A Hierarchy of Wellbeing and Engagement, part 2

Last time I looked at the first two levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs and how that could be translated into increasing employee engagement.  This time we’re going to loo at the other three.  Next up …

Love and Belonging.  Everyone want to feel that someone cares about them. It’s become clear that in recent times organisations and line managers in particular have overlooked that simple fact.  It’s not enough to pay people and expect them to get on with it.  The power of acknowledgement cannot be underestimated. MIT studies have demonstrated  that acknowledgement is a powerful motivator.  And anyway, isn’t is just polite to say thank you?  The line management role in showing the organisation cares is critical and by developing a deeper relationship through informal coaching (not managing performance) reaps untold rewards. 

At an organisational level, how are employees involved in the decision making process? Annual culture and engagement surveys are great - if the organisation acts immediately upon the feedback.  surveys as a box ticking or reporting exercise are worse than worthless.  I remember the first ever staff satisfaction survey I sent out.  The results were horrendous and made very uncomfortable reading.  However we picked out and implemented 3 simple low cost measures we could do and the results were amazing. It also made other changes we were making easier to introduce.

The bottom line:  Recognition is a core responsibility  - no one ever resigned over too much praise.  Managers have to build effective relationship with their staff, listen and respond to concerns.  Develop the culture of recognition with organisational surveys that have teeth and take swift action to show you are listening - and care.

Achievement. Ah yes, the dreaded appraisal or performance review process, where we sit down, review previous goals and set new ones. There’s nothing wrong in principle but its implementation has been patchy to say the least, often due to the importance attached to it (see above).  Lets take this to another level.  

Everyone has the desire to get better at something they are passionate about - why do people spend hours practising the piano for no material reward?  It’s that sense of achievement and accomplishment that drives them.  In the workplace its all about career development.  Understanding where an individual’s talents and passions lie and channeling that energy through a career path is what creates the win-win.  Again it comes down to the line manager - can they hold a developmental dialogue that promotes growth?  It’s these softer skills that managers often lack, which makes the difference between engaged or disengaged employees.  These skills are often found in a coach’s skill set and building these skills into management development programmes is a must.

Alongside this, the organisation has to have in place the mechanisms for supporting employees and creating career paths. For example, If the only way your top sales people can achieve long term career success is by moving into a sales management role and removing them  from what they do best (and love doing); that isn’t the smartest thing to do.

The bottom line: Match individual talents and passions to organisational roles.  Provide career development support through managers with coaching skills.

Self Actualisation.  A tricky one perhaps, but I think not.  The hardest thing is to describe what self-actualisation is. I think of it as those moments where you feel one with yourself and the world - a beautiful sunset, a work of art (Sergeant’s Lady Agnew of Lochnaw does it for me ).  It’s that moment of connectedness to something bigger - purpose.

what every organisation has to do is build meaning and purpose in every aspect of work and create a connection with each and every employee.  go to any company’s website or read their set of annual accounts and there is likely to be a reference to the company’s mission, vision and values.  But how often are they played out day to day on the shop floor?  Not very often.  It’s the missing link that ties in everything I’ve written about above.  Without meaning or purpose, everything else is window dressing.

Let me go back to the MIT study I mentioned earlier.  The experiments were conducted by Dan Ariely and he found that recognition led to higher performance.  what he also discovered was that meaning increased performance.  Where employees could see meaning in what they worked on it led to increased motivation and performance.  you can read more about the research  and what happened to a software company that took the opposite approach here.

The bottom line: Maslow’s work is still relevant today, but maybe turn it on its head. Build up from the values and purpose - Just like in the film Field of Dreams - build it and they will come. 

Trainer, Train Thyself

I've recently completed re-designing our Company website, which launched on 1st September.  No big deal you might think, but until I took on the project around 2 months ago, I knew pretty much nothing about web design, HTML or any other programming code. I'm pleased with the results and I hope you are too. If you're reading this, you're on the emenex.co.uk website.

