Leadership Engagement: the Next Big Thing

Leadership Engagement: the Next Big Thing

Why the C-Suite Should Care about Executive and HiPo Engagement

You’re the CEO of a mid-sized firm, and the vendor you’ve hired to run your employee engagement survey has just told you that with the survey closing in 24 hours, only 25% of your executive population has responded. Is this good or bad news?

Recently, I described how the experts I interviewed for my dissertation research asserted that employee engagement might manifest differently based on population characteristics such as demographic traits. Besides millennials, the group they talked about most frequently as critical to engage is the executive leadership (e.g., Director and above) population.

Intuitively, this makes sense. Leaders are the agents of the employment relationship for most staff, so it is easy to imagine a snowball effect if a leader disengages. If a leader disengages, she is less likely to provide her team conditions that nurture engagement, such as authentic, two-way communication; recognition, or connecting the dots between individual objectives and business strategy. Conversely, when a leader is engaged, she is likely to empower, inspire and energize her team, leading to increased engagement and, of course, business performance.

But why executive leaders and not all managers? At the time I was conducting my research, the idea of executive engagement wasn’t on my radar and I didn’t think to probe – now, of course, I really wish I had. I have a theory: if one has a limited budget to invest, it makes sense to focus on the most influential decision-makers in the management ranks. I welcome alternative hypotheses from readers and leaders.

So, getting back to the original question, is it good or bad news that your executive team hasn’t completed your survey? If they are out working their tails off on high-value projects, maybe that's OK. But what if they are not responding because they are disengaged? That's bad news, not just for today but for tomorrow. 

It’s worth noting that not very many companies have implemented engagement programs targeted at executives yet. The progressive practitioners I interviewed are leaders in our profession.  I concur that they are right about the executive population, and I assert that there is an equally important and overlapping population we need to focus on through similar logic: high potential (or HiPo) employees, who not only perform exceptionally today, but who are also expected to lead the business in achieving results over time. 

I'd love to hear more from others who are thinking along these lines and your best practices.

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: Demographics and Employee Engagement

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Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: Demographics and Employee Engagement

How to Think about Building Engagement Models for Diverse Populations

Last month, you were promoted to a new executive-level role overseeing two teams: one is a young, enthusiastic group of experience designers; the other is an older, more experienced group of software developers. Your HR manager says that you need to engage your employee and recommends a social media-based approach. What do you do?

If the arguments I'm making about employee engagement being an individual's attitude towards their work in their organization comprising feelings of vigor, dedication and absorption; perceptions of empowerment and motivation to act both within and extra-role to benefit the firm, then it can be inferred that employee engagement is very personal. As such, it can manifest differently in different people. If it manifests differently, in different people, then the things that drive it in differing individuals might vary by degree as well. 

When I interviewed practitioners for my dissertation research, many spontaneously talked about how important it is to adapt engagement programs for differing employee populations. In the words of one, "There is an engagement model for every population." The most-frequently mentioned population of note was "Millennials," the group just coming into the workforce, born from the early 1980s-2000. 

Although many of us are familiar with the concept of "generations," in case you're not sure exactly what that means or how it differs from someone's age, let me clarify. A generational cohort is defined by birth year and comprises a group of people who have undergone a common set of experiences (in this case cultural) over the same period of time. These experiences are adapted into a sort of common identity. Think of "Baby Boomers" or the "Facebook Generation." The sorts of events that generations share can be diverse, but common historical events (wars, moon landings, etc.) and technological innovations (think internet for Gen X and social media for Millenials) are two significant ones. There's a scientific argument behind generational theory: the common stuff that happens to a cohort early in life effects brain development, specifically with respect to social identity.

Which is all to say that the people I interviewed are right: Millenials are substantially different from their colleagues in other generations. In the example above, having had access to social media during formative years makes it likely that a social-media based engagement program would be a natural fit for them. The same may not be true for their Baby-Boomer colleagues in the software development team. In fact, some might read a social media based program as explicitly excluding them if they've never used it before.

Does this mean you literally need to target engagement programs to each individual? Of course not. Because fundamentally, as human beings, we are substantially similar to one another too. The ideas I've laid out in prior posts about trust and communication driving engagement, for example, apply across generations and most cultural differences.

