What is most important in making engagement successful for the long term in organizations?

[Anil Saxena]

There are so many rich and interesting conversations that I have been reading so far.  One area that seems not to have as much attention is long term engagement. How do we ensure that engagement makes a lasting difference in an organization?  What are the keys to successful long term engagement? 

[Garvin Chow]

Hi Anil - I am not very sure what you meant by long term engagement. Is your question based on the assumption that short term engagement will not typically translate into behavior, mental model shifts, and eventually be built into the culture, assuming ceteris paribus? I've seen organisations continually tweaking their interventions in response to the results obtained from their engagement survey results every 2-3 years.

Unfortunately, there are too many factors that will derail interventions that hold engagement level in organisations. Such factors could include change in leadership, change in demographic profile, change in technology, etc....

Maybe there may be others who have better answers to your question? I'll be very interested too.

Garvin

[Jacqueline M. Walters]

1. Being an Employer of choice strategies in employees engagement best practices.
2.Allow employees to bring the best of their whole selves to work every day.
3.Encourage fun in the workplace, introduce a work/fun infusion process.
4.Build socially bold connectedness, and harmony among employees.
5.Provide coaching and feedback for employees retention.
6. Reward employees, make them feel valued, valuable and recognized.
7. Inspire trust and confidence in employees.
8. Match the jobs and tasks to the employees' competencies.
9.Reduce employees stress from overwork and worklife imbalance.
10. Defuse the employees disengagement process, for example, some employees quit and leave others quit and stay.
11. Reduce employees turnover through employees social bonding.
12. Provide career advancement and growth opportunities.
13. Select the right talent for the job.
14. Make a strong commitment to continuous upgrading of talent.
15. Create an associate management program, in which senior level employees mentor their junior counterparts.
16. For new hires, match the candidates' expectations with work realities, and roll out the red carpet for onboarding.
17. Maintain a strong commitment to employees training.
18.Back your words with actions.
THIS LIST CAN BE ENDLESS DEPENDING ON THE ORGANIZATION'S REQUIREMENTS.

[Anil Saxena]

Jacqueline - this is an excellent list. Thanks. Is there any one lynchpin to the long term success of employee engagement within an organization that translates to other measurable success?

[Craig Althof]

Let me slip in my "One Thing"...build an environment of mutual respect.

[Craig Althof]

OK, I hope I can change my mind on this "One Thing" thing...after re-reading several recent discussions I truly think that one thing has got to be proper positioning of engagement, to ensure it is a credible factor in the right peoples' minds. Positioning (selling the sizzle) is the One Thing, in three parts:
:
1. The decision makers, who want to know what we practitioners propose to do and what the bottom line impact will be;
2. Managers / leaders of others, who must understand how and WHY they are to create and sustain an environment that will support this alien life form called "engagement";
3. The first level, who will want to know what will be different, how they will be impacted, what they will have to do differently;

I've said it once or twice elsewhere-we practitioners don't even need to say the "E" word or get into high-brow concepts and theories. Keep it "simple" as 1-2-3 above.

[Anil Saxena]

Craig - I totally agree with you. We don't need to mention engagement, just produce results.

[Jacqueline M. Walters]

Anil there is no one lynchpin to the long term success of employee engagement, within an organization that translates to other success. The application strategies include series, of techniques and adjustments. Workforce engagement diversity and inclusion training, for the health of the organization.

[Peter A Hunter]

Anil
There is one lynchpin to long term engagement but it depends on having the rest of the implementation process in place and is not a magic button that will work on its own.

Engagement creates massive performance improvements but before these performance improvements occur we have to change the way that management behave towards the workforce.
We do this by imposing on management some very simple rules that make them behave in a different way towards the workforkforce.
This change in the behaviour of management changes the way that the workforce feel about what they do and allows them to engage.

We have started the process of engagement and the attendant performance improvements by getting management to change the way they behave towards the workforce.
If we tried to explain to management, up front, why their behaviour was preventing the workforce from engaging they would ignore us because they are human beings and will therefore resist if they are criticised.

By waiting until the performance improvement is apparent to the whole workforce, and management, the manager has to ask "How did you do that?"

Engagement is temporary at this point because if the implementer leaves the managers behaviour will revert to the behaviour that was preventing engagement before the implementer arrived.
To make engagement long term the implementer must answer the managers question, "How did you do that?" by coaching the manager in the behaviour he needs to support engagement and why it is required.

Only when the manager sees the amount of money that engagement is creating and understands the influence of his behaviour on the way that the workforce feel about what they do will he be able to adopt the change in behaviour for himself and continue to support the environment that allows the workforce to engage after the implementer leaves.

In one instance I watched when a manager was replaced through sickness and the engaged workforce took his replacement to one side and explained to him what they expected him to do to support them.
It was brutal but demonstrates how powerful people become when they are engaged and how jealously they will defend their right to remain engaged.

The lynchpin is the coaching that allows the managers to change their behaviour to support the workforce, but it is of no value unless the workforce are becoming engaged, the manager can see the attendant performance improvement and can ask the question "How did you do that?"

Peter A Hunter
www.breakingthemould.co.uk

[Anil Saxena]

Peter - this is an excellent, well thought out response. I agree about the lynchpin being the manager coaching. Would a system that supported this and aligned the coaching across the organization be beneficial/effective?

[Peter A Hunter]

Anil
Yes, The system is simple and repeatable.
See the "Articles" called "Creating Engaged Change" on the BtM website.

Peter A Hunter
www,breakingthemould.co.uk

[Jacqueline M. Walters]

Anil, what works in the U.K. may not work for a multidiscipline workforce in the United States, the same for codes, compliance and standards. Inspite of what goes on we are growing rapidly in diversity/inclusion. The series of techiniques and adjustment in strategies application can be modified. The production workforce strategies may need adjustment, for the sales work force implementation of strategies. The supply chain management workforce, strategies needs to be tailored to meet their requirements. The need for adjustment, in techniques used to meet each Division or Department requirements. The importance of diversity/inclusion training, to develop respect and tolerance in the workforce, to inspires the workforce to be open, to learning and teaching. The practitioner can effectively foster employees engagement.

[Craig Althof]

What I think we've uncovered in these last few posts is the need for "adaptive engagement". Or call it adaptive leadership, even the good old situational leadership. Or further back yet....the When in Rome strategy.

Peter-YES, we must have significant results-focused coaching for leaders of others, leading to sustainable changes in behavior (sounds like culture change?)

Jacqueline-YES, we definitely need diversity in our inclusion strategies, level-to-level, demographic to demographic, individual to individual....uber diversity!

Our EEN friend Bob Acton has written a couple of relevant blogs I'll add to the mix:
Motivating Employees Also, an earlier post from Bob: Adaptive Leadership Promotes Engagement