Uncertainties are currently plaguing the global economy and a firm’s economic viability, thus creating seismic shifts in the nature of work on an individual level. The uncertainties have also presented a variety of new challenges in engaging employees for organisational performance.
The challenges in inspiring employee engagement and achieving both job satisfaction and organisationally relevant outcomes are many, varied and interconnected. The speed and complexity with which business moves today requires everything to be done in less time. Yet, when this pace results in frequently shifting priorities, surveys claim that individuals and teams can lose motivation because people are reluctant to act, fearing that they are working on the wrong things from the organisation’s perspective.
During times of turbulence, decision-making often can move up the organisational hierarchy as the organisation attempts to reconcile competing priorities and achieve some sense of alignment. This can unintentionally further disempower employees who would usually add their own creative energies by following known priorities. Instead, employees have to double check or wait to be told what is required. Due to time constraints, true alignment might become elusive, generating a multitude of cascading first priorities and resulting in additional workload problems.
To further exacerbate the situation, the solution to employees’ frustration with workload directly competes with the organisation’s need for year-over-year productivity improvements, often euphemistically characterized as “doing more with less.”
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To keep up with the velocity of organisational changes, job changes within the organisation also increase. As people move into different roles, knowledge and progress can be lost on action items to sustain engagement. Continuity becomes even more difficult, and more work is generated as new players attempt to make sense of their environment and the problems at hand.
There is no doubt that there are many challenges in today’s world of work. However, there are several actions that organisations can take now to sustain and improve employee engagement and job satisfaction.
A laser-like focus that pinpoints the most critical business priorities is crucial both for the reduction of overall workload as well as for providing a focal point for engagement initiatives to drive organisational performance.
Expert reports are indicating that careful coordination or alignment of employees through engagement activities to organisational goals is one of the fundamental keys for success.
While many vendors are focusing on differences in measurement approaches to enhance engagement, little attention has been paid to the execution side of the equation. Better equipping supervisors and managers with knowledge of how to confront real issues within the workplace and problem solve with peers and subordinates could go a long way in fundamentally enhancing the workplace. Once problems are identified, managers are expected to miraculously know how to address sometimes complex and systemic issues without much training or guidance. Providing tangible best practices and training to confront real workplace issues are key supports needed for effective action downstream.
Watson Wyatt found that effective communication is essential to financial performance and employee engagement. Corporate communication can advocate new approaches to establishing two-way organisational conversations and the use of digital and social technologies to enhance collaborative conversations.
Harter’s research suggested that higher-tenure employees report being less engaged than both people new to the organisation and people about to retire. Yet, most current organisational work on engagement is being targeted at Millennials’ needs. Harter argued that even a modest improvement in the engagement of the deeply experienced employees will result in an important untapped opportunity for most organisations.
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