My core message is not new or original: people are an organisation’s
greatest asset. The fact is that it is your people who shape your organisation,
define its brand and ensure its strategic integrity. People provide the ‘value-add’
to your organisation that determines its sustainability and without which
the organisation simply cannot survive.
It is therefore encouraging that employee engagement is becoming such a pervasive
topic, and one that you would have to be Sleeping Beauty or Rip van Winkle not
to have encountered. You may, however, also
be wondering if the subject isn’t perhaps becoming a modern Tower of Babel.
Everyone
appears to have a different definition of what employee engagement means and sometimes
it seems that the HR profession is over-egging the pudding with its talent management
and employee engagement initiatives, and, in trying to create a science out of them,
is simply creating an industry to keep the HR profession and management
consultants employed and busy.
The problem is that hard-pressed executives, even if they are unable to
articulate this, can sense it. Very few have reached their elevated status
without understanding the importance of people. They know from their own
experience that the soft-skills are the hard-skills. Thus they also know that
there are unlikely to be any easy answers, and consequently they remain
sceptical. They are therefore reluctant to commit whole-heartedly to devoting
resources to what are – and they intuitively recognise as – ultimately generic
names, given to topics that cover a multitude of different and diverse issues.
My sense that we are over-complicating the subject was reinforced this past
week when I received this update from an old friend.
Work wise it is going very well and the new bosses
have certainly brought a new dimension and energy into the company. They are
very much "people's people" who believe that their greatest asset is
their people and they treat them accordingly. Quite a refreshing approach I must
say. The employees are very much part and parcel of the decision making
processes and the directors clearly take to heart what they hear. I have seen
such a dramatic change in the entire atmosphere and the employees have
definitely been far more productive under the new leadership. It is really
great to see that a company that was doomed to close its doors 6 months ago is
firmly back on track with all indications that it will be restored to its
former glory.
This anecdote underscores the fact that ultimately not all that difficult. It
simply boils down to the way you treat your people.
People are not all the same but the one thing that we nearly all have in
common is the desire to contribute and to be appreciated for our contribution. So
treat people with respect, give them the autonomy they desire and a sense of
being a part of something, and you will create this kind of employee engagement
and these sorts of results.
It really is that easy. If, however, you are not sure quite how to go about
it, then perhaps you will find this diagram helpful, although it only spells
out what we already know. The only thing I would add is meaningful employee-ownership.
This will cement the sense of belonging.