INNERGISE!

How many of your employees would say that?  If they did all say that, do you think it would improve productivity? Of course, it would!

If the Sunday Times “Best Company to work for” awards are to be believed, there are hundreds of companies fighting each other for the honour of being known as the best employer.  Why is that important, and how in these cost conscious times, can we engage our staff without spending a fortune.

The “Best Company” survey looks at 8 areas that define employee engagement, as follows:

• Leadership – what do they think of their leaders
• My Company – are they proud of what the company does and how it does it
• My Manager – are they motivated by their manager
• My Team – does the team dynamics add value
• Personal Growth – are they allowed to develop their skills and career
• Wellbeing – is their physical and mental health considered
• Giving Something Back – does the company reinvest in the local community or through charitable work
• Fair Deal – are they rewarded better or worse than similar positions elsewhere

Try marking yourself crudely out of 10 on these measures, and see where your company sits. This is pretty comprehensive, and really allows you to find out where you might need to do some work.  It is worth noting that the winning companies are scoring about 90% on all of these measures.

Whilst this might identify areas for improvement, more importantly, how do you put it right?  Innergy work with a whole range of clients from different sectors helping them improving their employee engagement, and consistently we find that there is a divide between the perception of management as to how motivated their staff are and actually how motivated they are.  That’s pretty worrying, because of 2 things.

Firstly, the managers will put in place measures that are not appropriate for the actual problem.  Secondly, staff will continue to feel undervalued, since they are never asked how they feel.  So the first thing to do to improve engagement is to measure it, which will also allow you to see what impact any measures you take have had, since you can then also measure it at the end of the process.  If you have never done this before, then Innergy have a fantastic online tool to manage this quickly and accurately.  Contact us if you would like to discuss how this works. 

There was a recent study done on what factors motivate people.  Pay and reward whilst important is not the first on the list.  “Challenging and interesting work” was number one.  Also high up the list were the following “Freedom to make decisions”, “Perceived value of work”, “Opportunities to advance my career”. 

There is a common theme here, in that they all require a change in the way we work, and therefore, don’t necessarily mean a big investment is required to improve the current position in the eyes of the employees. 

There are lots of managers who will put their head in the sand and are convinced that their staff are happy, and there isn’t much that they can do anyway in the current climate.  Well, if you are an Ostrich, you’ll never know if there is a better place to be if you don’t first face the music and find out where you are.  So, go on, find out if your staff love working for you and if not, why not.