. Are your intentions and actions guiding your purpose, and do you fully comprehend how they relate to one another?
Re-thinking Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is now a massive topic that every organization should be addressing. Employers want to keep their top personnel in a market where there is a talent war, a skills gap, constantly changing employee expectations, and a more competitive business environment.
An engaged employee is happier, more productive, and more likely to stick with their employer, as is well known. It is also well known that an engaged employee has a favorable effect on the business’s bottom line.
Gallup surveys over the years show that there is a “crisis in global employee engagement”, despite the fact that organizations spend a lot of money on engagement efforts nowadays, from their implementation to monitoring their success.
So, it’s time to reconsider employee engagement as a component of a whole employee experience rather than as a one-time fix.
The outmoded method of measuring employee engagement, which involves yearly polls and overly lengthy questionnaires, is incompatible with the modern workplace environment.
Employers need the adaptable and flexible workforce that employees seek out in order to be successful, and this is very much in line with the possibilities that employees seek out to innovate, be creative, learn, and grow.
Employers are aware that traditional approaches fall short and that they must foster and encourage innovation and creativity within their own ranks, but they are still failing to link engagement to the overall employee experience.
The 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report from Deloitte makes it clear that many businesses are still primarily concerned with “point-in-time” engagement and have not yet integrated performance management, goal-setting, diversity, inclusion, wellness, workplace design, and leadership into a cohesive framework.
Point-in-time engagement surveys, for instance, are only a snapshot of engagement levels and don’t offer results that can be put into practice. Employers must look beyond one-offs if they want to elevate engagement and integrate it into the fabric of the employee experience. Employers must use techniques to activate it so that employees are inspired, innovative, and enthusiastic over the long term.
Realizing that engagement is not the goal, that it is ongoing, and that it is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor requires a fundamental shift in perspective.
Employ a strategic approach to employee engagement and integrate it with culture
Employee engagement must be at the heart of company strategy for the next generation of HR leaders (rather than just strategies). Given its effect on the bottom line, it ought to be included into every part of the employee experience and more tightly linked to business results.
This strategy for increasing employee engagement goes beyond organizational silos, takes business priorities into account, and is deeply ingrained in an organization’s culture.
An important component of employee engagement is a strong culture with unambiguous values. Employees who are aligned with a clear and concise culture more naturally believe they are making a difference in the organization’s success as well as their own.
The relationships individuals have with their co-workers and the chances they have to further their careers also help employees feel more involved and a part of the culture.
Various research studies conducted by SHRM supports this result by demonstrating that employee engagement levels are often determined by the strength of their relationship with supervisors and co-workers, as well as their belief in their own ability to perform their jobs effectively and contribute to an organization.
Case Study: SHRM – Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement
How to Increase and Maintain Employee Engagement
Employers should carefully consider the design of engagement initiatives if they want to raise employee engagement levels.
Overall Directives
As any professional thinks about implementing or changing procedures or programs to raise employee engagement, they ought to:
• Make wise investment decisions. In order to increase engagement levels, the organization should evaluate the strategic implications of different HR practices and decide which are more crucial and warrant greater investment.
• Create an effective business case. Managers should be able to show how these investments have produced profitable, quantifiable business results for their organization or other companies.
• Think about the unanticipated effects. Consider the expected effect of the altered policies while assessing choices for restructuring procedures to promote employee engagement. Are there any possibly unforeseen, unfavorable effects that could arise based on how that modification affects employees in various scenarios and living situations?
• Make informed investment decisions. Every year, employee engagement should be evaluated. The major performance indicators for the organization, such as profitability, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty, should be connected to survey questions. Finding the most effective engagement levers and survey questions that distinguish the best-performing business units from less successful ones should be among the results of employee engagement research.
• Establish an ‘engagement culture’. This can be accomplished by emphasizing the importance of engagement in the mission statement and leadership communications, making sure that business units carry out their engagement action plans, keeping track of progress, making necessary adjustments to strategies and plans, and acknowledging and celebrating accomplishments.
HR Principles
Employee engagement is significantly impacted by HR practices. The actions listed below can raise staff engagement:
• Job augmentation. Jobs and tasks should include significance, variety, autonomy, and respect for co-workers so that employees will view their roles more widely and be more inclined to take on responsibilities outside of their job descriptions.
• Recruiting. Look for candidates who will find their work fascinating and challenging. Encourage people to withdraw from the process if they are not suited for a certain job.
• Selection. Select candidates who are most likely to carry out their work responsibilities well, offer their time voluntarily, and behave appropriately.
• Growth and development. Give an orientation to help people understand how their job fits into the organization. In order to improve job performance, satisfaction, and self-efficacy, provide skill development training.
• Paying for strategy. Utilize pay-for-performance schemes to draw employees’ attention to desired actions. Adopt competency-based pay to promote knowledge and skill acquisition and improve employee performance.
• Performance supervision. Establish difficult targets that are in line with the strategic goals of the organization, offer feedback, and acknowledge successes and additional volunteer efforts.
Communications
Targeted communication activities can help managers and HR specialists monitor employee engagement concerns, collect regular employee feedback, and foresee how workgroup needs will change over time.
Managers and HR specialists should seize opportunities to engage staff members and should do so by using a variety of communication channels.
Opportunities For Communication
‘Engageable’ moments happen frequently for every organization and employers should seize the opportunity to engage their employees as often as possible.
The following formal and informal ‘engageable moment’ opportunities were recognized by Watson Wyatt’s Work USA report:
Formal possibilities consist of:
• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• Performance appraisals
• Setting objectives
• Training
• Correspondence from senior management
• Employee polls
Unofficial opportunities consist of:
• Coaching
• Mentoring
• Conversations about career growth
• Continuous performance evaluation
• Recognition initiatives
• Business social gatherings
• Crisis situations on a personal level.
• Methods of Communication
The sort of communication utilized for engagement activities should be determined by the size, makeup, and anticipated response of the target group of employees. Among the communication techniques HR experts and managers can utilize are:
‘Remaining in contact’ – these are things like regular weekly or bi-weekly meetings that can be used to maintain contact with workgroups. These should ideally be around 15 to 20 people in attendance at the meeting and can be used to get prompt feedback and issues or ideas can also be shared in this thread.
One-on-one conversations with a worker targeted for exceptional performance, recognized for performance development, or randomly selected from the workgroup are another element of staying in touch.
Remote interaction. Managers and HR specialists can communicate using a variety of technologies, including:
• Webex/webinar style platforms that can be used to communicate information and also to poll employees, collect feedback, interview departing employees, etc.
• Social media and smartphone apps are tools for conducting surveys, exchanging ideas, and voting on problems.
• Blogs that regularly update staff members on new projects and enable the recording and public release of their comments.
• Teleconferences and videoconferences.
• Electronic newsletters.
Metrics
To gauge employee engagement levels inside the company and to examine the connections between employee engagement and important business objectives, many organizations conduct workforce surveys.
These polls’ findings can show which engagement activities are succeeding in attaining their objectives. Employee engagement can be measured through surveys, but employers must understand that these surveys are different from conventional employee surveys.
Employers should develop a comprehensive engagement plan that goes beyond simply tracking engagement scores if they want to achieve the best results.
Prior to conducting an engagement survey, a strategy for employee engagement should ideally be developed. These five elements will be included in an efficient plan:
1. How the plan will be explained.
2. How to identify the action areas.
3. What measurable results will be utilized to gauge development.
4. What particular steps will be made in response to the survey results.
5. How long-term sustainability of the engagement strategy will be achieved.
Creating Engagement Surveys
When developing employee engagement surveys, organizations should consider the following guidelines:
Include questions that could be asked every year or more frequently. This will provide a base line for management of employee engagement.
Keep language neutral or positive. For example, ask, “Is our line-to-staff ratio correct for a company our size?” instead of “Are there too many staff for a company our size?” Avoid negatively worded items.
Focus on behaviors. Good questions probe supervisors’ and employees’ everyday behaviors and relate those behaviors to customer service whenever possible.
Beware of loaded and uninformative questions. For example, questions such as “Do you look forward to going to work on Mondays?” elicit a “no” response easily, even from engaged workers.
Keep the survey length reasonable. Overly long surveys reduce participation rates and may result in skewed responses because participants check answers just to finish the survey as quickly as possible.
If you work with a vendor that comes to you with a “standard” list of questions, consider tailoring questions to reflect your organizational needs.
Consider what you’re saying about the organization’s values in issuing the questionnaire. Question selection is critical because it tells employees what the organization cares enough to ask about.
Ask for a few written comments. Some organizations include open-ended questions, where employees can write comments at the end of surveys, to identify themes they might not have covered in the survey and might want to address in the future.
Consider doing more than one type of survey, each with different questions, frequencies and audiences. For example, “pulse” surveys are brief, more-frequent surveys that address specific issues or are given to specific segments of the workforce, and they can take place between annual surveys. Or conduct different surveys for company leaders and employees, or in different business units or specific countries.
Using Engagement Surveys
After an employee engagement survey has been administered, survey data should be reviewed in aggregate and broken down for each business unit to allow individual managers to make changes that will truly affect engagement levels.
Some experts also advocate having line managers communicate survey results to their own employees and create action plans to respond to survey recommendations that are specific to their team.
In addition, the organization may require that all employees have engagement objectives in their performance reviews so that engagement goals are developed both from the top down and from the bottom up.
Common missteps that organizations make with engagement surveys are failing to gain senior management commitment to act on survey results and failing to use focus groups to delve into the root of negative scores or comments. To avoid those mistakes, organizations should:
• Have management communicate to employees that the survey is an organizational, not a public relations, initiative.
• Consider creating a survey committee to instill broad buy-in.
• Create feedback or focus groups to determine the level of significance of specific items mentioned in the survey.
• Involve the entire management team in the action-planning process to ensure that changes are made based on employee feedback.
• Group open-ended survey comments by theme and categorize them at the workgroup level to ensure confidentiality of survey feedback.
Global Issues
If your organization operates across boarders in a number of different countries then it’s important to understand that the factors that drive employees to be engaged in their work vary not only from country to country but also by industry sector and within companies.
Consequently, organizations that are expanding and operating globally need to be aware of what engages their workforce in different global locations.
In looking to engage employees globally, employers should:
• View global HR decisions in the context of national culture.
• Use valid research—not stereotypes—to align HR practices for a local population with actual employee attitudes and perceptions.
• Remember that the norm for engagement varies widely from country to country, making it critical to consult data on national norms to interpret employee surveys correctly.
• Realize that the elements that create engagement also create the employment brand.
Understand that how the organization conducts its work reflects its organizational culture.
Exercise 5.7: Employee Engagement Questions
Course Manual 8: Methods of Engagement
Introduction
Employee engagement is a measure of how engaged and enthusiastic individuals are about their work, as well as how much extra effort they are willing to put in.
There are a number of key methods and drivers that organizations can use to assist them in putting in place effective, long-standing activities that will enhance the engagement of their employees on a continuous basis.
Employees will experience engagement with their organization on a number of levels:
• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Physical
The level of effort an employee puts into their work determines how physically engaged they are. Employees who are physically active see work as a source of vitality.
Individuals that are cognitively engaged focus more on their work and are involved in it, while emotionally engaged individuals have a good attitude on their jobs and are enthusiastic about what they do.
Whatever the cause, engaged employees are committed to their jobs and perceive how their efforts contribute to the overall mission and success of the university. They also feel a sense of connection to their work.
As the workplace continues to evolve, research shows that fostering an inclusive, psychologically secure workplace culture is essential for increasing employee engagement. No matter where they work (onsite, remotely, or hybrid), all employees need to have a sense of connection and belonging.
Methods of Engagement
There are 5 acknowledged methods for engaging employees, each with their own pro’s and con’s. Ultimately, it will be a combination of some or all of these methods that will go together to create the unique solution that each organization needs to meet the engagement requirements of its workforce.
1. Inclusion
Make sure everyone feels accepted, heard, and encouraged to speak up.
• Encourage a culture where team members can freely exchange ideas. Adopt measures to promote psychological security.
• Guard against availability bias, which involves favoring team members with whom you connect most frequently by recognizing or providing chances for them.
• Recognize the different levels of experience on your team and capitalize on them.
• Instill a sense of purpose in everyone by outlining how they contribute to the success of the department or faculty.
