Defining a future direction for an organization unit goes by many names: strategy, goals, objectives, aspirations, themes, values, milestones, mission, intent, and purpose. While there are nuances of differences among these concepts, they all focus on a future direction and investments to make tomorrow’s direction real today.
When
employees understand, accept, and align their actions to the direction of the
organization, they are more likely to be engaged. There are a number of
specific dimensions of the vision that lead to employees being more engaged:
• Clarity. Visions should combine analytics which lay out
statistical projections of the future and stories which capture the impact of
the future investments on employees and customers. Visions engage employees
when they offer them a sense of purpose that has meaning to each of them.
• Line of sight. Visions in the abstract remain at the
hoped-for-but-not-likely level. When visions translate to employee actions,
they become real. Employees who can see how their day-to-day behaviour links to
longer term organization visions become more engaged. This is consistent with
expectancy theory which advocates the alignment between an employee’s effort
and performance and performance and outcomes. When this line of sight exists,
employees feel engaged because they believe that their work will have impact.
• Future focused. Visions focus on what can be, not what has been. By
creating the future, visions engage employees in working together to deliver a
desired result.
• Emotive and cognitive. Visions create energy by generating passion among
employees about what can be. Energy often comes from emotions that may exist
within a company or from the leaders of the company. Cognitive visions ensure
that the passions are grounded in reality.
When
leaders build purpose-driven organizations, employees are more engaged.
Employees in these organizations act like volunteers because they believe in
the cause or purpose of the organization. The greater challenge for leaders is
to ensure a continuity of engagement with the benefit of an external crisis.
Opportunity
Opportunity
means that employees are given the chance to learn and grow through their
participation in the work’s activities. Opportunities to participate may come
from direct participation involving individual employees, indirect or
representative participation through the intermediary of employee
representative bodies, such as works councils or trade unions, and financial
participation.
• Direct participation can be seen as taking two main forms: consultative
participation where management encourages employees to make their views
known on work-related matters, but retains the right to take action or not; and
delegative
participation where management gives employees increased discretion and
responsibility to organize and do their jobs without reference back.
When
employees participate, they feel more engaged.
Opportunity
also means that employees have prospects of learning and growing at work. This
growth may come from formal training and development experiences, but it may
also come from work assignments. Learning also comes when a culture exists that
encourages risk taking and reflection. Employees are more engaged when they
have opportunities to learn.
ImpactHackman and Oldham’s (1974) work on motivation showed that when employees could see the outcome of their work, they were more likely to be committed to it. Impact means that employees feel that their hard work will lead to desired results. When employees realize that their attitude and behaviors will show up in customer attitude and behaviours, these employees are more engaged as they know that what they do makes a difference.
Leaders
can help employees see the impact of their work by helping them understand how
their work fits into the overall process of customer service. Every employee
has a customer, either inside or outside the organization. When an employee can
see the ways in which his or her work delivers value to customers, the employee
is more likely to be emotionally engaged in delivering the work.
Rewards and incentive
There
are two main forms of financial participation: profit sharing and share
ownership.
Employee
engagement increases when employees receive financial benefits from their
engagement. Remuneration sends communication signals about what matters, serves
as a scorecard for performance, and also meets the needs of some employees.
Profit sharing and share ownership can be very useful in sensitizing employees
to the state of the business. It is a moot point, however, whether they do a
great deal for involvement and participation on a day-today basis. Arguably,
they need to be raised to the levels available to senior managers to have a
serious impact in this respect.
Community
Community
affects employee engagement in two ways. First, a community represents cohorts
of teams with whom the employee works. Peer pressure and social networks
encourage employees to commit to their job. Gallup’s finding of having a friend
at work as a source of engagement implies a reciprocal relationship between the
employee and his/her peers. Because of personal relationships, employees have
goodwill towards their peers and will try to not let them down, and to make
sure that they are not the weak link on the team. Richard Hackman’s (2002)
research on high-performing teams shows that when employees feel like they are
part of a social network, or community, they allocate more effort to supporting
the goals of the team.
Communication
Employees
are more engaged when they know what is going on and why. Communication systems
that inform employees help employees feel more a part of the organization.
Communications can, of course, be two-way. Thus there can be channels of
communicating with employees and channels for ‘listening’ to employees
Sometimes the terms ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ are used. Lack of understanding
is a major source of inefficiency and lack of motivation. Leaders who build top-down, bottom-up, side-to-side, and inside-out communication plans ensure that employees understand what is expected and why it is expected. Employees are more engaged when they are more informed. Some employees like to be at the centre of the information network and become transmitters of information to others. Engaging these employees happens when they become spokespeople for the organization.
Entrepreneurship or flexibility
Finally,
we know that employees, particularly the next-generation employees, enjoy
flexibility. The playlist generation of employees has been raised on choices
through computer technology. In the work setting, flexibility about terms and
conditions of work may help engage employees. Flexibility might include work hours, benefits, work location, work
attire, office space, and other policies that give employees more choice over
their work setting.
Flexibility
gives employees choice. When an employee makes a choice about his or her work
setting, they are more engaged because they have a feeling of ownership.
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