Employee Engagement is a Must for all Managers

by Frank Scott- Lennon, Wellbeing Champion, Wellbeing For Work

You will find below a few thoughts about Employee Engagement and the way in which Directors and Managers need to be observing and monitoring all Managers’ Engagement practices/behaviours.

Managers need to be monitored via Performance Management (and perhaps more importantly regular one-to-ones) where they searchingly look for the extent to which individual managers make the immediate work environment of their teams embody the following:
Both focused and fun, thus not waiting for organisation-wide things to be initiated and organised by HR or anyone else, as small is beautiful in this regard. Some evidence for their work in this regard can be assessed by the extent to which Managers have:

• Taken their team into meetings to focus on key deliverables and action steps for the team as a whole at least twice per year and can provide evidence of same and some outcomes from same.
• Initiated within the year at least two relaxation/fun events for their team and can provide evidence of same and some outcomes from same.

Communicating richly and regularly, that is on the critical detail of the job, but also on getting to know all of their team as people as well as workers/employees through taking a keen interest (but not an interfering one) in their non-work lives. As seen in behaviours by the Managers whereby they:

• Have initiated one-to-one meetings and small group participative meetings seeking staff input on improved ways of delivering service and can provide evidence of same and examples of outcomes from same.
• Can demonstrate serious efforts to better get to know their staff as individuals and can provide evidence of same.

Creating social context, whereby managers work with team members to encourage them towards increasing collaborative activity, the taking of ownership of their total role and responsibilities, and critically putting in place the enabling conditions for individual and team success, as seen in the behaviours of Managers whereby they:

• Initiate projects to encourage increased collaborative activity within the team and externally to the team and can provide evidence of same and examples of outcomes.
• Work hard at putting in place the enabling conditions for the success of individuals/teams in their areas of responsibility and provide evidence of same and examples of outcomes.

Encouraging anticipatory thinking, rather than purely adaptive thinking – this on an individual and team basis, as seen in Managerial behaviours whereby they

• Analyse with their teams the issues to which they, as a team, had to ‘adapt’ in the previous semester/term and encourage them to anticipate and plan for contingencies in the future and provide evidence of same and examples of outcomes from same.
• Analyse with individuals in their departments the issues to which they, as a team, had to ‘adapt’ in the previous semester/term and encourage them to anticipate and plan for contingencies in the future and can provide evidence of same and examples of outcomes from same.

Putting in place some Wellbeing initiatives that clearly demonstrate to staff that the organisation takes a holistic approach to staff and develops their skills in ‘switching off to better switch on’, which ultimately enhances resilience, commitment and productivity, as seen in behaviours by Managers whereby they:

• Have taken the opportunity to discuss Wellbeing with and consequently encourage their team on two or three occasions during the year and can provide evidence of outcomes from such discussions.
• Have put in place some Wellbeing initiatives with the team e.g. lunch time walks, relaxation exercises, break time physical exercises and can provide evidence of such initiatives having been utilised by a number of the team.

I am basing the above on the best practical research out of Harvard et al where they have studied the effects of initiatives such as the above and where organisations post such initiatives have been able to measure increases in such things as the extent to which:

• Extra effort is seen through additional hours worked over evenings and weekends when projects require, ie discretionary effor
• The number of beneficial network connections established outside the department or the business
• The increase in participation in ad-hoc meetings and initiatives
• Time deliberately spent collaborating with customers (internal and external) outside of normal scope of work

I have deliberately kept the above thoughts to bite-size chunks as start points for building or enhancing a culture of engagement. This must start at Senior Management level and percolate down and it probably needs some element of development/coaching to ensure that the critical parts of the message get across, achieve commitment and above all are followed through.