When inclusive excellence is in play, diversity and equality are seen as ‘two sides of the same coin’.
The American Association of Colleges & Universities (AACU) commissioned a set of three papers as part of its Making Excellence Inclusive Initiative, and the preface to those papers states:
“Inclusive Excellence re-envisions both quality and diversity. It displays a commitment to quality in higher education that has been widened by years of work to incorporate diversity into hiring, admissions, and recruitment processes as well as into the curriculum and co-curriculum and administrative practices.”
Similar to this, diversity and inclusion initiatives go beyond individual or department numbers as their ultimate objectives. Instead, they are multifaceted processes that help us improve individual growth, local and global community participation, workforce growth, and other areas of training and development.
Creating an inclusive excellence framework acknowledges the importance of meaningful inclusion of different people and viewpoints in fostering the creativity and innovation required to achieve the standards of product and service development and provision that each organization requires to meet – and exceed – its goals.
Inclusion is the experience of meaningful engagement and empowerment in any community, as well as a sense of dignity and belonging. The intentional and continuous development of one’s awareness, knowledge, and skills, as well as the active application of these personal competencies to improving interpersonal and intergroup relations, as well as the removal of institutional barriers to meaningful engagement of a diversity of community members, are what enable an environment of inclusion.
Assuring that all members of the community have an equitable opportunity to access, fully engage in, and prosper in the life and activities of the organization is fundamental to fostering inclusion.
But persistent systemic structural and cultural injustices, as well as widespread human biases, continue to reproduce and reinforce barriers to inclusion and equitable opportunity for specific groups of people, sometimes known as equity-seeking groups.
Often, these populations are consistently underrepresented and underutilized. Equity can be seen of as both a strategy and a method for introducing activities to proactively lower, if not eliminate, human prejudices as well as any barriers to inclusion and equal opportunity.
Putting in place an inclusive excellence framework represents a paradigm change. Having such a framework acknowledges that in order to provide historically and currently marginalized people with equitable chances, it is crucial to apply an equity lens to all institutional policies and practices.
Each country will have its own unique set of people who fall within the definition of marginalized people. For example, in Canada, the following four groups are specifically mentioned in the Federal Employment Equity Act as needing attention for inclusion and equity:
• Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples)
• People who fall within the category of ‘visible minorities’ under the Act
• Women; and
• People with disabilities.
However, to ensure that your organization truly creates an inclusive workplace, it is essential to employ the broadest and most inclusive lens possible. This will not only help to more effectively attract talent, but will also allow for the evaluation of the value of the diversity of peoples required to foster organizational creativity, innovation, and excellence.
The inclusive excellence framework’s intrinsic relationship between diversity and quality is illustrated in the following figure:
2. Communication
Effective team communication is purposely established.
When there isn’t a common method for communicating or collaborating, it’s likely that different departments within an organization will have different ways of getting things done.
As a result, some teams will actively listen, some will thrive with frequent conversational interruptions, some will have a flat structure for group decision making and others will be centered around a single person’s authority. Some will share excerpts from their lives and talk about what happened on the weekend or of an evening while others will be all about business.
With different methods of communication, it is almost always going to mean that some teams will be successful, and others won’t.
Effective teams are purposefully constructed around agreed ideals, also referred to as group norms.
Group norms are a set of unspoken and explicit standards that govern how individuals behave. These guidelines provide a sense of predictability and enable members of the group understand how to behave.
Teams that have clear, defined ground rules benefit from the following:
• Meetings and communication are more productive when there are common rules and terminologies.
• Team members cooperate to accomplish objectives and share a set of core values.
• Everyone is aware of what is expected of them, enabling them to live up to (and above) them.
• Overlapping understanding makes it simpler to resolve conflicts.
• The team may retain a positive workplace culture while helping new co-workers get up to speed more quickly.
Every team has norms, but not all of them are consciously created. Examples include what to wear and what constitutes arriving ‘on time’ to a meeting. In actuality, the bulk of group norms develop with little to no discussion.
For instance, consider textual communication. It’s simple to get away with lengthy email back and forth punctuated by brief text message pings if a group initially consists of just two people. However, it gets increasingly difficult to keep everyone informed as the team grows larger. Over time, a large number of unread messages and a great deal of lost information result from frequent reply-alls regarding weekend plans and in-the-moment group text decision-making.
Even when a single person sets the rules for the group, the snowball effect might lead to some teams’ usual behavior. Without positive group norms, a single manager with a propensity of communicating late at night might have an impact on the entire organization.
Various research studies also show that dealing with after-hours communication at work can cause anxiety, which is bad for both the workers and their families.
How do you establish positive social norms?
It is easy to establish norms as a team is coming together. Prioritizing getting team members on the same page before collaborating may require an extra meeting up front, but it will ultimately save time and often ongoing headaches as well.
It is also feasible to codify or modify group norms in teams that have already been constituted.
In high-performing teams, developing positive behavioral standards makes it much simpler to onboard new members and maintain culture over time. Changing group norms in teams that struggle with communication, calls for a thorough analysis of the issue and the development of a plan to implement a fix.
The Bush School, a small private school in Seattle, Washington, hosts a peacemaking circle every August for all of the incoming faculty. Each participant has the opportunity to state one norm they would want to see in the space, drawing on historic indigenous practices.
Members may explain the standards with additional questions, introduce new norms, or pass in each subsequent round. This cumulative process establishes the tone for the remainder of the year and provides a space where everyone is heard.
Regardless of how you come to an understanding, it’s crucial to display your norms somewhere obvious and to constantly refer to them. Do you have conventions for virtual meetings? At the start of each meeting, post them in the chat box or include them in the first slide show of your presentation. What about the guidelines for the quarterly review and feedback session? With the agenda, send them off.
Norms are not one-time carved-in-stone commands, but rather ongoing agreements. It’s crucial to keep reviewing and updating them as the team develops and evolves. Some teams go over these each time they start a meeting, a project, or once every three months. In any case, maintaining good momentum requires setting a regular cadence to offer input on the norms.
3. Recognition
Making sure that employees feel valued is one of the most important factors in employee engagement. Although a simple “thank you” can sometimes go a long way, managers and C-suite leadership can maintain and raise the engagement level of a hard-working employee by praising them for their accomplishments.
Roughly 25% of employees believe their company doesn’t recognize successes or take any notice of lessons that are learned from challenges and outcomes of projects.
Organizations will see an improvement in these areas by raising your recognition efforts:
• Employee satisfaction
• Job satisfaction
• Retention rates
• Productivity
• Engagement; and
• Teamwork
Maintaining employee engagement and highlighting their contribution to the team is achieved through recognizing their dedication.
A feeling of helplessness among many employees can cause them to be disengaged. You may easily influence the engagement levels of your employees by using recognition.
A small act of appreciation can have a big impact on your staff’s attitude, motivation, and general mood by making them feel valued and appreciated in their work.
It is undoubtedly more difficult to recognize exceptional work when an employee is based at their kitchen table as opposed to the other side of your desk.
However, just because your staff are there doesn’t imply that you should skip the recognition part. You can still acknowledge the extra work in an email, just be sure to copy the team for that crucial public endorsement.
Recognition shouldn’t be hindered by hybrid working or by employees working from home.
Often, success will be even easier to recognize with an employee app. Peer-to-peer and manager-led appreciation are both possible with built-in modules, but they shouldn’t fully replace a one-to-one thank you or congratulations conversation, or a publicly acknowledged congratulation in front of teammates and other organizational departments.
You can use social media to share accomplishments with teams, departments, or the entire business as needed.
Spend some time expressing your gratitude when something goes well. When attempting to increase employee engagement, this kind of investment and acknowledgement generates confidence.
4. Wellness
One of the main factors influencing employee engagement is the employees’ physical and emotional wellbeing.
Wellness is described by the Global Wellness Institute as ‘the active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health’.
The idea of wellbeing has recently gained popularity in business circles, but it is much more than just a trendy buzzword; focusing on wellness may have a significant impact on your employees’ engagement.
For hybrid employees, and those employees who fully work from home, wellbeing is very important, particularly emotional wellness.
Engagement levels might be significantly impacted by the serious problem of mental health.
Statistics on employee engagement support this. Deloitte reports that due to increased work demands and expectations, a lack of social interaction, and a lack of separation between work and family life, 50% of employees have experienced at least one burnout symptom.
Disengagement from the job and the firm as a whole will happen swiftly if mental health and morale are not managed.
When you place a wellness focus on the individuals within your organization, you are seizing the opportunity to view your staff holistically. Employees who are fulfilled and happy inside and outside their place of work are more likely to bring their ‘best selves’ to the workplace.
Mental illness costs global economies over billions and billions of dollars annually, therefore organizations and employees can both profit greatly from investments in wellness and employee wellbeing.
Making sure that health is prioritized goes beyond paying lip service. In order to promote engagement, it must be a central component of your workplace culture.
5. Connection
Create genuine connections and partnerships to humanize the workplace. Be mindful of the way you foster collaboration and rapport among team members.
To encourage relationship building, create project teams or working groups with team members who don’t often engage at work. Host virtual events to foster social connections and generate shared experiences.
Make connection personal
One of the most crucial things to understand is that every single employee has a unique experience working for you. And to get the engagement piece right for your organization, that means that every unique circumstance must be taken into consideration.
It matters if your personality is naturally more introverted or extroverted; if you have a large workspace or a small cubicle with lots of people around you; and it matters a lot what each individual has going on outside of the workplace.
It is obvious that there is no one best way to interact with your team. Some people will benefit when changes come along that create a break from their regular work schedules, others will struggle with the changes and will be eager to get back to things as they were.
Organizations must ensure that their leaders are aware of each of these aspects and interact in a sincere and personal manner.
Foster meaningful interactions
It might be particularly difficult to know how to bring people together and develop relationships throughout the organization when managing a hybrid or entirely remote staff. ‘Forced connection points can actually have a negative impact on workers, for example having too many virtual team bonding events or too many internal meetings. Knowing your people will help guide you as to when, how, or even whether a meeting should occur.
Fundamentally, intentional engagement means personal engagement.
There’s no silver bullet, no magic company policy that can erase every single challenge and issue being faced by every employee. Leaders need to shift their mindset to focus on the quality of how they connect with individual employees, rather than checking a ‘company culture box’.
Case Study: Google’s Group Norms
Google discovered in 2011 that different departments inside the organization didn’t share a common method for collaborating. Some teams actively listened to teammates, while others thrived with frequent conversational interruptions. Some teams established a flat structure for group decision making, while others were centered around a single person’s authority. Some teams talked about their weekends while others were all business.
While some teams were successful, others weren’t.
After years of research involving hundreds of teams, Google’s experts discovered that effective teams are purposefully constructed around agreed ideals, also referred to as group norms.
What transpired at Google, then?
Google invested millions of dollars in their Project Aristotle norm-finding program.
Google sought to identify a “recipe” for team success. Google researchers first believed that ingredients could be:
• Add a handful of the team’s top achievers and an experienced manager; and
• give them full access to all resources.
Additionally, it was anticipated that you would produce a high-performing team. Google revealed that this was completely untrue. They sorted and rearranged the data numerous times, but they were unable to identify any particular pattern that was specific to high performing teams.
The team’s makeup and geographical location weren’t really important. Additionally, it didn’t really matter how the team was made up.
Google discovered that more significant were the ‘team norms’. It was unimportant who was on the team. Instead, the effectiveness of the teams’ collaboration was key.
The opportunity to take chances in a safe atmosphere ranked first among the group norms that led to happier, more effective teams, according to their researchers.
Google’s search for the answer to the question of what makes teams effective turned up 5 consistent criteria. The importance of these five criteria is mentioned below in order.
Psychological safety:
Team members are free to take chances and show their vulnerability in front of one another without worrying about embarrassment, scorn, or other negative outcomes.
Psychological safety relates to a person’s impression of the repercussions of taking an interpersonal risk or a sense that a team is safe for risk-taking despite the possibility of being perceived as unknowledgeable, incompetent, unfavorable, or disruptive.
Teams with high psychological safety levels have members who feel comfortable taking risks around them. They have faith that nobody on the team will make anyone else feel bad for admitting a mistake, raising a concern, or putting forth a fresh thought.
