Employee engagement best practice principles, processes and strategies

1. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT – BEST
PRACTICE PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIES
VOLVO GROUP SOUTHERN AFRICA
CHARLES COTTER PhD candidate, MBA, B.A (Hons), B.A
www.slideshare.net/CharlesCotter
16-17 JANUARY 2018

2. 2-DAY, TRAINING PROGRAMME
OVERVIEW
• Defining the fundamentals of employee
engagement
• Employee engagement statistics – globally
and locally
• Business case: The value, benefits and
importance of employee engagement
• The Employee Value Proposition (EVP),
employee voice and Stakeholder relations
and -engagement
• Implementing and applying employee
engagement strategies
• Reading article 1: Employee Engagement
• Interpersonal Style
• Facilitating trusting, respectful relations
and transparent interpersonal
communication
• Reading article 2: Critical conversations

4. FOUR STAGES OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
• How can I grow?
• Do I belong?
• What do I give?
• What do I get?

6. INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY
• Individual Activity:
• Complete the statement by inserting one (1) word. In order to
effectively engage employees at Volvo Group S.A, I need to/to
be…………………………………….(1 word)
• Find other learners with the same word as you.
• Jot these down on the flip-chart.
• Each learner will be given the opportunity to elaborate on their own
word association.

7. PSYCHOLOGICAL
PROFILE OF AN
ENGAGED
EMPLOYEE

9. COTTER’S 5 C’S OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
• Are employees COMMITTED to the organization?
• Are employees proud to work for the organization – company/brand
ambassadors? CITIZEN
• Do employees put forth extra/discretionary effort to help the
organization and their colleagues achieve business objectives?
COMRADE
• Are employees enthusiastic and passionate about their work/jobs?
CREATOR
• Are employees CONNECTED (intellectually and emotionally) to their
work/jobs – offer value add?

10. #1 Role clarity and expectations
#2 Resources – materials and equipment
#3 Role optimization and opportunities
#4 Receipt of recognition and praise
#5 Managerial care and interest
#6 Encouragement of personal and
professional development
GALLUP Q12

11. #7 Opinions and inputs are valued
#8 Job/task significance
#9 Fellow employee commitment to
performance excellence/quality
#10 Collegial and harmonious working
relationships
#11 Managerial interest in career
progression and development
#12 Ample opportunities to learn and grow
GALLUP Q12

13. DEGREE OF USA EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT (GALLUP 2013)
• 71% of employees are
disengaged:
45% are not engaged (BASICS)
26% are actively disengaged
(BREAKERS)
• 29% of the workforce are
engaged (BUILDERS)

15. DEGREE OF S.A EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT (GALLUP 2013)

16. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 1
• Group Discussion:
• By referring to the findings of
the Volvo Trucks employee
engagement survey, perform a
gap analysis to determine the
areas of improvement. As an
alternative, use the Gallup Q12
as a yardstick.
• As a manager, describe how
you can create an engaged
team by optimizing the 4
emotional drivers i.e.
enthusiasm, inspiration,
empowerment and confidence
and capitalizing on the 6 drivers
of employee engagement.

18. AGREE OR DISAGREE?
WHY?

20. BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

21. THE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE OF EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT

24. KEY FINDINGS: GALLUP (2013)
• $11 billion is lost annually due to employee turnover
• Highly engaged employees are 26% more productive than disengaged
employees
• Employees are not prepared to engage customers. When organizations
successfully engage their customers and their employees, they experience a
240% performance boost.
• Managers and leaders play a critical role
• 90% of leaders think an engagement strategy will impact business success

25. KEY FINDINGS: GALLUP (2013)
• Different types of workers need different engagement strategies
• Engagement makes a difference to the bottom line - companies earned 13%
greater total returns for shareholders over a 5-year financial period
• Companies with engaged employees perform 202% better than those without
• Engagement has a greater impact on performance than corporate policies and
perks
• The most compelling evidence of the benefits of an engaged workforce is the
identification of a positive impact on 9 business performance indicators.

26. ENGAGEMENT’S EFFECT ON 9 KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS

27. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 2
• Group Discussion:
• By referring to
viability, feasibility
and sustainability,
develop a business
case for employee
engagement at Volvo
Trucks S.A i.e. do the
benefits outweigh
the costs?

