Want great Employee Engagement? Why a values based culture comes first

I love my job

 

I regularly speak about employee engagement at conferences and seminars - often to fellow HR professionals and business leaders. One of the most interesting parts is the Q&A that follows - you get to feel the mood of the audience, what resonates, what do they want to debate. It was in one such event that I was asked a very good question, or maybe it was more of an observation…

 But Richard, surely you cando engagement to people? There has to be something there first that engages them.

It’s a very fair point and one that reflects the difficulty you can sometimes experience when, as an external consultant, you are asked to come in and run an employee engagement workshop. It’s perhaps natural for employees to feel cynical.  The experiences in my earlier post ‘Go on then son, engage me’ paint a vivid picture of how challenging it can be.

For me, yes you can't “do” engagement to people but you can focus on creating a values based culture which enables people to feel trusted and belong to something. Having strong and genuine organisational values that employees can identify with (and believe) is where it all starts. The end result of this is that your people feel engaged, motivated and they will be more productive.

 Here are some of my observations of what supports a values based culture:

Clearly defining what is the desired culture through a strong set of values which are lived internally

Values reflect what is important to an organisation.  They are guiding principles, a roadmap if you like, a guide to the way we should behave.  They underpin how people in the organisation should behave towards each other and how they can expect to be treated by the organisation. They influence our behaviour and guide our decision-making.

Values should be specific, simple, memorable and directive but most importantly they need to be lived on a day to day basis and reinforced through the employee life cycle. I work with a leading Sports charity and they have only three values - Be enthuisatic, Be responsive, Be responsible. The Managers are trained to sit down with their teams on a regular basis to discuss what these three values mean and to highlight examples of where they have been lived.  This is supported by every employee having access to a "guidebook" which brings it all to life.  

Create a feeling of personal belonging

When employees feel like a company or organisation is their own, they take personal responsibility for making it a success. This also brings with it a sense of pride and achievement. It’s what I call the ‘Insider Effect’ where, through a number of conditions, people feel ‘a part of something’ - which has tremendous engagement advantages.

So what are the key elements that create this feeling of personal belonging towards an organisation? I’ve covered this and more in my post ‘The Insider Effect - the key to Engaging Employees’.

Encourage your people to ask questions

One of the benefits of engaged employees is that they ask lots of questions, they are curious and they question the status quo - this leads to them having the desire to change things for the better. However, some organisations have a culture that stifles the freedom to ask questions - and the business suffers as a consequence. If employees don’t feel comfortable asking “why are we doing it this way” then they won’t find it easy coming forward with good ideas.

So, how do you show that you value your employees opinions and encourage your organisation to develop a questioning culture? You’ll find the answers in my post“Why do Giraffes have long necks?”.

Develop good line managers - they are your secret engagement agents

Poor engagement is often about the relationship between employee and their line manager - not the organisation. That’s understandable, it can often feel like the line manager is the organisation. That’s why developing good line management people skills that engage, motivate and develop rather than demotivate and sap initiative will make a huge difference to morale, productivity and retention.

The characteristics of a great line manager are covered in my post 'Why you never forget a good line manager'.

Demonstrate authentic leadership

From my time at Virgin through to today - I have witnessed the positive results that happen when leaders of organisations engage and motivate their employees directly through being transparent, visible and honest.  But they don’t just have to be good at inspiring and motivating, they need to care about their people - and demonstrate it. The following quote is from Sir Richard Branson and sums up how the values of a good leader contributes towards an engaging culture.

Having a personality of caring about people is important. You cant be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.

You can find out more about the lessons learned by working with Sir Richard Branson and other leaders in my post “I’m sorry Sir Richard, I’ve run out of petrol”.

Need my help?

 I can help organisations embed the kind of behaviour that creates the ‘values based culture’ I’ve described above - or I can come in and help you assess and measure where you are now - and make recommendations for change.

 en:Rich helps organisations succeed by creating engaged, motivated and highly productive people, teams and managers.

 If you’d like to explore employee engagement options for your organisation please feel free to contact me for a chat.

Author: Richard Roberts
Posted on: Tuesday 17th November 2015


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