Dependability:
On dependable teams, members consistently deliver high-caliber work on schedule. Shirking responsibilities is the antithesis of reliability. Team members complete tasks on time and uphold Google’s strict standards for quality.
Structure and Clarity:
Members of the team have defined roles, plans, and objectives. Each team member is fully aware of their responsibilities. Additionally, they are aware of how to meet these demands. The results of each team member’s performance are also obvious.
They have the option of setting both personal and group objectives. The objectives must be clear, difficult, and reachable. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are frequently used by Google to help define and convey both short- and long-term goals.
Meaning:
For a team to be effective, finding a feeling of purpose in the task itself or the results is crucial. The team members’ work is significant and vital to them individually.
Work has a personal meaning that might change depending on a number of things.
Financial stability, familial support, team success, or individual self-expression are a few examples of these elements.
Impact:
Teams need to believe that their efforts and results are having an impact.
Teams believe that their work matters when they can see how their efforts are advancing the organization’s objectives.
Team members think that their work is important to the organization and its clients.
Asking ourselves and people around us how we want to engage might help establish group norms. Finding shared values frequently involves asking: What would work for you? This applies to anything from corporate culture to meeting etiquette.
Little things can often make a big difference.
Exercise 5.8: Measuring Engagement
– How important do you feel these areas are covered and/or provided for by your organization?
– How does it feel to have the answer to these questions be ‘No’?
Course Manual 9: The 6-Step Engagement Cycle
Introduction
Today’s workforce has more bargaining power, the labor market is quite transparent, and luring top-tier talent is a fiercely competitive endeavor. Businesses are now investing in analytics tools to learn why employees quit, and corporate leaders throughout the world are concerned about issues like purpose, engagement, and culture.
Business leaders are now required to create organizations that encourage people to contribute as sensitive, passionate, and creative individuals because of changes in the employee-work contract. Two years of research and conversations with hundreds of clients point to five key components and underlying tactics that combine to make organizations ‘irresistible’.
Global engagement statistics show the glaring problem that every organization is facing with research results from Gallup showing that only 13% of employees are highly engaged at work and a further 26% are actively disengaged. Glassdoor research shows that only 54% of employees believe that the organization they work for is a ‘good place to work’, two thirds of tech employees believe they could find a better job in less than 60 days if they chose to look and at least 8% of organizations believe that their employees are overburdened with information and activity at work (and that the problem is serious).
More than 70% of Millennials want to be creative at work, 70% expect their employer to focus on societal or mission-driven issues and more than 2/3 think that management should offer them accelerated development opportunities in order to keep them at the organization.
The employee-work relationship has altered; nowadays, people behave more like free agents. In other words, the power dynamic has changed from employer to employee, forcing business leaders to figure out how to create an environment where people feel valued and are encouraged to contribute their sensitive, passionate, and creative selves.
This is referred to as a shift in emphasis from increasing employee engagement to creating an unstoppable organization.
It’s time to change.
The outdated notion of an employee engagement survey being the solution to all of an organization’s engagement issues is one of the problems we need to solve.
Organizations claim they aren’t offering contemporary, practical answers despite the fact that such engagement methods have been employed for years.
So, what really counts today?
How can an organization build a company that is magnetic and alluring, inspires high levels of performance and passion, and constantly keeps an eye out for issues that need to be corrected in the workplace of today?
There are three issues need to be addressed:
1. Companies must broaden their conception of what “engagement” means today, provide managers and leaders with concrete strategies they can use, and hold line managers responsible.
2. In order to continuously improve management techniques and the working environment at the local level, businesses require tools and processes that assess and capture employee feedback and sentiment on a real-time, local basis.
Systems for employee feedback and data analytics are some of the tools that may be used to recognize and forecast the causes that lead to poor engagement and retention issues.
3. Employee engagement must be elevated by business and HR leaders from an HR program to a central business strategy.
Six Steps to Make Your Organization Irresistible
The majority of studies suggest that employee happiness is significantly influenced by salary. According to Aon Hewitt research, for instance, it is one of the top five drivers (but not the top driver).
In most studies, money isn’t a main focus as an engagement factor because it is seen to be a ‘hygiene factor’ rather than an ‘engagement factor’. This means that employees will typically quit if their remuneration is not high enough, but (barring a few exceptions) raising income does not always result in more engagement.
In fact, some research studies show that organization’s can directly link pay increases with employee retention for its highest-potential workers, but for the remaining 90% of its staff, remuneration had to simply be fair and competitive across job families.
Once pay is competitive and fair, the following 6 steps become critical to ensuring long-term engagement for an organization’s workforce.
Step 1 – Give your work purpose
Job-person fit is the first, and possibly most crucial, component of employee engagement. People must be appropriately matched to tasks and then organizations must ensure that each individual has the autonomy and skills they need to succeed. This is definitely not a straightforward task.
Technology has essentially revolutionized every role, and organizations are constantly looking to gain efficiency so that they can get more done with fewer resources.
Well-run businesses regularly review their work, looking for opportunities to use technology more and use less expensive human labor to create more competitive advantages for their organization. Despite these demands to increase efficiency, research demonstrates that when we enhance occupations by giving individuals more autonomy, decision-making authority, time, and support, the business profits.
According to psychologist Daniel Pink, motivation comes from ‘autonomy, mastery, and purpose’. People are drawn to jobs that allow them to imprint their individual signature on the end result. In her book The Good Jobs Strategy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Zeynep Tonne demonstrates how companies like Whole Foods, Costco, UPS, and Mercadona increase their profitability per employee by paying their staff above-average compensation and providing them more autonomy in their work. In order to cut costs, the concept of ‘lowering the cost of labor’ fails since workers simply become less productive as their workload increases.
Organizations must carefully choose the correct person for each job and ensure that it creates meaningful jobs. Less than 40% of all hiring teams employ any kind of formal pre-hire evaluation. The majority of managers consider GPA, academic credentials, and relevant experience.
While these appear to be reasonable standards for success, organizations that examine the traits of great performers discover that other ‘fit factors’ are what actually influence performance and job satisfaction.
Research shows that smaller teams perform more important work. According to reports, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos stated that ‘if there are more than two pizzas in the room for lunch, then the team is too big’. Small teams are more empowered, they reach choices more quickly, and members get to know one another better, enabling them to provide a helping hand when necessary.
Finally, active individuals require downtime for reflection, creativity, and rest. The ‘20% time’ strategy at Google allows employees to set aside one day every week to focus on projects that are novel or unrelated to their regular duties.
Allowing workers to take time off during the week may seem unproductive, yet the reverse is actually true. People who are overworked frequently burn out, deliver work of lower quality, offer poorer customer service, experience depression, and occasionally just writhe in fatigue.
People do better when given time to unwind, engage, and relax.
Step 2 – Promote excellent management
Business and HR leaders focus most of their attention on the second component of an appealing organization: management.
It’s important to understand that this reference to ‘management’ talks to the daily, weekly, and monthly activities managers engage in to direct, assist, and align their workforces as a separate context to ‘leadership’.
In a lot of ways, having great management is one of the most crucial skills an organization must employ.
CEOs can formulate plans, investors can optimize funds, and marketers can generate demand, but middle managers are the ones that really manufacture products and offerings, provide customer service, and establish internal procedures.
As individuals, we all flourish when we can make a positive difference in the world, and management’s role is to set goals, encourage employees, coach for high performance, and give feedback so that everyone may keep becoming better.
Engagement, performance, and retention are significantly impacted by investments in fundamental management practices.
Everyone feels more at ease and gets more work done when everyone has goals that are spelt out clearly, documented, and openly discussed. To achieve alignment, clarity, and job satisfaction, goals must be routinely reviewed and addressed.
Setting goals is difficult. Only 51% of businesses make the effort to create linked goals, and of those, only 6% do it on a regular basis. Too many businesses set yearly objectives but only review them at the end of the year.
Businesses who review their goals on a quarterly basis see a threefold gain in performance and retention compared to those that only do so on an annual basis. High-performing managers set straightforward objectives, ensure their transparency and clarity, and reassess them frequently.
Coaching is the second management strategy that increases engagement. The practice that is most strongly connected with company performance, employee engagement, and general retention is a coaching culture.
When rookie managers are promoted to supervisory roles, they frequently believe their responsibility is to lead or assess personnel. While directed management is crucial, its impact is less significant than one might anticipate. The most valuable function of management is that of coaching and development.
Why is a good coach so special? Great coaches recognize people’s strengths, put them in situations and rearrange tasks to capitalize on their strengths, and coach them to grow on these strengths.
Leadership development is the third component of ‘irresistible’ management.
Companies with high levels of employee engagement put a strong emphasis on producing exceptional leaders. They make sure that new executives receive a lot of support and make significant investments in management development.
Compared to their competitors, high-impact leadership organizations spend 1.5–3 times more on management development.
Building a highly engaged workforce requires a constant focus on developing leaders, tying leaders to one another, and providing them with the coaching they require.
The requirement to streamline or reengineer the annual performance evaluation is the fourth problem. This process is among the most detrimental and demoralizing ones that employees go through each year, and it has been institutionalized in more than 75% of organizations around the world.
Only 8% of organizations believe the annual performance appraisal is worthwhile investing their time in, and the emphasis on rating and ranking detracts from the mentoring and growth that employees frequently sorely need.
The approach is frequently lacking in constant feedback, gives too much weight to the rating itself, and does nothing to motivate hyper performers to keep raising the bar. Because it takes away leaders’ liberty and judgement, frequently dissuades really high performers, and favors those in the middle, the idea of ‘forced ranking’ which gained popularity in the 1960s, is currently losing popularity.
Step 3 – Create a welcoming, adaptable and inclusive work environment
The desire to create a flexible, compassionate, and inclusive workplace is the third key component of an enticing organization.
Today’s workers live complex lives.
Research demonstrates that open, flexible workplaces have a significant impact on engagement in addition to other benefits and employee wellness programs. They enable people to meet more easily, they bring executives out into the open, and they provide people with highly flexible places to work, depending on how they feel on a given day.
The demand for ongoing and continual acknowledgement is a second important engagement factor. As simple as it may seem, saying ‘thank you’ is a powerful tool for creating a motivated team. ‘High-recognition companies’ have voluntary turnover that is 31% lower than that of organizations with weak recognition cultures.
These organizations foster a culture of appreciation by implementing social incentive systems (apps that let users award points or kudos to others), holding weekly or monthly thank-you events, and generally showing appreciation for everyone. The secret to success in this situation is to foster a community where praise can pass from one person to another, relieving management of their oversight role in employee appreciation.
Diversity and inclusion are business strategies, not HR strategies. In addition to drawing employees from a wider range, research demonstrates that inclusive workplaces foster teams that perform astonishingly better than their counterparts by an astounding 80%.
Step 4 – Provide lots of opportunity for development
The most common reason given by top achievers for leaving a company is that ‘I just didn’t see the right opportunities here’.
Learning opportunities, professional growth, and career advancement are among the key factors that influence employee satisfaction, according to the majority of engagement research. Professional growth is ranked as the top engagement driver for workers under the age of 25, and it is the second most important factor for those between the ages of 35 and 44.
As workers get older, their development priorities change from upward mobility and mobility to matching a job with long-term career aspirations.
Although high-potential Millennials frequently expect it, most people won’t get promoted every year or two; instead, an organization needs to find a way that every individual can feel that they are developing and capable of taking on new responsibilities in their chosen field.
Internal mobility needs to be supported and facilitated by managers and the entire organization in order to give employees the freedom to try new things and transition from roles where they are highly productive to ones where they might once more be trainees.
Finally, in order to ensure that learning, growth, and mobility are rewarded, organizations must examine their management and leadership practices.
The majority of rewards for leaders come from ‘making their numbers’. While this is unquestionably crucial, leaders also need to be praised for helping others grow, placing them in the greatest positions, and maintaining strong retention rates.
Companies that value learning more than their counterparts are 92% more likely to create unique products and processes, 52% more productive, 56% more likely to launch their goods and services first, and 17% more lucrative.
Additionally, their rates of engagement and retention are 30 to 50% greater.
Step 5 – Create clarity, a clear purpose, and a vision for your leadership
Leadership is the last and, arguably, most crucial component of an appealing organization. According to our research, employee engagement is most directly impacted by four leadership behaviors.
