Employee Engagement

Having thoughts on employee engagement this afternoon. A big question is what does this Learning and Development jargon mean? Allow me to explain;

Engagement, in terms of people at work, is not betrothal to a lifetime with your colleagues, but a coined term for how 'connected' people feel with their jobs and the people they work with. So, a person who constantly daydreams about the girl they met in the pub last weekend and is easily distracted, doesn't like the majority of people in the office, feels tired and stressed and is thinking about quitting this lousy job....are most definitely not engaged.

It's a nice idea to pretend that everyone loves their work, and bounces out of bed every morning like tigger and sings zippetty doo dah on the way to work - lets face it folks, that's just not a vision which is rooted in reality.

In my experience, most people feel trapped or incapable of making a change, viewing the problem as an uncontrollable lump, and the only way out is to leave their job, or to grit their teeth, and plough on through - from an objective point of view, common sense dictates that both of these options will only prolong and exacerbate the problem in question, so where does the answer lie? More commonly now people are suggesting that it lies with the employer.

Employers in the modern business environment are becoming more and more switched on to the fact that it's not their customers throwing money at them that is keeping the company afloat on the seas of international finance (thankyou Monty Python) but the people in their own company. CEO's, HR bosses and Finance directors are starting to take an inwardly-focused stance on what makes their company tick, and investing more time and resources into the people who keep a company running.

Without people, an organisation or company is just a name registered with Companies House. If it doesnt do anything, it won't go anywhere. This is as true for a one-man-band battling the elements, as it is for a multinational conglomerate - look at the mayhem caused by any number of the recent Tube strikes when an entire workforce downs tools and decides that enough is enough.

It is with this in mind that looking after the people in your company becomes paramount, and this brings us back to engagement;

How do you engage a workforce? Look at your own experience and try to pinpoint those times when you felt ready to face the day and full of energy - perhaps it was the last time you knew you were going to have an awesome weekend, or perhaps it was the last time you got up to go on holiday and you were full of beans, perhaps it was your wedding day, or the day you first got the job you're in.

In an ideal world, we should all feel like this all of the time, and why not?! Imagine how great the world would be if everyone was happy and loved their job and overflowed with enthusiasm about it.

The work I do with A Different Beat leaves many delegates feeling refreshed, invigorated, awake, engaged, motivated and empowered to take charge of the day. Perhaps it's down to the physical activity, or the distraction, or the fact that its new and different, or maybe its just that the focus has moved from a team doing something (lets face it) quite monotonous or grinding, onto something completely detached from their daily routine.

Whatever the reasons behind it, the fact is - it works. Time and time again, simply the action of pulling people together and playing the drums seems to dispell all the negativity which gathers like a thick dust around teams. We act as housekeepers for organisations, and with the extra discussion and self-awareness we promote during our workshops, the company is destined to save themselves a considerable amount of expenditure.

The UK based CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) released figures last year that the cost of hiring a member of staff, who then gets upset and quits, is in the region of £5,800. That's alot of money to be throwing away, when regular internally focused reviews and sessions could stop any number of employees from walking out of the door, and would only come at a fraction of the cost of high staff turnover.

Modern business requires that we look after talent, and retain high quality staff. With more stringent processes in palce to vet applicants for a job, and highly effective recruitment companies such as Asset Resourcing storming the marketplace, the battlefield topography has changed to becoming more about looking after those who have run the gauntlet and won the faith of your organisation, rather than employing a prehistoric view that they should now knuckle down and be satisfied with their bread and water.

But surely Team Building or personnel development alone cant solve these issues? No they can't. I don't believe that a company throwing money at their employees and sending them on a golf day, or a day at the races, or a weekend in Monaco is going to help - the fundamental problem is still there. It is far more effective for an organisation to take the time to impress upon their people that they are being looked after in a thorough and attentive manner - people need to feel valued, but they also need to 'buy in' to the notion that the responsibility for their engagement is shared between the employer and the individual.

The rabbit hole of Learning and Development branches in many directions with many theories and complicated stuffy concepts on what we should and shouldn't do and where we should spend our money - it's almost as confusing as car insurance.....but the important thing is to figure out three things;

Where you are now
Where you want be
How are you going to get there?

Sometimes, you need an external point to pivot around - that is what A Different Beat provides.