MODULE 2 SETTING YOUR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT OBJECTIVES: WHY DO WE NEED ENGAGED EMPLOYEES?

Transcription

1 MODULE 2 SETTING YOUR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT OBJECTIVES: WHY DO WE NEED ENGAGED EMPLOYEES? MODULE 2 CONTENTS Activities Activity 2.1 Activity 2.2 Activity 2.3 Hardwiring your engagement objectives to your business strategy and goals (20 30 minutes) Defining a vision for your employee engagement (30 40 minutes) Defining the goals and outcomes of your employee engagement (40 minutes) Handouts Handout 2.1 Case study example: Marks and Spencer aligning engagement to the organizational strategy INTRODUCTION The purpose of this module is to: Develop a set of tangible employee engagement objectives which align with and support your business objectives. Understand what makes a good objective. Bring clarity to the purpose of engagement within your organization. EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

2 34 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT ACTIVITY 2.1 Hardwiring your engagement objectives to your business strategy and goals What this is: This activity is designed to enable you to unpack your company s strategy, goals, ambitions and objectives in order to understand how employees might contribute to achieving them. Why use it: Good employee engagement objectives should be aligned to what your company is trying to achieve, and using this activity will enable you to do this. How to use it: To run this activity you ll just need the activity notes, any relevant company information such as mission, goals etc, and a flip chart and pens. Who to use it with: This activity is helpful to use with those people who have some responsibility for designing your engagement strategy and approach, for example your senior team, HR team and engagement team. Background The starting points for employee engagement on planning should always be the strategy, goals, priorities, issues, challenges or opportunities the business itself is grappling with. This is what the term strategic alignment is all about. Having an engaged workforce is about helping the organization move forward and yet much of what we do is often disconnected from corporate goals. However, to be valued employee engagement must add value to the organization in some way and must be seen to do so! The strategic planning process helps ensure alignment and identify where they can best add value. Facilitator instructions You can use the bullets listed above to set the scene for the activity: that it is important to ensure employee engagement objectives are hardwired to your business strategy, and the starting point for this is to ensure everyone is clear about what your company is trying to achieve. Share any relevant company background and information at this point, eg company strategy, mission, vision, goals, ambitions, strategic priorities. Discuss: facilitate a discussion on your company information to answer the following questions: PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE

3 MODULE 2: SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVES 35 1 What are the key themes and broad areas your company is currently focusing on? This could include themes such as: growth; innovation; improved customer experience; improved reputation; health and safety focus; operational effectiveness; cost cutting; productivity; sales; compliance. 2 Once you have discussed and identified the broad themes agree three to five of them you are going to focus on and prioritize. 3 To help you do this, analyse each theme by looking at the potential impact your employees have on each theme and its subsequent success. 4 You can use the template below to help you; the examples are there to illustrate how this might work: Company focus: 3 5 themes Innovati on G row th Customer experience Sale s Health and safety Priority Potential impact employees have on each theme Employees producing great ideas for new products Employees increasing sales to help grow revenue Employees aware of customer needs Employees increasing sales to help grow revenue Employees having fewer accidents EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

4 36 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT You should conclude the activity with agreement on the current focus for your company, the priorities and how employees can impact theme areas. This information can then be taken forward into the next session which focuses on developing your employee engagement goals and outcomes. PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE

