In culture a manager is a team member with an extra responsibility: enabling engagement.

Culture is the key differentiator in the choice of ‘great places to work’. Culture sets you apart as an organization and ultimately forms the competitive landscape. Yet culture has two different sides.

Modern employees still want great financial compensation packages – but they also want things that money can’t buy, such as an office environment that makes them happy and comfortable – whether that office environment fosters creativity, is laid back and relaxed, or makes work fun. Companies supply data driven, mobile and on the spot working experiences which of course attract Millennials in the hope they’ll be engaged by it. So far for the environment, which is only one side of culture.

Human resources professionals no longer function behind the scenes. In fact, their in-depth knowledge of the workforce should make them invaluable members of the team, especially when it comes to the decision-making process. Yet, do the traditional methods of HR software deliver enough in-debt knowledge to ensure a legitimate seat at the table?

Business leaders are beginning to realize the unique insight that comes from HR and the role it plays in strategic business planning. Yet traditional HR software enables HR to provide CEO’s with traditional info to take traditional decisions.

The omnipresent technology is (or better: should be…) disrupting existing businessmodels and rearranging the physical workplace forcing organizations to embrace digital HR. Yet digital HR still refers to the traditional HR processes. And yes, there are and have been attempts to focus on ‘perceptions’ of the soft parts of the organization. Unfortunately most of them are top down.

Employee engagement surveys for example concern the perception of the employee regarding the culture, knowing the company’s vision, maintaining values etc. People engagement surveys are ‘out’, the reason being that the content of engagement has changed with the entrance of generation Y. They seem to work with the concept of ‘challenge me or lose me…’

Strong potential employees don’t really care about massages, ping pong tables or free lunches when it comes to choosing their next career move. The employees you want are interested in a work environment that will enable them to grow their careers, provide greater satisfaction and give them the experiences that make work worthwhile.

With all the nice and attractive structures in place, the engagement just starts, or doesn’t start at all. Because engagement is being enabled by leadership.

A key factor in driving employee engagement and business growth through culture is how employees feel about their employers. How do they behave? Are they willing to share knowledge? Are they willing to dedicate time? This is where the travel really starts; it’s the other side of culture, called leadership behaviour.

If leadership wants to create engagement, they’ll need to increase ownership with themselves and by that with their employees. People need to want to participate. The big question is how to drive that through leadership behaviour?

It is not so much talking about culture, it is doing culture.

HR leaders would really make ideal business partners when they have insight that no one else in the company has: insight into individual leadership and the connection to the level of engagement of the workforce on a departmental level and thus as a whole. Does the individual leadership style enable people to engage, does it make them learn by doing, does it make them feel empowered and take ownership?

HR should have information about leaders to understand where their strengths and shortcomings lie from the perspective of a day to day relevant basis: their workforce.

Who in the company’s leadership excells in these hot topics and why? Answers to these questions would really enable HR to provide valuable recommendations on things such as skills shortages, succession planning, employee performance and level of engagement -- the list goes on.

Additional HR software should enable HR leaders to assist the CEO in making crucial internal business decisions by offering them the “leadership style” perspective. And not from their own personal perspective, but from the workforce that experiences the effect on a day to day basis. Including HR in the discussion based on this information will give CEOs the insight they really need to make important internal decisions that will really have an impact on the course of the organization.

And as a bonus traditional hierarchical thinking and acting will disappear. Because in culture a manager is 'just' another team member, yet with an extra responsibility. Enabling engagement through leadership.