Public Service Event: Engaging the Human Resource
Employee engagement: Something you do with your employees, not to them We were invited to attend the Public Service Event “Engaging the Human Resource” yesterday. For me the highlight of the day was an inspiring story from Clive Bradley about his trip to the Gambian hospital of Bangtang, which he used brilliantly to illustrate the point that engagement isn’t something you do to your employees, but rather something that you do with them. We... [Read More...]
CMI Employee Engagement event: Communication Matters!
It’s widely acknowledged that an important driver of engagement is having the sort of culture where employees’ views are sought out, listened to and make a difference, and where they speak out and challenge when appropriate. Effective communication is clearly crucial if this is to happen. Last week, we went to an event entitled, ‘Employee Engagement: Communication Matters’ which was jointly held by AIM Research, the CMI and the Institute... [Read More...]
A lack of engagement
I recently heard an HR director talk about her struggle to get the board to understand that the HR strategy – and engagement in particular – are the keys to driving performance, and that the ‘people agenda’ should fit coherently with the business strategy. Her view was that HR is not taken seriously enough, being seen instead as “pink and fluffy”; the ‘soft stuff’. That’s something we hear a lot in our work. Clients often... [Read More...]
Organisational charts and organisational reality
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. Tweet This Post Read More →
We must capture their hearts and minds!
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... [Read More...]
What is engagement?
Engagement is Connection … The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has just published a new report by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke on employee engagement. We wholeheartedly recommend this report – it makes some great points and is filled with useful case studies. It’s very hard to get to the end and still avoid the conclusion that having an engaged workforce really does improve bottom line results. But what actually is engagement? ... [Read More...]
The time cost of poor communication
What I learned about communication from commuting into London every day … Two things I hate: Train delays and boring Powerpoint presentations. They both waste time, and not in an unrelated way, as I want to show. The metaphor of time as a scarce resource is a well integrated part of the Western worldview – we don’t just talk about how we waste time, but how we save time, spend time, how time runs out, how some time can be set aside, how... [Read More...]
The meaning of meaning
What does a meaningful workplace actually look like? In my review of Gurnek Bains’ Meaning Inc my main criticism was that it barely said anything about representation, without which there can be no meaning. Unfortunately there wasn’t any space to develop the idea further, and as it probably sounds a bit arcane on first reading I want to spend some time filling in a few blanks. Back in the nineteenth century most scientists believed there was... [Read More...]
Meaning Inc. Book Review
Meaning Inc: What does it all mean? Meaning Inc came out about a year ago now, and is basically a manifesto from business psychology consultancy YSC. Although its stated author is YSC’s CEO Gurnek Bains, judging from the Acknowledgements it was very much a collaborative effort. The models and case studies (not to mention cover recommendations) are evidently drawn from client history. This isn’t problematic, although the content does sometimes... [Read More...]
