Shaping the Future engagement tool 5526

Engagement for sustainable organisation performance This tool will help you: • put engagement strategies into practice • identify what your organisation does well and build on your achievements to increase engagement • plan what else you can do with your people to maximise engagement. 55 26 1 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Help using this tool the web this tool Navigation To navigate through chapter headings in the tool, use the bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat Reader. To navigate through individual pages, use the icons on the bottom right of each page. Links Red links will link you to the CIPD website or an external website. Blue links will link you to other areas within the tool. If you experience any difficulty with the links provided in this tool, you may need to update your version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download a free update from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2. html The Adobe Acrobat Reader preferences must be set up as follows: Edit / Preferences / Internet then you must make sure ‘Display PDF in browser’ is checked. i-boxes i-boxes will open up extra useful information in a panel when you click on them. Click anywhere on the panel to close it again. Print To print a page use the Adobe Acrobat Reader print facility. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 2 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Who is this tool for? • HR and learning and development professionals who want to maximise engagement in their organisation • managers who want to gain maximum return on the skills and abilities of their people • HR consultants working with client organisations to build an engaged workforce • senior managers and HR executives who are committed to embedding engagement, a must for sustained organisational performance. Benefits of using this tool For you • Apply the findings from the leading-edge Shaping the Future research about engagement and sustaining organisational performance. • Review the extent to which management behaviours are encouraging engagement in the organisation. • Identify areas where attention to engagement is needed to enhance organisation performance. For your organisation: • Ensure clarity about engagement issues that affect organisational performance. • Establish a process for re-energising engagement. • Develop sustainable management practices suitable for both challenging economic circumstances and organisational growth situations. For your people: • Unlock people’s potential, enabling them to be the best they can at work, enhancing their own sense of well-being as well as enabling organisation performance. • Develop clarity on how they connect with the organisation’s purpose and where their commitments are placed. • Enable people to understand organisational priorities and the external pressures faced in order to direct and manage themselves with more awareness and in the interests of well-being. This tool has been written by Simon Turner and Dr Valerie Anderson from the University of Portsmouth Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 3 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Toolmap Help using this tool Benefits of using this tool Toolmap Introduction Instrument 1: Locus of engagement Instrument 2: Building engagement Instrument 3: Developing engaging managers Instrument 4: The nature of engagement in your organisation Your action plan Useful related CIPD resources Further reading and references Useful websites Appendix Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 4 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Introduction Engagement is now recognised as a central issue for organisations, whatever the economic climate. Many companies acknowledge that, although they have sophisticated data sets to understand what their customers need and want, they have very little information about what is important to their employees, what motivates them and what workplace approaches would best build on those understandings. In 2009 the UK Government endorsed the MacLeod Report on the role of employee engagement to enhance organisational performance (MacLeod and Clarke 2009). Research supported by the CIPD has shown how important engagement is for: performance, profit, productivity, customer service, retention, innovation and well-being. Engagement is a key driver of sustainable organisation performance In 2010 the CIPD published the outcomes of a flagship research project: Shaping the Future. This project involved rigorous research over a two-year period to assess the factors that enable organisations to perform well both in the short term and to sustain their performance over time, even through testing economic periods. Engagement was one of the three key themes (along with leadership and organisation development) that initially guided the research, given the wealth of existing literature articulating the link between engagement and organisation performance. We examined what it is about engagement that will really make a difference for sustainable organisation performance. A key finding of the Shaping the Future study is that organisations need to get ‘under the surface’ of engagement scores. It’s important to understand what we term people’s ‘locus of engagement’, meaning what they are engaged with. For example, people can be engaged with their work, their manager, customer, colleagues, the organisation as a whole, or something else. Furthermore, in times of labour market insecurity people may say they are engaged but this may represent relief to be ‘in work’ rather than longer-term loyalty and commitment. Alternatively, if people become too closely connected to one aspect of their work above all others, their actions may undermine performance and they may resist change. This tool builds directly on the Shaping the Future work and focuses on the insights related to engagement. It examines what HR professionals can do to get under the surface of engagement in order to get clarity about engagement issues that affect organisational performance; re-energise commitment where this is necessary; and develop sustainable practices suitable for both challenging economic circumstances and organisational growth situations. For further background information about the concept of engagement and CIPD work in this area, click here. Find out about the CIPD comprehensive Employee Engagement toolkit. