At Focal Point we are about to embark on the Investors in People journey so this area is very close to our hearts!

The Department for Business (BIS) in a recent independent review, stated that a wider take up of engagement approaches would have an enormously positive impact on UK competitiveness and performance.

The agreed definition of Employee Engagement is;
‘A workplace approach designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisations goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of well-being.’

The report suggests, however that engagement levels in the UK are currently low, so it is clearly an area that many organisations need to be tackling.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/employment-matters/strategies/employee-engagement

But it is a tough call. The Guardian recently highlighted how the traditional career ladder is a thing of the past; success is no longer measured by steps up the ladder, as organisations are so much flatter in structure. This means fewer opportunities for promotion and a career nowadays will mean multiple changes of direction, more of what the article calls a ‘career carousel’ whose direction is often a step sideways rather than up. http://careers.guardian.co.uk/careers-blog/time-to-step-away-from-the-career-ladder

This lack of traditional career progression can contribute to a lack of engagement and managers now need to work harder than ever at identifying what is important to their people.

Welcome to the world of ‘Career Management’, where it is vital to align organisational and individual needs.

But how to tackle this? As a starting point consider the following points…
• How clear is the vision of the company?
• Are all your managers engaged themselves and committed to the organisation?
• How clear are individuals about what is expected of them?
• How much do managers understand about what their employees want from work?
• Do your managers show appreciation and offer feedback?
• Do they treat staff as individuals - with fairness and respect?
• Do they enable employees to have a voice?

Companies which challenge themselves in these key areas and examine how they can be improved, will be the ones that create a genuinely motivated and engaged workforce and reap the benefits of increased loyalty and performance.

Last week I had a great piece of customer service from my bank… to my great amazement! Like most people, I have come to expect mediocre service from big, faceless call centres and am genuinely surprised when they go the extra mile. But this girl really did pull out all the stops and helped me out of a temporary, but tricky financial situation. So I took her name and attempted to give the bank some positive feedback about her. I failed. Although I had her name I didn’t have the location of the call centre she worked in and it was therefore apparently impossible to track her down. Writing to Head office in the vain hope it might find its way back to her, was the only advice I was offered- despite the fact that team members are apparently awarded bonuses on their customer service!!!

At a time when we are being told that UK employees are amongst the most disengaged in Europe (Hay Consulting – Engagement Matters) it seems bizarre that an organisation would make it so difficult to pass on some praise!

Positive feedback is one of the most powerful ways of motivating staff – research shows time and time again that being recognised and feeling valued is what matters to so many of us at work .. far more than money or status. And yet so many managers either just don’t do it or only offer it when it is a pre cursor to something that isn’t going so well..”you’ve done really well at this, BUT…”

Don’t be like my bank and make it difficult for your people to know when they have done  a good job or put in some great effort. Make it a New year’s resolution to offer unconditional praise to your people (where it is due) and watch the impact it has!