Maybe the Traditional Approach to Engagement is All Wrong!
Everyone is focusing on creating a workforce that is truly engaged. But maybe their focus is too broad? Maybe focusing on engaging the entire workforce is a strategy that won’t yield immediate and lasting results.
I mean, we have been talking about employee engagement since the early 1990s. And yet, depending on the source anywhere from 40-70 percent of employees continue to be classified as neutral, middle of the road or agnostic. What makes these numbers especially discouraging is that over the past two decades, we have been trying to realize the benefits of empowerment, teamwork, recognition, people development, performance management and new leadership styles. So why do we continue to report employee engagement levels that are sub-par at best?
Maybe our approach is all wrong. Maybe we are too focused on the drivers of engaging the entire employee population and are not focused on where engagement starts.
Engagement starts at the top. We all know that. In fact, the actions of senior leaders and overall workplace programs and policies and the actions of the direct manager have a tremendous impact on overall employee engagement levels.
So what is wrong with what companies are doing? We know that they are all developing leadership programs to help them engage employees. But we think they have forgotten something important. We think companies need to shift their focus from engaging their entire workforce to engaging their leaders first and foremost.
According to a DDI Study only 25% of senior leaders and only 17% of frontline leaders are truly engaged? Without engaged leaders creating an engaged workforce is virtually impossible.
So here is what we are proposing.
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Stop what you are doing that is related to engaging the entire worforce. We think you are wasting time and money. Why? Everyone is working on engagement, yet we are NOT moving the needle.
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Conduct an employee engagement survey on your entire LEADERSHIP team (yes, we said leadership) right down to the individual leader. Please don’t use your traditional employee survey but a survey designed to only measure employee engagement.
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Assess the engagement scores of your senior managment team and every direct manager.
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Based on the results, design an approach to engage your entire senior management team as well as your frontline leaders.
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Focus on the drivers of leadership engagement. What do we mean? Develop programs based on what your leaders are telling you. These drivers should be predictors of leadership loyalty - that they will remain, recommend and be willing to "unleash" their discretionary effort.
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Six months later, conduct ANOTHER LEADERSHIP engagement survey to see whether the programs that you have introduced are moving the needle on leadership engagement.
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Identify which leaders are still not engaged.
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Individually coach them and remember if you can’t engage them – you will need to think deal with them. Disengaged leaders can have a devastating impact on your most important assets – your entire employee base!
Let us know your thoughts.
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Judy, I think you've nailed something important here: EE becomes a full employee initiative rather than gets driven down to an individual level. I like your downward approach of starting with leaders...my only issue is that many organizations believe their managers are leaders when it's clearly not the case judging by their behaviors and attitudes. For this to work, you'd have to cull your managers from your manager-leaders and start with the latter.
I'm also working on a model that would drive engagement upward from the employee level. Again, I think your point about starting too broad is a good one. Perhaps there's a bit of diffusion of innovation here so that the principles of employee engagement are cast into the overall org culture.
Put the downward and upward approaches together as a starting point...perhaps this would move the needle?
Great post! Chris
Chris, I really like your idea of putting the downward and upward approaches to employee engagement together. This indeed, may move the needle!
Wow, what a salvo of a blog entry, Judy. You have a manifesto there, I believe.
As I read your points, I was reminded of the definition of insanity: Doing things the same way, but expecting different results.
Clearly your points will shift the focus, from trying to engage an entire workforce to engaging leaders first and foremost.
And I would "second" Chris' idea as well.
Bravo!
Terry
I concur with Chris and Terry about such a powerful and strong post.
I was just reading Peter Block on community before this so I am doing some mental gymnastics in my head on fitting these two together.
It does seem to me that we often "forget" that leaders are employees and that "employees" are leaders.
I like the discussion you've got going here.
David
This is a really great post. I'm now so glad I'm subscribed to this blog.
It reminds me of Nicholas Christakis' research on social networks. He's saying that almost all behavior spreads through networks.
Could it be that engagement is something contagious, and can best be transferred person to person, with the highest level of influence for someone above you instead of below or beside you in the hierarchy?
Maybe rhetorical language, and body language during presentations doesn't travel as well as seeing your boss (or co-worker) working with passion.
Or maybe everyone in an organization feels someone to be his/her primary leader (regardless of his/her position in the hierarchy), and will follow his/her lead, instead of the "leader of leaders". Organizations should be drawing up influence maps.
Here's an interesting take on this topic: our research at Improved Experience is beginning to show that engagement is not only critical at the top of the business, but can be tangibly measured and managed from the earliest points of contact, long before hire. This indicates that strategic talent management efforts (in employer branding, targeted outreach, and retention) have the capacity to drive substantial impact to the business bottom line with cohesive solutions.
In addition to this, we're excited to see consistent data that is leading us to identify very specific modes of engagement in those who work for our clients; it is not at all an "on/off" switch of being engaged or disengaged. We hope to share more about our findings with this community in the future.
This is a facinating topic indeed!
Warm regards,
Claudia
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Claudia Faust
Founding Partner, Products
Improved Experience
I agree with Chris Bailey's statement, "...cull your managers from your manager-leaders..." Downward and upward approaches are the way to go!