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 5 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Engagement is one tool amongst many in the HR professional’s ‘armoury’. We are currently developing a range of other practical tools, directly related to other insights uncovered by the Shaping the Future project as important for sustainable organisation performance, namely: • achieving alignment, agility and shared purpose • building capability and talent to meet both short-term and long-term priorities • making best use of performance measures and metrics. Engagement Sustained organisation performance Capability and talent Performance measures and metrics Alignment, agility and shared purpose Figure 1: Key issues for sustained organisation performance Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 6 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback What’s in this ‘Engagement for Sustainable Organisation Performance’ tool? This tool starts off by setting out why engagement is important. It comprises four separate instruments, each focusing on a particular aspect of employee engagement, with practical exercises, illustrative case study examples and action planning facilities. You may find some instruments of more relevance to you than others, depending on how much knowledge you already have about engagement in your organisation. Further sources of information that you may find useful are also included. In this tool we adopt an approach known as appreciative inquiry, which involves: • discovering and appreciating the best of what is already happening • envisaging ‘what could be’ and working with others to co-construct ‘what should be’ • planning how to sustain ‘what will be’. Instrument 1: Locus of engagement This instrument provides an opportunity for you to undertake an ‘engagement check-up’ to identify what the areas of strength are with engagement in your organisation and assess where engagement needs re-energising. Instrument 2: Building engagement This instrument focuses on specific practices and actions that can contribute to engagement. It will enable you to take stock of the organisation’s capacity to build engagement and plan an appropriate way forward to envisage ‘what should be’. Instrument 3: Developing engaging managers This instrument provides a framework to help you identify current strengths and potential behaviours within the management population of your organisation to drive engagement. Instrument 4: The nature of engagement in your organisation This instrument examines whether engagement in your organisation is mostly of a transactional nature, focused on extrinsic rewards or whether a more emotional and enduring connection has been made by people in your organisation. Action planning The tool also provides an action plan to help you identify and take forward key actions to make a sustained improvement to engagement in your organisation. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 7 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Read about employees’ locus of engagement in Birmingham City Council and BIG Lottery Fund. Instrument 1: Locus of engagement What do we mean by locus of engagement? The CIPD Shaping the Future project found that people can be engaged at different levels and with various aspects of the organisation or the work. These different ‘loci of engagement’ are illustrated in Figure 2. The Shaping the Future research found that: • employees can be engaged with more than one locus at a time • employees’ locus of engagement is not static • employees’ locus of engagement may not translate to engagement with the organisation. Figure 2: Locus of engagement Engagement with the business Engagement with the work Engagement with the people Engagement with the future Engagement for sustainable organisational performance A CIPD online practical tool 8 of 42 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Getting ‘under the skin’ of engagement: going beyond the surveys You may already conduct a regular engagement survey in your organisation. CIPD guidance to HR directors suggests that engagement surveys should incorporate a range of factors, such as: employee commitment, organisational citizenship, staff satisfaction, attitudes to management, work–life balance and intention to leave. A range of survey instruments have been devised by organisations, such as Gallup Q12, the CIPD and the Institute of Employment Studies, and these are used to good effect by many organisations. Find out how to keep engagement under review. The Shaping the Future research found that although such surveys highlight engagement levels in different parts of the organisation, they don’t necessarily uncover what it is that employees are engaged with (their locus of engagement) or the intensity of that engagement. For sustainable performance, it is important to understand how, and with what, employees are engaged. The CIPD has recently commissioned a piece of work from Kingston Engagement Consortium examining the effect on performance of what employees are engaged with. View this report. Your engagement check-up The engagement check-up provides an opportunity to explore the locus of engagement of people in your organisation and the intensity of that engagement. As both the locus and the intensity of engagement are likely to vary over time, it is important that your organisation commits to a regular ‘engagement check-up’ to identify where attention should be focused to sustain organisation performance. You can use this instrument to initiate an engagement ‘check-up’. Choose the range of your check- up (the organisation as a whole; a specific business unit; specific staff groupings) and think about both the locus of engagement and the intensity of engagement. The statements in the ‘check-up’ derive from our Shaping the Future research findings, reflecting the key aspects of each loci that employees identified with. Find out how NHS Dumfries and Galloway keeps engagement under review. Find out how Standard Chartered Bank keeps engagement under review. