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

Struggling with engagement?

If you want to understand motivation and engagement you need to speak to people who really know what it’s all about…

 

Most organisations across the developed world are struggling with engagement; studies show that it's been dropping for almost ten years now and that the reasons for this drop aren't purely related to the economic downturn.

The link between engagement and financial performance is well established; when engagement drops output drops with it. In the UK alone this "engagement gap" is estimated to cost business £29Bn every year. In all sectors; private, public and voluntary, an increase in engagement drives better financial results.

The armed forces have some of the most engaged people on the planet; the level of motivation and engagement required to continually place yourself at personal risk is extraordinary and recent research conducted with soldiers returning from active service helps to explain the factors that really make a difference.

So if you want to understand engagement, try asking people who really know what it means...

www.worklifemotivation.com
 

Why size matters (and numbers don't)...

You probably already know that many organisations have an employee engagement problem; it’s been dropping consistently for almost a decade driven partly, but not exclusively, by the global financial crisis. A recent survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that employee engagement dropped again last quarter (source: CIPD Employee Outlook, Winter 2013). Survey after survey finds the same pattern repeated all over the developed world. The link between engagement and performance is also well established; in the UK alone the cost of the “engagement” gap is estimated to be £29 BN every year in lost output.

You may already be using a survey to help understand what’s contributing to and inhibiting engagement in your organisation; there are many such surveys available and whilst they’re great at showing high level “themes” and even comparing one organisation with another they’re not so effective at helping to solve the problem. 

Image reproduced by kind permission of People Insight (http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/)

Contrary to popular myth engagement is not about communication, nor is it something leaders “do”. Engagement is driven by relationships and the day to day interactions that people have with each other, giving rise to the powerful emotions and perceptions we all experience about our working environment. Big organisational surveys don’t tell us enough about what’s happening with real people to make a difference; the majority of relationships and interactions we experience at work happen in our teams and social networks so it’s only at this level that reports have any actionable value. Traditional surveys don’t get close to this level of personal understanding because they’re far too broad in scope; information at an organisational level is too subject to the law of averages, making it impossible for any one person or group of people to know what they need to do differently.

360° surveys on the other hand are too narrow in scope; they might provide a valuable insight into individual performance against a prescribed set of competencies but they tell us nothing about the relationships beyond those who directly respond. They focus on individuals and it’s therefore left to just one person to make the changes they personally deem important.

I’d like to introduce you to Work Life Motivation. By focusing on teams and the social networks where relationship are formed Work Life Motivation provides actionable information that people can use to work together to drive real improvements in motivation and engagement. Work Life Motivation doesn’t need to replace your 360° surveys, appraisals, psychometric tools or personality profiling; it can work with them to show the real impact on how people think and feel about the job they do and the people they work with. Work Life Motivation spreads the responsibility for making things better and shows how small changes in behaviour can add up to a big improvement. Unlike broad organisational surveys which provoke a “one size fits all” response that seldom works, or narrow individual assessments which place all the responsibility on just one person, Work Life Motivation shows how the small changes that each group or team can make together end up contributing to a big difference overall.

For more information about Work Life Motivation and how it can help your organisation improve motivation and engagement please contact me directly or visit www.worklifemotivation.com where you’ll find sample reports, pricing and relevant research material.

www.worklifemotivation.com