28. • A resourcing strategy is concerned with shaping what an organization has to offer to
people to join and stay in the organization. (Armstrong, 2011)
• EVP is a statement of what an organization will provide for people that they will value -
why the total work experience at their organization is superior to that at other
organizations.
• The EVP is an employee-centered approach that is aligned to existing, integrated
workforce planning strategies because it has been informed by existing employees and
the external target audience.
• Key Selling Points (KSP): Host of financial and non-financial benefits
• Non-financial benefits:
The attractiveness of the organization
Responsibility – corporate conduct, ethics and CSR/CSI
Respect – diversity and inclusiveness
Work-life balance
Opportunities for personal and professional growth
EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION (EVP)

29. COMPONENTS OF VIABLE EVP

30. EVP PROCESS

32. AGREE OR DISAGREE?
WHY?

34. STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT PROCESS -
ILLUSTRATED

35. STEP 2: ANALYZE & PRIORITIZE STAKEHOLDERS -The
Power/Interest Grid

36. STEP 3: STAKEHOLDER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
• It is important for these institutions to build mutually beneficial and manage effective
relationships with these stakeholders.
• The institution’s responsibility is to act as a liaison with external constituencies and their
role in stakeholder involvement and management is a critically important one.
• A critical success factor is that the different roles, needs, viewpoints and performance
expectations of these stakeholders must be identified, considered and factored into the
proposed productivity and service delivery improvement plan and managed
accordingly.
• Key to this process is ongoing consultation and engagement with these important
stakeholders to further enhance the relationship, build trust and continued support for
the institution’s activities.
• Effective managers will constantly keep their finger on the pulse and abreast of changing
stakeholder needs and viewpoints and adapt their management plans accordingly.

37. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 3
• Group Discussion:
• Apply the 4-step
stakeholder management
process in the context of
Volvo Trucks S.A. In
particular, concentrate on
the following:
Develop a Power/Interest
Grid/Matrix
Stakeholder/employee
voice strategies
Develop a Stakeholder
Value Proposition (SVP)

38. STRATEGIES

39. AGREE OR DISAGREE?
WHY?

41. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
• Engagement with the job
Where employees are strongly engaged with the work they are actually doing, research shows
that this produces high performance, high levels of support to the team and low levels of
deviant behaviour.
While most engagement interventions seek to build organisational engagement, it might be
better to look at interventions to make work more meaningful for employees and/or to work
harder on the person/job fit.
• Engagement with the organisation
Good practice in this area requires total buy-in and visible leadership and commitment for all
levels of managers.
Many of the issues which directly impact on the engagement of employees reside with
managers and their behaviour and treatment of employees.
HR practitioners’ roles are to diagnose, support and coach management on those issues and to
review, redesign and implement HR specific programmes including learning and development,
performance management and reward management.

42. CIPD STRATEGIES (2013)
• “Giving employees meaningful voice: facilitating upwards feedback,
having respectful, adult to-adult conversations and responding to
employee views
• Effective communications that keep employees well informed and
reinforce the organisation’s purpose
• Role modelling: employees need to see that managers are committed
to the organisation and uphold the values of employee engagement in
how they act
• Fair and just management processes for dealing with problems and
supporting employee well-being.”

43. STRATEGIES TO ACCELERATE
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
• According to Gallup (2013), three
(3) strategies to accelerate
employee engagement are:
Select the Right People and
Managers
Develop employees’ strengths
Enhance employees’ well-being

44. SELECT THE RIGHT PEOPLE AND RIGHT MANAGERS
• Through selecting the right managers and employees for any role, companies can
strategically boost engagement.
• Great managers have great talent for supporting, positioning, empowering, and
engaging their staff.
• A few key employees stand out for their ability to foster workplace engagement.
They energize and influence others with their commitment to achieving
organizational and team objectives.
• Gallup developed the Engagement Creation Index (ECI) — an innovative tool
designed to identify and measure the talent for engaging others — to help
organizations transform their engagement dynamic by adjusting their hiring
practices. ECI captures a candidate’s ability to act as a catalyst to build engaged
work teams.

45. SELECT THE RIGHT PEOPLE AND RIGHT MANAGERS
• It is imperative for leaders to devise selection strategies with the goal
of accelerating employee engagement. This starts with hiring and
promoting managers based on objective selection criteria to ensure
that companies hire/promote managers with the talent to lead and
engage their workgroups.
• With each new hire or promotion, employers have the opportunity to
maximize employee engagement in the workplace.
• People want to feel supported, have a sense of belonging, and
understand the contribution they can make toward organizational
goals. Making sure that they get these things from their interactions
with managers and team members is key to driving their engagement.

47. STRENGTHS-BASED LEADERSHIP APPROACH TO
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
• Managers who focus on their employees’ strengths can practically eliminate
active disengagement and double the average of U.S. workers who are engaged
nationwide.
• Building employees’ strengths is a far more effective approach than trying to
improve weaknesses.
• A strengths-based management approach is the best way to improve the
employee - manager relationship.
• Increased productivity:
Gallup’s data show that simply learning their strengths makes employees 7.8% more
productive.
Teams that focus on strengths every day have 12.5% greater productivity.

