Nurture Those Pumpkins
If you run a business your people are likely to be your most expensive and most important resource, It is universally accepted that if you nurture them accordingly, they will perform much more efficiently, be loyal, work harder and ultimately drive the success of the business. In fact, according to recent surveys, engaged employees can be 40% more productive than non-engaged employees. Many executives recognise the benefits go way beyond that; a highly engaged workforce will increase innovation, productivity, bottom line performance AND reduce costs of attrition. In addition, your customers are happier, everyone’s a winner. Can’t argue with that, and although times are changing and more leaders are taking this approach way more seriously, many others are so focused on the bigger picture (quite rightly so) they fail to insist on strategies to ENGAGE the employees and as a result are missing a trick. Companies who have an engaged workforce will outperform companies who don’t. Simple.
It's not rocket science, HR practitioners have been harping on about Employee Engagement for many years now – yes I know, sounds like another HR fad. I also know people I know quite often switch off once I start waxing on about HR (sometimes long before I even get onto HR) – so I decided to embrace the onset of Halloween and use a Pumpkin harvest analogy instead (stick with me)….
Imagine you are a farmer who, like most businesses today, you are enduring sleepless nights about the impact of Brexit and have decided to lump all your savings into fields and fields full of sprouting orange spheres of goodness. You have already started counting the days before you can reap your rewards and sell those beauties in the markets. You know how it works 1. plant the seeds, 2. water the soil, 3. Wait, wait (and wait) and there you they are. Sounds straightforward enough right? Now imagine you are told by a HR consultant that, if you nurtured those pumpkins, you can beat the Brexit blues by achieving a good 40% MORE in your crop, THAT would get your attention for sure. So how do I nurture my pumpkins? I hear you ask. Follow these four simple enablers:
You need a plan, a strategy – don’t just wing it by planting the seeds and hoping for the best. Build a solid plan to figure out how you will protect your crops in bad weather, what happens if it doesn’t rain? How often will you add fertiliser? That sort of thing (I’m no farming expert so slightly out of my depth here)! But it’s not enough to just have a plan – you need to share the plan! And share it with each and every single pumpkin in your field, they need to know the plan! Trust me! Let them know where they came from, where they are going to, What’s the vision? Let them know they have a stake in your business, in fact they ARE your business! Each and every one of those scrumptious little gems has a crucial role to play in the success of your business, let them know how they fit in. Didn’t Prince Charles talk to his plants and they grew better? Talk to your pumpkins, communicate with your pumpkins, get them in on the action.
So your pumpkins know what is expected of them, they are nicely growing fat and round in the field, the smaller vulnerable ones who would have withered and died had you not paid such attention to them, are now growing at a good rate each day. Now you need to turn your attention to the chief pumpkins. You know, the ones the others follow, the ones who take charge. You can only spend so much time with each of your crop, so make sure your chiefs are doing their bit to nurture the crops. You don’t want all your efforts to go to waste. By ensuring your chiefs are trusting, encouraging and listening to the other pumpkins you will guarantee a profitable harvest
Your chief pumpkins are now encouraging the rest of the pumpkins to fill out nicely. Now you need to really listen to your pumpkins, they have a voice, listen very carefully. Okay, so here the analogy goes a bit weird (like it hasn’t already!). If you want to turn your motivated pumpkin into a seriously engaged pumpkin you need to recognise it has a voice (!?!?) and you need to harness their suggestions. They know their patch, they know where the soil is richer and where to hide when the rain gets heavy, they see it all day every day, so capture their input…it’s vital to the harvest.
Stick with the plan. Show some integrity to your pumpkins, don’t just rack up at the start of the season and share the plan, make your pumpkins feel fabulous, then leave them to it. Consistency is key, so be persistent, plan to regularly reinforce the plan, ensure the chief pumpkins are suitably geared up and regularly seek the views of all the pumpkins in your patch.
Then look forward to a great harvest and rub your hands together as the profits roll in. What’s more, your pumpkins will be harvested with a huge smile on their face, making it much easier for kids to carve with – so your customers are happier than ever and certain to revisit next year. Win Win!
NOTE: No pumpkins were harmed in the writing of this article and all pumpkins portrayed are purely fictional.
To get back on topic (and save professional face) I would summarise the four key enablers of employee engagement as follows :-
1. STRATEGY: You need to share your plan with your teams. Ensure everyone is working in the same direction by sharing the background of the business, where you are today and your vision for the future. Share the priorities and explain why. Help your workforce understand how they fit in – create the emotional pull to the job in hand (emotional attachment can be 4 x more productive than pure rationale)
2. MANAGEMENT: You need managers who are engaging. Assess the ability of your managers to motivate, challenge and support team members, and provide coaching/training if necessary. Ensure your managers task people, trust people, coach and stretch people, and more importantly INSPIRE people. It costs nothing to say ‘Well done’ when someone does a nice job. Managers will impact the engagement of the workforce by as much as 80% - it’s crucial they get it right.
3. VOICE: Give your employees a voice. Share information, supply data, don’t hide what is occurring at board level, they need to know the score. Then listen to them, I absolutely guarantee they will have some cracking suggestions for improvement that the leadership team hadn’t even thought of. If you present your employees with a problem, give them a role to play in the problem solving. You’ll be reinforcing that emotional pull (see point 1.) and be much better placed for success. All too often, the leadership team find the solutions and enforce on the workforce. This can have the opposite effect and be damaging to the employee engagement factor.
4. INTEGRITY. Be persistent and practice what you preach, removing any gaps between what you say and what you do. This will not only enable successful employee engagement but also enable greater trust and stronger commitment to achieving the business goals.
Many think employee engagement will be expensive, that it’s all about paying employees more money to make them happy, but that isn’t necessarily the case. It is true that employees who are underpaid can be de-motivated, however once pay is addressed, the motivation factor will be short lived. For truly business changing employee engagement you need to forget the pay elements and focus on the plan, the managers, the employee voice and be persistent with it. So give your workforce a treat rather than a trick this Halloween and start giving Employee Engagement some serious thought.
HR Connected work with businesses to implement employee engagement strategies and provide coaching and training to boost productivity. For more information visit www.hrconnected.co.uk