The first step is to create and convey a clear sense of purpose. People come alive when businesses view success through the eyes of their clients, partners, or society. ‘Mission-driven’ businesses consistently rank first or second in their respective segments and exhibit 30% greater levels of innovation and 40% higher levels of employee retention.
A group of reporters visited NASA, a mission-driven organization, during the height of the space race, and observed a janitor approaching them while holding a broom. They pulled out their cameras and asked the janitor, ‘So what is your job at NASA?’ as part of their storytelling. The janitor replied that ‘It’s my job to help put a man on the moon’.
Most organizations would have only a handful of employees that could answer this question so directly.
Always keep in mind that an appealing company is one that staff members would never want to quit. Giving people many chances to develop and flourish is the best method to establish such a location.
Transparency is the second crucial component of leadership today. We are all accustomed to quick, transparent communication thanks to social media and the Internet. Inform your team as soon as you can if your business is experiencing a terrible quarter, has committed fraud, has caused an accident, was sued, or could be fined for a compliance breach. In the same way, let others know when you have a successful quarter, when someone accomplishes a particularly noteworthy success, or when a consumer tells you something nice.
Third, managers must consistently make investments in their staff. High-engagement businesses have leaders who invest in their own education, routinely meet with teams to solicit input, and genuinely care about every employee.
Businesses that ‘overinvest’ in learning and development spending per employee scored higher in employee retention, innovation, and customer service and outperformed their competitors three times over the long term.
This pattern demonstrates the importance of investing in people both in good and terrible times.
Last but not least, top leaders need to continually concentrate on inspiration.
The top executives are the ones who eventually involve everyone in the organization through their words, communications, and deeds. Leadership can be one of the most significant factors in driving engagement by talking about the future, sharing the vision, and translating the corporate plan into meaningful, personal concepts.
Step 6 – Put simplicity first
Companies with high levels of engagement make a lot of effort to simplify what they do and how they do it.
They do away with unnecessary bureaucracy (compliance procedures, formal check-off procedures, multi-step procedures) in favor of confidence, independence, and a concentration on teamwork.
Work satisfaction can be significantly impacted by simplicity or the elimination of formal bureaucratic overhead.
Researchers at the University of Rotterdam found that, unless given unusual degrees of autonomy and local assistance, employees who work in highly complicated workplaces are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases and other conditions.
Complexity can result in significant levels of stress and error absent increasing degrees of empowerment and local control.
Southwest Airlines has refined simplicity and empowerment in its company approach and in its management training, the corporation places a strong emphasis on employee empowerment, allowing the local team (the aeroplane crew) to make all the decisions they require to run safely, promptly, and within budget.
Additionally, the business strives to maintain simplicity throughout its whole operation. For example, Southwest uses a single aircraft model (the Boeing 737) and same boarding and reservation procedures on all flights. The business has celebrated more than 40 years of financial success and consistently ranks among the highest in terms of customer satisfaction.
Case Study: How Seacoast Bank Mobilizes Teams to Drive Engagement
The workplace at Seacoast Bank is highly energetic. The bank has swiftly grown over the last few years by making a number of acquisitions. Seacoast realized that for greater impact, their employee engagement tactics needed to be scaled up as a result of this growth.
This required expanding the number of employee listening opportunities beyond their yearly engagement survey. Adding more opportunities for managers and teams to participate prior to, during, and after the survey to boost engagement.
The goal of creating a culture at Seacoast Bank is to give workers a voice. They want staff members to be fully present at work. The Human Rights Foundation has given Seacoast a perfect grade for workplace equality thanks to their dedication to diversity. They also won the Best Places to Work competition.
Organizational culture is everyone’s responsibility, according to Seacoast. Engagement and culture are not HR objectives. All parties contribute to improving work, including associates, managers, and senior leaders.
“At Seacoast Bank, employee engagement began as an HR-led activity,” explains Olivia Kirchman, AVP, HR Business Partner. We’ve worked hard to make it gradually become a focus that every associate feels ownership of across the entire bank, rather than just a leader or manager priority.
Kirchman and her team worked closely with associates and executives at various levels of the organization in order to get to this point. They raised awareness and comprehension of the value and effects of employee engagement.
They discussed the commercial advantages and return on investment of employee engagement with senior officials. To demonstrate the connection between employee engagement and the business achievements that mattered to their management, they used success stories from within the organization.
ROI for employee engagement
They emphasized to managers the advantages of employees providing feedback in surveys. Feedback is essential for a manager’s professional growth, as well as for enhancing team chemistry and performance.
Seacoast discussed confidentiality with its employees as well as the chance for employees to affect organizational change by offering their frank opinions.
Employee engagement through continuous employee listening
Any organization experiences rapid change. This has particularly been the case for Seacoast Bank over the past five years as they have handled more than a dozen acquisitions. A yearly employee engagement survey was no longer sufficient to monitor employees’ attitudes and behaviors.
They have been able to significantly enhance their onboarding procedures thanks to lifecycle surveys. The Seacoast team uses onboarding surveys to engage new hires in conversation as acquisitions happen. The culture of the company has become more stable as a result, and it is now simpler for new employees to feel at home and a part of the team.
Seacoast can delve deeply on subjects that stand out on their yearly engagement survey by using strategic pulse surveys. A pulse survey was distributed by Seacoast after benefits received a low score on a recent engagement survey in order to get further input. The benefits team now had the information they required to assess and revise their current plan.
Teams maintain engagement at the top of their minds all year long via manager-associate 1-on-1 sessions. These discussions are used by managers to comprehend employees’ perspectives and link them to the team’s year-round emphasis areas. By fostering confidence between managers and employees, these meetings strengthen the basis for involvement.
Leadership at Seacoast primarily concentrated on data collection throughout the initial years of employee surveys in order to understand associate perceptions. Survey participation fell off after the first few years of surveying. The Seacoast HR staff was aware that it needed to be taking associate input more seriously.
Kirchman asserts that change takes time to take place. “Over the years, we gradually increased survey participation to 95% by winning leaders’ and employees’ support for its significance. We switched our attention from collecting data to creating actionable commitment plans for each team. Because of their input, we were aware that employees needed to experience greater change.
As Seacoast Bank expanded quickly, HR realized that they could no longer manage a comprehensive employee engagement plan alone.
“Mobilizing teams is a critical component to your success,” asserts Angel Birch, SVP, Director of Learning and Leadership Development at Seacoast Bank. “You cannot manage associate participation on your own; it is not your responsibility to do so. The entire organization needs to be committed.
Seacoast worked hard to:
• Make it simple for staff to offer frank comments
• Quickly spot trends and insights, simplify reporting and analysis; and
• Utilize commitment plans to assist teams in moving from comprehension to action.
The HR team shares survey results with the rest of the organization top-down after they have a handle on the data. They make their way down to people managers after starting with the CEO and moving on to the senior leadership group.
The Seacoast HR team works hard with people managers to help them comprehend and take action on the special results of their team. When the results are ready, they arrange 1-on-1s with managers and HR business partners that are focused on engagement. Without doing all the work, HR serves as a coach, helping to hold managers responsible for growth.
Expectations and next steps from the post-engagement survey
At Seacoast Bank, employees are also in charge of their own course. Reports provide Seacoast with a summary of their survey results as well as recommendations for enhancing their individual engagement. Additionally, associates have the chance to join engagement committees, where they aid in action planning and promote change inside the organization.
The ability to mobilize our managers and associates around engagement, according to Birch, “allows our HR team to focus less on tactics and more on the overall strategy.” “We may confer with management, offer advice, and work together on commitments. However, we get to spend more time analyzing the data and trends through an enterprise lens and developing a more all-encompassing strategy for employee engagement throughout the organization.
Implement a continuous listening strategy that enables the organization to gauge and respond to what matters most. Seacoast Bank uses Quantum Workplace’s employee success platform to do this.
Simplified reporting should enable managers and teams at all organizational levels to understand the organization’s engagement statistics.
Encourage teams to work together to create an engaging work environment through cooperative action planning and engagement-driven one-on-one dialogues.
Exercise 5.9: Stakeholder Engagement Process
Course Manual 10:Engagement Strategies
Introduction
An organization’s proactive plans, policies, and activities are known as employee engagement strategies, and they are used to boost employee commitment and engagement. These employee tactics aim to promote a workplace culture where employees are more emotionally connected to the organization’s objectives and values and more invested in their job.
Management teams can use employee engagement strategies to bolster ongoing operational procedures to assist in maintaining employees’ enthusiasm for their jobs and their employers over the long-term.
These tactics entail making adjustments that enhance employees’ happiness and job satisfaction above and beyond the benefits to which they are legally entitled.
It can include both real and intangible components, such as adjusting to employees’ stress levels, the workplace’s diversity and inclusivity, and appreciation and rewards.
HR and team leaders may increase employee loyalty, commitment and enthusiasm by assessing how engaged teams are and what needs to be improved. This endeavor can help firms become more successful by lowering the cost of producing products and services and reducing employee turnover.
Making employees feel important and valued members of both the organization and the community is key to maintaining employee engagement. An employee engagement plan could include communication activities, recognition and incentive programs, professional development opportunities, work-life balance policies, and employee feedback tools.
Increased productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction result in increased levels of employee retention and organizational success, which is the ultimate goal.
Strong employee engagement strategies plans require participation from all departments and cannot be led exclusively by HR in order to be successful. Ideas and initiatives for increasing employee engagement may be more effective if they originate from the workforce themselves. Your employee engagement programs can benefit greatly from frequent and open communication.
In an ideal scenario, an employee engagement strategy would entail raising the possibility of an employee developing a positive relationship with the business. Employees are more likely to stay with a company longer if they have an emotional connection.
Benefits of Strong Employee Engagement Strategies
The following advantages can be attained by an organization and its workers by putting into practice a successful employee engagement strategy, depending on the objectives of the organization:
• Reduced absenteeism: Employees who are engaged are less likely to miss work unless they are actually ill or unable to work that day. They have the least detrimental effects on others since they are more likely to let others know when they will be absent.
• Healthier workers: With high levels of involvement, managers and HR specialists may lower the stress that employees experience at work and make them feel more comfortable seeking medical attention. This emphasis may result in a better work-life balance, fewer illnesses brought on by stress, and less pressure at work.
• Better work quality: Team leaders or HR can demand that staff members follow specific protocols and instructions to accomplish jobs and minimize errors. Employees who feel more involved in the organization’s operations may be more likely to follow its quality control and improvement procedures.
Employees are more likely to put forth the effort and focus required to do their jobs properly when they sense an emotional connection to their work. Strong relationships with co-workers and the company encourage people to work harder because their individual performance benefits the organization and, by extension, other employees.
• Greater loyalty: Since engaged workers frequently believe their current company fits their needs, they may remain in a position longer. This can increase employee retention rates and lower turnover expenses.
• Boosted morale: More motivated workers may exhibit better levels of workplace morale, which can disseminate positive attitudes among employees both inside and outside the company. The organization may also find itself with natural supporters who provide it free publicity.
• More creativity: Workers who are more engaged may be more accountable for the caliber of their job. When solving issues, this empowerment may inspire them to think outside the box and develop creative solutions that will save the business both time and money.
• Higher levels of collaboration: Engaged workers may realize that their co-workers contribute to the achievement of the organization’s objectives, which can foster respect and promote cooperation. This might enhance networking and information exchange within the company.
• Contented consumers and clients: When staff members are motivated, they may take more pleasure in their work and consider the success of the company as their own. This emotion may motivate them to put in more effort in order to satisfy clients and consumers and better meet their needs.
• Better workplace culture: Engaged employees frequently go above and above for one another, whether it’s coaching younger co-workers or offering to assist another team with a project. An attitude that puts the team first enables co-workers to become more intimately bonded. Healthy relationships strengthen a company’s culture and improve its ability to attract both current and prospective personnel.
• More creativity and collaboration: Employees are more likely to collaborate across teams in an environment where they frequently offer assistance. Teams can then incorporate viewpoints from several departments, providing projects with original solutions to issues. This steady flow of ideas also promotes innovation, providing a company an advantage over rivals in its industry.
• Higher customer service: Customers may experience a company and their job more favorably if their personnel are more passionate about them. Customers can tell whether employees are passionate about their company by seeing it in their enthusiasm for its goals and offerings. As a result of their dedication to the company’s ideals, engaged employees are more likely to provide on-brand experiences.
