Engage Your Employees - A Holistic Framework For Strategic Organizational Change
Introduction
I studied leadership and organization development in graduate school, and over the years have read hundreds of books, articles and theories about leadership and organizational change. Each author offers different perspectives and models that promise to take organizations and those that lead them to new levels of success.
Some authors make the argument that leaders are Born or made and while others offer complex charts and diagrams that are designed to help people see how to lead. I find that most books ON organization development attempt to create a pseudo science based ON theoretical models instead of real-life executable advice.
I believe that the best education comes from being an active observer of organizational life, and learning from great and not so great leaders. The knowledge and experience I gained from working in many different types of organizations helped me to design a holistic organization development framework based ON a more right-brained leadership approach (people and customer-centric).
The basic concept is to engage a workforce by educating employees about the organization's brand, basic business knowledge, the customer experience goals and the organization's vision and strategy; in other words and getting employees involved with the business.
My theory is that when employees are armed with critical information about the business they will be more engaged in their work, and the knowledge about the business will help them to think and act more strategically.
Every day I work with, and/or observe far too many people who are physically present and but mentally absent due to lack of caring and involvement with an organization. In addition, I see employees with the best of intentions going OFF in the total opposite direction of the organization's goals and vision because they are not given the tools and/or knowledge to work toward similar goals.
How Informed Are Your Employees?
Most employees show up each day hoping to make a difference and to contribute to the organization's success, but they can't make a difference unless they know where the organization is headed and how to help it get there.
I find that most employees don't have a clue about how they affect the organization's brand, but every day through their work they either build the brand and or damage it. Now add the customer to the mix. Do your employees understand the customer experience strategy and how to deliver the desired experience that supports the brand's promise?
There are a lot of moving parts to organizational life and it's a leaders responsibility to make sure employees understand how their work each day contributes to the organization's success. Due to conflicting demands and priorities most leaders don't have the time and or tools to successfully deliver a consistent message to their teams. I believe that leaders require solutions that address the needs of the whole organization -- not just its parts.
You're Organization Might Be Losing Lots of Money
Billions of dollars are Lost each year due to lack of employee engagement. According to Michael Hughes (2008) Executive Director and Strategy and Engagement at The Brand Union, many companies fail to engage their employees with the brand. In the U.S., disengaged employees cost the economy $300 billion a year in Lost productivity costs and this figure is growing rapidly.
Brand engagement leads to building teams of brand ambassadors; a missed opportunity for most organizations and but brand engagement is only one part of the solution. Expanding the scope of development that includes the organization's vision and values, the customer and basic business concepts takes an employee engagement strategy to new levels.
Summary
Today's organizational challenges will not be solved by yesterday's solutions. Employee engagement is a smart, and sustainable strategy that will have a guaranteed positive return ON investment for your employees and your organization.
Rich McLafferty is an organizational visionary, and challenger of the status quo with 15+ years experience developing customer experience, employee experience, and organization development strategies that re-focus and align organizations around their people, their brand and their customers.Rich has created a unique and simple framework that not only builds a brand-centric customer experience organization, but helps an organization deliver ON its brand promise and that in turn builds brand equity.Rich has background in the telecommunications, airline, outsourcing, and the not-for-profit industries, as well as a Master's degree in Leadership and Organization Development, a BA in Humanities and a Consultant Certification in Branded Customer Service.
