6) What Do I Get?

Employer Brand, Engagement and Culture: the story so far…

To get great business performance, employees need to know purpose and culture – what we do and why we do it – so that they can make the right decisions. To make the right decisions for the business they need to have a constant reminder of purpose and culture, and they need regular effective communications, especially from their manager.

So far, so good. But it’s all a bit sticky. It needs to be a bit more carroty. All stick, and people will do the job they’re paid to do. There will always be some stars that go above and beyond. You may even well inspire a few others to do more too.

But to regularly get people making the right decisions for your business, they need to understand why it’s the right decision for them too. They need to know what they get back. That makes it a bit less about “unlocking discretionary effort” - which I think is a useful concept to talk about, but it always sounds like there’s a how-can-drive-more-out-of-these-mugs-without-giving-them-any-more agenda about it. It makes it a bit more about a simple, logical, transaction. I like simplicity and logic.

There’s loads of lists of the drivers of engagement. I’ve linked to some before. I like this one.I’m a bit less convinced by this one. I’ve got it down to 8. Hypothesis #7 all that drives you in job, outside of the financial – and the managerial, communication, purpose/culture elements that I’ve described before – is in here.

1) The people you work with
2) Job content
3) Working environment and tools
4) Chances to advance
5) Chances to become an expert
6) Autonomy and creativity
7) Recognition
8) The pride you have in your business

You're free to - I'd like you to - pull that to pieces.
But the question is – so what? Well, again, along with the managerial, communication, purpose/culture elements, you’ve got a framework for investigation. Someone – perhaps someone like me – can go into a business and find out how all of these are experienced in that business. And what you then do with that, I’ll talk about next time…

5) So what are the right decisions?

The last couple of times around I’ve been beating my engagement-is-about-making-the-right decisions drum. I’ve talked about creating understanding of culture and purpose. But how do you bring them into people’s every day work?

Well firstly, I think it’s about communication. For the sake of transparency, I work most often alongside communication agencies, so I would say that wouldn’t I? But when I’m wearing my objective researcher hat, then I’ve become pretty convinced of Hypothesis # 6: Most organisations would benefit from better communication. In qualitative exercises communication always scores low, in open discussion it almost always crops up. Here’s a blog of engagement tips that gets one thing in particular spot on: communication is first on the list. And second. And third. And quite a few places down the list too.

Secondly, I think it’s about managers. Now, for the sake of transparency, I also work alongside leadership development specialists, so I would say that wouldn’t I? But look, there’s a reasons these organisations exist, and there’s a reason that people turn to them for their engagement issues. Again, when I’m the gimlet-eyed, detached researcher it’s often hard to get people off the topic of their manager. To the point where I believe Hypothesis # 7 Most managers aren’t very good managers. Which isn’t to say that it’s their fault. They’re nice people and they’re probably awesome at some other part of their job. That’s why they got promoted, But now they have been, they maybe don’t have time, haven’t been trained, or even fully understand what it means to be a manager. This is a great article about the contribution managers make to engagement, when they understand the role and know how to both push and pull their team.

Thirdly, these two points belong together because it’s managers through whom most of the most pertinent communication should come – but if they’re not fed it, and don’t know how to deliver it, then it’s not going to happen. Engagement becomes an uphill struggle, culture is variable, and performance suffers.

And as well as the communications about what benefits the company, managers are also the conduit for the information that benefits the employee. Managers help you access the drivers, the what-you-get-in-returns, which is what I’ll talk about next time.

4) Making the right decisions for your employer

Previously, on Employer Brand, Engagement and Culture…I’ve talked about the purpose and culture of the organisation being delivered by engagement. I’ll now embark on the circular argument that engagement is, in part, about understanding the purpose and culture.

Last time out, I hypothesised that engagement is about making the right decisions. A part of that has to be about making the right decisions for your employer. People want meaning from work, they want to know that what they do contributes to something. It satisfies a basic human desire to improve. Here’s a good blog about it, showing that this applies to even (seemingly) menial jobs. And here’s a nice graph (yes, hair-splitters, it’s about job satisfaction, but the point stands. And anyway, I always like to bring Herzberg into it).

You need to know what’s important to your employer to make the right decisions; those that will allow you and your employer to improve. So you need to know the purpose – permanent goals and the goals for today – and understand the culture. But, Hypothesis #5: Understanding of purpose and culture isn’t kept current in lots of organisations.

That makes it hard for people to engage fully, that makes it hard for them to make the right decisions, and that affects performance. But in addition, I also believe that a lot of organisations think they do a better job of maintaining understanding than they actually do. It’s done naturally in businesses where employees have a direct stake in success (a great idea in so many regards, and the stake doesn’t have to be financial).

Elsewhere, it may not be so good. As an example, I think that engagement surveys are seducing employers with a figure of 70-odd% engagement. They’re not viewing that result as 70-odd% people that are somewhat-positive-or-neutral-ish, and 20-odd% people who are, at best, cheesed off. They’re not seeing it as a rallying call to reach out and communicate better with their employees to give them a purpose, and a reason for their work.

Those of you paying attention will know by now that once I’m about 300 words in, I’m usually setting up the next blog topic – which will be on that vital communications.