• Higher employee advocacy: Job seekers can only be persuaded to a certain extent by corporate websites and posts, but employees who willingly provide information about their employer can make a lasting impact. Employees may promote the company by posting on their social media accounts if a company uses employee engagement tactics to look after its personnel, strengthening the employer brand in the process.
Examples of Employee Engagement Strategies
There are a number of different employee engagement strategies that organizations can deploy, some examples include:
1. Increase trust
Leaders that continually micromanage an employee’s time or behavior could damage trust in the workplace. Instead, promoting a strategy of performance above presence might increase engagement and trust.
Allowing teams to work from home without having their manager request that they register into a message-sharing tool to demonstrate that they are online and at their desks is an example of this.
Eliminating this procedure and other practices can give teams the impression that management has confidence in them to manage their own time and complete their work without continual supervision.
2. Focus on your people
Many businesses overlook the fact that people build a company. The personnel is fundamental to the business, period.
Because people are the foundation of any organization, problems will inevitably arise if you don’t understand what makes them unhappy or uneasy. You must be aware of the best ways to support a disengaged staff.
The simplest method to learn the truth is to conduct an employee engagement survey and collect data. Although most people think that is cliche, you’ll realize that a survey guarantees success. It is portable, quick, anonymous, and usable at any time or place.
Gather information, analyze it, and take the appropriate action. You may begin right now. Here are a couple deployable employee engagement survey templates for you.
3. Learn as much as you can about everyone
People may feel interchangeable even in tiny organizations when their contributions are given little credit. As it helps to ensure that all employees feel like someone cares enough to remember who they are and what they do, interacting with everyone can enhance engagement.
Taking a few minutes each week or month to ask people about their jobs and personal life and making a note to follow up in subsequent discussions are two examples of how to do this. To demonstrate to them that their experiences count, you might wish to enquire about it if a colleague’s child adopts a child.
4. Use the knowledge you gain
Don’t just keep the data all to yourself. Consider it a gold mine. Use it sensibly. Take action if you have determined what causes employee disengagement.
Instead of relying on other people’s models, you can use this data to develop your own employee participation initiatives and best practices. If you as a company don’t acknowledge your workers, something is inherently wrong with you.
They stop reacting once they realize how irrelevant their viewpoint is. Make use of a platform to ensure that their enquiries are addressed and to provide justification for the measures you made.
5. Encourage independence
Senior management may have little familiarity with the realities of how lower-level staff conduct their everyday responsibilities in organizations with numerous divisions and levels. These workers may believe that their opinions and practical expertise are irrelevant if the management team gives them instructions without asking for them first.
To avoid this, HR professionals can put in place strategies that promote autonomy. For instance, a courier service could speak with its drivers and enquire about the best delivery routes. The drivers’ productivity and efficiency may increase as a result of having more control over their working environment.
6. Offer beneficial benefits
In order to ensure workplace contentment and reduce resentment, management may wish to reestablish contact with employees if an organization offers benefits that only a select few employees may take advantage of. Having leadership consult with departments about the benefits they value can be beneficial to an organization.
For instance, a workplace gym might seem helpful to many working parents, but if staff members don’t have the time to use the facilities, they might perceive it as less helpful. Instead, they could prefer that the company provide a childcare service that allows parents to save time by having their kids come to work after school.
7. Encourage openness
An organization that encourages openness can engage staff members and promote information sharing for the good of the whole company. Management groups can be open and honest about their decisions about employee promotions, compensation, and the state of the company as a whole. As a result of this effort, workers may be more engaged since they can see and comprehend what is going on around them.
Additionally, it may help to prevent gossip in the workplace. Sending a memo to the entire organization after dismissing a worker for harassment is one illustration of this. By taking this action, the company may demonstrate that it has nothing to hide and that it will not put up with such behavior.
8. Be adaptable
Certain business practices may become hard temporarily or permanently as a result of abrupt adjustments. Employee engagement at work can be improved by a management team that adjusts to changes in a way that benefits all workers.
As the organization adjusts to changes and new ones inevitably arise, this endeavor may be a continuous process. Allowing some employees to work from home while the company renovates existing workspaces is an example of this.
These employees formerly worked from the office. This action demonstrates that management understands that some employees may fulfil their obligations outside of the workplace.
9. Create culture on purpose
Without mentioning an organizational culture, several businesses invest time and resources in developing their branding and mission and values statements. Employee clarity may be enhanced by a consistent company culture.
By taking control of the culture of the company, team leaders and management may clearly communicate to employees what is and is not acceptable at work. Creating a culture that emphasizes inclusivity and informs everyone at onboarding about the repercussions of disobeying the rules is an illustration of how to do this.
This effort can guarantee that diverse employees feel comfortable and welcome at work.
10. Allow for employee voice
Not the most spectacular thing you can do is do a survey once a year. Additionally, you need additional avenues where staff members can voice their concerns without fear of repercussions. Consider employing internal chat channels or a similar platform where staff members can speak directly to their superiors or peers for this.
11. Adopt an open door policy
Numerous senior executives have altered their operating procedures and cultivated a free atmosphere within the company. An open-door policy enables employees to voice their thoughts openly while also assisting you in gathering input directly from them.
Implementing Employee Engagement Strategies
In more recent times, a lot has changed with regards to best practice around employee engagements strategies.
The focus has shifted from employers being concerned about employee satisfaction and has moved to being centered on the level of engagement for employees across the organization.
This shift has occurred due to the correlation being made between employee engagement levels and employee performance with every organization now aware that disengaged employees is significantly costing the bottom line.
The most effect way to improve employee engagement is through the development and implementation of an employee engagement strategy, however for best practice to be achieved, these strategies need to be implemented in stages.
Stage 1 – Understand your people
It’s critical to first comprehend how your staff feels about employee engagement. You can ask your staff for their opinions by sending them a survey to find out.
An organization can learn where they are right now and how they wish to seem in terms of employee engagement in the future using a quantitative tool called an employee engagement survey.
Your best practice for employee engagement should begin with this. Information is essential, and having more of it will aid your campaign to increase employee engagement.
Stage 2 – Select your strategy carefully
Surveys are simple to distribute, and it’s simple to gather comments and compile the results. However, there will be some employees in a company who won’t be completely honest and will simply fill out the survey for fun.
A quantitative method can also produce results that could lead to deeper understanding. A company should carefully consider its alternatives.
An excellent place to start is by using an existing survey template.
Stage 3 – Create an action plan
At the organizational level, a central plan of action must be created, as well as a local plan of action that must be organized at the team level. One must keep in mind that nothing can be fixed in a single day. The personnel must be informed about the changes in a way that raises their awareness of them.
Encourage managers to attend local meetings so that tasks can be efficiently planned. Keep in mind that it takes a team to prepare and support managers in developing employee involvement strategies.
Your supervisors are the ones who interact with the workers the most and are the best people to ask for input on any action plan.
Stage 4 – Execute the plan
The hardest and trickiest part of any plan’s development is implementation. This phase determines whether or not all of your organization’s efforts will be successful. Employees have become accustomed to particular workplace cultures, behaviors, and abilities as a result.
For some people, accepting change is a difficult process. There may be a need for outside assistance in facilitating the use of the techniques and best practices.
Keeping your staff up to date on all anticipated changes is recommended practice. The very minimum they desire are “unwanted surprises.”
Stage 5 – Strategy evaluation
Finally, it’s critical to know whether employee engagement best practices and strategies have been effective or not. Review your employee statistics to assess and comprehend. What percentage of employees are leaving, missing work, and reporting stress at work since the adjustments were made?
Have things gotten better or worse? Has the organization’s financial situation improved as a result of the changes? Are the objectives being met? Ask your supervisors if the staff members are content with the modifications.
In addition to determining if a plan has been successful or not, evaluation of an ongoing process aids in understanding future references.
Last but not least, best practices and strategies for staff involvement have a direct impact on the workforce. It’s usually a good idea to comprehend the employee’s perspective while putting these practices into practice to come up with better solutions.
The financial success of an organization is ultimately determined by the employees’ perseverance and hard work.
Case Study: Johnson & Johnson Bridge to Employment
Through academic enrichment activities, career preparedness and exploration possibilities, and further education preparation, Johnson & Johnson’s Bridge to Employment (BTE) initiative has been assisting high school-aged adolescents in preparing for better futures since 1992. With additional locations added each year, BTE has assisted more than 5,000 students in 106 communities on six continents in pursuing post-secondary education and STEM2D careers.
The Johnson & Johnson Talent for Good program aims to encourage nearly 140,000 employees to use their time and knowledge to create healthier communities throughout the world. Employees are encouraged to develop personally and professionally as part of this initiative.
The Talent for Good program offers more than 20 customizable programs for staff members at various stages of their employment to foster real change and a healthier, more equitable world. These programs range from donations to completely immersed assignments with international partner organizations working on the front lines of health.
BTE brings together important partners, including the local J&J office, a local site coordinator, a secondary school, and an institution of higher education. It is a component of J&J’s global Talent for Good employee engagement strategy. Up to 50 students may be accepted into the three-year program once these partners create a strategy plan specifically catered to their requirements.
The success of BTE depends on the program’s design taking student input into account. Student participants offer their opinions on the kind of volunteer work they are most interested in as well as the best combinations of campus tours, tutoring, time with J&J mentors, and college readiness training.
The first Student Ambassadors were chosen by BTE in 2007 to participate in the annual Alliance Building & Training Session (ABTS), which provided student leaders with the chance to network with others from various global sites and present their ideas to leaders from around the world. BTE established the first worldwide Youth Leadership Council (YLC) in 2019, bringing together members from the US, Mexico, Colombia, and South Africa to increase young people’s opportunity to express their needs and program preferences.
The 10-member YLC gives young people a voice and a chance to influence the direction of the global BTE program. Members of the YLC discuss their personal experiences and offer suggestions for improving the retention, engagement, and learning of BTE students. The YLC also hosts an annual event for other BTE participants that includes live STEM2D activities and wellness lectures. Anecdotes on how BTE has impacted young people around the world are provided below.
“When J&J BTE visited my school, I was quite happy since I knew it was a great chance to learn something new. From that point on, I started to see changes in my community as well as in myself. Brenda M. from Mexico
“I appreciated working with council members from all ethnic backgrounds because it let us get to know one another better and respect our differences. We were able to create newsletters that would keep sites connected and informed of the amazing things they were all accomplishing. Aliyah S.
“[BTE] … opened me a lot of possibilities and helped me realize what I wanted to study and accomplish with my life…It most importantly provides perspective without fear, and we can gain knowledge from others. Valeria D. – Mexico
“It aids pupils in moving forwards, maintaining their drive and dedication to the future. It strengthens us and advances our intellectual and psychological growth. Additionally, it encourages us to overcome obstacles, grow resilient, and have faith in our ability to always be heard. Manuel J. – Dominican Republic
“I’ve been making more and more decisions that have made it easier for me to speak up in public, be more friendly, and raise my voice. People around me have changed how they treat me, therefore they must have seen the difference. It also aided me in raising my standards and clarifying my life goals. Valeria D.
The fact that mentors actually value and care about the needs of the participants and are fully committed in their futures is one aspect of BTE that sets it apart. Many academic and professional opportunities have been made available by them. I wish there was a BTE cohort at every school in the US and the rest of the world. My daily work is a true testament to how glad I am to have been given the opportunity to benefit from this program. – Aliyah S.
“Every month, we worked together to develop significant events like the Global wellbeing Webinar, which focused on mental health, physical wellbeing, and time management. Even though it was a difficult time when everything was virtual, this council helped to better prepare us for working under those circumstances. I had the abilities I needed to move into remote employment by the time my year with YLC was finished. — Marilyn T.
“The potential impact I could have on my BTE site and how we can continually improve it.” KAHLIN C., USA
“Our insights and knowledge will shape the future. You’re already one step closer to developing your talents by looking for possibilities and asking questions…The rest will come if you have faith in yourself. — Nalyah M.
