Employee Enablement - Time to Put an End to Workplace Frustration!

Summary: Workplace frustration, due to lack of employee enablement, is a silent disease that is creeping in through multiple managerial cracks in many company cultures… Here I summarise Korn Ferry’s research on the subject as described in their published work “The Enemy of Engagement” (2012) by Mark Royal and Tom Agnew.

“Engagement alone is not sufficient for achieving maximum levels of individual and organisational performance. Leaders and managers must not only engage and motivate employees but also enable them to direct their extra efforts productively and effectively.” (Royal & Agnew)

As employees grow in experience in their roles, they begin to focus less on learning the ropes and more on achieving results. Workplace frustration raises its ugly head when these highly engaged employees are unable to succeed in their roles due to internal organisational barriers or the inability to bring the bulk of their talents, skills, and abilities to their work responsibilities. Research indicates that in business organisations today, frustrated employees represent around 20 percent of the total workforce.

Frustration is a common emotional response to opposition, when employees seek a certain fulfilment but cannot get what they want. The paradox here is that the more loyal and engaged employees are, the deeper their frustration will run in the face of obstacles. Simply put, these employees are frustrated because they truly care. It has nothing to do with them being disengaged or dissatisfied with their jobs.

As a consequence, those frustrated employees who decide to quit the organisation are likely to be high performing employees, who are usually unwilling to complain about their work experience. Why? Because they feel their feedback will not fall on receptive ears. They know that addressing those concerns may involve fundamental internal changes that organisations are not willing to confront.

In this respect, traditional employee listening programmes normally focus on employee satisfaction, commitment, and engagement. These surveys often fail to highlight issues related to the supportiveness of work environments. It is this lack of organisational support that generates frustration among motivated and engaged employees. These individuals want to offer their discretionary effort but are being held back by the very organisations that are asking them to do more. Until organisations recognise and address workplace frustration, valuable resources will continue to be wasted!

• Read more: Employee Engagement vs. Job Satisfaction
• Read more: If Employee Motivation is Low… Then Read This!

Enabling Employees

Korn Ferry’s research suggests that engaging employees, while important, is not sufficient to sustain maximum levels of performance over time. To get the most of employees, leaders must also ensure that organisational systems and work environments support personal and organisational effectiveness. Employees need to have confidence that their employers are doing all they can to promote their success, rather than introducing barriers to getting their jobs done. On this point, employee enablement has two key components:

• Optimised Roles: Employees’ skills and abilities need to be fully aligned with their positions. Jobs need to draw upon and fully leverage the employee’s distinctive competencies and aptitudes.
• Supportive Environment: Work arrangements need to be structured in such a way that they facilitate, rather than hinder, individual productivity. Employees need to be given essential resources (e.g., information, technology, tools, equipment, financial support) to get their jobs done.

The idea is for employees to concentrate on their most important accountabilities without having to work around impediments in the form of nonsensical tasks or unnecessary procedural bureaucracy.

Employee Effectiveness Framework

The figure below depicts Korn Ferry’s model © of employee effectiveness. It combines employee engagement as well as organisational support (enablement) for employees to be successful. While the predictors of engagement tend to reflect issues traditionally associated with leadership, the drivers of enablement relate directly to the quality of management in the organisation. As a result, highly engaged and enabled employees create better business outputs, more loyal customers, and better financial performance, and are likely to retain these employees and sustain this performance for longer.

The power of this framework comes to life when uncovering the hidden extent of workplace frustration in the organisation. It helps HR professionals concentrate on those individuals who are aligned with the direction of the organisation and enthusiastic about making a difference but are nonetheless held back by roles that do not suit them or work environments that get in their way. For these high performers, factors they cannot control (e.g., role ambiguity, inadequate resources, overwork) hinder their best work and drive them to seek jobs elsewhere. These employees represent a lost opportunity for organisations. See the bottom right corner of the quadrant chart below.

Currently, in most organisations there is an excessive focus on leadership (Driver of engagement: vision for the future, direction, aligning, motivating, and inspiring people), overlooking and/or downplaying the importance of solid management (Driver of enablement: planning, organising, staffing, controlling, problem solving) as a complement to effective leadership for the success of the organisation.

“Managers seeking to improve the effectiveness of their teams need to determine whether performance issues are the result of a lack of engagement, a lack of enablement, or both.” (Royal & Agnew)

How to Reduce Employee Frustration?

Simple, you just need to enable your engaged employees to succeed! According to Royal & Agnew, strategic issues that affect engagement may be most appropriately addressed by senior executives, while operational factors impacting employee enablement may be more directly under the control of local management and first-line supervisors. Lets focus on the latter. Here Royal & Agnew summarise those local management / first-line supervisor related factors that will strengthen people’s enablement in organisations:

• Performance Management: Clearly specify what employees need to accomplish; set challenging but attainable performance standards; provide ongoing feedback regarding performance and progress relative to goals.
• Authority & Empowerment: Give employees the necessary decision-making responsibility to do their jobs well; allow employees to have input into the way their work is structured; encourage employees to come up with new and better ways of doing things.
• Resources: Ensure employees have the necessary assets to do their jobs well; guarantee all necessary information is readily available and up to date; maintain adequate staffing levels and review job designs and workloads.
• Training: Get new employees fully trained before expecting full performance; ensure skills of current employees keep up with changing job demands; provide opportunities for employees to expand their current skill sets.
• Collaboration: Facilitate cooperation and teamwork within the unit; establish supportive relationships with other groups to which the unit is connected; promote effective sharing of resources and information across the organisation.
• Work, Structure & Process: Organise work processes within your unit to ensure optimal efficiency; coordinate with other units to clarify accountabilities and enhance cross-unit operating effectiveness; Continually seek new technologies and creative approaches to improve overall internal effectiveness.

The above factors will help you identify opportunities to enable and enhance the ability of your people to deliver their best efforts.

• Read more: Discretionary Effort Is a ‘Gift’ – Don’t Take It for Granted!
• Read more: 8 Essential People Management Skills

Some Final Thoughts…

Enablement is key not only to generating high levels of organisational performance, but also to sustaining it. An organisation may be able to succeed by the force of will of their engaged employees in the short term, but over the long-haul adequate support is necessary to avoid burn-out. In this respect, enablement and engagement need to work together... but keep them apart and all those individuals who are fully engaged will soon become frustrated!

Source / Reference: Korn Ferry © / “The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration and Get the Most from Your Employees” (2012) by Mark Royal and Tom Agnew. Publisher: AMACOM

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Disclaimer: The author is making this ‘Opinion Blog / Guide’ available in his personal effort to advance the understanding of best practices in workplace related matters. The author assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this ‘Opinion Blog / Guide’ or for the results obtained from the use of the information provided. The information is provided on an ‘as is’ basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness or timeliness and without any warranties of any kind whatsoever, express or implied. The views expressed are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of any entity whatsoever with which the author has been, is now, or is to be affiliated in the future.