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…