“Go beyond your comfort zone. Never assume where it might take you. If you don’t try, you’ll never know what will happen. The LEGO bits are always ready to be rebuilt into something better, thus they are never truly broken”. –Noor K., Great Britain
“Youth voices are crucial since today’s actions and policies will have a direct impact on us as we inherit the future…This generation has the chance to effect long-term change. Faith M. – South Africa
“The youth are the voice of the future, and it’s critical that their voices are heard. –Noor K. – Great Britain
“From the day I joined to the day I’m leaving, BTE has altered my life since I’ve been able to meet many friends both domestically and abroad, work with an incredible team from the BTE organization, and learn about STEM and medical jobs. BTE has also opened my eyes to the possibilities of a professional living. — Pranav J.
“The family you didn’t know you needed is BTE. You are a member of a community that is always expanding. Everyone is there for you, including those you don’t even know about, from professors to students to administrators. If you can join BTE, take advantage of this fantastic opportunity”. Grace G. – USA.
Exercise 5.10: Realistic Employee Engagement Strategies
– Are realistic standards set?
– Are realistic measurements in place?
– Is there room for new ideas to be developed, incorporated and implemented?
– Is the strategy regularly monitored and the data properly analyzed?
– Does the strategy allow for pivots if and when they are required?
Course Manual 11: Strategic Engagement Models
Introduction
Every organization wants their staff to excel. It takes a concerted effort, over a long period of time by as many employees as possible for an organization to be profitable and have a good reputation. How do employers make sure people perform at their best is the million-dollar question. Some of the several strategies that businesses might use to improve performance are outlined in these employee engagement models and theories.
Answering that question is difficult. Engagement at work is complicated. Nowadays, most businesses understand that getting the most from their staff goes beyond just paying them well.
Because it has become such a hot topic, much focus has been placed on the solutions that are available to businesses to increase their employee engagement. This has led to research being conducted globally and out of that research has come a number of engagement models that businesses can employ to assist them in engaging their workforce over the long-term.
What is an employee engagement model?
An employee engagement model is a plan for increasing an employee’s sense of value, empowerment, and productivity at work.
It serves as the foundation of corporate culture. It entails putting policies into practice and exhibiting the proper managerial and senior leadership behaviors.
Such policies, which span anything from general wellbeing to career prospects, aim to improve an employee’s quality of life at work. The strategy needed to maximize employee experience, assure job happiness, and create the kind of thriving workplace culture is outlined in employee engagement models.
It is now widely acknowledged that staff engagement is THE key to releasing their productivity.
A company can execute a ton of employee engagement programs, but without a comprehensive strategy, results may be hit or miss. If an isolated project isn’t connected to a larger strategy, it won’t have much of an impact.
Models and ideas of employee engagement are useful for developing a plan. It is more likely that adopting a tried-and-true paradigm will result in major and long-lasting improvement and save a lot of time.
However, success cannot be assured by merely adopting a model. This depends on a company’s capacity for employee involvement, which may be easily assessed through routine employee surveys.
A corporation must choose which of the models is best suited to its business goals since, crucially, a model or theory is a guide, not a hard set of instructions.
Three main employee engagement models
There are several theories, approaches, and initiatives for increasing employee engagement, many of which have been proven effective. Which model suits an organization best depends on the specifics of each company.
For example, a small FinTech start-up would need a very different solution to a huge manufacturing company. Each company would need to determine the right fit for them.
While every organization is unique, and will therefore need a unique solution, there are a number of common themes that arise at all organizations and that means that some of the basics of employee engagement can be based around the following pillars:
• The ability to engage: training, education, personal growth, professional development, teamwork with co-workers, and management support
• The motivation to engage: autonomy, respect, acknowledgement, and gratitude
• Freedom to engage: pride, job fulfilment, freedom to be innovative and creative
• Alignment: between the individual and the corporation (this implies that staff members comprehend and concur with the company’s objective and vision).
The three most commonly understood and adopted employee engagement models and among the most popular frameworks for measuring employee engagement are those developed by Maslow, Kahn, and AON-Hewitt.
Malsow’s Employee Engagement Model
The majority of businesspeople will be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It has a significant impact on how employees are managed and is as inescapable as the tea break in most business courses.
In 1943, Abraham Maslow published ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, which contained the hierarchy of needs he later developed. Maslow’s five-tier model of human needs is part of his motivational theory in psychology.
The theory contends that attempts to meet these five fundamental needs—physical, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization (fulfillment)—are what motivate people. An employee becomes more motivated when these demands are met to a greater extent.
According to the theory, a person cannot be fully engaged or happy in their position without having these needs met. Employees fundamentally require job stability, an appropriate salary they can comfortably live on, and a sense of safety in their workplaces. Additionally, workers need to have a sense of camaraderie, a sense of belonging, and appreciation. Workers must also advance, develop, be inventive, and be ready to run with ideas.
According to Maslow’s model, no one need is more critical than any other in the hierarchy of needs. In order for workers to be driven to give their best effort, they must feel completely satisfied on all levels of the hierarchy.
The Kahn Model of Employee Engagement
William Kahn, an organizational psychologist, was one of the pioneering scholars to define the idea of employee engagement. He distinguished between the physical, cognitive, and emotional elements of employee involvement in his work.
Summer camp counsellors and employees of an architecture business were the subjects of Kahn’s study, Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work. The study looked at workplace circumstances that influence employee engagement or disengagement.
Three psychological factors, according to Kahn, promote engagement:
• Meaningfulness: Does a worker find meaning in their work?
• Safety: Does the worker feel free to voice thoughts at work without fear of repercussions?
• Availability: Does the worker feel physically and mentally capable of using their full potential at this time?
Kahn questioned the prevalent notions in business at the time that employee engagement was based on how they felt about their jobs. He maintained that feelings, not thoughts, were the source of participation.
According to Kahn’s idea, ‘The engagement concept was developed based on the premise that individuals can make real choices about how much of their real, personal selves they would reveal and express in their work’.
Kahn provided an example of the cost of disengagement: workers doing just enough to keep their jobs while devoting no mental or emotional resources to their work.
According to Kahn’s model of employee engagement, employees only put forth more effort when they feel comfortable being authentically themselves at work.
AON-Hewitt Model of Employee Engagement
The AON-Hewitt model of engagement takes a variety of elements necessary for optimum performance and productivity into account. These consist of deliberate thought, feelings, intentions, and deeds. The concept is based on three outcomes and six drivers of employee engagement (the areas over which employers have the most influence).
Basics like income, benefits, job security, the working environment, and work-life balance are factors.
• Company practices: diversity and inclusion, communication, talent, personnel, enabling infrastructure, tasks, accomplishments, empowerment, autonomy
• Employee value proposition, corporate social responsibility, and brand
• Accessibility and direction in leadership
Performance-related factors include career possibilities, learning and development, performance management, people management, and rewards and recognition.
The following engagement outcomes depend on the performance of the drivers:
• Say – will speak highly about the company to co-workers, prospective employees, and clients
• Stay – feel a sense of belonging and wouldn’t quit the company easy
• Strive – driven to put forth effort and achieve success at work
5 Key Areas of Engagement That Apply to All Models
While each of these models have their differences, they also have similarities too. Each model of employee engagement implies that there are 5 key areas for organizations to consider when applying a model to their workplace.
1. Awareness
Awareness applies on a number of different levels.
Firstly, awareness is about the culture of the organization. How is this communicated to the employees? Who knows about the culture, who is that knowledge shared with and how is the knowledge shared?
Secondly, awareness is about knowledge of the corporate goals. What are the corporate goals, who knows about them and how is that knowledge shared with all of the employees in a way that involves them and inspires them to work towards them?
Thirdly, awareness is about changes that employees need to know about. How are changes disseminated to employees when they occur? How quickly do employees find out about changes and are they told directly or do they ‘accidentally discover’ information via the rumor mill.
2. Onboarding
Onboarding is a fantastic place to create processes that meet the needs of employees.
Onboarding is one of the first direct experiences that an employee has of the organization after they’ve agreed to accept a position. Their experience during the onboarding process will inform their opinion of what to expect from their association with the organization.
When organizations get the onboarding process right, they can start the employee engagement process off on the right foot.
3. Engagement
Awareness and onboarding provide a great starting point for employee engagement, but having information about the organization isn’t enough to ensure an employee is engaged with the organization’s goals.
There has to be a process that the organization puts in place to help the employee integrate the knowledge they have and combine that with their creativity to develop long-term engagement with the organization.
Employees need to take the knowledge they are given, align that to their personal values and expectations, take responsibility for their role in helping the organization achieve its goals and then take action to make sure the goals are achieved.
4. Leadership
There is a common misconception that the leaders of an organization are those in management positions.
While it is true that some managers are also exceptional leaders, it is not true that all leaders are managers.
Leaders help inspire and guide the individuals in an organization to achieve targets and goals. They role model the culture and are shining lights that encourage others to grow and develop to assist the organization to achieve its stated aims.
Great organizations encourage leadership from all levels and provides avenues for people to become leaders in the way that best suits them.
5. Ambassadors
Ambassadors can’t help but talk about all the fantastic things and organization is doing.
When an organization engages its employees to the level where they become walking, talking advertisements for the company, they have created ambassadors.
Organizations that can harness the positive energy that their ambassadors create find themselves with employees that motivate others, educate themselves and share new knowledge with everyone around them.
Creating, recognizing and rewarding ambassadors should be a high priority on an organizations engagement strategy.
How to implement a strategic engagement model
The key components to implementing a strategic engagement strategy.
1. Pre-planning phase
Your strategic engagement model’s initial section should focus on involving people.
Specifically, how you intend to genuinely include members of your entire organization in your strategic planning process. You’re considerably more likely to acquire buy-in to your aims by incorporating individuals early on.
1.1 – Choose your stakeholders
Finding out the stakeholders you want to include in the planning process should be your first step. Consider all of your stakeholders, and keep in mind that some of them (shareholders, friends, family, etc.) may not be within your company.
Make a list of the various internal and external stakeholders to monitor your progress in involving them.
1.2 – Speak to them
Plan several sessions including each stakeholder group. Outline your overarching goals for the session and let them know why you appreciate their opinion.
Include precise instructions on how you want them to participate in the planning process. In order to elicit the essential issues you want their input on during these meetings, prepare a series of questions in advance. For example, you might ask them to pre-prepare answers to questions like:
• What do you think are the organization’s strengths and limitations?
• Could you list any potential advantages and disadvantages for us?
• What should our priorities be for the next five years, in your opinion?
• Do you have any particular favorites among the organizations in our area? Why?
Make sure to interact with each stakeholder group actively. After every meeting, take notes and email a summary to everyone. This will enable you to think more deeply about what they’ve said and demonstrates that you paid attention to what they had to say.
1.3 – Consider the suggestions made in your strategy
By putting this portion of your strategic engagement plan into practice, you’ll almost surely come up with some insightful suggestions. Make sure to include those concepts in your strategic plan, then get back in touch with your stakeholders to let them know their suggestions had been taken into account.
It’s acceptable to tell someone up front if they have an idea that you won’t be able to use. Let the person know why you decided not to use their suggestions. Even if you didn’t use their suggestions in this particular instance, they’ll certainly appreciate the fact that you listened to them and gave them your whole attention.
2. Cascading methodology
Even if you’ve finished writing your strategic plan, the truth is that at this point, your plan will still be fairly high level. You must cascade your plan throughout your organization in order to make it operational.
Cascading methodology basically entails distributing the top level components of your strategic plan to key individuals, who will then work with you to refine them into more specific goals. These individuals then cascade their teams with their objectives.
2.1 – Assign high-level objectives
For each of your plan’s high-level objectives, a key member of your leadership team should be tasked. Since most plans focus on objectives that pertain to normal company sectors like marketing, sales, etc., this should be a simple process.
Asking them to work with their own teams to develop that specific aspect of the plan should be a step in the procedure. They should then submit their findings to the rest of the leadership team.
By owning their own plan rather than just a deliverable on the overarching strategy, this offers a tremendous sense of empowerment.
2.2 – Recap and iterate
Have each team member present their individual strategic plan to the leadership team when they have completed their portion of the larger plan. Utilize this chance to examine and refine how well each team member understands the overall strategy. Make sure everyone on the team is aware of how their objectives relate to the initial strategic vision.
2.3 – Continue
Your organization’s size will determine how many times you need to repeat this strategy cascading procedure. This will guarantee that everyone within the company participates to some extent. Plans for strategic involvement that include everyone to the fullest extent work well.
This does not imply that you must participate directly in each stage of the strategy cascade. You can delegate that to your managers, and you can rely on them to maintain the alignment with the overarching vision.
