Employee Engagement Forum, Institute of Directors, UK, 12 May 2011

Citation

Bartlett, P. (2011), "Employee Engagement Forum, Institute of Directors, UK, 12 May 2011", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 10 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2011.37210faa.014

Employee Engagement Forum, Institute of Directors, UK, 12 May 2011

Article Type: Resources From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 10, Issue 6

Senior managers from top UK businesses identified common barriers to implementing effective employee engagement strategies at an Employee Engagement Forum recently held by business services company Grass Roots.

Professor Katie Truss of Kent University, and member of the Guru Group, was guest speaker at the London event, which was organized and facilitated by Grass Roots. Many of those attending had contributed to the original Engaging for Success report to government by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke.

The common barriers to employee engagement identified by the group were:

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  Line managers not being equipped with the relevant skills.

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  Organizational complexity – one engagement initiative may not fit all.

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  Communication – many organizations struggle to get the right message to the right individual at the right time.

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  Lack of buy-in and support from senior leadership.

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  Key stakeholders being unconvinced by the business case.

The group discussed some of the specific issues relating to each barrier, and then moved on to share potential solutions and ideas, which could be broadly grouped into the following categories:

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  Fostering people management skills.

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  Making engagement meaningful for your organization.

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  Enhancing the employee experience from start to finish.

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  Creating alignment between employee and customer engagement.

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  Making the shared responsibility of employee engagement clear.

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  Communicate, communicate, communicate.

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  Developing more inspirational leadership.

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  Building the business case.

Outputs from the group discussion have been compiled into a document to be shared with participants, as well as David MacLeod and the government-backed Employee Engagement Task Force. Attendees were also given an insight into where some major organizations are using the Grass Roots Employee Engagement hub to drive enhanced employee engagement, by applying CRM principles to communicating with their people.

Paul BartlettHead of Reward at Grass Roots.