Engaging Managers' News

A brand new toolkit to help people have quality conversations about employee engagement.   Can be downloaded to use as you see fit - perhaps using elements for presntations or printing off to use as handouts.   Visually impactful and simple!  

Great video of Doug Conant talking about employee engagement, integrity, and the new franetic environment we are all now working in.  I think we can all connect with his words here.  Great food for thought and only 5mins long!  Get a cuppa tea and watch it! :)

Interesting blog post from David Smith of Hay Group here, they have done research recently on the different factors that matter most to part times vs full timers.  Makes for thought provoking reading and if you manage part time staff it's well worth looking at and then considering if your approach to your part time staff is tailored to their potentially differing needs.   Worth asking the question and observing what frustrates this group - to help you develop an approach tailored to them.

Hay Group have done a full full time vs part time key factors and you can read the full post for details but to sumamrise for part timers the most important factors turned out to be:

The amount of work expected of me is reasonable.

My job leaves adequate time to take advantage of job related training.

I believe I am paid fairly for the work I do.  

I believe my pay if fair in comparison to others doing a similar role in another co.  

I get back from the company a fair return (financial rewards and job satsifaction) for what I give (effort and peformance)

I understand the results expected of me in my job

As with so many such surveys - the results are not surprising.  Just common sense.  But common sense is not always common practice especially when we all have so many balls to keep in the air all at once! So I think it is worth highlighting and opening up the conversation on this one.  

What are your thoughts?  

87% of the $46billion spent on employee rewards in the US goes on unstructured programs detatched from both employee engagement and business success. Wow!   I am sure the UK is not much different either. 

The Edelman Trust Barometer has provided powerful insight for many years. It covers a number of countries and includes general trust, trust of government vs trust of businesses, as well as sector specific indicators; for example in this 2013 report they did a deep dive into the banking sector. Showing that it is still the least trusted sector.  

It also shows that leadership such as CEOs are trusted far less than experts or 'people like me' (peers) see slide 27.  

On slide 33 you can see the attributes they find have a positive impact on building trust - including engagement, integrity and prupose amongst others.  These three are all core to the employee engagement enablers outlined by the Engage for Success movement.  They also include products and services and operations too which makes complete sense.  

Very interesting to see on slide 34 the difference between what is important for rebuilding trust in 2013 as opposed to 2008 when reputation to work, financial performance and a respected CEO were all important.  

It really backs the messages for management that have been ringing loud and clear for a long time. Their slide 38 demonstrates this.  Management needs to be more inclusive, the old paradigm of command and control simply doesn't work in the new context we find ourselves in.    

Thanks @JonIngham for highlighting the publication of this report. 

Interesting suplementary reading is a blog post by Tesco CEO highlighted to me by Rachel Miller https://www.tescoplc.com/talkingshop/index.asp?blogid=87

New CIPD report out today - worth reading - all about managers and employee engagement.   

If you don't have time to read it all a good article here summarises 

http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hro/news/1075724/poor-management-styles-undermining-employee-wellbeing-cipd

Thanks to Tashoy Ashley on LinkedIn for sharing.

This is a very thought provoking talk that is relevant in many ways.  As with many TED talks it challenges you to think from a new perspective.  If you are interested in the context of China's performance with an 'inside view' you will love this! 

Yesterday I hosted my first 'radio' show for Engage for Success along with Jon Ingham and Jo Dodds and special guest Prof Katie Truss. 

We discussed the events that took place in December, interviewed Professor Katie Truss, and highlighted the dates of events in January.   

It was definitely something out of my comfort zone but I really enjoyed it and can already think of ways to make it even better next time! Would love to hear any further suggestions of what to stop start and continue doing moving forward with this show.  

Enjoy! 

This was at Engage for Success movement get together in November that I was involved with - I was the social media lead.   I was sat up in the booth in the sound room and had a panoramic view of the room and sound through speakers.  Great day - Jo is a good speaker and I loved her use of personal experience to express her points.  

My latest blog post - the impact social media can have on managers tempted to speak before thinking! 

Dealing with someone who is not entirely convinced about the value of employee engagement?  Or someone who says they believe in it but aren't actually taking any action?

These slides will help.  

Based on the report of the same title published by Engage for Success by Tanith Dodge of M&S and Bruce Rayton of Uni of Bath.

For those who like the detail you can find the whole report:

http://cdn1.engageforsuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/The-Evidence.pdf

And a rather cool infographic here:  http://www.engageforsuccess.org/about/why-does-it-matter/

Good luck! Do share your stories of convincing others - I know the Engage for Success website would love to share how you did it. 

A very worrying trend indeed - especially when you put this into context with the evidence from Engage for Success that shows when employee engagement goes down in a hospital a few months later the mortaility rates go up! 

Voice is such an important part of the engagement equation - and it is so much more than just an annual survey.  It is about whether an envorinment is created where people feel safe sharing their views and challenging the way things are done. Key elements of this are the relationship between employees and their managers and the levels of trust in senior leadership. 

If those things are lacking real employee voice can never exist and an organisation is left wide open to the risks that carriers with it. 

Thanks to @JonnyGiff and @LizardVanilla for sharing this

Watched this brilliant TED talk yesterday.  It was one of two really excellent talks (I have posted the other here also).   

I think this is relevant to all managers - as being human we can all make assumptions about people based on our own percpetions of the world.  This moving talk challenges that in the most elegant of ways.   

The latest downloadable presentations from the recent final in a series of seminars dedicated to the topic of employee engagement and getting practitioners and academics together led by Prof Katie Truss of University of Kent.  

I have attended all but one of the series and have enjoyed each one very much and always come away with something new whether that be information or new contacts.  

Some great insight here.