5 MODULE 2: SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVES 37 Handout 2.1 Case study example: Marks and Spencer aligning engagement to the organizational strategy This case demonstrates how Marks and Spencer align their employee engagement activity with their company strategy. Engaging and connecting with employees is a value steeped in Marks and Spencer s 127-year heritage and continues to be at the heart of the company. Marks and Spencer (M&S), an iconic brand, now graces the streets in 43 territories across Europe, the Middle East and Asia with over 380 wholly-owned, partly-owned and franchised stores. It was in the 1930s that the Personnel Department was created at M&S. This was headed up by Flora Solomon, who had met Simon Marks, son of Michael Marks, at a dinner party in Simon Marks, often described as the architect of the modern Marks and Spencer, built the business on a simple philosophy that a happier workforce was a more productive workforce. Emotional connection In 2007, Plan A was introduced and was extended in March Plan A is M&S s eco and ethical programme, which aims to make them the world s most sustainable major retailer by Currently there are around 3,500 Plan A volunteers in stores who really drive this programme. M&S states that Plan A takes a holistic approach to sustainability, focusing on customers, involving all areas of the business and tackling issues such as climate change, waste, raw materials, health and being a fair partner. M&S believe the key driver of employee engagement is creating emotional connection. The CSR function is not an add-on. Plan A is about how M&S do business. It s a strong lever in demonstrating sustainable leadership, where they re doing the right thing for their people, the community and the environment. However, M&S argue that the HR challenge is how you continue to engage with employees even in difficult times, so they feel absolutely aligned with the business plan, are committed and passionate about what they do, and act in a way that will further the performance of the organization. Today, organizations need to be much closer to their people in communicating the what and why of the company so they can really get behind it to drive the business plan and strategy. The M&S way is to build a strong coalition of people to come together so that individuals look beyond their own specific role and see themselves as the sum of all parts in totality one team working together to deliver the end results. M&S are committed to make work meaningful for people. The whole area of discretionary effort in order to drive productivity has become key for organizations. M&S has always invested in its people to make sure they feel energized, motivated and engaged. Everything is linked back to the M&S values of quality, service, value, innovation and trust starting right at the top. They use a language externally and internally around doing the right thing. There s not a silver bullet. There are many small initiatives M&S undertake to create a constant drum beat of how this is important around the company. EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

6 38 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT Each year Marks and Spencer supports over 700 people those at risk of homelessness, young people, disabled people and single parents who face real barriers to getting into work, by giving them work experience placements between two and four weeks. Set up in 2004, the scheme works closely with M&S charity partners Gingerbread, Business Action on Homelessness, Remploy and the Princes Trust. Marks & Start is now the biggest company-led work experience programme in the UK and Ireland. Each person is assigned a buddy/coach, and spends the placement shadowing their buddy, who coaches them in three specific areas: products, services and customer service. The scheme is so successful that 90 per cent of participants say it s a life-changing experience as it gives them the confidence to get into the world of work. Around 40 per cent of the people who complete their placements gain meaningful employment with M&S or another employer within three months. There are also annual Marks & Start awards which reward the buddies who have done the most to support individuals where they ve had the most significant lifechanging experiences. The payback? The stores that have Marks & Start placements and buddies have some of the lowest sickness absence figures and employee turnover, reducing recruitment costs. The buddies are hugely motivated. Once they ve worked with someone through their placement and that person goes on to become successfully and gainfully employed, the buddy feels extremely proud. Plus the placements who feel they ve been given a second chance in life are incredibly appreciative and therefore very committed to working, especially if they then secure employment within M&S. This creates loyalty. Community spirit In addition, M&S bridges the gap between young people and the world of work by working directly with schools and creating 2,500 work experience placements a year for young people aged 16. Every employee has one paid day each year to do local volunteering in the community and often people team up and volunteer together. PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE

7 MODULE 2: SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVES 39 Trust has become increasingly challenging, particularly as there are various examples of companies where trust been eroded. To live the value of trust, HR ensures it has very clear communication at all levels of the organization which is continuously reinforced. M&S runs an employee network called BIG (Business Involvement Group), which has around 3,500 members. They recently introduced a scheme called the big idea through the network, which runs every couple of months. Employees are asked a specific question and on average 2,000 responses are received. These submissions are then filtered down and the people who have submitted the best ideas get them implemented as well as winning a prize. Every three months a retail conference of about 1,000 retail store managers and area managers come together to meet, connect, network and hear from senior people within the team. In addition, regular top 100 meetings are hosted where the CEO and executive directors engage with top teams.it s hardly surprising that in M&S s annual Your Say survey (which has a 94 per cent response rate), the positive results around employee engagement levels are high. Seventy-four per cent of employees are really engaged, compared to typical external research which reveals the average for the retail sector stands at 33 per cent, and in the area of trust, there is a positive scoring of 93 per cent. No one seeks permission to do the right thing. At M&S they just quietly get on with it, making a small difference, and that s really invaluable to their employees. EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

