In last weeks blog, I encouraged you to give some thought to two things;
- Your business goals for 2021
- What you need from your team in order to achieve these goals
You can find it here if you want to recap.
Hopefully you've had time to reflect and give some thought to this.
This week we're going to be looking at two critical pillars of Employee Engagement - Connection and Leadership. Each pillar offers the ability to help you achieve your goals by building a highly engaged team for the future.
Connection
Connection is about aligning your employees to your business and it's goals. It's about having a sense of purpose (like a mission or vision) and ensuring your people are bought into it. It's about two way communication with employees having a voice and being able to contribute to the business's future. On a practical level it's also about being informed and updated.
If your people understand the part they play in the future of the company they can make a great contribution!
Thinking about your own business;
- Do you have a mission or vision that's clear and meaningful?
- Do your team know what it is and know how they can contribute?
- Do you have company values and are they brought to life in your business?
- Are your people processes well aligned to this? For example, do you recruit with your mission in mind?
- Do you have a mechanism by which your team can give feedback / ideas / ask questions / contribute? Do you allow your employees to influence what happens in your business?
- How good is your communication about what's happening in your business? Are your team well informed and updated? Is it engaging? Topical? In the moment?
Task 2: What are you not doing from the above list? Add them to your notes from the week one exercise. Your engagement plan is starting to take shape!
Leadership
The saying goes that people join a business and leave a manager. We've found this to be very true. Without great leadership, you are always filling a leaky bucket when it comes to employee engagement.
Leadership is about how confident employees feel about their leaders and managers, how inspired they are by them, how much trust there is there and what the relationship is like.
Thinking about your own business;
- Do the leaders in your business bring out the best in your teams?
- Have you got a high performing team? If not, are you working towards it?
- Are your teams well recognised by leaders? Does it inspire your teams to do more?
- Do your leaders create great working environments for their teams? Are they good at bringing teams together and build their strengths?
- Is poor performance well managed? Is there a sense of fairness in your business?
- Is trust high amongst your leaders and their teams?
Thinking about yourself;
- What kind of leader are you?
- Where do your strengths lie
- What are your weaknesses?
- Where do you need to focus personally?
Task 3: Reflecting on this list above, what can you improve about your business and yourself. Add them to your notes from the week one exercise. Your engagement plan is starting to take shape!
Identifying solutions
If you've identified some gaps, you can work on solutions by thinking about the following things:
- What feedback have my team given me that has indicated what solutions, improvements or changes they'd like to see?
- Who can I ask / how can I ask them to know where I can make an impact?
- Do I know people or businesses who are doing this well that I can get ideas from?
- Do I need some expertise to help me?
If anything in here has struck a cord and you'd like to create your plan with the support of Ten Space, you can contact victoria@tenspace.co.uk
