The Evolution of Employee Engagement

Ssshh… Something incredible is happening. If you listen carefully; up and down the hallways and corridors of workplaces around the globe, Human Resource departments are being transformed by exceptionally talented professionals from Office Administrators to strategically important Executive Office for the Chief of People.

New Chief People Officer Wanted: This strategically important role will be accountable for all key people issues impacting on business performance and a sizeable HR and training budget. This is an operational position with a strong focus on recruitment & training, staff retention and performance of employee engagement... 

This article will explore the journey of legacy engagement challenges and disengagement to building a sustainable culture where engagement is a normal way the 'day in the life' for an employee. First however, we must agree to a definition of a vital terminology. What is Employee Engagement' and what is meant by the term 'Engaged Employee':

What is Employee Engagement:

An organisations approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organisation to give of their best each day, committed to their organisation's goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success.

What is an Engaged Employee:

An "engaged employee" is defined as one who fully believes in and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organisation's reputation and interests. 

Phase 1

1. Contagious Disengagement

The evolution begins with the natural state of the firm, pre engagement strategy. The way things are and has always been, pre transformation. Typically there may be a history of or the legacy remnants of failed attempts to influence change in the business. It will be apparent that staff are disengaged, attrition is high and performance from the company's greatest resource, its staff, is low. Many Unknown Unknowns.

"To be effective, understanding what to change and where to make changes begins with listening to staff and capturing the unadulterated employee voice."

2. Capture Employee Feedback

In order to effectively implement change, one first needs to understand what change is needed. Most firms operate in the Unknown Knowns stage. In a disengaged work environment, employers no longer share their views as there is a breakdown in trust that what they say will matter, influence change or make a difference.

3. Reporting and Action Planning

This is the area in phase one where most firms fall short. Trust is broken down here between employer and employee when there is no tangible action taken from previously sourced feedback. The breakdown in communication between employer and employer results in catastrophic disengagement. Creating an action plan on the output of data captured and communicating the plan transparently encourages future participation and develops a growth in trust. Failure to act on employee input:

1. Reduces trust.
2. Impacts future participation rates.
3. Acts like a meteor strike to the progress on the evolution to engagement with firms having to start again and rebuild trust.

4. Implementation

Perhaps the most critical stage in the evolutionary state of enabling employee engagement. Where firms capture feedback, deliver an action plan, communicate change is on the way but do not deliver, it causes the greatest loss of trust and biggest breakdown in communication between employer and employee.

So, what is great, is that the role and responsibility of the HRBP is changing as they play a crucial role in the execution of the strategy to build a sustainable engagement model. They are now also seen as Project Managers, managing the delivery of human resource systems, service, process and operations.

Phase 2

Phase 5. Developed Competency for Sustainability

Sustainability completes the evolutionary cycle of employee engagement. Now the firm has successfully captured the voice of the employee in stage 2; worked with strategic teams to deliver an action plan of accountability in stage 3 and implemented on the output of their feedback in stage 4, the employer has successfully developed the competency to sustain the development and maintenance of employee engagement for the future.

Developing and maintaining this new competency in Employers and Managers on how to successfully listen, capture, inform and implement engagement strategy will ensure a future state of highly engaged employees.

1. Future engagement participation will increase, 
2. Employees share views instead of leaving,
3. Positive, contagious engagement results.
4. Known Knowns now possible.

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Human Capital Consultancy are your first step in the ecosystem of capturing actionable, qualitative employee engagement data. In partnership with HR, we do this by performing a deeper dive into concerns employees are not willing to share with their employer by conducting anonymous, 1:1 consultative interviews.

Employees have more to say and share far more information, with context, when they're engaged in a conversation versus completing static surveys alone. We successfully achieve the depth of data captured because, although in partnership with HR, we are one step removed. By capturing the voice of the employee with impunity, we are able to provide HR and L&D departments with unique insight into the concerns preventing employee engagement.

For more information, contact [email protected] or visit humancapcon.co.uk for more information.