{"id":4513,"date":"2012-06-29T09:55:33","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T08:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/blog\/?p=4513"},"modified":"2012-06-29T09:55:33","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T08:55:33","slug":"we-should-not-pursue-employee-engagement-for-engagements-sake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/2012\/06\/we-should-not-pursue-employee-engagement-for-engagements-sake\/","title":{"rendered":"We should not pursue employee engagement for engagement\u2019s sake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/betterworksinc\/5952007589\/\" title=\"Composite Performance by BetterWorks, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6147\/5952007589_21c9625610.jpg\" width=\"371\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Composite Performance\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I was approached recently by a large organisation to go and talk to them about \u2018Engagement\u2019. The issue that they were having was that when they put customer in front of engagement, Marketing wanted to own it. But, when they put employee in front of it then HR wanted to own it.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I tell people about this story and they smile, knowingly.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Therefore, my client wanted me to come along and share a few ideas with them about what I have seen and had learned about the connection between the two and, to, effectively, referee a wrestling match between Marketing and HR (I\u2019m only partly kidding). However, the overall objective was to help them come up with a way of figuring out what engagement meant for their organisation and how both departments could work together on the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, I\u2019ve written about this before in:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/blog\/the-link-between-customer-experience-and-employee-engagement-more-art-than-science\/\"><span class=\"s3\">The link between customer experience and employee engagement: More art than science<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/blog\/where-to-start-when-building-a-great-customer-centric-business\/\"><span class=\"s3\">Where to start when building a great customer centric business?<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/blog\/im-confused-why-do-most-ceos-not-get-employee-engagement\/\"><span class=\"s3\">I\u2019m confused. Why do most CEOs not get employee engagement?<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But, I haven\u2019t written about it in a while.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So, a wee while ago I saw the following article (<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.biworldwide.co.uk\/employee-engagement---on-the-right-track.html\"><span class=\"s3\">http:\/\/blog.biworldwide.co.uk\/employee-engagement&#8212;on-the-right-track.html<\/span><\/a>) and it made me think a bit more about engagement. This article and the ones it refers to seem to indicate that for many organisations they look at employee engagement as a stand-alone issue. The article argues that whilst there is a lot of attention being paid to creating an engaging workplace and engaged workforces, it is being handled in isolation by HR and that clear links are not, necessarily, being made to how improved employee engagement will deliver real business benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Professor Ivan Robertson, writing in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/public-leaders-network\/2012\/may\/03\/importance-employee-engagement-difficult-times?\"><span class=\"s3\">The Guardian<\/span><\/a>, suggests that improving peoples attitudes to work does not necessarily mean that they will be more productive, work harder or improve performance. But, data and insight from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gallup.com\/consulting\/52\/employee-engagement.aspx\"><span class=\"s3\">Gallup<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kenexa.com\/ThoughtLeadership\/WhitePapers\"><span class=\"s3\">Kenexa<\/span><\/a> show the business benefits of an engaged workforce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">What\u2019s the difference? I would bet that the organisations typified by the high performers in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gallup.com\/consulting\/52\/employee-engagement.aspx\"><span class=\"s3\">Gallup<\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kenexa.com\/ThoughtLeadership\/WhitePapers\"><span class=\"s3\">Kenexa<\/span><\/a> research have made the connections, that investing in your people and your environment has to have expected dividends.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So, what does this mean? Well, I would suggest that we should not pursue employee engagement for engagement\u2019s sake. Right? We are in business after all.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Investment in employee engagement should be conducted with expected benefits in terms of better lower staff turnover, higher customer satisfaction or repeat business or something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Also, the employee engagement issue cannot just sit in the HR department. As an initiative it has to bust out of a departmental focus to become something that is an intrinsic part of the business, the planning process, expected business benefits and the targets that get set and monitored over time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">What do you think? I look forward to your thoughts and comments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betterworks.com\"><span class=\"s3\">BetterWorks<\/span><\/a> for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/betterworksinc\/\"><span class=\"s3\">image<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s4\"><strong>Note<\/strong>: I write these posts because I am passionate about great service and helping companies get more value and growth out of the customer relationships they already have. If you&#8217;d like to find out more about how I do that then get in touch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/blog\/contact\/\" title=\"Get in touch\">here<\/a>. Alternatively, sign up for my monthly newsletter <a href=\"http:\/\/adrianswinscoe.us1.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=ac1b7148c05765530550ca9c7&#038;id=eb3db23d2c\" title=\"My monthly newsletter\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was approached recently by a large organisation to go and talk to them about \u2018Engagement\u2019. The issue that they were having was that when they<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,41,21],"tags":[39,40,42,957,958,959,960,961,962],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}