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.

A short one

Sorry, it's been a while I know....but that shows one thing - that I've been busy! Plenty is happening, and one thing I've learned recently is that the old Scout adage "if you fail to prepare, be prepared to fail" is more true than we might at first think!

Research, preparation, and taking the time to digest our surroundings (metaphorically speaking, don't go munching on the horizon!) are the keys to getting to where you need to be.

Think on.

Motivation...

Without wishing to sound like a standard 12 bar blues track - woke up this morning, got out of bed...and after having convinced myself that I should really go out for a ride on the bike while it's early and sunny, had an overwhleming lack of motivation to do so.

It's interesting how the human mind will concoct as many reasons as you can number to avoid doing something - "It'll take too long", "I'll look silly", "There's chores to be done"....

I was cycling across a field this morning singing "Watch Over You" by Alterbridge (badly), which was a simple nice experience - got some photos of Poppies in an Oil Seed field as well.  The British countryside is something that shouldn't be missed - get out there, enjoy the colour and forget the world for a while.

The fascinating thing about exercise, fitness and just getting out and about is that it's not just about training your body, it's training your mind to change the way you think about not just going for a run or doing some situps, but how you approach everything in your life.  I've found that since I've made the choice to pick up the handlebars and pedal my way around most of North St. Albans and the surrounding countryside, other things have fallen into place, like getting my washing hung out on the line, sweeping and mopping the floor regularly, and most importantly pushing harder with A Different Beat to get things done.

I've read a million times in books that Mind and Body are linked (we'll leave soul out of this for now, because that's an entirely separate debate) but.....this is also an interesting angle - we never really fully understand something until we experience it.  Perhaps that's just my skeptical outlook on all things intangible.....

Anyway this is getting too deep.  The best way to make bad times look better is to go and sweat it out a little bit, listen to some stand up comedy, and get involved with some others and have a laugh - organise a drum workshop with a few friends, do a whip round and give me a call, I'll come down and help you out.

Life is for living, so do that to the best of your ability!

Old ways of securing New business

I walked out of my local Budgens last night clutching a can of beans and some Cod Cakes for my dinner, and a fine sunny evening saw a group of 'youngsters' gathering with mountain bikes, ice cream, and twittering at each other with wanton abandon....(how poetic!)

Since my business corners not only on getting people to work better together, but promoting a love of music amongst young people, I saw an opportunity and so approached the group - with fascinating consequences.

How many of us assume that children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen hanging around in groups are clearly out to cause trouble? I'd hazard a guess that the percentage who answered yes to this is quite high. You'd be wrong.

Think about when you were a teenager - you get home from school, you do your homework, or at least pretend you have, you maybe have some crisps and try to watch TV which is all news that you don't understand or care about. So you go out to meet some friends and spend some time laughing, enjoying the outdoors, and messing about doing silly harmless things, only to be told off by miserable adults and avoided like the plague by anyone who happens to be a passer-by.

Bringing this back to the point, I went over to the group and simply said "Hi guys, do any of you like music?" and got a fantastic response - presumably because somebody other than their parents or a schoolteacher had given them the time of day. We had a very positive chat and they took some business cards.

By the time I'd walked away I felt far more comfortable in my neighbourhood knowing that the kids were alright. It also proved a theory that I'd been nurturing, which was that perhaps the best way of getting in front of the people you need to, is to just say hello.

Afraid of your own shadow?

The prescribed answer to everything is "NO!" - the cultural symptom of Britain in the 'naughties' seems to be stone cold fear. Everybody is afraid of bankruptcy, being mugged, getting dumped, being fired, losing their keys - and this seething, deep seated paranoia seems to have spread into business like an unchecked disease.

Banks today are afraid of going down the pan, businesses terrified to spend money - irrespective of the source of the fear, whether it is due to greed in more bountiful times, or media hype, it still grips us with it's foul slimy hands and influences our daily choices. Whatever happened to simple business and economic acumen? Speculate to accumulate.

My recent visit to the United States with Touchstone opened my eyes to the way the Americans conduct their daily lives. Funny as it may be for some to unkindly accuse them of being fat, stupid and humourless with no grip on sarcasm, they actually have things down pretty well as far as interpersonal relationships go. The overall attitude seems different from ours, and from what I can see they focus less on what they can lose or acquire themselves, but more what they can indemnify their friends, family and colleagues against, or - more to the point - what they can gain for them.

From observing different attitudes and behaviours on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems (and not without a wry smile of irony) that many of the problems with society, business and relationships in Britain today boil down to our desire to please all the people all of the time, and our inability to simply say "no, thank you". Our fear of reproach or unpopularity drive us to cruel heights and twisted views on what is acceptable.

So many complain about being treated badly by the people around them, when all it may take is a purge of old sensibilities and a fresh look at the way things can be done to effect a significant change.

Next time you meet somebody, ask yourself not what they can do for you, but what you can do for them - you'll be very surprised by the results.

Team Building - is it just a game?

A fine Friday morning and a brisk walk to work found me digging deep into the pages of Linked In to find some nuggets of wisdom hidden somewhere within. I read a few posts, nudged a few new contacts, and stumbled upon this.

An interesting discussion thread I thought - so I posted a reply which you can read by following the link, but I also want to publish my thoughts here.

"I will obviously defend team building activities since it is a large part of what I do, but I use the worn-out moniker of team building as a coined term. You can play games and have meetings until you're blue in the face, lets be honest - change only occurs if the people involved want it to. I can facilitate for hours and give insights, tips etc, but using me as a consultant is always going to be a waste of money if the Managers and Team Members have no desire to change their habits and the way they work.

Just like anything that requires a change of outlook, attitude and mindset, it requires effort on both parts to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Take weight loss as a poignant case in point. People who try fad diets and expect to reach a target weight as if by magic, sadly remain overweight. Those who make a conscious effort to change habits, enjoy far better results.

I therefore suggest that while some team building activities are linked tenuously at best to the overall outcomes required, it takes more than expecting a consultant to wave a magic wand and for a companies problems to vanish overnight.

I think alot of people in business tend to get blinded by conceptual theory and analysis - at the end of the day (and I don't mean this to sound as crude as it does) any team is just a group of people trying to do something together, and unless they're very very lucky people and love their job, they're probably thinking they'd rather be somewhere else. Contempt breeds contempt, so far from the 'skipping through a flowery meadow' image that most "team building" companies love to portray, the reality is usually more an exercise in damage control and pointing out to delegates that they will find life as a whole a far more pleasant experience if they put some time into forging stronger relationships with the people around them.

They don't have to be best friends, they don't have to swap recipes or watch the game together - they just need to be able to say "Hey, I don't think that's a good idea" or "yep, sure, I'll get that done so we can get this project finished".

Office politics is the mortal enemy of effective teamwork, in my personal opinion - gossip, intrigue, scandal. I've seen the most effective workers are those who ignore this and "just get on with it".

In a nutshell, I don't feel that demonizing Team Building is accurate, nor is it fair. We should perhaps take more time to look inwardly and question whether it is the processes employed that stand in the path of change, or is it us?