What it means is that as a leader, you should be discerning when someone comes to you with a "one-size-fits-all" approach to engagement. Ask questions like: 

1. Is this solution as appealing to me as it would be to a recent college graduate? If you aren't sure, go ask a couple recent college graduates.
2. Does this solution have a technology learning curve? If so, have a generationally-diverse set of team members preview it.

Although many practitioners recognized the value of population-specific engagement programs, few firms seem to be actually implementing such plans for differing generations. I'd love to hear from readers if they are aware of good work going on in this area!

Ch-ch-ch-changes: How Employee Engagement Can Make or Break Your Organizational Transformation

Ch-ch-ch-changes: How Employee Engagement Can Make or Break Your Organizational Transformation

Employee Engagement Matters More During Change than Leaders Might Expect

http://www.alliancetechnologiesllc.com/

If you still equate employee engagement to happiness fueled by free sodas in the break room and  perpetually cheery senior leaders … well, you’re missing out on one of employee engagement’s most important functions: to help organizations navigate through challenging changes.

In my dissertation research, the employee engagement practitioners I interviewed made a point to explain that employee engagement is meaningful not only during boom times, but also during some of the hardest periods that businesses face: leadership changes, mergers and redundancies. As one noted:

“During a redundancy, people may see colleagues leaving their jobs. If they understand why their jobs were eliminated and what the long-term outlook for the organization is, they may still be engaged with the organization because they know the rationale for the decision-making, and they can have a voice and say what they want to in the business if they like. But they wouldn’t be satisfied or happy.”

In fact, engaging employees during these periods can make or break an organizational transformation. Why? Fundamentally, many people don’t like change, and they really don’t like change that they didn’t choose. We may know intellectually that certain aspects of our environment are out of our control, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

When it comes to managing through change, the best leaders I've worked with are the ones who intuitively understand a few simple concepts:

1.       Change is much more likely to succeed if people are on-board. As the quote above illustrates, it is possible to align employees with the next right step for the business, whether or not they agree. All that’s necessary is to explain transparently how the business got to the decision it did. Remember that deep down everyone wants the same thing: a healthy organization in a strong position to meet its objectives.

2.       People don’t need you as a leader to have all the answers, they just need you to treat them with respect. This goes back to the one most important thing underlying employee engagement: a mutually trusting and communicative relationship. Your employees are bright and capable people – otherwise you wouldn’t have hired them. They know that sometimes there are no easy answers. But if you treat them like adults, they’re much more likely to act like them.

3.        Change will result in churn. It’s naïve to think that even the best leader can manage through change without consequences. Some people are not going to want to participate in an organization after certain changes. That’s OK – you don’t need everyone to like you. But you should be smart about identifying at the start of every change effort who you NEED to keep and taking actions to engage and retain this talent specifically.

Managing through change is always challenging, but having a foundation of employee engagement can help you navigate organizational transformation successfully.

In the Fast Lane: What Drives Employee Engagement

In the Fast Lane: What Drives Employee Engagement

Why building the trust relationship is the most important employee engagement investment a leader makes 

One of the benefits of cleanly defining and measuring employee engagement is that it allows researchers to test whether significant relationships exist between employee engagement and related ideas. Recently, I described some of the outcomes leaders can expect from investments in employee engagement, including business performance.  Today’s post is dedicated to exploring the antecedents, or drivers, of employee engagement.

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Before I share the dozens of antecedents I uncovered in my research and reading on employee engagement, I want you to think about a time you were really engaged. Now, think about the one thing in your work experience that, had it changed, would have most influenced your engagement levels. You don’t have to tell me just yet: just keep it in the back of your mind…

Practitioners I interviewed for my research described a number of drivers or elements leading to engagement, with one calling precursors a “recipe.” Ingredients include: reciprocal trust, two-way organizational communication, recognition, satisfaction with pay and benefits, access to training, support of personal or professional development, strong communication from line managers, job security, and safety to express one’s true self in one’s job. In addition to these, literature suggests engagement levels can be sensitive to: teamwork and cooperation, immediate management, friendships at work, family friendliness, fair treatment, health and safety, performance and appraisal, and job satisfaction.

Is your head spinning yet? One might get the impression from the above list that just about everything in the work environment can influence engagement. And technically, one might be right. But that isn’t very practically useful because investing in all of these things would cost more than the GDP of a medium-sized country. So what’s a leader to do? Here’s where my research can help.

