Peter Bowring - Engagement and Productivity Specialist

Employee Engagement – Who’s Responsibility!

It’s the responsibility of the whole workforce - the individuals, managers and executives, not just a few

The Individual:  because individuals are motivated for different reasons managers cannot take all the responsibility for engaging their workforce.  Individuals need to own their engagement driven by their unique motivators and career aspirations.  However the organisation should provide key triggers of employee engagement including career development resources, learning and development opportunities, clarity on their role and how they contribute to the organisations goal/s. 

The Manager: they must develop a brand to promote their uniqueness, and their value proposition.  This process gives the manager a sense of purpose and the confidence to internally network to further their career, another key to higher levels of engagement.  They need to build relationships with their people and help develop them through coaching.  Staff must understand the manager’s motivations and managers must understand the key drivers of engagement of their staff.

The Executive:  they also need to develop a brand, communicate with passion the organisation’s goals and objectives and walk the organisational talk.  They need to build trust by being authentic. 

Recent research by BlessingWhite (2011) found that trust in executives can have twice the impact on engagement levels than trust in the immediate manager.  However, consistent with past studies, employees are more likely to trust their immediate managers than the executives in their organisation.

The executive must hold themselves and their peers accountable for developing a constructive culture that drives high performance and engagement.

This all sounds relatively easy, doesn’t it!