1. Engaging my workforce
I’ve certainly done my part writing about engagement, and so have many other people. For today’s article, I thought I’d let someone else do the talking. From management-issues.com, Andy Parsley writes about the service-profit chain:
The Service-Profit Chain model they had created could hardly be more intuitive: Employee Satisfaction drives Employee Retention drives Employee Productivity drives Service Value drives Customer Satisfaction drives Customer Loyalty drives Profitability and Growth.
In short: Engaged Employees create Loyal Customers who in turn create Bigger Profits. ((Parsley, Andy, December 6, 2005. “Employee engagement: the what, why and how.” Retrieved from http://www.management-issues.com/2006/5/25/opinion/100129-7055.asp on August 12, 2006.))
Everyone has been talking about employee engagement, and we all point to the fact that retention rates will be better and employees will have more personal investment in their jobs. The core of employee engagement cannot be expressed better than above however. It’s all about creating more profits.
Let’s face it, no matter what we say, our employees are and always will be an input to the business just like any other capital. In fact, in recent years, we’ve taken to calling the Human Resources or Human Capital (as opposed to the sad years of personnel). Other types of capital are all expected to run at maximum efficiency and have the maintenance to show for it whether it’s financial management, or machinery. Human Capital requires a mix of total rewards management, talent management, and engagement management.
Managing the engagement of your workforce is quite complex. Not only does it require that you are effective at total rewards and talent as a predecessor to success, but in engaging your workforce you’ll need to exercise the right competencies of communications, employer branding, and change management. You’ll also probably employ cross functional tasks such as technology management.
Engaging the workforce is number one on the list of things you should be thinking about (during sleepless nights) because it’s one of the highest level strategies for HR. Almost every thing else rolls up to the engagement strategy.