To understand how to prioritize antecedents, I’ll suggest you think back to the one thing that can influence your own personal engagement levels. For almost everyone I interviewed, their personal answer can be classified in one or more of these three (highly related) categories: reciprocal trust, authentic two-way communication and recognition (feeling valued by the organization).

But let me simplify it even further: it’s all about trust. And managers, both direct supervisors and senior leaders, are the primary focus of the trust relationship for employees. Authentic, transparent communications from the organization, as well as a perception of being heard by the organization, are how the trust relationship is built and maintained. Recognition is tangible evidence that the relationship is reciprocal. Recognition, by the way, can occur in numerous forms, from large-scale awards to small acknowledgments by managers for a job well done.

So as a leader seeking to improve employee engagement, what are the top things you can do starting today?

1. Do what you say you will do. Trustworthiness is fundamentally about keeping commitments. And in situations where that isn’t possible...
2. Communicate openly with your employees about what’s going on and why. Talking to employees like they are adults instead of mass-market consumers to influence through marketing campaigns is fundamental to authentic communication.
3. Listen to your employees. I mean, go out to seek feedback and actively listen to what is shared. Repeat back what you hear. Use a neutral third party if needed.
4. Say thank you. Run an experiment: send just one thank you note to just one team member each day for a month. Chances are, you’ll be so happy with the results you’ll start doing the same thing for your spouse.

Of course, these are just starting points. But they are incredibly important first steps without which other efforts may not succeed.

The End (Performance) that Justifies the Means (Employee Engagement)

The End (Performance) that Justifies the Means (Employee Engagement)

What outcomes leaders can expect when they invest in employee engagement

 

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Recently, I’ve made the case that employee engagement can be defined and measured as an attitude regarding one’s work in one’s organization comprising feelings of energy, dedication and absorption; a perception of empowerment, and motivation to act in the service of the organization’s goals. I’ve argued that it’s helpful to draw lines around the idea of employee engagement because the better you define it, the better you can measure it; and the better you can measure it, the more closely you can manage it.

Of course, in reality, employee engagement is for most companies, a preferred means to a end, and not an end in itself. That desired outcome is business performance. But what performance indicators does engagement drive, and how?

According to many agencies specializing in employee engagement including AON Hewett and Gallup, employee engagement leads to: profitability through productivity, sales, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer-focus, safety, and employee retention. The interviewees I spoke with during my dissertation research concurred, and added: going the extra mile, speaking highly of the company, collaboration, staying late, putting in extra hours, assisting colleagues, sharing knowledge, participating in organizational dialogue, and more. My dissertation research demonstrated that employee engagement is correlated to proactive problem-solving, creativity, productivity, intention to stay with an organization and likelihood of recommending one’s organization as an employer.

What’s clear from the above is that an investment in improving employee engagement is likely to drive both individual-level and firm level benefits. And the more that leadership removes barriers that stand between employees and performance, the better the results.

One of the most interesting findings of my research is that different aspects of employee engagement as I define it above are of different importance, depending upon the outcome in relationship to which you position engagement. For example, absorption, or being lost in ones work such that time passes quickly, doesn’t much effect the likelihood of recommending the firm as an employer, but it plays a big role in creativity.

What this tells us is that in many ways, the potential of understanding employee engagement is still untapped. If we can identify the degree to which different aspects of engagement effect desired outcomes, we can design interventions that improve the most important component of engagement to that outcome. That means more efficient and effective interventions. And what business leader doesn’t want to know that they are getting the very best return on their investment in employee engagement?

Object of My Affection: with What Do Employees Engage?

Object of My Affection: with What Do Employees Engage?

Why Leadership at All Levels is Critical to Employee Engagement
 


http://ministry-to-children.com

 Pop quiz: When an employee is engaged, what is the object of their engagement?

a. Their job
b. Their manager
c. Their company
d. Their work environment
e. Themselves

The answer, not surprisingly, is usually some combination of the items above.

