The case for an Engaged Workforce

What is an “Engaged Workforce”?

Successful organisations including yours depend on an engaged workforce to attain its strategic objectives. Generally speaking we often tend to speak about being an engaged workforce, the question which arises is what does it really mean to have an engaged workforce and what is it composed of? 

Let us start by defining the term ‘being engaged’. In the Oxford dictionary it is “to participate or become involved in or to fully participate in a task with undivided attention”.

Corporately, David Macleod professor and co-author of the book "Engaging for Success"says “this is about how we create the conditions in which employees offer more of their capability and potential”. He further states that “employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organisation to give of their best each day, committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being.”

Based on the definition above, we can pragmatically conclude that effective employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two-way accountability and communication between immediate line managers and team members. It is an approach that increases success of the centre, Business Unit (BU) and the organisation, contributing to organisational and individual performance, productivity and well-being.

Why is an “Engaged Workforce” important?

According to Forbes magazine, research shows that organisations with high levels of employee engagement are more efficient and effective, and that highly engaged employees:

•      are more customer focused, find they are more creative at work, and take less time off sick;
•     care about the future of their organisation and put in greater effort to help it meet its objectives;
•      feel proud of the organisation they work for and are inspired to do their best and motivated to deliver the organisation’s objectives

What is an “Engaged Workforce” for you as an employee?

Employee engagement is about understanding one’s role in the organisation, and having the vision and foresight on how it fits in the organisation’s purpose and objectives.

Being engaged refers to a group of employees who have caught, tasted and harnessed the organisational vision, mission and values. This is generally underscored by a personal, intrinsic and organic understanding and full appreciation of the organisational vision, mission and values. Quite frankly, the absence of the above renders the task of engagement impossible. The temptation of going through the motions, attending meetings just to tick timesheets and the inclination to draw closer to the revolting wrench of malicious compliance will be too great to resist.

An engaged employee would need to have a comprehensive congruent understanding of the current state, aspirations and history of organisation to fully embrace its values which understanding brings about an elevated sense of responsibility to the organisation. This is when service to the organisation ceases to simply be a job but assumes the higher status of being accounted for as “a calling towards stewardship”. This hopefully reignites the vigour and passion many of exhibited during the first interview when joining the organisation.

The responsibility of an engaged workforce rests with all employees from the bottom up. Individually, employees need to be given the space to contribute, be heard, and offer ideas as a valued member of the team.

Enablers of an “Engaged Workforce”

For the vision of an “Engaged Workforce” to be successful the following need to be present:

1.      Strategic understanding and involvement -Employee engagement is about having a clear understanding of how the organisation is fulfilling its purpose and objectives, how it is changing to fulfil these better, and being given a voice to offer ideas and express views that are taken into account when decisions are made.
2.      Employee Inclusion and Recognition - Employee engagement is about being included fully as a member of the team, given clear goals, trusted and empowered, receiving regular and constructive feedback, supported in developing new skills, thanked and recognised for achievement.
3.      Stimulation – Individuals must be involved, developed and exposed to stimulating assignments including stretch (tasks that go beyond job expectations)tasks as far as capacity warrants.
4.      Trust and integrity – Leaders must be effective communicators and proverbially 'walk the talk'.
5.      Strategic Alignment– The vision must be well understood and personalised. There must be a clear understanding of the impact of individual performance on the overall centres, BU and organisational output.
6.      Career Development Growth opportunities –Future promotional opportunities for growth need to be clear and well communicated.There needs to be an environment where individuals are developed to maximum potential.
7.      Pride about the ORGANISATION– There must be a high self-esteem for being associated with the ORGANISATION, one where all employees talk to close associates with confidence and pride about the organisation.
8.      Inter-colleague relationships – More constructive and value adding relationships need to be formed at a personal level. Where individuals value their relationship with the line manager and vice versa.

In order to get this right you will need to demonstrate clear evidence of trust and fairness based on mutual respect, where two-way promises and commitments between line managers and juniors are well understood and fulfilled. 

Inhibitors of an “Engaged Workforce”

While, we have noted the enablers of an “Engaged Workforce,” it is equallyimportant to note the inhibitors of an “Engaged Workforce”. These are factors that if not eliminated and addressed can stifle employee engagement takingdown employee morale with it. These are as follows:

1. Pointless bureaucratic processes, rules, fear, hierarchy and injudicious unilateral management decisions. To be clear, this is not an inference of a licentious culture devoid of standard operating procedures(SOPs), SOPs are crucial and if not properly implemented,organisational structure and effectiveness would be lost. The point here is that generally as human beings we struggle with balance, we tend to reside in the “either or” “black or white” “North or South” mentality. There is a temptation to over emphasise bureaucracy at the expense of creativity, staff initiative and by extension staff engagement.  This is corporately known as “Institutional fear manifested in excess policy and sludge”. The idea is to strike a careful bureaucratic and innovation balance.
2. Overuse of electronic medium of communication to mask poor communication. Here thebasics of human interaction are ignored i.e. questions such as “How are you doing”, “What do you think about auditing this client”, “Is the way we are doing things meeting your needs”, “Is there anything we could do better” are never asked. It is crucial to ask ourselves why it is so difficult to ask each other these basic questions whenwe are working in the same office and engage in the same boardroom, for example. Many organisations have relied on Human Capital (HC) services to address these communication quandaries to no avail. Relying on HC to enhance communication in ateam simply means an abdicationof one’sleadership responsibility. This can be aptly referred to as surrogate leadership and believe it counters the objectives of an engaged workforce. 
3.  Immediate supervisor reluctance to robustly engage subordinates.If one cares about the energy and wellbeing of his or herteam, corporate and individual invitations should be extended for a cup of tea enabling an open safe environment to solicit work experiences and general input. Granted, a concern which may arise is that such an approach takes too much time!”, however, if that is the case, I put forward that such a view is a negative predisposition that investing energy in one’s team is not particularly important. The reality is that all people love to have their contributions considered, valued and appreciated.Engaged employees can be lost in the cracks when being led by a direct line manager who lacks the understanding and or does not value the strategic importance of valuing “employee engagement”.
4. Lack of inter employee trust. Trust is, unfortunately, like a clean un-crumpled piece of paper; onceit iscrumpled, it can be straightened out again but it will never return to its original un-creased state. In simple terms don’t break trust because recovering it after it is broken is extremely difficult.For example, if you have made a promisethatovertime will be paid, an effective leader will bend over backwards to deliver, and if unsuccessfulwill own up. Feedback such as ‘the SM is not approvingpayment for overtime’ will not suffice; it is a reflection of poor leadership. The reverse is also true of a junior; work given should be of a good quality and timeously submitted; not being able to do so requires the junior to communicate clearly any obstacles and to own up where the instruction is not fulfilled. 

Conclusion

Striving to attain the status of being an engaged workforce includes beneficial factors such as clear accountability and an increased happiness index across all levels with respect to individuals and the organisation as a whole.

By Themba Dlamini CA(SA)