3. Plan for communication
Making a communications plan is the third step in your strategic engagement plan. This is the point at which you put your strategy into action and start to generate some excitement within the company.
3.1 – Interaction with stakeholders
Do you still have the list of stakeholders you created in step 1.1? It’s time to go through that list once more, but this time we’re going to create a series of mini plans for how we’ll explain the approach to them and what results we hope to get in return.
You may improve the organization of your messages and communication style by establishing your desired results.
3.2 – Put your hard work to use
Invest some resources in making employee communication interesting and interactive.
The hard work has been done, so don’t waste it on a boring email that no one will look at or a power point presentation that makes people’s eyes glaze over.
Create some videos sharing information about key components of the plan and encourage employees to get involved, create some animated graphics that people can relate to, have a fun launch for your strategy and maybe even consider investing in some cheesy squeezy or desk toys that can be a constant reminder of their role in achieving the strategy for your employees.
Case Study: Water for Remote First Nations Communities in Australia
The ‘Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow’ Aboriginal engagement and participation strategy of The Water Corporation is an excellent illustration of what may be done to promote genuine and successful collaboration for the benefit of First Nations communities.
It is important for the water industry to think about how it can more effectively collaborate with Australia’s First Nations peoples and communities in the design and provision of vital services, especially in light of the Federal Government’s commitment to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in the Federal Parliament.
As demonstrated in this case study, First Nations peoples’ successful involvement and participation can significantly and favorably affect the social and emotional wellness of First Nations people and their communities. It also shows that developing trust and relationships takes time and is the foundation of all sincere engagement activities.
The ‘Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow’ Aboriginal engagement and participation strategy of The Water Corporation is an excellent illustration of what may be done to promote genuine and successful collaboration for the benefit of First Nations communities.
Situation
To accept and honor our shared heritage, we must take time to reflect on yesterday.
The Aboriginal version of Australian history and the European account are two very different viewpoints that must be acknowledged. Before even starting to choose a future route, we must engage in a process of learning, unlearning, telling the truth, and expressing gratitude. Considering today’s activities and accomplishments.
We know we do some great things, achieving some amazing results, and we need to celebrate this shared success.
We are aware of many issues that need to be resolved, including inadequate water services in communities, increased employment opportunities for Aboriginal people, appreciation of the cultural expertise and knowledge that Aboriginal people bring, and ensuring appropriate representation and a voice at the decision-making table.
We must actively participate in the process of gaining and giving respect from and to Aboriginal people and community members if we are to walk together with a common vision of Tomorrow.
In order to interact and exchange information based on the tenet of mutual trust, we must improve our existing relationships and forge new ones that are driven by the people we serve.
Challenges
Water Corporation encountered a number of difficulties during the engagement sessions, including:
• covering of the globe.
• criteria and restrictions for travel.
• limits on COVID and a rise in incidents of community transmission.
• Regions that were experiencing a bush fire emergency.
Approach
Workshops were conducted in a Yarning Circle Mode and included a Welcome to Country by Traditional Owners from each location, with approximately 220 employees in attendance. The Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow strategy’s target areas and our primary focus areas’ assessed maturity levels were thoroughly examined by employees:
• Our People: Aboriginal people choose to work for us. We assist Aboriginal individuals in pursuing their professional goals, offer a secure and welcoming workplace, and recognize the distinctive contribution they contribute to their position and the decisions our company makes.
• Our Culture: We make decisions in a safe, inclusive, and culturally sensitive manner. We recognize the holistic nature of Aboriginal culture, which is comprised of values, beliefs, practices, languages, and traditions. Additionally, we actively endeavor to improve our procedures and practices for the future in order to reflect the Corporation’s participation in the outcomes of yesterday.
• Our Community: We value the services and suggestions we get from Aboriginal stakeholders, and the communities we serve value Water Corporation and the equitable services we offer. We pledge to fortify, build, and improve relationships based on candor, openness, respect, and honesty, and we accept responsibility for the impact we have on the communities we serve.
• Our Country: We are pioneers in forging mutually beneficial agreements with Traditional Owners that safeguard and conserve water and Country for future generations.
The Water Corporation seminars covered:
• The voyage to date for Water Corporation.
• The necessity of the plan.
• The plan’s advancements as well as how the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and strategy interact.
Participants said the seminars were stimulating, interesting, and energized our people to feel a feeling of inclusivity and hope:
Vital Components for Success
For Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow to prosper and succeed at Water Corporation, it was important that this strategy was shaped by the views and voices of our many diverse employees and stakeholders.
Members from Water Corporation’s Senior Aboriginal Relationship Group, whose insights have helped develop this draft strategy along with our Reconciliation Action Plan committee, facilitated engagement sessions in some of our metro and regional locations. These meetings helped with employee consultation and key stakeholder involvement in the draft’s finalization.
It was identified that Water Corporation needed to consult with employees both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. Yarning Circles, a traditional Aboriginal gathering format, were adopted by Water Corporation to enable these engagement sessions.
The following was the composition of each yarning circle:
• A welcome to country from regional traditional owners was included;
• A Circle built with earth, plants and rocks from the surrounding country;
• Was Aboriginal led; and
• Employees had a chance to deep dive into the focus areas of the strategy and our perceived maturity levels.
Employees were asked to leave laptops and phones and shoes at the door. Each session always started with the ‘why’:
‘Why are you here today? Tell us about yourself, your family and your involvement with community.’
This methodology allowed people to be in the mindset of sharing their story and what difference they wanted to make to our journey of reconciliation and Aboriginal engagement.
Benefits and outcomes
By supporting our people and honoring the value their culture and that of the communities we serve bring to this business, we will leverage the opportunity we have to enhance community outcomes for both Aboriginal communities and the wider Country which we walk together on.
Conclusion and key points
The delivery of the engagement sessions in a yarning circle model provided a safe place for all to speak without judgement. The conversations within a yarning circle have always focused on strengths and not problem solving and criticisms. It is a collaborative way to communicate and provides a respectful place to be heard and to respond.
Exercise 5.11: Building an Employee Engagement Model
– Enhanced wellbeing
– Employees gain energy from their work
– Employees feel their position has meaning
– Employees individual strengths are leveraged
– Build relationships with its employees
– Foster and reward ongoing recognition
– Enhance connection, social input and understand the challenges of its employees
– Maximize performance from each individual
– Track the progress of important projects
– Ultimately achieve the stated results
Course Manual 12: 4 Step Stakeholder Engagement Plans
Introduction
A stakeholder engagement plan (SEP) outlines how stakeholders in your project will participate in and impact the project. It also describes your strategy for reaching out to stakeholders. Deliberately and consciously managing your stakeholder relationships can be aided by a stakeholder engagement plan.
Stakeholders frequently participate in projects for tactical or financial reasons. Their amount of interest in and influence over your project will fluctuate depending on their motivations. To prioritize those who will have the greatest influence, it is crucial to understand how to adjust your communication approach based on the demands of your stakeholders.
A template for a stakeholder engagement plan can assist you in identifying your stakeholders, their levels of influence and interest, and your communication strategy. This template can help your team satisfy the needs of stakeholders and keep communication breakdowns from delaying the project’s progress.
The level of involvement and influence of your project’s stakeholders is documented within your SEP.
It also describes your strategy for communicating with stakeholders, including when you’ll get in touch with them, the platform you’ll use, and the amount of information you’ll share.
Stakeholders can either be employees or other external parties whose lives are influenced by your work.
Project managers, operations teams, department heads, and board members are examples of internal stakeholders. Clients, customers, investors, suppliers, business partners, or shareholders are examples of external stakeholders.
Since stakeholder communication starts as soon as a project is initiated, your SEP is usually developed as part of your strategic planning phase.
It is best to determine your stakeholders and their level of involvement after a strategic plan is put in place. You can modify your SEP as the plan is implemented and projects develops to accommodate their needs.
How to use a Stakeholder Engagement Plan
The purpose of an SEP is to provide a framework for identifying key stakeholders and their interest and influence levels as well as identifying the frequency and type of engagement activity required for each.
An SEP should make sure that all stakeholders are identified and that an appropriate level of engagement is entered into for each of them.
It should assist you to communicate with individuals who are most influenced by and interested in the project and then lead you through the project planning process.
For some stakeholders, education and buy-in are crucial. Others would rather acquire information passively at their own convenience. Your SEP will sort stakeholders into categories as it is developed so you can communicate with them in a method that will be most effective based on their level of influence and interest.
An SEP’s collaborative character is one of its advantages. By integrating your SEP into work management software, your team will be able to make necessary updates to the document and allocate ownership to various areas. Additionally, it will enable you to freely distribute the plan among other projects and individuals.
What makes a good Stakeholder Engagement Plan?
A strong stakeholder engagement plan must be carefully thought out and organized. It should include stakeholder identification, their interest levels, their power and influence on the organization and/or project.
For instance, is your stakeholder unbiased or a decision-maker? Are they able to persuade or exert influence over others during the decision-making process?
A good stakeholder plan should specify the project’s scope, contain useful matrices like an importance/influence matrix and a stakeholder engagement matrix, have accurate timelines, and have a post-stakeholder engagement plan in place before the project begins.
There are five key and important elements of a successful stakeholder engagement plan:
1. The Project Scope
The success of your project as a whole depends on how clearly you define its scope and identify its primary goals. It’s crucial to consider vital issues like who will decide what, when, and who will be impacted. Establish the roles of the stakeholders and their level of influence on your decision-making.
2. Establish Boundaries
Decide what the parameters and constraints of your project will be. This could be discussions about the budget that are only allowed with certain stakeholders, subjects that are off-limits or out of scope. If some of your stakeholders are members of the general public, or if you plan to communicate with the media in any way, be ready to respond to some of these queries.
3. Select Metrics
You should choose the measurements you’ll use to quantify your project at this point. These must to be quantifiable, doable, and trackable.
4. Produce Timetables
Any effective strategy for stakeholder involvement ought to have a timeframe with a milestone. On your project timetable, schedule events, milestones, and project phases. To assist you in organizing key milestones, consider using project planning platforms.
5. Post-Conversation Plan
Lastly, creating a post-engagement plan during your planning phase is easier than trying to think about it at the end of the project.
What should be included in a Stakeholder Engagement Plan
An SEP will be different for every organization and potentially for every project that one is created for. They need to be specific to the situation they are being applied to.
Although each plan needs to meet the unique set of requirements relevant to each project and/or situation, there are some common components that should be included:
• Name of the stakeholder: Identify your stakeholder.
• Interest level: Assign labels to stakeholders based on their level of engagement or interest in the project. See the list below for the five stages of stakeholder participation.
• Influence level: Rate the level of influence each stakeholder has over the project, from extremely high to very low.
• Frequency: Determine your planned frequency of communication with this stakeholder.
• Communication channel approach: Choose the channel through which you will speak with this stakeholder.
• Information type: When communicating, specify the kind of information you’ll give this stakeholder.
Identifying the stakeholders’ objectives or motivations as well as the communication techniques you’ll employ with them is the aim of establishing your stakeholder engagement plan.
4 Steps to Create a Stakeholder Engagement Plan
Before you can create an SEP, you must first comprehend the needs of your stakeholders and how they affect your project in order to develop a plan that will assist you in working with them in a way they can appreciate.
There are four steps to follow to create an effective SEP.
1. List the people involved
Initially, some stakeholders will be more invested in your initiative. Their intentions frequently explain this amount of involvement.
An internal executive in charge of the project, for instance, might be more invested because it affects their ability to do their job. An external partner, on the other hand, who has a smaller financial stake, might be less involved and perhaps not require complete transparency.
There are five main stakeholder engagement levels:
• Leading: A leading stakeholder actively participates in the project and is aware of its effects.
• Supporting: A supporting stakeholder supports the initiative and is aware of its effects.
• Neutral: An impartial stakeholder is aware of the effects of the project but neither opposes nor supports it.
• Resistant: A resistant stakeholder is one who acknowledges the effects of the project but opposes change.
• Unaware: A stakeholder who is not aware is one who is not aware of the project or its effects.
You can gauge your stakeholders’ influence on the project once you know how engaged they are. According to the Project Management Institute, influence refers to a stakeholder’s level of control on a project. A stakeholder with significant influence can direct important project choices and motivate others to take action.
