Letting Go Isn't Easy - The Trouble With Ideas

As I have mentioned previously we, that is Martin Brooks, Kath Howell and me, have been working on a new Employee Engagement solution for a few weeks. It's now time to get out there and show the market what we have been up too. We have met CIOs, Professors, HR practitioners and even Consultants and we are all delighted with the feedback.

However, despite the feedback, I can't help but feel bad about releasing our "baby".

All sorts of doubts go through your head - Is it any good? Does it make sense? Will people be interested? Will anyone care?

I mentioned my anxiety to another colleague - the venerable Dr Young - the other day. He simply smiled at me and suggested I read AA Mile:

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it

Employee Engagement - Psychological Safety

Before getting to the "How" of employee engagement it is important that a decision is taken regarding which psychological model has the potential to allow any subsequent solutions to be built on a solid foundation. We looked at a number of models and, as I mentioned previously, we decided to base our thinking on the 3 conditions described in Dr. William A. Kahn's SAM model.

The "S", representing psychological "Safety". This improves engagement levels when the context in which people are operating makes them feel secure enough to be themselves. Psychological safety is influenced by interpersonal work relationships, group dynamics, management styles and processes, and organizational norms. So, unclear, inconsistent, unpredictable and threatening environments create a risky workplace that make people feel unsafe and therefore unable to perform.

Practically, this can be applied to redundancy or downsizing situations, where the HR department are thinking through their strategy. Clearly, it is important that legal obligations are met and that people "leaving" the organisation are allowed to do so with dignity and support. However, the people left behind are often forgotten about. Not only is it important that they see their friends and colleagues being treated fairly it is absolutely critical that, if engagement matters to the business (and I cannot think of a situation where it would not be), the "survivors" are equally well looked after.

If nothing is done, in these circumstances, to make the person feel psychologically safe then they will worry about their own position which in turn will damage their level of engagement in their role and ultimately result in sub-optimal organisational performance. So compounding the business issues that lead to the problem in the first place.

Employee Engagement - Creating the Blueprint

Over the past few months I have been focusing on the development of a new solution designed to help organisations improve their levels of Employee Engagement. This is the first of several posts on the subject in which I intend to take you step-by-step through our findings and thinking on what is, without doubt, a critical theme in the post downturn economy.

Having reviewed, quite literally 100s of papers, books and websites the first thing that became very clear was that there is no such thing as an off the shelve "one size fits all" solution to this issue. Rather, each business (and individuals within) requires a unique mix (blue print) of interventions focused on both the organisational and individual elements that support (personal) engagement.

According to Dr. William A. Kahn (perhaps the most eminent of thinkers in this area), personal engagement is about “...harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles”. In other words, employee engagement is how much of our personal selves we bring into our jobs while doing work-related tasks. Achieving this is no easy task (given the state of engagement levels in the UK) but but with an understanding of these factors I believe it is possible to architect the foundations that will create an organisation ready to personally engage it's people.

How, therefore, does an employee become personally engaged in her role?

Kahn's research suggests that personal engagement occurs when employees find meaningfulness, a safe social climate, and availability within their employment. This notion, which I will refer to in future posts as the SAM model, suggests that all three of these conditions have a positive impact on an employees personal engagement levels. Therefore, when employees view their roles as meaningful, when their work environment makes them feel secure enough to be themselves, and when they have enough energy to be fully available, they may become personally engaged.

Understanding the SAM model is the critical first step for the Engagement Architect to understand. More on this in a future article.

Ethics Expert Slams London Tube Strike

A leading ethics expert challenges strikers on underground and elsewhere to admit they are blackmailing their employers and hurting innocent people.

It's time to call a spade a spade - striking is simply dishonest, cowardly and unethical, claims Dr Bill Robb, an Aberdeen-based ethics expert. Dr Bill is director of the Centre for Alleviating Social Problems through Values Education.

"Many of us have suffered from people striking and it looks like were in for more inconvenience as BBC, tube and airline staff threaten strike action. The dishonesty is staring us in the face. Strikers claim they have no other option but there is always a choice withhold your labour by resigning. Striking is in effect a refusal to work while still keeping your job. Strikers are usually dissatisfied with their terms or conditions - they feel their employer is not paying them what they think they are worth".

He goes on to claim that strikers are cowardly. "Strikers know that no other employer will value them more highly and hence pay them more. Surely, if your employer is rotten, it makes sense to find a better employer and better pay. If all workers resigned from, say, the Royal Mail today, the business would begin to fail and employers would then realise the value of the workforce. Of course, strikers know that thousands of people are waiting to snap up those jobs at the existing wages. Strikers are too cowardly to test their value by resigning and seeking a better job".

It may be harsh to describe strikers as unethical but Dr Bill gives two reasons. " Firstly, strikers are willing to hurt innocent others to get what they want - they don't care about the people they hurt. Strikers know that their actions will make life difficult. Strikers hope that by hurting customers, those innocents will put pressure on employers to give in to strikers demands. Secondly, strikers are blackmailing their employers. What strikers are really saying is, Give us what we want or we will damage your business and your livelihood.

Dr Bill is clearly angry, "We should add another adjective to describe striking 'stupid', because blackmailing your employer by damaging the business is doing oneself out of a job in the long term. Surely, its time to do away with a law that legitimises blackmail with the term industrial action."