Employee engagement conference: Thursday PM

"Can everybody in the room stand up?"

"Now, can everybody who finds the person to their left attractive please sit down."

Was the way Lucy Ball, an Ideas Unlimited consultant working with Npower, started the afternoon session on the second day of the 3rd annual Employee Engagement conference in London.

Massive social awkwardness and general hilarity ensued. Luckily for me, I was in the corner and not sitting next to anyone.

Lucy and her fellow speakers, including Tracy French, Npower's head of HR, went on to describe how they're trying to use employee engagement activities at the energy company to help make customers fans of the company. To do that they've worked hard on leadership activities, trying to raise standards and help people lead with more verve.

Previously, the day had got off to a big start with a presentation by Ricahrd Roberts, the head of resourcing and people engagement for Virgin Mobile. To Richard, a happy employee means happier customers, and so he works with Virgin's branding department to create an extraordinary range of projects and ideas aimed at making employees feel they're loved and cherished. The back scratcher was my favorite.

Also speaking was Sarah Wagnell, director of involvement and communications at the Royal Mail, who talked about the work it's doing to come to terms with commercial competition, including working with its staff to create a more grass-roots lead business.

Rounding off the conference, Rosie Mowatt, the head of internal communications for HBOS Financial Services. Rosie told delegates about the practical steps its taken to work harder at paying attention to employee feedback and encouraging the leadership to be as involved as possible with engagement.

For details of the conference's other happenings, have a look at the news story we posted on the Internal Comms Hub.

Comments

[Allison Toner]

I believe that employee engagement is the key to an 'x factor' brand and customer experience. It was my experience in a corporate that operated in an extremely old fashioned way that turned me into the 'workplace transformer' I am today. As employees we felt so disconnected from the business and it showed in our work and our average customer service. No one was happy and management didnt care about us (although they did constantly scream from the rooftops that we were '#1' to them!).
There are many fun ways to create employee engagement - but it starts with digging up truths some companies would prefer to pretend dont exist. Issues have to be faced head on WITH employees before the engagement process can properly begin.
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