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John Smythe has been interviewed by the CIM on leader and employee engagement and its impact on cross company team composition. To read click here

http://www.cim.co.uk/cpd/cpdandcm/cpdupdate.aspx

Came across this from Gary Hamel business thought leader. An excellent reflection on what engaging leaders in organisations need to do to help drive business effectiveness through motivated employees.

First, if you’re a formally appointed leader, and you want to turn sheep into shepherds, you have to step out of your leadership role and say to people, “I don’t have a plan, what’s yours?” This is humbling. But only by doing this will you release the latent talents within your organization.

Second, you have to let people find the work that best suits them – this is the key to building a community of passion. If you force people into pre-determined slots, you’ll get slot-shaped contributions; you won’t get bold and innovative contributions. It’s pretty simple, really. If you want the unexpected, you have to give people the freedom to do the unexpected.

Now, can you run an airline this way, or a semiconductor fab line? I don’t know, but I bet you can run parts of it like this. One thing I’m sure about: if you want to fully take advantage of the extraordinary talents that exist in your organization, you’ll need to ask yourself each day, “What can I do to make this place feel less like a hierarchy and more like a community?”

Take a look at the new section on our web site E4CTV which has videos from the team about why employee engagement is top of the agenda for most CEO’s today; the key steps in any engagement programme and the benefits and outcomes

Last week I went to the inaugural Talent Think Tank, organised by Jeremy Thornton of Oasis Search  http://www.oasissearch.co.uk_  and kindly hosted by  Sarah Hopkins, Global HR Director of the FT.

The Talent Think Tank is purely for senior strategically focused talent professionals and focused on  Defining Talent and its role in driving business objectives. There has been a lot of coverage in the industry press recently about how prominent talent has become on the CEO’s agenda due to its pivotal role in a business achieving its objectives. The Talent Think Tank explored the definition of Talent and how the function can leverage and influence a businesses leadership team. The sharing of ideas with market peers on influencing a CEO, as well as beginning to change wider culture, made for a very interesting and thought provoking discussion. What is clear is that organisations that invest in employee engagement are more likely to attract and retain top talent.

Accounting Technology Ltd who offer integrated business software solutions for HR Directors Web: www.accountech.co.uk have teamed up with a firm of accountants, Wilkins Kennedy, to discuss best practice when it comes to getting the employee disciplinary process right.  In the second section of the morning there  will be a presentation on Accounting Technology’s  HR software which includes HR administration, recruitment, absence, learning & development, appraisals and self service. Here’s a link to the details .

We recently hosted a breakfast at the Groucho Club with Frank Nigriello, Director of Corporate Affairs at  Unipart and his colleague Jane Mageas our guest speakers. Frank gave an informative, compelling and entertaining presentation about employee engagement as a way of working – not merely a way of communicating.

Having a clear company vision, clear line of sight for every employee between what they do and how it contributes to achieving that vision, an opportunity to develop skills and learning with regular feedback and recognition are all critical to helping create an engaged workforce.  However the most important lever is to allow employees to have a role in day to day decision making as well as some of the more strategic decisions that impact on them.  At Unipart the use of ‘Our Contribution Counts’ and ‘Communication Cells’ are just some of the tools the organisation uses to enable employees to solve problems at their level and make the most of any opportunities that arise.

Frank summed up his presentation with these 3 rules about employee engagement:

Rule 1: it’s not a hug – a happy workforce is not necessarily an engaged one. Focus on giving employees the tools and conditions to become more involved
Rule 2: Nobody cares what you – CEO – thinks……unless your agenda matches that of employees
Rule 3: it must be authentic

Excellent book about turning conventional management upside down.

As Vineet Nayar Chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies states  “A democratised organisation enables the energy of employees to be released.  It means turning the organisation upside down making management and managers including those in enabling functions (HR, Finance etc) accountable to those employees who create the most value  — not the other way around. It’s about leaders creating organisations that are self-run and self-governed, where employees feel like owners, are excited by their work and constantly focus on change and disruptive innovation at the very heart of the value zone. It unleashes the power of the many and loosens the stranglehold of the few, thus increasing speed and quality of innovation and decision making where it matters most”

The vast majority of senior executives admit that employee disengagement is one of the biggest threats facing their business. But despite this, issues round morale and motivation are rarely discussed at board level and most companies simply choose to ignore the problems caused by disengaged staff.

According to a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, more than eight out of 10 top executives in companies across Europe and the Middle East view disengagement as one of the three biggest threats to their business.

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We recently held a dinner for CEO’s to discuss employee engagement. We invited CEOs from the top FTSE 100 and 250 and over 30 people attended – CEO’s whom we had not before, but who all clearly shared an interest in discussing and sharing insights around effective employee engagement. What many see as the Holy Grail of human resource management. (more…)