Engagement can be an Engine

For too many, the terms engagement, employee experience, and culture are just words relegated to the world of human resources. Organizations take surveys, compare to prior year's results, and develop action plans to improve survey results. Typically, the HR organization is responsible for managing the process and getting manages to focus on the topic. For most, it's just another "focus item" to give attention to when it's brought up. For some, it's just a chore to deal with that distracts from making the product, selling the product/service, or running the business.

It's no wonder that few make meaningful progress in engaging people and creating a dynamic work environment that provides a competitive advantage. The primary reason is that many of us don't see the power in engaging our people. When we start to see engagement as an engine that drives results rather than a human resource initiative, the focus is altogether different.

Improving engagement scores is not the goal. Engagement progress is not a separate objective/goal for a manager. Engagement is not driven by the human resource manager.

Creating an employee experience that engages people to care about the business, provide discretionary effort, and to become "owners" of the process/business is the goal. Engagement is viewed as a key input to drive results not an outcome to be pursued. Engagement is "owned" by everyone in a leadership role and viewed as a key lever to accelerate improvement.

This simple fundamental change in how this element is viewed changes everything. It's no longer a topic to be discussed quarterly, but a leadership approach to be embraced daily. Engagement has to be a daily commitment to be effective and sustainable. Consistency in approach results in credibility for the culture change to take place. Leaders value the power of people within the organization and look to build teams, foster culture development, and engage people. They go beyond just managing the process and realize that lasting improvement is best achieved with people getting engaged.

Organizations spend millions of dollars on capital investment, new systems, and new strategies to gain a competitive advantage in their respective markets. Very few recognize the inherent power of the people within the organization to drive improvement. Capital, systems, and strategy are all valuable pieces that support leaders in driving success, but they can't be over-emphasized at the expense of engaging people.

Here's a quick summary to evaluate your organization and direct action:

1. Is engagement viewed as an engine to drive results or another HR initiative?
2. Does your HR leader drive engagement or is it owned by all leaders?
3. Is engagement a separate goal/objective or is it viewed as a driver to achieve other goals?
4. Do you have a solid system of communicating to the entire team to drive engagement or is communication limited to select few?
5. Have you defined the win daily for your entire team or are people just putting in the eight and going home with no idea of success for the day?
6. Are you meetings dialogue driven with input from many or monologue focused with limited "voices" in the room?
7. Does your organization foster open-ended questions to value people, confirm understanding, and generate dialogue or is it purely top-down focused with directives?
8. Does your organization clearly establish accountability at every level of the organization with clear standards or are you more task oriented with few knowledgeable of the total process.

Take some time this week and talk with your leadership team. Engagement can be an engine to spark movement within your organization. It's won't happen overnight, but it's a great time to start moving that direction. It can be the competitive advantage you are looking for in your market.