Creating a culture of engagement begins with fostering openness to ideas, encouraging respectful debate and the constructive analysis of ideas. Both success and failure need to be celebrated as opportunities for learning. Organizations can further empower their human capital assets to seek more than the personal mastery required of their positions--looking beyond the boundaries of their positions and current projects.
The engaged employee will perform better, share and engage their colleagues. A culture of engagement will enable employees to view their role in the organization as one of creating meaningful value for stakeholders.
Key issues for organizations seeking to engage their employees include:
Informing employees of expectations.
Providing employees with the needed resources and training.
Creating a sense of importance within the organization.
Providing opportunities for creativity with choice in regard to creative projects that can be pursued.
Discussing goals and progress on a continued basis with employees.
Ensuring that employees are recognized and rewarded for their efforts.
Through personal searches, new ideas and opportunities for collaboration should present themselves. Ideas can be shared with other colleagues with the goal of active listening and joint analysis. The most innovative organizations will additionally provide employees and managers the chance to participate in ideation sessions, intrapreneurship, innovation summits and open innovation. Ongoing training and mentorship can be used to support these innovative activities.
Non-monetary rewards such as public acknowledgement of an innovative idea or project, opportunities to conduct further creative study and to champion vetted ideas, are effective in the continued motivation of employees. Ultimately, the empowerment of employees through innovation, will create the needed social capital within the organizational and directly link intellectual capital assets to value creation activities for consumers.
In your Context:
The goal of this exercise is to assess your current organizational culture, existing employee engagement initiatives as well as seek new opportunities for engagement.
Current Culture of Engagement:
1) What does employee engagement mean for your organization?
2) Why is engagement important?
3) What percentage of your employees are highly engaged?
4) How does your organization currently engage its employees?
New Opportunities for Engagement:
1) What have employees told your organization about their needs and desired level of engagement?
2) How can leadership better engage its employees?
3) Are there new opportunities to engage employees to drive innovation?
4) How does your organization develop competencies related to engagement and inclusion?
