Delta7 Change Ltd

CIPD Employee Engagement Conference – Jan 2010

Julian — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:20:21 +0000

The question on everyone’s lips at the CIPD Conference – “What does a successful employee engagement strategy look like?”

I was at a conference last month, organised by CIPD on Employee Engagement. In a discussion around some of the Kingston Consortium research findings I heard someone say “What is the key to unlocking potential?”

I liked the visual metaphor of the key that unlocks peoples’ potential, so I painted it.

So what does a successful employee engagement strategy look like? What’s your experience?

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CRF Employee Engagement Conference 2010

Sam Deeks — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:44:37 +0000

I went to a great conference last week on employee engagement organised by the Corporate Research Forum. There were several good speakers, covering a range of interesting themes and plenty of time to explore them with participants around the table. This was something I greatly enjoyed as it was good to be at a conference on engagement and actually feel engaged!

One particular table exercise was to discuss “what HR can do to create employee engagement?”

A theme that came up on several tables was: ‘we need to see people as human beings who are valued and respected instead of a simple resource to be used up’.

That really got me thinking. So many people share that feeling of not being treated by their organisation as human beings. It’s an unspoken that lies just below the surface of most organisations. I made this picture to capture both the intensity and simplicity of this issue.

Interestingly, the problem is clearly embedded there, in language, in the name of that most familiar of organisational job functions: ‘human resources’.

So what can HR do to make an organisation treat its people more like human beings and less like resources to be consumed?
What could I do today that would treat the people I work with more like human beings resources to be used? What could I change personally?

At Delta7 we know that in order to treat other people with respect we have to first learn how to respect ourselves. What one thing could you do to treat yourself with more respect today?

We’d like to know how this picture makes you feel. Just post a comment (below)

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My Comfort Zone

Sam Deeks — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:59:52 +0000

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Organisational charts and organisational reality

Sam Deeks — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:52:21 +0000

There’s something reassuring about org charts – they can easily disguise what is really going on, making everything feel neat and manageable.

It’s interesting how often the title of these charts is the name of the company, as if the piece of paper actually is the company itself.

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Elephant Under The Table

Sam Deeks — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:31:03 +0000

When people become fearful of saying what really concerns them, leaders lose sight of what’s really happening in their organization and the quality of their decision-making suffers. For employees, unarticulated frustration can turn into confusion and anger that quickly creates a culture of low morale. This then manifests as apathy, resistance or even sabotage.

Soon, no one wants to talk about the real issues even though they are staring everyone in the face. These things are difficult to talk about and all too often at key briefings and presentations people just sit in silence, unable to say what they really think because it feels too risky to speak up.

What is the Elephant under your table?

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We must capture their hearts and minds!

Sam Deeks — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:26:27 +0000

This is a picture of an exchange we heard a few years ago in a client session. It’s so rich we just had to make a picture out of it. It is can be easy for leaders to lose touch with the cares and concerns of the people that work for them. By not connecting with what matters to their people, they lose the sense of reality about what’s going on in the wider organisation.

In this picture, the leadership team, excited and motivated by their charts and strategic concerns in the comfort of the well-lit office contrast starkly with the demoralised employee dragging himself to work through the rain and cold.

This picture reminds us that the jargon of leadership, if used in the wrong context, can widen any gulf between leadership and the rest of the organisation.

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The crisis in public spending

Sam Deeks — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:13:45 +0000

This picture reflects concerns we heard while working with a number of central government departments last year. Most of these organisations have experienced a steady increase in funding under Labour, but under the shadow of a dramatic economic downturn are having to adapt to a stark new reality.

The imminent future is one where social issues continue to rise, fed by increased debt and unemployment, while the pipeline of funding is abruptly turned off. While money could be used to disguise inadequacies in the past, this is no longer possible – public sector organisations are going to have to rely on their own “intangible” qualities to weather the storm.

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Yearning for connection

Sam Deeks — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:05:43 +0000

The desire to connect with others, or get them to understand you can often lead to a desire to engage. One of the biggest unspokens can be the fear to articulate our need for others, because we may feel weak or vulnerable.

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The Fantasy Of Control

Sam Deeks — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:19:57 +0000

Many people in organisations think that their leaders and senior management are obsessed with the idea that they can fix things with even more hard data – and that this gives rise to the fantasy of being in control.

The real problems that need fixing are often left hidden under the table; unacknowledged and undealt with – a taboo subject. For a lot of people the stuff hidden under the table is what really matters. If you’re looking for employee engagement then be prepared to bring this stuff out and put it on the table.

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This IS how it is..

Sam Deeks — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:22:15 +0000

So many people we’ve worked with tell us that there’s a painful contradiction between what organisations have to say about what’s going on and what people actually see and feel. This leaves them wondering ‘why can’t they say how it really is’? The result? Disengaged employees.

What about you? Do you see things differently from your organisation? How does this affect employee engagement? Why not print this out and ask a colleague what they think.

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Who does all the work around here?

Sam Deeks — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:20:34 +0000

We see this a lot in organisations. Everybody thinks that the people above them don’t really contribute as much as they do to the success of the business. Result? Disengaged employees at every level. What about you? Who does all the work in your organisation. Why not show this to a colleague and ask them what they think?

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