Strategic Trends in Employee Engagement

DGR Communications

What Is Engagement?

• How would you define engagement?

Employee engagement is "a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort to his or her work.

Conference Board

What Is Engagement

Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization that profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work. Thus engagement is distinctively different from employee satisfaction, motivation and organizational culture.

Scarlett Surveys

The Case for Engagement

• Consistently successful organizations ALWAYS have engaged employees

• Reinvented organizations get there by engaging their employees

• Turnover is reduced• Goals are met/more positive outcomes• Customers, leaders and staff are happier

Levels of Engagement

Invested in the Organization

Not Committed to the Job

Invested in the Organization

Committed to the Job

Not Invested in the Organization

Not Committed to the Job

Not Invested in the Organization

Committed to the Job

What Engagement Looks Like

• Doing something you love• With people you care about• For an organization you believe in• For a cause that you are committed to

Tools of Engagement

• It starts with a plan• Make like a waterfall• Believe!• Full disclosure• Shut up and listen• Cut your losses• Build community

It Starts With a Plan

• Know where you are going• Build a solid strategic plan

Strategic Plan

• Traditional Metrics– Employee engagement survey– Turnover– Retention

• Trend in Metrics– Quality– Service– Growth– Finance

It Starts With a Plan

• Know where you are going• Build a solid strategic plan• Focus on results

It Starts With a Plan

A good deal of the corporate planning I have observed is like a ritual rain dance; it has no effect on the weather that follows, but those who engage in it think it does. Moreover, it seems to me that much of the advice and instruction related to corporate planning is directed at improving the dancing, not the weather.

J. Brian Quinn Dartmouth University

It Starts With a Plan

• Know where you are going• Build a solid strategic plan• Focus on results• Share the news

It Starts With a Plan

Only 27% of a typical company’s employees have access to its strategic plan.

Strategy & Leadership Journal

Only 5% of employees understand their corporate strategy.

Renaissance Solutions

It Starts With a Plan

• Know where you are going• Build a solid strategic plan• Focus on results• Share the news• Execute effectively

It Starts With a Plan

Vision without execution is hallucination.

Thomas Edison

Make Like a Waterfall

• Cascade the goals• Everyone has a role—do they know it?• It’s okay to fail• Trust your people• Celebrate the wins

Believe!

• All organizations say “Our employees are our most important asset.” Few act like it.

• Engagement begins with humble leaders• Maslow: People can only truly gain by

making other people better off• Treat people the way you want to be

treated• Say “Thank You”

Full Disclosure

• No hoarding of information or knowledge• Share the plan--transparency• Clarity is leadership’s responsibility• Accountability—at all levels• Build trust

Shut Up and Listen

• Communication is a two-way street• Surveys are only a start• Rounding• Accessibility• No skunking• Be more interested than interesting• Use the input

Cut Your Losses

• Right people are your only resource• Highly successful organizations are

committed to keeping, growing and rewarding the right people

• Immediate specific feedback critical• Get those people who don’t agree with

the destination to opt out—or opt them out

Build Community

• Importance of belonging• Community of students, employees,

families and citizens• Employee involvement with community

Build Community

Happiness doesn’t come from wealth or money but instead from social relationships, enjoyable work, a sense that life has meaning and belonging to groups.

Wall Street Journal