I was lucky enough to attend the CIPD’s annual employee engagement conference last week, which was great. I met lots of interesting new people and I got to run the day 2 workshop, to some 70 delegates, looking at how you develop your engagement strategy. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and I got lots of fantastic feedback, with 82% saying I was very effective at getting the message across (18% saying I was effective, rather than very effective, and a big fat 0% saying I wasn’t effective). It is always a big confidence boost to get good feedback after a session like this and good to know I’m getting the message through!
On day 1 of the conference, there was still a lot of focus on the survey and the significant role the survey plays as part of the engagement strategy and subsequent work. On day 2, I talked to the group about how to move from transactional to transformational engagement. Specifically, the importance of actually talking to your employees to find out what engages them, rather than solely relying on data from your survey. Surveys do provide useful insight, but they have a pre-determined model of engagement. Decisions about what engages people, whilst based on research, have already been made. I don’t know about you, but when I worked in-house I always felt slightly insulted to be told that the company knows what will engage me – it feels very parent/ child “we know what’s best for you”. Well that could be the case, but actually if you speak to me like a person and ask me, I’ll be happy to tell you and happier that you have actually taken the time to ask me and listen…
So I encouraged the group to avoid making assumptions about what engages their people – there is no substitute for actually taking the time to find out what’s important to people. And this doesn’t have to be a big, onerous exercise. Line managers can simply have regular conversations with their teams about what’s important to them, what a great place to work looks like and feels like, what needs to change, and the role they can play. By encouraging line managers to have ongoing dialogue with their teams about engagement you begin to make the journey towards transformational engagement: it’s no longer a once a year exercise owned by HR, but something which is being talked about all the time within the organisation.
So this month, People Lab’s great giveaway is the “Card-sort” exercise. This giveaway provides you with everything you need to allow line managers to start having these conversations. In the download, you’ll find a simple fact sheet which outlines how to run the card sort exercise, which you can give out to line managers. You’ll also get a card template you can print up and distribute, and use again and again with your team.
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Get your hands on the card sort exercise here!
Card Sort Exercise [/box]
We hope you enjoy running the card sort exercise, let us know how you get on!
You’ll find a range of free employee engagement resources in our Free Stuff section. All you need to do is sign up with your name & email address, and we’ll keep you updated with the very latest thinking in employee engagement – absolutely free.
