The past twelve months have seen a tidal wave of resignations across the workforce -both in the UK and around the world. Not only have we witnessed employees leaving their roles, but we have also seen them pursuing entirely new career paths in droves.And it seems that this mass departure is happening across all levels within the workplace and pan sector too,albeit especially evident in the service and retail sectors.
Reward| noun | a thing given in recognition of service, effort, or achievement.
I go to work. My reward, I get paid.
I hit my targets. My reward, I get a bonus.
I helped hit a milestone. My reward, I get a gift.
Most people think of reward as simply a label, a thing that indicates and describes what will be given to compensate for a specified action or behaviour. But is life merely a set of transactional dealings? Is it simply a never-ending negotiation of offers in return for our time, attention and energy?
Now let’s modify that noun to make it an adjective.Let’s see how it can change things….
People can be predictable, irrational, logical, emotional and at times even predictably irrational. What we want – or consider to be important – can change regularly during our window of existence.
For instance, if I ask my niece what she would like, it would be Lego or to play football. If I ask my grandma, it would be a cup of tea and the radio. Most of us can relate to the differing needs and wants of family and friends and certainly the spectrum is wide ranging. And of course, it’s the same for employees; within our workplaces we regularly come across people at varying phases of their lives and with very different needs and outlooks on life.
Equality is a term we’re all familiar with and it’s certainly synonymous with workplace engagement strategies for many reasons. Rightly so. For it is integral to how we work collaboratively and indeed, it is integral to how we live our lives.
In this article I want to talk about equality in a different context to that in which it is usually referred. So, not in the sense of striving for equal opportunities around race, gender, age, or religion – all of which are of course imperative-but more in terms of treating and respecting everyone as equal human beings and addressing work cultural behaviours that may be exacerbating perceived inequality around roles, status and hierarchy.
I once heard someone say, “try to notice how many times you give advice, or your opinion without actually being asked for it.”
This really got me thinking and I realised I was doing exactly this – and in fact – doing it a lot.
Usually, I just wanted to help. Don’t most of us? However, simply telling someone what you think, may not actually be helpful to them.
It’s often easy to tell people what to do, or where they went wrong. Some people tell, some people listen, but the best approach is to ask.
We’ve all heard of the term ‘soft skills’ or ‘power skills’ as they’ve also been coined. They are the essential being and thinking (or social and emotional) behaviours we should all be developing in our workforce to improve future capability alongside the ‘hard’, doing, technical skills too. Soft skills, such as patience, adaptability, curiosity and being able to build relationships and collaborate, are all integral to fostering healthy, respectful and productive working environments; places where we all want – and choose – to work.
I’m sure you have heard the bizarre accusation that the HR and people stuff is merely ‘soft’ and ‘fluffy’? Or perhaps you – as a people professional – have been labelled as less ROI and more pie in the sky?
Well, if so – you wouldn’t be alone.
It’s the perennial issue for HR and people professionals, isn’t it? That unless they provide meaningful objective measures and data sets, they can’t prove real value.
“We need to keep our employees engaged.”
Engagement is a term we hear regularly, but rarely reflect on what it really means. In this blog, we will talk about what engagement really is, how it shows up in our everyday lives and (perhaps most importantly) how we can achieve true employee engagement in our workplaces.
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may realise they were the big things.” These are the words I have hanging in a small frame to the right of my kitchen window overlooking the garden. I was drawn to the embroidered ‘art’ in a small shop in The Lake District a decade or so ago, at a time when struggling with coming to terms with my ‘new life’ in the early days of parenthood. The words have bought me strength and reassurance over the years and I reflect on their wise accuracy often…
Why your employee engagement strategy should be inclusive and a collaborative effort in 2021
10 minute read
For years, businesses of all sizes have pumped time and thought into their employee engagement strategies – and rightly so. Afterall, data proves just how costly it can be to run a ship with a disconnected and unengaged crew. According to Gallup, disengaged employees can result in 37% higher absenteeism, 18% lower productivity and 15% lower profitability within the workplace.