What does success look like?

I recently celebrated my 1st anniversary at Reward Gateway! That small celebration of time passing seemed like the perfect time to take stock and assess the current landscape around me – and a few things really stood out.

My job normally consists of about 20% admin, 15% emails, 5% coffee, and 60% talking to people about who we are, what we do, and why we do it. For someone like me, who LOVES a chat, this is a pretty fulfilling role. I’ve spent most of my professional career talking to people – arguably a little too often sometimes – and the thing which really gets me going is when I talk about something I’m really into. I feel like I’m at my best when I’m absolutely nuts about something.

Take music as an example. Ask me about the finer points of Benny Grebs natural groove and BOOM we’ve got ourselves a deep and meaningful conversation!

There are some pretty great reasons I’m into my job right now, and they fall into a few categories

All the cogs turn

Having had a good look at a fairly large number of our clients, I’d say we’re doing a pretty good job. Like all businesses there are things we get wrong and things we could do better (#behuman), and I also hear lots of stories about great engagement programmes, innovative people solutions, and overall success. I’d say our mission to “make the world a better place to work” is well on track.

I’ve also been lucky enough to speak to plenty of people who are already running programmes and have engagement initiatives without using our products. It’s actually restored a chunk of my humanity to see how many businesses have switched onto the idea that being good and kind to your people is more than just a nice idea – it’s the minimum employees should expect of their employer. And I’m proud to say WE are facilitating that in every way possible!

I need a Hero!

There are lots of reasons why employee engagement programmes work – the tech behind them is cleverly developed, the ROI is now well proven, HR is becoming more of a strategic role, and the most common trend I see isn’t in the code or the contract – it’s the people behind them.

Just like your everyday superhero’s, HR heroes come in many shapes and sizes, and have a variety of superpowers, and they’re all stepping up and making waves in their own oceans by being innovators, do-ers, and problem solvers.

If you think they’re only buying recognition or communication software to directly fix engagement, you might have missed the point – these things are only the tools and it’s how they’re used which counts. Ain’t no ticked box in the world which makes these things work without being driven by an absolute superstar.

Open and Honest

That’s not to say lots of people aren’t involved in the success of a programme. There are plenty of stakeholders and influencers who all add up to create something which is more than the sum of its parts, and they all need to be speaking in an open and honest manner to get the best results. I recently saw Alyson Fadil speak about the work which she’s been doing at Missguided on a very limited budget – and it’s utterly incredible! By understanding the dynamics of her workforce, keeping a two-way dialogue open, and by working really bloody hard, her and her team have created something truly special on a modest, shoestring budget.

I think back to a lot of the times where I’ve been frustrated at work. It’s rarely been because of a person. More typically, it’s been some kind of policy or politic which has lead on to bad decision making. Few people at work are evil – they’re misinformed.

And again, I’ve been lucky enough to witness the power good communication can have first hand. We recently underwent a change in CEO – for the first time since the founding of Reward Gateway, Glenn Elliott wasn’t running the show, and we all know how big changes can make people really nervous. Yet the way in which it was communicated was flawless. here was a whole week of Facebook interviews and blog articles and Slack updates – everyone had multiple chances to ask any question they had and have it answered by the right people, and it completely eradicated any fear anyone had, making the transition flawless! If anything, the way in which it was communicated proved to me that these people REALLY know what they’re doing.

Going against the grain

The most exciting and often most successful type of programme I get to see are the ones who rebel.

To clarify, I don’t mean rebelling just for the sake of being a rebel – it’s more of a positive friction thing. I remember from my days of studying philosophy, the idea of a paradigm shift within scientific thinking, where the scientific consensus shifts from one belief to another. For example, when it became accepted that the Sun is the centre of our Solar System rather than the Earth, we had a paradigm shift. This shift in critical thinking and core ideology is always slow to take hold, as the established scientists who were very invested in the old theory didn’t want to let it go and in a lot of cases, it would mean their life's work was invalid – so I suppose you can see why they resisted. The pioneers of these new ideas have gone down in the history books and are the ones we still talk about today – such as Darwin, Newton, Einstein – and most importantly they enacted REAL change. They fought and argued and presented logical cases for all of these things and in the end, they made the world a better place to be.

And it’s these sort of paradigm shifts I’ve seen in businesses which is so effective. Sure, you can improve your EVP with robust long service awards, a good pension, and healthcare. How about doing all of those things whilst also creating a culture where everyone wants to come to work on Monday morning? Or knowing that your team is going to do an excellent job, not because you told them, but because they really WANT to. It’s possible, and it’s not even that hard, all it takes is a bit of courage to commit to a new and bold idea.

I think the point I’m ultimately coming to is this – in little over a year, I’ve come to believe that employee engagement is an incredibly effective ideology. There are some amazing stats which I’ve read on it, and it’s obvious when you go and talk to the people working at these businesses. I see passion, big thinking, open mindedness, and determination – and it makes for a better place to work for everyone.

Want to know more? Drop me a message or head to rg.co/rebel to get your copy of Build It - the Rebel Playbook for Employee Engagement