Unleashing the Power of Engagement: Galvanizing Employees’ Energy and Motivation toward Organizational Mission and Values
Introducing Employee Engagement
Organizations are spending significant amounts of resources on various initiatives and programs focused on improving so-called “workforce productivity” from the technical and behavioral aspects. They relentlessly invest in Total Quality Management, Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, 5S, Total Productive Maintenance, Total Rewards System, different forms of team buildings, establishing work-life balance for employees, ergonomics, etc. In the end, usually none of these initiatives and programs, taken individually, delivers the expected results. The reason for their ineffectiveness should not be looked in their flaws, but rather in their lack of compatibility with the overall situation and requirements of the organization. Each of these initiatives and programs has had a fair success rate in many organizations, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a good fit for every organization.
With this in mind, managers are frequently puzzled with the myriad of options at disposal. They need proven concepts and methodologies that will guarantee fast results in improving the overall organizational performance. Unfortunately, without proper multidimensional organizational assessment that will take into account all organizational components and their interactions, the situation in organizational environment and trends in the respective industry, no solution effecting in sustainable results may be developed and implemented. Simply put, universal antidote for the complete spectrum of organizational pathology does not exist. So, what else is left for managers to do except to devote significant amount of time and resources to conducting a thorough investigation of the strengths and weaknesses of its organization?
Even though every organization is different and situated in different context, the lowest common denominator for all world-class organizations is engaged employees. Engaged employees are those individuals who are fully devoted to achieving organization’s mission and goals. They believe in and live organizational values, are enthusiastic about their work and take pride in it, and act as champions in spreading the positive word-of-mouth about the organization.
Hence, fostering the culture of employee engagement within any organization will produce cohesion and increased motivation among employees leading to higher productivity and improved customer relations. No matter what specific strengths or weaknesses organization possesses, building healthy teams and energized workforce will always pay huge dividends.
Nonetheless, the road toward unlocking the power of engagement among employees is paved with severe obstacles and difficulties that must be overcome. Creating an organization that will truly engage its employees is a time-consuming and comprehensive effort that should start at the level of a mission, and then spread throughout the organization by getting into all its pores and changing its DNA as a result.
Creating a Purpose-driven Organization
The most challenging task when creating a new organization or transforming an existing one is to define and instill a genuine overall mission. Organizational mission is the purpose of an organization's existence. It may be seen as a beacon that illuminates the road ahead for all employees to see where they are heading.
Furthermore, a genuine mission that is constantly being communicated within and outside an organization is a call for all interested individuals to join in and take part in its achievement. With the increase in number of individuals who are the true believers in an organizational mission, organization may become less formal and hierarchical, and more missionary oriented. Hence, the purpose-driven organization ensues in which people are connected and guided by a deeper sense of meaning or a profound idea to which they can relate to.
But mission by itself is not enough. What the purpose-driven organization needs is the explicit set of values that must be mutually consistent and aligned with the mission. Mission provides an overall direction for the organization, while values direct the manner in which organization will make that journey. Values prescribe the priorities employees should have and behaviors they should display, thus affecting the domain in which actions will be undertaken. Taken together, mission and values should serve as a filter in a sense that all employees who disagree with the direction of the organization or whose values are not in line with values proclaimed by the organization will eventually leave and make more place for people in favor of the organizational mission and values.
Mission and values taken together will help establish an organizational culture as a prevailing system of norms and behaviors within an organization. To build a designated organizational culture based on a specific mission and values is a very complex and time-consuming task. It is not enough for management just to define and promote the mission and values, but rather to actually believe in that mission and live those values. In other words, management will have to start walking the talk. Only then, the mission and proclaimed values will eventually start shaping the manner in which all organizational members act and behave. Thus, if the mission and values are properly instilled and enforced, a designated organizational culture will start taking place around them after some time.
Organizational culture is very important for every organization because it should be among the rare organizational categories that are relatively stable over time. While almost everything else should be subjected to reassessments and changes (e.g. strategy, business model, organization structure, processes, reward system, etc.), mission and values should be a rallying point and provide continuity, especially in times of high velocity and unpredictable changes.
Galvanizing Employee Engagement with Reshaped Reward and Incentive Systems
Unleashing the power of engagement in organizations requires more than just creating a purpose-driven organization. It is not enough for employees only to believe in the purpose of an organization and to share some specific norms and behaviors, but rather to actively participate and contribute to everyday activities in organization.
For this to happen, reward and incentive systems need to be reshaped in a way that will motivate employees to take initiative and become active contributors to organizational success. Employees need to be free to act best to their knowledge and skills, while being guided by mission and values. Furthermore, they always need to be asked to provide their input. It will unleash a whole sea of ideas and insights that may have beneficiary effect on the organizational development and its overall performance. On the other hand, employees will feel included in decision-making, which will secure their buy-in with the decisions being reached at the end.
By allowing employees to take initiative, asking them for their inputs, empowering them to do more and to take more responsibility, employees will feel trusted, appreciated and valued. Because of this, most of them will connect to the organization in more than one way. They will not see working at the organization as a pure transactional relationship, but as a long-term bond with mutual benefits. They will start finding sense and taking pride in working at the organization, and the power of engagement will be unleashed.
Implications for Managers
In the era of hyper competition and decline of sustainable competitive advantage in general, managers are forced to rethink the concept of competitive advantage. They have become aware of the fact that the world-class organizations are not being built only on superior strategy, innovative business model, or outstanding organizational design anymore. Organizations must go several steps further if they wish to thrive in the long run these days.
What contemporary organizations need the most, in order to constantly outperform the competition, is employee engagement. Organizations that manage to attract and develop people that really believe in the organizational mission, respect and live the organizational values, are enthusiastic about their work, take pride in the job they perform, and act as champions in spreading the positive word-of-mouth about the organization, are the ones that will build a solid foundation for all the challenges that might occur in the future.
Therefore, one of the primary managerial tasks is to start making the purpose-driven organization that will ultimately unleash the power of engagement. Organizations that manage to master employee engagement will definitely secure for themselves the last known form of sustainable advantage in the era in which the concept of sustainable competitive advantage is almost erased from the management dictionary.