Logistik group director James Wilkins thinks out loud
We Need To Talk
Engaging for Success: enhancing performance through employee engagement, also known as, The Macleod Report, doesn’t sound like the most exciting read does it?
Well although you might think it’s another Big Mac report from another McGovernent. what David Macleod actually says is insightful, sensible and there’s lots of healthy advice to sink your teeth into.
One of the points the report stresses that I’m going to highlight today because it really hits the mark is that Britain’s workplaces are beginning to reflect changing attitudes, norms and expectations in wider society.
Today’s offices are a mixture of Generation X and Y and just like Gen X in the eighties, their noughties counterparts have high expectations about what work will offer them in terms of self-fulfillment.
Younger employees want more out of a job than a wage packet at the end of the month and the best employers don’t see this as asking too much.
That’s why employee engagement isn’t just about giving your workforce direction and leadership, although that’s very important it’s for another time, but it’s also about investing in the hearts and minds of your people.
Engagement and communications should be personal and bespoke for your company and its values but there was one strong common thread between the report’s successful case studies - they all created an interactive environment that encouraged two-way dialogue.
Companies that allow their employees a choice and a voice are always going to experience better levels of engagement because their audience is active and not passive. The ethos at Google is, give the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a difference, and they will.
That’s not hard is it?
There are so many easy ways in which to talk to your people, getting them to talk back is the hard bit.
To read the Macleod Report and find out how the government is mobilising employee engagement visit http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file52215.pdf.
