Creating an engaging performance environment | TalentDrain | March 2009
Creating an engagingperformance environmentWithin the context of dramatic change in the global economic environment, organisations need
more than ever to focus on creating an engaging performance environment for their employees.
Gordon Barker explains how to create an employee engagement strategy, how to communicate
it internally and how to measure the return on investment from employee engagement.
Recent research has highlighted HR’s
lack of strategic firepower. A 2008
McKinsey survey found that 60 per
cent of senior managers see HR as
‘an administrative department, not a
strategic business partner’, whilst
TalentDrain’s 2008 Employee Retention
Survey revealed that 75 per cent of HR
departments have no retention strategy
in place for their organisation.
Without a compelling strategy or
business case, it’s no wonder that the
HR budget is often one of the first to be
cut in difficult times.
The good news is that the basic value
of employee engagement is well
established and largely accepted, even
by senior managers who recognise that
employee-related expenditure is
typically an organisation’s highest cost.
With the war for talent, and the fast-
approaching global labour shortage,
it is increasingly important not only to
retain employees but to ensure that
they are capable and motivated to
deliver high performance.
How do I create an engagingperformance environment?The first step is to define a clear strategic
vision of what you are looking to
achieve, your Employee Value
Proposition (EVP). Your EVP is
ascertained by aligning your
organisational objectives, with what
you need from your employees in order
to deliver these - and with what you
offer employees that is compelling
for them.
Your EVP must be aligned to your
organisational vision and business
strategy. It needs to articulate what
value employees will get from working
for you and how you are different to
competitor organisations. It should
encapsulate what current and potential
employees perceive as the value of
being part of, and contributing to the
success of, your organisation.
Given the EVP is about the organisation,
it needs to be owned by your leaders
with a high degree of input from all levels
of employees. HR’s role is to facilitate
the process and to communicate the
results.
Delivering the valueHaving defined your EVP, you need to
develop an engagement strategy that
will deliver it. Research highlights
that there are 12 core areas that drive
employee engagement, all of which
are central to any HR strategy - from
compensation and benefits to
organisational communication, from
leadership behaviour to performance
management.
Whilst your strategy will focus on the
entire employee life cycle, the exact
balance of where you place your
priorities will depend on your EVP.
Developing a strategy will enable you to
confidently allocate budget to your key
priorities. However, it is more than an
exercise in developing SMART goals.
Creating an engaging performance environment | TalentDrain | March 2009
It should be about creating a coherent
story that articulates how engaging
your employees is central to delivering
your organisational objectives.
As such, an engagement strategy is
essentially the same as an HR strategy,
but with one subtle but key difference.
An HR strategy tends to focus on
creating a series of related initiatives
aimed primarily at increasing
organisational efficiency through
people processes. An engagement
strategy should focus on creating the
best performance environment possi-
ble for your people. This distinction,
if delivered correctly, can transform HR
from being an interested party into a
central player in business planning.
Communicating the strategyIn simple terms, organisational
communication is about delivering a
message, and checking it has been
received and understood. Engagement
is about bringing the message to life
and helping people make sense of it
and what it means to them.
A common communications mistake is
to simply announce the initiatives
being run, rather than how they will
add value to the organisation. For HR,
the key to successful communication
lies in changing the language it uses
and investing time to ensure that
people understand and engage with
the message.
For example, instead of focusing on
the cost of recruiting and ‘onboarding’
a new employee, focus on the question:
‘At what point, do we make a return on
investment (RoI) in a new employee?’
This immediately shifts the focus
towards how HR can work with the
business to either increase an
employees’ speed to performance
or adjust the levels of investment in
them, so they can more quickly
contribute to the organisation.
It is also important to set the strategy
in context. For example, whilst one
impact of high attrition rates is an
increase in recruitment and training
costs, the longer-term, more serious
impact is likely to be a decline in
customer satisfaction and ultimately a
reduction in customer spending.
Measuring the return oninvestment To demonstrate a return on
investment, you need access to the
right information at the right time.
This information will come from
different sources - from business
metrics, feedback from employees
and managers, feedback from
customers and from every stage of
the employee life cycle (including staff
turnover rates, employee engagement
survey data and absenteeism rates).
It should be quantifiable in real costs
to the business.
Ultimately, the return on investment is
dependent on what your engagement
strategy is looking to deliver. However,
each aspect of the strategy should
have metrics that are aligned to the
overarching Employee Value
Proposition.
As well as the organisational benefits,
what makes this really compelling is
that it can change the perceived
strategic value that HR provides to the
organisation.
Our expertGordon Barker is director of consulting
at employee engagement and reten-
tion specialist TalentDrain.
http://www.talentdrain.com
Creating an engaging performance environment | TalentDrain | March 2009
Top tips …
To create an engaging environment: ■ Focus on creating the performance environment required to deliver future organisational goals
■ Define your Employee Value Proposition
■ Set your priorities, then focus on the key elements and deliver them to an outstanding level
■ Create a coherent story, not just a series of related initiatives
To communicate your engagement strategy: ■ Involve as many of your HR population in the process as possible, so that the strategy becomes a shared story
■ Spend one-to-one time with key senior managers to address their concerns and ensure they see the benefits
to their part of the business
■ Share the strategy directly with the wider management population - don’t assume they’ll read emails or that
others will articulate your strategy clearly
■ Bring the strategy to life - focus on the benefits for each group and on the role that managers will play in delivering it
■ Ensure people have plenty of time to ask questions
■ Keep revisiting the message and highlight the benefits as they become apparent
To measure the RoI from engagement:■ Use a combination of business and HR metrics
■ Evaluate all aspects of the employee life cycle using a range of measurement sources
■ Ensure you can access reliable data when you need it
Source: TalentDrain.
Tel: +44 (0)870 760 [email protected]
engagement & retention specialist