Well it’s 2011 at last and many of us are in for some big and perhaps unforseen changes. So keeping motivated, energised and engaged will be top of most people’s lists as we face the personal and professional challenges ahead.
Last year the employee engagement situation in UK businesses looked like it needed attention with the latest Gallup Engagement Survey revealing that only 24% of UK employees are engaged with their jobs. Also an online study of 2000 organisations by the Hay Group revealed that HR managers now rate employee motivation and engagement as their number one concern. But there is also research showing that less than 20% of managers have received any training in engagement skills or how to bring out the best in their people.
So if this is where we are even before things start to get really rough what are we to do?
Anyone that knows us and the work we do will be aware that we approach communication, connection and creativity from 4 perspectives of human being: Physical, Emotional, Intellectual and Motivational (values, ideas and beliefs)
That’s why we became interested in a survey by the CIPD measuring engagement.
Their research suggests that engagement has three components:
• Cognitive engagement - focusing very hard on work, thinking about very little else during the working day.
• Emotional engagement - being involved emotionally with your work;
and
• Physical engagement - being willing to 'go the extra mile' for your employer and work over and beyond contract.
In this survey only 31% of employees who responded were found to be cognitively engaged, and 22% were/are actually disengaged.
Scores for emotional engagement were higher with 58% of people reportedly emotionally engaged with their work and only 6% emotionally disengaged.
And finally 38% of employees were physically engaged with their work, whilst 11% were/are physically disengaged.
So for us that leaves one componant (or dimension) missing.
Motivational engagement – Our personal values, beliefs and drives that generate the energy to engage with life and work.
Arguably the most important dimension of all as our motivation is indelibly linked with our emotions and the way we feel day to day.
Research into engagement has revealed that the emotional climate in an organisation has a profound affect on engagement. In fact it has been suggested that ‘Climate’ (or atmosphere in the workplace) is responsible for 80% of the negative or positive effects on engagement.
Simply put, people enjoy working with and for people who are positive and make them feel valued, heard, involved and cared for. This means open and honest communication between employees, managers and leaders in order to build rapport and allow people to share ideas, have them heard and maybe even rewarded.
This includes celebrating peoples successes however small, showing team members appreciation and ensuring people have the skills and resources required to achieve their expected professional targets and goals. Sounds simple enough but tricky to implement when so few people in leadership positions (according to studies) are trained in the behaviours of engagement.
Yes we know all this! I imagine many people reading this are saying.
But the figures suggest that though many of us understand what's needed, it is still not happening.
So, we'd like to propose a fairly straight forward solution, but it is one that requires considerable effort.
A key behaviour of engagement that anyone can develop is listening skills. Most of us like people to listen if we have something to share and if we are listened to we will feel more 'engaged' with the person who is making the effort to listen.
Not only that but if the person actually hears our point of view and acknowledges the value in what we say our engagement quotient is likely to increase.
So here's our contribution to the minefield that is people engagement and it begins with implementing an 'Idea Sharing' initiative across an organisation and at all levels of the hierarchy. Creating an opportunity for everyone to be listened to and hopefully heard.
In fact we have been doing this for some time now in our work with creativity and innovation and have discovered that while people ‘brainstorm’ around a product or service, other issues nearly always emerge and reveal suprising insights.
For example: say we are looking to help a team develop a new product range that builds on something already existing.
Our approach is always to begin with the facts about the current product and overall context in which this product exists and into which the new product will potentially follow. This means we take a multi perspective look at the product idea and the context in which it will appear. This will include all the Physical aspects (packaging, texture, ingredients, ergonomics etc) the Emotional impact of the style and branding for customers and employees alike. The Intellectual dimension - where does it fit culutrally and philosophically and what needs does it meet outside the obvious? And finally Motivational - how, why, where and to whom will it become most important?
To do this we work our way through a number of processes we have developed that utilises several tools to surface ‘values driven’ thinking styles. This means that we tap into the values and drives of each person attending the session in order to get a unique perspective on an issue. (I won’t go in to this here as it is fairly involved but please feel free to contact us if you want to know more).
What is interesting about this particular approach is that if you thoroughly explore an idea from a values and drives perspective you will discover more than you expected about unexpected aspects of your business.
During our sessions we often discover that some people in organisations have ways of doing things that are perhaps unorthodox and occasionally break the rules. However they are forced to adopt these methods because the organisations infrastructure ( systems and processes) impede or stultify their ability to achieve their targets and goals. However, often these ‘unorthodox methods’ go unnoticed.
How is that possible?
Because of the high levels of disengagement (and lack of engagement) in organisations today.
In other words....few people care!
But it is in these improvised, unorthodox ways of doing things that future innovations can be found and it’s becoming clear that what businesses today need are new and innovative ways of doing things.
The solution will be obvious by now.
All the new ideas are in the hearts and minds of some if not all of an organisations people. But with up to 75% of employees disengaged at work how are these ideas ever going to be discovered?
It’s going to be an exciting year ahead!
Tom
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