Influence of stakeholders on a broad scale:
• Extremely high: A stakeholder with extreme influence has considerable control over important project choices.
• High: A stakeholder with a lot of power can convince other people to act.
• Medium: A stakeholder with a medium level of influence participates in decisions frequently.
• Low: You may not always take into account the thoughts and concerns of a stakeholder with little influence when making decisions.
• Extremely low: A stakeholder with extremely low influence may participate in the project whenever they choose, but they will have no effect over any choices that are made.
2. Label stakeholders on a grid of influence and interest
You will map each stakeholder on the influence/interest grid once you are aware of the impact and interest levels of your stakeholders. Although you won’t want to discuss this with your stakeholders, it can be useful in determining the appropriate communication cadence and style for each of them.
The following four stakeholder groups have a lot of impact and great interest. These are your ‘leading’ or ‘supporting’ category stakeholders. They are the most significant stakeholders on your list and your essential players. Consistently communicate with these stakeholders and make sure they are well informed about the project.
The most crucial stakeholders to involve are these ones.
• Low influence and high interest. They most certainly fall under the ‘leading’ or ‘supporting’ category as well. Despite the fact that they don’t have as much impact, they should nevertheless be kept informed of all important communications and encouraged to take part in other ways, as appropriate. Using a project management application allows you to communicate with key stakeholders with little extra work.
• Low interest and high influence. To keep these stakeholders on board, education is essential. They may fall into your ‘neutral’ or ‘resistant’ categories. Make sure they have access to information as needed, and let them know about any work that can affect their project workflows so they don’t become more resistive if they are taken by surprise by a project change.
• Low attention and influence. These stakeholders fall into your group of ‘unaware’ people. Although you don’t need to communicate with them frequently, you should use your project management software to give out updates once a month. By doing so, you can give them important project information and let them know they can participate more actively.
3. Create a communication strategy
Based on their level of influence and interest, stakeholders are mapped out in stakeholder maps to provide you with some information on how to communicate with them. The next thing you need do is make a unique communication plan using these grid points.
An effective communication strategy determines how you will inform and update your stakeholders. Make certain that stakeholders have a mechanism to have access to pertinent project information regardless of which quadrant they belong to. The simplest method to accomplish this is to centralize all of your project data using a project management platform. This tool can be used by stakeholders to stay updated if they need up-to-the-minute project status information or wish to receive a bird’s-eye view of the entire project schedule.
The process of developing a communication plan involves two steps:
• List all of your available lines of communication. Which methods of communication does your team often use? What does each form of communication serve?
• Determine the appropriate form of communication for each stakeholder quadrant. Not all forms of communication are the same. Determine your communication and education strategies for stakeholders throughout the project lifespan.
For instance, stakeholders with significant impact and interest in the project could prefer weekly communication. You can do this by disseminating your work management tool’s project status updates.
Share your communication strategy with the rest of the project team once you’ve finished. If your communication strategy changes, be careful to update it and let everyone know. Team members will always have access to the most recent information in this way.
4. Adjust plan as necessary based on input
Throughout a project, stakeholders frequently alter their behavior, so keep in mind that the spots you’ve marked on the interest/influence grid aren’t fixed in place.
You can share your plan with stakeholders and solicit their input in addition to revising it in response to observed changes in behavior. Being explicit about what you want from the stakeholders is the greatest method to elicit their opinion.
Give your communication plan to stakeholders, for instance, and ask them: “Does this communication plan work for you? Do you have any places you’d like to improve?
Other pointers for getting comments:
• Request written comments or conduct a formal survey that includes specific enquiries about your engagement method.
• Ask your internal team for feedback on the engagement plan.
• Share any modifications you make with stakeholders and team members.
• Request feedback through video call if it’s more convenient and easier for the stakeholder.
Benefits of a Stakeholder Engagement Plan
Your team can better inform and educate stakeholders with the aid of a solid stakeholder engagement plan. Additional advantages of SEPs include:
• Controls expectations: Ensures that stakeholders are aware of the project’s course and what to anticipate during each phase
• Lowers project risks: Prevents major changes from being made by stakeholders that could jeopardize the project’s success.
• Develops relationships: Strengthens ties between team members and stakeholders.
• Enhances decision-making: Makes it simpler to predict stakeholders’ requirements and preferences when deciding the next course of action.
• Encourages synergy: Teams are better equipped to work together and do better work when they communicate.
Case Study: Stakeholder Engagement for Resilience Planning
Location: Ningaloo Reef
The Challenge
Listening to, comprehending, and addressing the concerns of anybody who might affect or be affected by a management decision.
Engaging stakeholders effectively can yield insightful feedback that helps decision-making and increases public support for particular decisions. Additionally, it increases the public’s trust in managers as a whole and social license, both of which are essential for successful action implementation.
Stakeholder engagement, however, is frequently treated as a “tick-the-box” exercise, frequently in the form of a public consultation period that allows comment on an already developed strategy or action but does not give participants meaningful opportunities to shape the approach or priorities.
When organizations must rely on the public’s continual support or collaboration, this might over time have a detrimental impact on management trust levels and impede the implementation of actions or other subsequent planning procedures.
In this regard, stakeholder engagement should be viewed as the initial step in establishing the trust, support, and relationships that will be necessary for continuous management rather than as a single action that must be taken.
Framework for Reef Resilience
The goal of the resilience strategy is to protect and preserve the coral reefs of Ningaloo and the people who depend on them.
Over the course of eight months, we worked with stakeholders (including internal and external stakeholders) to understand their goals, values, and concerns in order to establish the plan for Ningaloo.
We then co-designed activities to address the main threats to coral reefs and communities. Various techniques were used to contact stakeholders from local councils, other management authorities, community groups, local businesses, indigenous groups, scientists, community members, and particular interest groups and industries, including:
Interviews: In order to grasp the main issues and viewpoints, we spoke with 60 stakeholders who the reef managers considered to be prominent members of the neighborhood. Interviewees were requested to recommend other people for interview. Managers can easily identify the network of influential people using the ‘snowball technique’.
Community workshops: We held workshops for the entire community to share expertise, experiences, and ideas with one another based on input from interviews and online surveys. The opportunity for participants to express their thoughts as well as think about and update them in light of other issues and objectives that the group shared made this step of the interaction probably the most significant and fruitful.
On-country engagement: While Traditional Owners attended the workshops, we also spent time with them ‘on-country’ (in the landscape) to better understand their cultural values and traditional knowledge as they apply to the management of the area.
Local involvement
200+ potential resilience activities were produced during community workshops with a variety of stakeholders, and participants showed interest and buy-in.
Lessons learned and suggested changes
Create momentum:
Once you have identified the important stakeholders, their concerns, and your plan for involving them, you need to generate interest and momentum in the process to encourage involvement. We did this by using
Developing credibility:
Obtaining the support of prominent members of each group is the greatest method to develop credibility among local stakeholders. 11 representatives from various stakeholder groups made up the community consultative committee we established, which gave project guidance. Representatives served as trustworthy informational resources for participants, occasionally giving presentations at the seminars, and promoted participation.
Finding important allies:
We invited a core group of stakeholders (such as employees, certain management agencies, Traditional Owners, etc.) to workshops who were essential to the process’ success.
Regardless of other participants, having these people participate meant that a variety of voices were reflected. We also employed the ‘snowball method’ by encouraging them to spread the invitation to others in their networks.
Raising awareness:
We organized activities to spread the word about the seminars and the problem we were trying to solve.
For instance, to entice people to attend the seminars, we exhibited climate change and coral reef documentaries at nearby sites and had a ‘Reef Chat’ to discuss the present level of knowledge.
Using a variety of channels:
We used social media, traditional media (news and radio), neighborhood newsletters, mailing lists, flyers on neighborhood notice boards, presentations at community group meetings, and local events.
Remove obstacles:
There will always be obstacles in the way of participation.
More individuals will be able to participate, and the process will be more effective, if you can lower these obstacles.
Engagement activities:
Community members worked together to develop proposals to strengthen the resilience of ecosystems, communities and governance systems along the Ningaloo Coast.
Engage meaningfully:
Providing the opportunity for stakeholders to engage meaningfully was the most important concept that guided the process. This was about ensuring all participants felt comfortable contributing and that their views were being considered equitably. There are a range of important approaches that allowed participants to engage meaningfully, many of which related to the design of workshops:
Transparency from organizers is fundamental. Transparency is about being clear with participants about intentions, the process of engagement, and how the information they provide will be used.
Attending interviews and workshops with questions, not answers is important for genuine engagement. Having an open discussion about key issues, values, and threats and how these should be addressed, rather than just proposing actions, meant people felt the process was genuine and were much more excited and empowered about the outcomes.
Identifying common ground and shared values between the participants helps defuse potential conflict. Early in the workshop we did an exercise that mapped what the reef means to community members, which highlighted how much people valued the reef as a core aspect of living in the community. While people eventually differed on which actions were needed, we highlighted the shared values and common ground to decrease division.
Providing information to inform discussions was important and gave a sense of equity – we asked for input from participants and in return shared the results of our research. By asking for input first we did not lead the discussion towards predetermined outcomes. In many cases, people were given the opportunity to express their opinions and personal experiences, then were presented with data and provided an opportunity to build on or add to their responses based on this new information.
Having unbiased small-group facilitators is key to an inclusive process. Workshop moderators provided facilitation, to each small-group discussion by taking notes, directing participants through activities, and reporting back to the organizer/clarifying points after the workshop was complete. All ideas and input was considered regardless of whether it fit with the moderators’ (or other members of the table) views or opinions.
Establishing legitimacy is key. Legitimacy was enhanced by: 1) video presentations by global technical experts in the field of reef resilience; 2) a quick ‘who’s in the room’ announcement at the start of the workshop to highlight the broad participation by decision-makers at the workshop; and 3) having influential members of the community present information, rather than managers.
The ability to interactively discuss ideas in light of the input/perspective of other community members was paramount. Activities were designed to be both interactive and engaging. This allowed participants to understand their views in the context of broader perspectives; pushed people to iterate, innovate, and adjust their thinking on the basis of this context; created opportunities for learning and development of common values; and provided a ‘natural filter’ for preferred projects. Furthermore, planning activities which were different from simply brainstorming or presenting meant the sessions were more engaging. Activities included video presentations, collaborative risk assessment, small-group thematic discussions (‘World Café’), visioning/scenario planning, and an action design session which included voting.
Exercise 5.12: Stakeholder Engagement Plans
– What level of influence do you believe each stakeholder group has?
– What level of interest do you believe each stakeholder group has?
– Frequency
o Daily
o Weekly
o Monthly
o Quarterly
o Annually
– Channel
o Email
o Social media
o Virtual platform (such as zoom etc.)
o Other?
– Information type
o Status update
o Report on progress to goal
o Brainstorming
o Strategic planning
o Other?
Project Studies
Before the commencement of Workshop 6, the Head of each department is to provide a detailed report relating to the introduction of elevating engagement within their department.
The report should include the following:
– Initial evaluation of the current status of engagement within the department.
– A SWOT analysis relating to the department’s current engagement status.
– Strategic process for implementing and maintaining engagement on an ongoing basis. The process is to include the following 12 elements:
o Engagement Theory
o Engagement Theory in the Workplace
o Types of Engagement
o Stages of Engagement
o Components of Engagement
o 5 C’s of Engagement
o Keys to Engagement
o Methods of Engagement
o Engagement Cycle
o Engagement Strategies
o Strategic Engagement Models
o Engagement Plan
– Detail any challenges experienced whilst implementing the process.
– Confirmation that the process has been successfully implemented and is now fully operational.
Program Benefits
Human Resources
- Improved engagement
- Improved culture
- Reduced burnout
- Increased retention
- Employee loyalty
- Performance improvement
- Empowered workforce
- Healthy organization
- Increased effectiveness
- Happier workplace
Management
- Stronger leadership
- Increased focus
- Cohesive workforce
- Greater collaboration
- Wellness mindset
- Greater potential
- Improved communication
- Consistent management
- Greater creative flow
- Positive environment
Business Operations
- Improved wellness
- Reduced costs
- Operating efficiency
- Improved quality
- Operational synergy
- Enhanced environment
- Clarified priorities
- Improved effectiveness
- Organizational resilience
- Increased productivity
Client Telephone Conference (CTC)
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