A New Framework for Employee Engagement

As noted before, employee engagement hasn't really gone anywhere in the past two decades. It's still a lot less than managers like to think it is. We often think we've got half our team fully engaged (enthusiastic about contributing to the vision, committed to doing their best work, etc.)--the blue line in the graphic below--but reality is that it's half of that (green line below). And we think with a some effort (which we don't have to continue forever), the engagement levels will radically improve.

We can listen to all kinds of engagement gurus but most are missing the vital framework to creating the levels of engagement in their teams that knock your customers' socks off (i.e. gets your Net Promoter Score above 50%).  4ward Associates has developed a proven framework and toolkit that creates those levels. It's starts with realizing that a manager's efforts need to be daily.

• Foundation: organizational trustworthiness deriving from manager's trustworthiness [Update July 2017: Harvard Business Review confirms this...]
• Personal Motivation: understanding each person's set of motivators (and the lowest proportion of the population is motivated by money)
• Manager's own level of engagement
• Understanding the key drivers for engagement (it's not what you think)
• Understanding how to influence change
• Daily reinforcing the change using focus, and feedback on vital behaviors and the six dimensions of influence (this is also part of the toolkit)

It's not rocket science. In fact, many successful leaders do a lot of this because it's common sense. However, it's hard because we have a hard time changing our own leadership paradigms (frameworks) that we don't embrace the new framework. We maintain the bad habits that got us into this situation even though we know it's not the best...but it's working well enough...we think.

If you miss any of the elements above, you'll be skating on the green line above (or stuck at point 1 on that particular line). It's where business has been for 50-60 years probably, ever since the dawn of the 'company man' who does the work because it has to be done but he/she would rather be doing something else.