As I’ve begun to dive into the nebulous and often touchy-feely world of engagement – I’ve been struck by the sheer passion I’ve found from both the solution providers and client companies concerning the need for change in this industry.
For years this has been a market that has been on the fringe of Talent Management, but firmly entrenched as an HR responsibility. Employee Engagement is sometimes seen as the picnics and employee parties, sometimes seen as the annual engagement survey we all love to take, but today we are seeing a shift in focus. Engagement metrics and data are becoming a cornerstone of the Talent and HR metrics, and more importantly a critical measurement to senior leaders.
A recent blog posting on Harvard Business Review, by Tammy Erickson, "Her Predictions for 2010 –Five Changes in the way we work", I believe highlights a critical reason in why the idea of engagement has become such a hot topic. Employee’s attitudes are drastically changing towards employers, especially in the United States, but also on an international level as our recent research in regional talent management strategies highlights. Employees are beginning to look for a partnership with their employers, a peer relationship.
As the future begins to look a bit brighter, and employee’s who survived the rampant rashes of layoffs and downsizing last year begin to look around at the opportunities showing up in the market – it is likely they will also be thinking about how their current employers behaved over the last two years and assessing their own engagement.
Many employers are asking themselves, “What were we thinking”? Did we win short term gains, with a long term payment plan? Did we keep the right people? Are the people we have on board capable of managing in the “new” normal? Are our employee’s focused on the right efforts and making an impact on our “new” business models?
As we begin to look at the new approaches to Engagement Strategies, we are finding that most organizations are looking at three critical areas of engagement:
- Work Engagement – a connection and appreciation for the work an employee is accomplishing, and a connection to performance.
- Company Engagement – a connection and appreciation for the company, its goals, its leadership, its future.
- Social Engagement – a connection and appreciation for the people an employee is working for and with on a daily basis.
All three of these are needed to create a balanced engagement model for most organizations.
Additionally, organizations are focusing more efforts on trending their engagement data and connecting it to other talent metrics and business metrics to begin to create a total view of their organizations workforce from capability to engagement.
Join us at IMPACT 2010: The Business of Talent® - on April 4-6 2010 in St. Petersburg Florida, where we’ll be show casing several organizations approach to Engagement including a great session from a large global financial organization on their recent work in tying organizational performance to their engagement efforts.
Is your organization currently working on updating your engagement strategy? What are some of the innovative approaches you’re taking to connect your engagement efforts to your overall talent management efforts? We’d love to hear from you if you’re working on this for your organization.
Stacey Harris