The focus of employee engagement has evolved along with its conceptualization over time. Kahn's (1990) original construct was named "personal engagement" and focused on the preferred self at work. The Burn Out family (e.g., Schaufeli et al., 2002) focused on "work engagement," the primary focus of which was one's immediate work. As practitioner literature began to influence the employee engagement discussion (e.g., Robinson et al., 2004 and Harter et al., 2003), the focus of engagement began to shift towards the organization as a whole.

In researching my dissertation, I asked employee engagement experts working in the field what they understood employees to engage with. Consistently, they noted that employees engage at multiple levels simultaneously, including with: the work they are doing; their physical environment; their peers, work teams or social environments; immediate supervisors; corporate missions, values; objectives and brands; the communications process; customers; and even with themselves.

Pulling these perspectives together, one can say that employees engage with the work they are doing in the context of their organizations. My research demonstrated that, for the purposes of defining and measuring employee engagement, this statement works.

But so what? Why does it matter what entity employees engage with? One reason is that understanding the focus of engagement makes it easier to understand drivers that increase it, as well as what other things like HR policies and practices might interact with employee engagement to drive desired business results.

Perhaps more importantly, understanding that engagement occurs at multiple levels suggests that leaders at every level have an important role to play in facilitating employee engagement. It's not just the executive team reiterating corporate objectives, or first-line managers empowering their staff through delegation that drive engagement. Instead, every employee can help to create an engaging work experience for their team members, for example, by initiating open communication and modeling trustworthy behavior.

As a leader, which would you guess is the most critical focus of employee engagement? As an employee, would you agree?

What Engaged Employees Are Inspired to Do, and How to Help Them Do It

Engaged Employees Want to Forward Your Goals. Do They Know How?

What Engaged Employees Are Inspired to Do, and How to Help Them Do It

http://thejoesweeney.com/

Imagine you're fully engaged in your work in your organization (I hope this isn't too much of a stretch!). Imagine you receive a last minute request from a peer to help out with her report. What are you going to do? [Hint: an engaged employee will likely have more than one answer to this question.]

For the past several posts, I've been making the case for conceptualizing employee engagement as an attitude made up of feelings of vigor, dedication and absorption; perceptions of psychological empowerment; and motivation to contribute. I've argued why examining the motivational aspects of engagement and not just behaviors makes sense. Today I'll finish up this thread by further explicating the motivational component of employee engagement.

As with employee engagement as a whole, the problem is not that there are too few ideas in the motivation category, but rather, there are too many. According to the experts I interviewed for my dissertation research, engaged employees are willing to: contribute to the business in a positive fashion, perform better, stay extra hours, go the extra mile, support colleagues, collaborate with one another, take personal ownership and initiative for achieving individual and collective goals, and proactively engage in problem solving. All of these ideas are important to the business, for certain, but attempting to capture them all individually is impractical. So what is the essence? 

One hypothesis is that employee engagement is about going above and beyond the formal confines of an employees' role, a.k.a. extra-mile or organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). However, most interviewees I spoke to did not care to limit the concept of engagement to "discretionary" efforts. In fact, most said engagement matters as much to how someone does the job they are paid to do as it does to extra-mile efforts. For example, if you have a really smart technologist on staff, you care as much about that person being innovative in their role as you do about them covering for a co-worker who's ill. 

Instead of worrying whether the motivation is towards something that is in or out of job scope, what matters (my interviewees informed me), is how closely aligned it is with the company's aims. In other words, the motivation in employee engagement is to act, both within and extra-role, in the service of the organization's goals. In my research I called this "citizenship motivation" to honor OCB's influence.

The implication for leaders is straightforward: if you want employees to be motivated to act in service of the organization's goals, they've got to understand what those goals are and how they contribute to achieving them. Some simple best practices can help you point your engaged employees in the right direction:

• Review goals at each organization level on a monthly basis.
• Ensure that performance goal setting discussions incorporate not just organizational and individual objectives, but a discussion of how they are linked. 
• Ask managers to allocate 5 minutes each staff meeting to one person explaining to their peers what are her objectives and how they link to team and corporate goals.
• Create feedback opportunities for employees to share how they think the organization can accelerate its progress towards its objectives. Report back on those that are adopted.

If this sounds fairly familiar -- good! It's been long understood that helping employees understand what's expected and how they can make a difference is critical to satisfaction and to performance. No doubt many of you reading have an arsenal of tricks for directing motivation, and I hope you will share them below :-).