Motivating staff will reduce churn: Truss
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by Professor Katie Truss, head of Kent Business School at
Medway
I once had the privilege of teaching a highly motivated and
enthusiastic postgraduate student called Sarah, who went on to be
appointed as HR Manager at a large engineering firm.
Buzzing with ideas, she told me about all the great initiatives
she was planning. But when I saw her again just six months later,
she was directing her energies to finding a new job.
It turned out that the promises of interesting work with plenty
of support from the senior management team, and the chance to put
into practice all the ideas from her course, had not been
delivered. Instead, she found herself doing routine administrative
work.
What had gone wrong? Although Sarah's employers could see the
benefit of recruiting motivated and talented staff like Sarah, they
had forgotten about the need to keep her engaged.
The topic of employee engagement has managed to achieve the
seemingly impossible, and unite the former Labour and current
coalition governments around one core belief; that belief is that
the key to sustained organisational success is a highly engaged,
committed and enthusiastic workforce.
The two governments have invested in reviews led by David
MacLeod and Nita Clarke into engagement across the UK, the first of
which reported its findings to the Dept for Business, Innovation
and Skills in 2009.
That review set out the business case for engagement, and showed
how high levels of engagement are linked with a host of positive
outcomes including higher levels of profitability and innovation,
reduced turnover and absenteeism, as well as the wellbeing of the
workforce.
The second review is taking place now, and has the ambitious
remit of creating a nationwide movement to bring employee
engagement to all workplaces across the UK.
The University of Kent is involved with this initiative, and is
hosting the first meeting of a new employee engagement practitioner
network for the South-East on December 5, at our Medway campus,
when David MacLeod and Nita Clarke will be sharing their views on
engagement with employers from the region.
If engagement is so important, what can employers do to ensure
their employees are engaged?
I have been researching and writing about employee engagement
for the past six years in a wide range of sectors, and employers
will be pleased to know that they can make a significant difference
to levels of engagement without the need to spend large sums of
money on complex programmes.
Our research has shown that employees have to be able to answer
five basic questions with a 'yes' before they feel engaged. First,
'Am I in the right job?' Like Sarah, employees whose skills and
expertise are not being utilised will finish up being frustrated
and demotivated.
Second, 'Am I treated with respect?' Our research has shown that
employees who are bullied, harassed or ignored at work, or witness
colleagues being treated in this way, are significantly less
engaged.
Third, 'Do I get a say?' The majority of employees are very
interested in their work and, if you ask them, can come up with
some great improvements - the only problem is that a surprising
number of employers do not even think to ask.
The fourth question is, 'Do I make a difference?'
As human beings, we are naturally driven to find intrinsic
meaning in what we do, and employers need to articulate clearly for
their staff what contribution they are making. This is true of any
job, at any level.
Finally, 'Do I know where we're going?' Employees need to see a
clear line of sight between what they do on a day-to-day basis and
the long-term goals of the organisation.
Senior managers at organisations as diverse as manufacturer
Nampak Plastics and financial services firm LV have turned around
their businesses by paying attention to these fundamental issues,
weaving together a holistic programme of mutually supporting
initiatives.
Employee engagement is of such importance in today's economic
climate that the University of Kent is launching the first ever
university-accredited course focusing on this topic in the UK, the
Postgraduate Certificate in Employee Engagement, which is run on a
modular basis for busy employee engagement professionals.
n More information at www.kent.ac.uk
Monday, January 09 2012
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