48. STRENGTHS-BASED LEADERSHIP
APPROACH TO EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
• Help employees align their greatest
talents to the expectations and
responsibilities of their roles.
• Incorporate strengths into
performance conversations and
reviews and help employees set
goals based on their strengths.
• Focusing on strengths improves
employees’ lives and the
organization’s bottom line –
facilitates a win-win situation

49. ENHANCE EMPLOYEES’ WELL-BEING
• Great managers know that the whole person comes to work and that each employee’s
well-being influences individual and organizational performance.
• Employees who are engaged in their jobs are generally in better health and have
healthier habits than employees who are not engaged or are actively disengaged.
• Engaged and thriving employees are resilient and agile
• Thriving employees have strong, progressive overall well-being; struggling employees
have moderate or inconsistent overall well-being; and suffering employees have well-
being that is at high risk.
• Employees who are thriving in their lives overall are more than twice as likely as those
who are struggling to be engaged in their jobs.
• Employees with high well-being have lower healthcare costs

50. THE MANAGER’S ROLE IN IMPROVING EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT AND WELL-BEING
• Make well-being an organizational strategy — much like other organizational outcomes
• Communicate a commitment to well-being consistently in all of the programs the
company offers.
• Hold leaders accountable for well-being programs available to employees.
• Consider how to embed activities to increase well-being in individual development plans
and goals.
• Set positive defaults for making healthy choices.
In vending machines and cafeterias, ensure that healthy snacks and drinks are the most
accessible.
Offer plenty of opportunities to join physical or social activities throughout the day.

51. BEST PRACTICE
EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
• According to Gallup (2013) research, the
best organizations deeply integrate
employee engagement into the following
four (4) areas:
Strategy and Leadership Philosophy
Accountability and Performance
Communication and Knowledge
Management
Development and on-going Learning
Opportunities

52. ARMSTRONG’S
EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
Leadership
The work environment
Job design
Opportunities for
personal growth
Performance
Management

53. TINYpulse (2014)
STRATEGIES
• Showing employee appreciation and
recognition
• Fostering a positive work culture
• Mapping professional growth plans
• Recruiting collegial, hard-working colleagues
• Hiring managers that are truly leaders
• Empowering employees with tools to succeed
• Enabling peer recognition

54. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 4
• Group Discussion:
• Critically evaluate Volvo
Trucks S.A against the 5
factors of the Deloitte
Irresistible Organization
model. Identify gaps and
recommend improvements
strategies.
• Critically review the various
expert employee
engagement strategies and
extract those that you
believe are most relevant to
Volvo Group S.A.

56. FIVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IDEAS THAT MAKE A
DIFFERENCE (LIBBY TAYLOR)
• 1. Make existing employee engagement programs better by bringing them into an
online community
• 2. Embrace on-the-go lifestyles and workstyles
• 3. Figure out how to make your systems work with mobile
• 4. Give employees a longer leash
• 5. Recognize that autonomy is key
• 6. Erase the line between leaders and employees
• 7. Keep it real and make it personal. Feel something
• 8. Finally, never underestimate the power of fun

57. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 5
•Group Discussion:
•Review the article
and extract the
most relevant
lessons within the
Volvo Group S.A
work
environment.

58. INTERPERSONAL STYLE

59. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 6
•Individual
activity:
•Complete the
Interpersonal
style
questionnaire

61. JOHARI’S WINDOW
• Managers can utilize Johari’s Window, in order to affect openness and interpersonal
trust.
• Designed to understand the communication process between people and consists of
varying degrees of information held in common between two people as well as methods
that can be used to increase the size of one’s window.
• Communication will be enhanced if the Arena is increased in size by:
Exposure of self to others
Soliciting feedback from others
• Exposure requires an open, candid and trusting approach, while feedback requires an
active solicitation of feelings, opinions and values from others.
• For these processes to be fully developed, reciprocity is required.

62. PARENT-ADULT-CHILD (PAC) MODEL

63. DALE
CARNEGIE’S
– HOW TO
WIN
FRIENDS
AND
INFLUENCE
PEOPLE
PRINCIPLES

66. COVEY’S EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT

68. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 7
• Given your
interpersonal style,
describe how you can
optimize your
engagement with the
other 3 interpersonal
styles.
• By referring to Johari’s
Window, describe how
you can facilitate open,
respectful and
transparent
communication and
engagement with your
team members and
colleagues.

71. WE HAVE TO TALK: A STEP-BY-STEP CHECKLIST FOR
DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS (Judy Ringer)
• Working on Yourself: How to Prepare for the Conversation
• Before going into the conversation, ask yourself some questions
• 4 Steps to a Successful Outcome
Step #1: Inquiry
Step #2: Acknowledgment
Step #3: Advocacy
Step #4: Problem-Solving
• Practice, Practice, Practice
• Some additional tips and suggestions
• How Do I Begin?
• Write a possible opening for your conversation

72. LEARNING
ACTIVITY 8
•Group Discussion:
•Review the article
and extract the
most relevant
lessons within the
Volvo Group S.A
work
environment.

73. CONCLUSION
• Key points
• Summary
• Questions
• Training Administration

74. CONTACT DETAILS
•Charles Cotter
• (+27) 84 562 9446
• charlescot@polka.co.za
• LinkedIn
• Twitter: @Charles_Cotter
• https://www.facebook.com/CharlesACotter/
• http://www.slideshare.net/CharlesCotter