Employee Engagement Matters

Employee engagement scores have reached an all-time high according to three new surveys conducted by the Society for Human Resources Management, Gallup and Aon Hewitt. For years now, companies have been trying to define engagement, improve it and evaluate the correlation between engagement and business success. Every process takes time to mature and evolve, much like introducing LEAN manufacturing into an organization, and engagement is no different. The next step in engagement evolution is finally here – linking employee engagement directly to corporate strategy. CEO’s and their teams have started taking notice. Not just an HR initiative anymore, employee engagement has earned a portion of the corporate boardroom spotlight and justifiably so. More and more, companies are linking engagement programs, processes and initiatives to corporate strategy. By understanding both their current culture and their desired future culture, senior business leaders are using engagement programs to bridge the gap and are making those programs key strategic initiatives. Sounds straightforward so where can this go wrong? Engagement programs can backfire when an organization uses a copy and paste approach – just because specific approaches or processes work for one organization, doesn’t mean they will work for your organization. Best said by Stephen Covey, “First seek to understand, then be understood,” organizations have to truly understand their values, culture and desired behaviors/outcomes before deciding on the programs that work best for them.

With culture change comes the need for revisiting talent management and reward mechanisms. For example, if part of your engagement strategy is to increase employee creativity or intrapreneurship, you must make sure that your talent management and reward systems are aligned to identify, assess, develop and reward individuals that display those key characteristics. This includes sourcing new talent. At Westport, we first seek to understand our client’s culture and needs. We take time to understand the behaviors that are important to our client in order to find the right leaders for their organization. Westport’s Human Resources Practice places human resources executives in publicly-traded and privately-owned organizations across all industries, ranging in size from mid-cap’s to the Fortune 200.

Managing Director, Human Resources- Terri Campbell- Brown

terri@westportintl.com

864.993.7987