So, what did I learn from this experience and does it have wider application/implications for  learning and development?

Technology is revolutionising the value chain

The Emenex website is powered by Wordpress, which virtually eliminates the need for knowledge of a programming language - as long as you can work out out how to use plug ins and widgets.  These little applets drop into Wordpress' content management system  (see, I'm a technical wizard already!) and enables you to almost endlessly customise any one of thousands of templates, many of which are free.  

However, the seemingly never ending choice, raises other issues.  If you can do almost anything, then why not do it? 

One example I recently came across is managing creative talent.  A manufacturer who needs creative talent, has recently been going though a re-structure.  As part of that process, it has considered sharing creative resources with its US parent.  This will mean that instead of creating new designs, it will simply adapt existing ones.  That reduces costs and simplifies processes, but what will happen to the creative people in the UK? Technology has simplified their role, but at the same time taken away a key ingredient for job satisfaction.  Creativity is this Company's competitive edge.  Lose the creative element and the UK division risks losing its competitive edge.

Looking at it from another perspective, how is Wordpress changing the web design industry? If I can create a website, knowing little or nothing about web design, then so can anyone else.  Web design used to be all about technical know how - the black art of coding,  php, C++, Java, Python. Facebook might need all of these (and they use all of them), but for the majority, it's just not necessary anymore.

Wordpress and other platforms brings Technology to the masses and shifts  the value we place on technical expertise. Speaking to a friend of mine, Chris Lee  www.bigcheesedc.com describes how his business has come full circle from being a design and branding agency who moved into the web design space.  With the advent of content management systems, he has moved back to his roots developing creative content. Nowadays his clients take day to day control and management of their websites and Chris provides the expertise around branding and identity  Although its been a difficult transition, Chris says it has been a positive experience. 

What this highlights for me is the importance of recognising where and how you add value to your clients. In a dynamic business environment, your expertise can quickly become redundant, regardless of how often you update your technical skills.  The ability to recognise how client needs are shifting is equally, if not more important, and to move your offer and value proposition to keep pace with shifting expectations.

Which brings me to the second point around my website development experience.

Build the website backwards

Because of the myriad of options available to the novice website builder, I started by thinking about what the finished website would look like, what it would or would not do and the messages we wanted to convey.  

In my work with organisations supporting them in managing change, a constant indicator of the likely success of any strategy was whether the senior management had a powerful vision of the future and how well that was communicated in their organisation.  In the same way, the success of  the website's development was largely due to the discussion around the vision and purpose of the website. It took some time for the clarity and understanding to emerge between all the stakeholders, but it was time well spent, minimising the time spent on implementation, Pareto's 80/20 rule comes to mind.

Another benefit was that because i knew what we wanted, the technology just became a matter of how.  I didn't need to spend lot of time researching all possible options, I just needed to find a plugin to add video, or a plugin to encode text and formatting. Technology became a means to an end, rather than the focus.  

This also reminds me of our work on the ExtraMILE model of employee engagement and development.  The model describes the key drivers for employee engagement.  We spent a lot of time trying to find the technology to automate a questionnaire for an individual and organisational survey based on the model.  

What we originally lacked was the vision of how the model could be used within organisations. We focused on the technology, not the value to the wider market. However, as we shared the model with some long standing clients, it became clear that the model was more far reaching than we originally realised. This has given rise to new opportunities for us and added value for our clients, whether or not they already have embedded an engagement or talent management strategy. The technology has taken a back seat as we focus on the value.

Aligning talents and passions

Right through the website development experience, I was constantly challenged to bring the website to fruition.  This suited my career orientation of challenge and sat perfectly with my interest in technology. Being able to deliver something for the organisation that was new, interesting and challenging made for the perfect assignment.  One of my favourite youtube videos is the RSA’s take on Dan Pinks’ Drive.  It’s on the front page of our website and puts some evidence and research behind my experience with our webiste.

Imagine if you could better align your own talents and passions with your organisation’s needs, how would that work for you?