New Tyres

Let’s imagine your organisation owns a fleet of vehicles. Once a year you get a specialist tyre company to inspect all your vehicles. This year their report tells you that at least one tyre on 20% of your vehicles needs attention. Do you replace all the tyres on all the vehicles because that’s the only way you’ll know for sure you’ll replace the worn tyres..? Of course not, what a waste of money that would be…  Some vehicles might already have four brand new tyres, whilst others may just need the tyres swapped around to spread the wear more evenly. Other vehicles may need all their tyres replacing, or just a puncture repaired. So you ask for a more detailed report specifying exactly what tyres on which vehicles need attention, and what action should be taken in each case.

So why would you do anything different with employee engagement? The reports provided by big organisational surveys are great at providing an overall picture; they show “themes” around what might be contributing to or constraining engagement throughout the organisation. The problem is that they don’t provide sufficient information or detail for you to know what action to take where, to really make a difference. So you spend lots of money running an organisational wide "engagement" programme providing the same training, development and support to everyone. You change all the tyres on all the vehicles…!!

Ok, so the analogy is a little simple and of course I'm not comparing employees to tyres; the point is that sometimes organisations (like people) are lazy and look for the simplest solution to fixing a problem, even if it doesn't work in the long term. "Our trust score is low” becomes “We must have a problem with trust” becomes “This problem must exist everywhere” becomes “Let’s put everyone through some Trust workshops” – they replace all the tyres… Lazy and ineffective… 

Engagement is about people and the only way to improve engagement is to understand your people, what makes them tick and what each individual needs to enable them to give their best. Big organisational surveys don't help because they highlight symptoms and seldom provide sufficient detail about the real cause of the problem. "Our car has just developed a terrible wobble" becomes "There must be a problem with the tyres" becomes "We need to replace all the tyres". But the problem might be the driver, the car itself, the road surface, or any number of other possible problems. Too expensive? Actually the reverse is true; organisations waste thousands on annual surveys and employee engagement programmes which consistently deliver poor results. I know of one international company where engagement has dropped over the last three years despite massive investment in training and development. They've been changing all the tyres every year but failed to fix the real problem. The cost of getting it right is far lower and has a far better ROI.

Work Life Motivation™ is different. By focusing on where engagement really happens, in teams and personal networks, it helps leaders understand what’s most impacting engagement in their teams, and what they can personally do to make a difference. For many, they’ll identify actions which they and their team can implement immediately without waiting for training or permission. Just knowing what the problem is allows them to start fixing it. Others may need specific training, development or coaching to help resolve bigger challenges. Your budget, no matter how big or small, can be targeted where it’s needed the most, where it can have the biggest impact and drive the fastest improvements.

So what approach will your organisation be taking? Will you have an annual engagement survey which drives a generic "improvement" programme or will you try to really understand your people and what they need? 

For more information about Work Life Motivation call us on 01292 521376, email us at info@worklifemotivation.com or visit www.worklifemotivation.com