Employee engagement – are we making progress?

Last night a colleague and I attended IABC’s networking drinks at the BBC Media Centre in London.

It was attended by a mixture of approximately 80 practitioners and consultants including Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Shell, Echo Research, Hill & Knowlton, BBC, Accenture, Yellow, HMRC, Watson Wyatt and BP.

John Smythe, Engage for Change, spoke about the importance of employee engagement and got us all to discuss one time in our careers that we’d felt particularly engaged. Naturally there was a mixture of responses. For me, as a publisher, it was the launch of The Hub, for Nigel Lewis, Echo Research, it was developing new initiatives for overcoming language barriers and for others it was simply getting a new computer!

John went on to discuss his views on the evolution of internal comms, stating, “Marketing is the original DNA of internal communications. So employees are still viewed as customers and we’re still selling to them.”

John’s findings are that when most people consider engagement they focus on the outcome i.e. employees becoming brand ambassadors, productivity and retention increasing…the list goes on. But instead of just saying “here’s the song sheet, sing it” – it’s important to recognise what your organisation’s key driver is.

According to John, the number one key employee engagement driver is…sharing of power, in other words, involving employees in the decision-making process. He believes this is possible, at any stage, either for a short time for contribution/creativity or everyday strategy and planning.

Is this possible? Have we come the full circle, where we’re no longer “selling” to employees but actually involving them in the decision-making process? It’s an interesting ideal, but can it work in practice – I’d be interested to hear your feedback.

Katrina Andrews

Comments

[Carrie T]

I really like this article. I would completely agree that sharing power with employees is a huge factor in their loyalty. I know that when I have been involved in the decision making process that I would promote the idea more and work harder at it. I have recently been reading a customer service book that has showed me a real importance of getting feedback. Not just from the customer, but the employee as well. It has been interesting and ties in with the idea of sharing those powers.