I'm an academic who enjoys working with organisations around issues of employee engagement. I like to think I bridge the gap between the academic world and the practitioner one, helping organisations make evidence-based decisions.
I've always been interested in employee experiences of work and have been involved in a lot of different projects. Over ten years ago, I was involved in a health project that focused on implementing policy into practice. Although it was a mandated national policy, I noticed that not all teams were using it - actually, the majority were not, or if they were, it was lip service. After talking to employees, it was clear that engagement was a key factor, and that led me to Engage for Success, which had just formed. Engage for Success is a voluntary movement, and I've been involved with them ever since.
The positive, we've seen a slight increase in engagement levels, by 3%. But at the same time, we've seen real variation in employee experiences and a stark divide in UK workforces in how they treat their employees. Findings show 2 in 5 employees work in organisations where senior leaders and managers prioritise the people issues. And 2 in 5 employees work in organisations where neither senior leaders nor managers prioritise the people issues. There is a 32% difference in engagement levels between these two groups. There is also a big impact on health, with employees working in organisations that do not prioritise the people issues having 5x higher levels of unmanageable job stress!
We can also see concerning differences in engagement between employees with long-term health conditions and neurodivergence who are not receiving the help and support from their organisation that they deserve.
So whilst some employees are seeing improvements, there are those where work is becoming both bad for their health, but is also impacting their attitudes to work, making them at risk of becoming economically inactive.
It’s vital that leaders not only understand our business values but also know how to bring them to life in their roles and within their teams. At N Brown, we’re committed to fostering a culture where leaders feel safe to lead authentically and in alignment with our values. One way we support this is through our five-week EDI&B (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging) training programme, which every leader takes part in. This programme helps our leaders authentically role-model our company vision, which is centred around inclusion. Ultimately, we want all our leaders to embody and promote an open, transparent, and inclusive culture across the business.
We've got a lot of examples in the annual reports around what organisations can do to boost engagement. From the frequency of contact with line managers, to communication methods, wellbeing support, to social events and activities. If I had to pick one thing that organisations could do to boost engagement, it would be implementing action plans at a team level in response to engagement scores. Enabling teams to take ownership of their engagement and develop ways to improve it.
The common mistake is organisations treating engagement programmes as a 'nice to have' but not giving it the same level of priority (or resources) as other strategic areas of the business. You often see this in organisations that collect annual engagement surveys, but who do not provide their engagement teams the time or resources to analyse and act on the data. This negatively impacts employees who completed the surveys, but don't feel like their opinions matter because nothing has changed. It starts to create a negative spiral and disengagement.
I have to admit, I'm a bit of a geek! I love a good gadget and app. So I'm really interested in AI and its impact on engagement. I think it can have both a positive and negative impact, and it really does depend on how it is used.
That's easy - the Engage for Success website and podcast! There's so much information, resources, and case studies on the website. We also have a radio show, podcasts, free events.