8 40 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT ACTIVITY 2.2 Defining a vision for your employee engagement What this is: This activity is designed to enable you to develop your future vision for employee engagement. Why use it: A clearly articulated vision for employee engagement within your organization is important to ensure everyone is on the same page and heading in the same direction. How to use it: To run this activity you can use the slides and bullets to brief the activity. You ll also need some materials to make mood boards such as card, magazines, coloured pens, stickers, and craft materials. Who to use it with: This activity is helpful to use with those people who have some responsibility for designing your engagement strategy and approach, for example your senior team, HR team and engagement team. Overview Begin your session by asking the group if they have ever experienced any weird coincidences such as deciding to buy a new car and then seeing that car everywhere? Or for the parents in the room on finding out they or their partner was pregnant and suddenly seeing pregnant women everywhere? Ask the group for any examples of this phenomenon they might have. Then share the following information to explain why this phenomenon occurs: These situations aren t a coincidence at all but actually the result of our own in-built spam filter. We are bombarded with sensory images, sounds and data all day long. There is a part of our brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) that helps filter out unnecessary stimulus that we re bombarded with. The RAS consists of a bundle of densely packed nerve cells located in the central core of the brainstem. You can think of it as your own, personal executive secretary for your conscious mind. It is the chief gatekeeper to screen or filter the type of information that will be allowed to get through. What is amazing is that you can deliberately program the reticular activating system by choosing the exact messages you send from your conscious mind. This is why we see the cars or pregnant women everywhere. This is why it s so important to set goals, and visualize our future. What we need to do is to create a very specific picture of our future vision in our conscious mind. PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE

9 MODULE 2: SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVES 41 The RAS will then pass this on to our subconscious which will then help us move towards this future vision we have created. It does this by bringing to our attention all the relevant information which otherwise might have remained as background noise. This is why we need to develop a clear vision for our employee engagement activity and work. Ask the group to create a creative mood board to communicate the future vision for employee engagement within your company. Distribute your mood board materials and give them the following questions to help them create their mood board: Imagine anything is possible: what could it be like to work here in the future? Describe what would be happening: what will it look like and feel like? What will a typical day be like? Why will people want to come and work here? Why will people want to stay? Ask the groups to then present back their mood boards. Ask the group to reflect on: the common themes; the differences between the mood boards. Finally conclude the session by asking the group to come to a consensus on their desired future vision for their employee engagement activity. ACTIVITY 2.3 Defining the goals and outcomes of your employee engagement What this is: This activity is designed to enable you to unpack your company s strategy, goals, ambitions and objectives in order to understand how employees might contribute to achieving them. Why use it: Good employee engagement objectives should be aligned to what your company is trying to achieve, and using this activity will enable you to do this. How to use it: To run this activity you ll just need the activity notes, any relevant company information such as mission, goals etc, and a flip chart and pens. Who to use it with: This activity is helpful to use with those people who have some responsibility for designing your engagement strategy and approach, for example your senior team, HR team and engagement team. EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

