«Employees in France are among the least invested in the world with an engagement rate of 6 %,» according to the Gallup report «State of the Global Workplace 2022». To this is added the famous phenomenon of the «big resignation» or « big quit »Coming from the United States and starting to affect France with a threshold of 500,000 resignations every quarter since the summer of 2021*.
These figures allow us to measure how much Employee engagement is a key issue in an economic environment that seems inexorably heading towards 2023!
In this context of uncertainty marked by crises, Employees are more than ever in search of meaning, fulfillment, and motivating projects. Or, Who better placed than managers to support teams? in this quest?
In order to avoid a turn-over a mass that would harm the company’s performance, it is therefore appropriate to deploy measures, through management, to improve The employee experience, Engaging employees and finding the right levers for engagement. Here are the 4 key axes we have identified to better meet the expectations of teams and boost employee engagement!
Levier management #1: giving meaning to work to activate the engagement of employees
One of the major social changes of recent years remains our attitude towards work. In 1990, 60 French people assigned it a «very important» place. Today, there are only 20 % of them % (Alan Well-being Index – Harris Interactive from the second semester of 2022).
In this context of distrust towards the company, knowing «why we get up in the morning» becomes crucial! The richness of the mission and especially the sense of purpose in the work are the key levers of engagement for 97 % of the French people (study Infopro Digital Etudes for L’Usine Nouvelle and Bodet Software).
With the younger generations, the question of meaning is even more essential. New employees want to understand the usefulness and purpose of their work and how they contribute to the company’s project and to society. Work that lacks meaning for them would become a reason to leave the company.
To answer this search for meaning, beyond the intergenerational management, Employees need complete transparency about the project and the company’s values in order to identify with and associate oneself with it.
However, management systems still rely today on Management by Objectives (MPO), as defined by Peter Drucker some 70 years ago, during the industrial era and organizational organization. This mode of performance management is no longer suitable for the new work styles being sought (matrix, collaborative, agile…), nor for the levers of employee engagement (especially among the younger generation).
More recent management methods, such as OKR (Objectives & Key Results), They respond much better to new aspirations: they clearly and convincingly enable collective commitment around a shared raison d’être and clear priorities, combined with new approaches to work (autonomy, recognition, the right to make mistakes…).
Levier management #2: promoting autonomy, consideration and collective intelligence
Giving meaning to work and clarifying the expected results are indispensable prerequisites that the manager must implement to involve employees in achieving the objectives. But it is essential to then leave employees some freedom to organize themselves, individually and as a team, in order to achieve the desired results more effectively.
Feeling free is an important element of quality of life at work (QWL) according to employees surveyed during the 2022 ranking of «Best Workplaces France» companies» 87 % of the employees in the winning companies declare that « Management trusts us to do our work properly without constantly checking on us. » against only 58 % in all the participating structures.
The participatory management fits into this dynamic of freedom by granting more responsibility, autonomy and decision-making power for employees, and relying on collective intelligence.
Employees practice the collaborative mode in a The logic of free engagement, Each one brings their contribution in line with their own skills or in the form of particularly sought-after creative ideas in innovation approaches.
Thus, each employee feels valued, responsible, and mobilized around the projects, using all their skills in a collective framework conducive to better engagement among the teams, which is a source of the company’s performance. In this sense, the Collaborative mode is a great way to combine economic performance and well-being at work.
Levier Manager #3: Trust, give feedback and improve the employee experience
In general, but even more so in a challenging work environment characterized by crises and pandemics, it is essential that the manager be able to: staying tuned in, providing regular feedback, maintaining cohesion and a climate of trust preconditions and essentials for engaging, motivating team members and possibly detecting situations of isolation or overwork.
According to a study in the Harvard Review, 76% % of employees are more committed to their tasks when they have a high level of trust in their company and their manager.
What will generate trust is a concern to improve the daily life of the employee, to make their life easier and to engage in consultative approaches before making decisions, to respect their commitments (we say it, we do it!) and above all to have a concern for transparency (end of the time of keeping information to maintain power!).
Knowing how to give and receive feedback contributes to this transparency. But it remains a delicate exercise because this frank and direct mode of communication is not rooted in all corporate cultures.
Developing the culture of feedback requires a change in mindset for it to be perceived in a benevolent way (« feedback is a gift«This requires managers and employees to be driven by a constructive mindset while ensuring that their statements are factually based.
For managers, always better to know the intrinsic motivations of their employees and strive towards personalized and individualized management will contribute to further increasing confidence. hybrid work It reinforces the need for managers to implement qualities of empathy, listening, and taking into account their personal constraints, adapting work environments to make them pleasant and facilitating interactions. All of this also contributes to the «good» Employee experience.
Levier management #4: continuously supporting the development of skills
As mentioned above, the practice of feedback and a deeper understanding of employees’ motivations translate into the level of attention managers should pay to their teams and allow them to better identify skills to strengthen or develop.
Helping employees develop their skills and progress in their roles or within the organization is more essential than ever for engagement… but also for the performance of the company.
There is nothing less motivating than staying in a routine without ever learning anything new. Not offering your employees the opportunity to continue training is to risk seeing them leave for another professional project…
Employees must therefore continue to learn, develop their skills and cultivate their talents. The increasingly diverse ways of training are now adapted to all situations: distance training, Corporate webinars, management seminars, reverse mentoring, etc.
Managers can also motivate employees with new professional perspectives, By offering them the opportunity to work on innovative topics or on cross-cutting projects, or even supporting a promotion within their hierarchy, accompanied by an appropriate training plan.
« Train people well enough so that they can leave; treat them well enough so that they don’t want to leave! »
Richard Branson
This quote, which could be the motto of HR | Training | Talent Development teams, sums up well the levers we have just mentioned. Beyond training initiatives – which must correspond to the challenges of transforming the organization –, meeting the new expectations of employees in an uncertain context requires giving meaning to their work, making them more responsible as a team, and improving the employee experience through listening and transparency… These are issues that managers must be aware of in order to enable the company’s vital forces to truly flourish in 2023!