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 9 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Your engagement check-up Unit or staff group being considered: Intensity of engagement 1 Weak 2 3 4 5 Strong Locus of engagement: the organisation People seem to relate to the values of this organisation. The goals of this organisation are clear. The organisation’s procedures enable committed people to create business advantage. People feel that someone or something within their organisation provides financial, developmental or professional rewards that are in their best interests. The purpose of the organisation is considered in terms of its impact on society at large. Senior managers lead by example. Locus of engagement: the people Managers in this organisation encourage two-way communication that promotes open and honest dialogue and understanding. People value, support and empathise with other team members. People positively relate to and with their colleagues. Locus of engagement: the work Job roles are sufficiently wide to enable people to push back the boundaries and to work beyond their job descriptions. People initiate ideas and action to improve service quality. People identify with the values and standards of their profession as well as those of the organisation. People focus on outcomes and achievements. People feel concerned about decisions that affect the way they deliver services to customers. People identify with their business unit, rather than the organisation as a whole. Locus of engagement: beyond the immediate People look for opportunities for career enhancement or enrichment. People want to focus on self-development. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 10 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Engagement check-up: action planning Reflecting on your responses to the 'check-up' exercise, make a note here of areas where action is needed. Think about the locus of engagement and also its intensity. Identify where people have a strong need but the organisation does not yet provide opportunities for this need to be realised. What you note down here will be automatically transferred to the action planning process towards the end of this tool. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 11 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Instrument 2: Building engagement Overview Research undertaken by the CIPD has identified a range of organisational characteristics and practices that are associated with engagement outcomes that include: employee involvement; effective communication; meaningful work; authenticity among managers; a supportive work environment; and assuring a good person–job fit. In addition to effective HR practices, therefore, organisations must address wider issues which are outlined in the IDEAL engagement framework in Figure 3. Figure 3: The IDEAL engagement framework Find out more about the components of this IDEAL engagement framework. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 12 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback This instrument focuses on specific practices and actions that are associated with building and sustaining an engaged workforce. Use it to assess the extent to which your team, business unit or organisation is driving engagement or putting barriers in the way. Engagement is an issue that requires constant attention as people’s experience of the employment relationship is rarely static. This instrument therefore provides the opportunity to: take stock of the organisation’s capacity to build engagement organisation-wide or at the level of departments, business units or specific work teams and also considers ways to re-energise engagement where this is needed. Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 13 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Building engagement assessment Where does your organisation, business unit or department ‘stand’ in relation to fostering engagement? Use the first part of this instrument to take stock. You can then use your responses to identify the priority actions to build on areas of strength or to re-energise engagement. Focus on the areas where your score is ‘highest’ and where it is ‘lowest’. This can help you to identify practices that are working well, which you could share more widely with other parts of your organisation, as well as areas where barriers need to be overcome. Involvement and communication We provide employees with opportunities to express views upwards. Reactive decision-making occurs that does not pick up problems before it is too late. We regularly review organisational communications and particularly arrangements for listening to employee opinions. We have low levels of advocacy, which carry the risk of creating a downward spiral of employee resentment and disengagement. Workers feeling well informed about what is happening in the organisation. There are low perceptions of the quality of downward communication. We keep employees in the picture even when there is no concrete news. Lack of fluidity in communications and knowledge-sharing occur due to rigid communication channels or cultural norms. We use all available media to ‘beat the rumour mill’. Many employees find out most of their information through a vigorous ‘rumour mill’. We brief line managers in full on developments so they can talk to their teams. There are strong perceptions that senior managers are remote from service delivery issues. We make use of diverse media, including social networking, to provide real-time communication. We only plan communications around key business or operational issues. Leadership effectiveness We support line managers and encourage them to design challenging jobs and manage effective teams. There are inconsistent management styles based on the attitudes of individual managers, which leads to perceptions of unfairness. We feed engagement scores into the appraisal process for managers, identifying line managers with poor leadership skills. We present engagement scores to managers. Authenticity We think about creative, non- financial ways of motivating employees, such as recognition schemes and team-building days. We rely on a command and control management style. The senior management team live the values and behaviours that they espouse. There is a lack of consistency between the messages of senior managers and their observed actions. High engagement 5 4 3 2 1 Low engagement Engagement for sustainable organisation performance A CIPD online practical tool 14 of 41 © CIPD 2011 Your feedback Depending on the issues you’ve surfaced, you may want to consider new initiatives (or re-energising existing initiatives) to help sustain engagement. Organisations have learned the hard way that trying to ‘buy engagement’ through expensive tactics only serves to raise expectations and can lead to disappointment when