10 42 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT Background The process of defining the goals and outcomes of your engagement strategy will enable you to ensure that it is aligned to your business strategy. Understanding the purpose of engagement within your company, and why and how it will help you achieve your overall business strategy, is the cornerstone of achieving alignment. In addition an engagement strategy which can be clearly linked to the overall business strategy enables practitioners to demonstrate value to the business and get buy-in from key stakeholders. Very often the focus on employee engagement comes from objectives such as wishing to gain a specific Investors in People Award, or perhaps gain entry into a list such as the UK Times Top 100 companies to work for. Sometimes the objective is to create a great place to work, or become an employer of choice. These are examples of employee engagement goals. The practitioner then needs to link these goals to desired business outcomes that are part of the company strategy. For example, these outcomes could include lowering employee turnover, or increasing customer satisfaction metrics. The table below sets out some common employee engagement goals and business outcomes. Typical employee engagement goals Achieve Investors in People Gold Get on The Times or Fortune Top 100 list Become a great place to work Become an employer of choice Increase survey response rates Increase employee engagement index on annual survey Example business outcomes Reduce employee turnover Reduce absenteeism Increase productivity Increase sales Improve customer experience Improve company reputation Overview You can work up your employee engagement goals either with a small group or as an individual. Firstly take the outputs from Activity 2.1: revisit which aspect of your business strategy you believe employees can impact. Then revisit your outputs from Activity 2.2 outlining your future vision for your engagement activity. After reflecting on these outputs consider what your employee engagement goals and subsequent business outcomes could be. Identify the outcomes you wish your employee engagement activity to impact. Take a look at the information below to help you identify those business outcomes you believe you can impact. PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE

11 MODULE 2: SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVES 43 Outcomes of engagement Reducing sickness and absenteeism/improving employee well-being: Engaged employees in the UK take an average of 2.69 sick days per year; the disengaged take Improving your customer experience: Seventy per cent of engaged employees indicate they have a good understanding of how to meet customer needs; only 17 per cent of non-engaged employees say the same. Improving your employee retention rates: Engaged employees are 87 per cent less likely to leave the organization than the disengaged. Improving your company reputation: Engaged employees advocate their company or organization 67 per cent against only 3 per cent of the disengaged. Seventy-eight per cent would recommend their company s products or services, against 13 per cent of the disengaged. A few questions you might wish to consider: Why do you want engaged employees? What are the outcomes you are hoping to achieve? How are they tethered to organization or business outcomes? For what purpose? Now identify your employee engagement objectives or goals: Desired outcomes EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

12 44 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT Top tip We re all familiar with acronym SMART when it comes to setting objectives or goals. As a quick reminder: Specific goals must be clear and unambiguous in what they need to achieve. Measurable goals must include concrete criteria to allow progress and delivery to be tracked. Achievable goals must be within the organization s power to reach. Realistic goals must be attainable given the resources available within your organization. Timely goals should have a time frame allocated for delivery. It s important to ensure our employee engagement goals and objectives are tangible and concrete, so that we can track performance and ultimately measure our success in achieving them. A good way to assess how concrete your goals and outcomes are is to ask yourself how will I measure that? and how will I prove that we have been successful in achieving this goal? Some examples of SMART include: achieving Investors in People Gold; improving your employee engagement index by x%; x% of your employees saying that they would recommend your company to other people; x% of your employees saying that your company is a great place to work; making the Best Companies list or achieving Great Place To Work status; a rating of 4 or more on Glassdoor. If you are struggling to articulate how you will measure success in achieving one of your goals, it probably isn t concrete enough. A few questions you might wish to consider: What do you need employee engagement to deliver for you? What does success look like? Where do you want to be in 5 years? PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE

13 MODULE 2: SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVES 45 Our employee engagement goals (or objectives) are Introducing your employee engagement strategy template As you move through the various modules of the toolkit you can complete the relevant sections on your employee engagement strategy template below: Your strategy and action plan Employee Engagement Definition: Future Vision: Goals Outcomes EMMA BRIDGER, 2015

14 46 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT TOOLKIT Action plan Drivers Measurement MODULE SUMMARY Aligning your engagement goals and objectives to your organizational goals and strategy is critical to ensure engagement adds value to your business. The more clearly you can do this the more buy-in and commitment you will enjoy from your stakeholders. Within this module we have shared activities to enable you to design your vision, purpose goals and outcomes for engagement. The clearer you are about what it is you want to achieve by having an engaged workforce the more likely you are to achieve it. This clear articulation will also enable you to design a subsequent measurement plan to demonstrate to stakeholders the progress you are aiming for and the value engagement can add to an organization. PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE