Cause and Effect

‘Employee engagement’ is a popular ‘buzz word’ currently but many people misunderstand what it actually is or how it is attained.

Let’s get one thing straight, employee engagement isn’t a ‘thing’. It doesn’t exist in the real world, it is a concept, an idea that someone created and made the description of ‘what it is’.

One definition, and there are many, is ‘Employee engagement?is the extent to which?employees?feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organisation, and put discretionary effort into their work’.

One problem is that business leaders talk as if employee engagement is a thing to ‘get’ – “We need more employee engagement”. The real issue is leaders are chasing employee engagement like some people chase happiness. Happiness (and employee engagement) are results from other actions, patterns and thoughts. Just like you can’t make yourself be happy, neither can leaders ‘make’ employees be engaged.

It would be like going up to one of your team and saying “Ok, now, be engaged! I want you to really work on raising your sense of engagement with the practice”. Crazy , huh?

Employee engagement is a result that occurs from healthy practices being in place in your vet practice – from including your team in decisions that affect them (autonomy), by communicating clearly , knowing how their actions help the practice reach its goals (shared vision and mission), and from team members feeling valued for what they contribute(constructive feedback).

Employee engagement isn’t the goal. It is an indicator of a practices health that brings about other good things (increased productivity, removal of waste and non-value add, opportunity to add value, improve the client experience and patient care and, reduce team turnover). Just like having blood pressure in the healthy zone (110/70) isn’t the ultimate goal – being healthy and living a long life is the goal which is more likely to happen when your blood pressure is good!

So the practical application is to focus on developing healthy habits and patterns of work in your vet practice and the good results will follow (and ‘employment engagement’ as an gauge of health will be good, too!).

Go Well!

Debs