Challenge 1: leadership energy
We find that despite the
exhortations, in practice many managers are often resistant to employee
engagement programs. This can be for two underlying reasons – first, some inherent uncertainty about the
implications for the leader role and second, due to the perceived additional work required by the leader. It
can be argued from afar that engagement would in fact lighten the leader’s
role, but the perception is real and is a barrier to be overcome. We have found
that those leaders who feel overburdened tend to judge that an ‘engagement’
programme will be an added cost to them personally. Our research also suggests
that unless these interpretations are faced at the outset, it is difficult to
embed and sustain a major engagement initiative in any organization.
Leaders are reporting their
energy levels are at a rate that is lower than where they are most productive.
These leaders say they have no time to get the most critical elements of their
core work jobs done, and this is the key factor they report as negatively
affecting their personal energy levels at work. Given that engagement implies
activity ‘above and beyond’ (a common expression used for engagement), the
problem is that these leaders are working at suboptimal energy levels and
cannot even engage themselves properly because they are too busy just trying to
cope with their personal workloads; still less do they feel that they have time
or inclination to engage others.
If leader energy is falling
and/or suboptimal, the overall outcome is negative for bottom-line productivity
and firm performance because leader energy predicts employee energy, and high
energy cultures predict organizational outcomes (stock price growth, survival).
The measurement process uses a 0
to 10 scale, where 0 = no energy, 8 = high energy, and 10 = too much energy.2
Thus, energy is an optimization versus a maximization scale. A point can be
reached where people are exerting so much energy they cannot find time to
replenish themselves fast enough. An employee can have too much stimulus at work,
and this can result in burnout. However, the definition of ‘too much’ differs
from person to person, and it is important when measuring energy to ask more
than one question. The measurement process used in the above-mentioned studies
produces a variety of scores: energy overall, most productive energy level, and
the gap between where one is most productive and where one is today.
Challenge 2: role-based performance to define
engagement
Five different categories of work
behaviour can be defined via the roles that employers set up at work and reward
within organizations. Short descriptions of each and an overall model follow:
1. Core
job holder role (what is in the job description);
2. Entrepreneur
or innovator role (improving process, coming up with new ideas, participating
in others’ innovations);
3. Team
member role (participating in teams, working with others in different jobs);
4. Career
role (learning, engaging in activities to improve your skills and knowledge);
5. Organizational
member role (citizenship role or doing things that are good for the company).
(Welbourne et
al. 1998)
When the role-based approach to work is combined with a resource-based
view of the firm, a link between role-based behaviour and firm performance can
be derived. The resource-based view of the firm states that firms ‘win’ when
they create long-term competitive advantage from resources that are valuable,
rare, inimitable, and for which substitutes do not exist (Barney
1991,1995).
However, it is what people are
doing at work specifically (or what roles they are engaged in) that drives
results. If the role-based model of
performance is applied, long-term competitive advantage does not come with
people simply doing their core jobs. If employees are only doing core jobs (for
which job descriptions are easily available), the competition can hire people,
train them to do those same jobs, and do this in a location where wages and
other costs are much lower.
But, if employees engage in
behaviours above and beyond the core job ,then true competitive advantage from
people materializes. When employees have firm-specific knowledge and use that
information to develop new ideas, to improve the organization, to assist new
team members, and to continue to escalate their careers, then the synergy that
comes from all of these above and beyond behaviours starts to drive long-term
competitive advantage, which then affects firm performance.
It makes sense that ‘emotional
commitment’, ‘above and beyond’ behaviours, or ‘discretionary’ efforts (all
terms found in the work on employee engagement) are desirable. A clear
understanding of what these words mean is essential for anyone who expects to
improve engagement and improve performance through their employees’ efforts.
Also, the link between extra role (entrepreneur, team, career, and
organizational member) and core-job role performance needs to be clearly
understood because if employees cannot find enough time to do the core job
role, then the odds on engaging in any non-core roles are very low.
Thus, the lesson learned from all
of this discussion of energy and research is that engagement programmes need to
start at the top. Start with leader energy and leader role-based performance.
Leaders themselves need to have time to go ‘above and beyond’ so that they
exemplify what employee engagement can be by being engaged leaders. Only when
leaders have the time they need will they be able to help the managers and
employees who report to them reach their own optimal energy levels, balance
their work in core and non-core job roles and engage in the behaviours that
will drive the organization’s strategy.
