Human resources professionals have a dream. It’s a desire to become full business partners who enjoy the respect of their senior management peers. In some organizations this goal to be strategic has already been realized, in many others it is evolving. For HR associations and academics it has become a mission statement.
But many HR professionals are still grappling with the meaning of strategic HR. How does one add value to the business and show senior executives that HR has contributions to make? One answer lies in the realm of employee engagement. It’s a predominant topic in this issue of Canadian HR Reporter.
On page 6, HR consultant and long-time Canadian HR Reporter contributor Daphne Woolf describes the issues behind what she calls “employment engagement.” It’s a term that symbolizes the two-way aspect of engagement — to get something from staff, employers must give something. When it comes to engagement, one thing employees need is supportive leadership in the form of bosses who know how to motivate and build teams.
Establishing a culture defined by the presence of motivating leaders is one of the biggest challenges for HR, as it means confronting poor leaders in the organization. To do this HR needs support from the very top. If the CEO and the senior team are unwilling to provide the coaching, mentoring and leadership development necessary to elevate weak leaders, and remove those who ultimately are unable to connect with their reports, then employee engagement will remain elusive. But if the will is there, engagement initiatives can successfully show that progressive people strategies add as much to the bottom line as state-of-the-art technology and business acumen.
So what does engagement even look like? In this issue’s HR Leaders Talk feature beginning on page 7, HR professionals describe how engagement manifests itself in their organizations, and what HR has to do to get a handle on this often elusive productivity ingredient.
Gary Burkett, head of HR at FedEx Canada, provides a straightforward definition: “An engaged employee is an employee who is satisfied, who is committed, who is loyal and who gives that above-and-beyond discretionary effort.”
To build an organization that can boast such employees, HR will have to do some ground work. First of all, if you’re not doing employee surveys, start. Employee attitudes and concerns must be catalogued. This allows HR to zero in on issues — working conditions, compensation, employee empowerment, recognition or otherwise — that impact engagement levels. Surveys also allow HR to benchmark hoped for improvements in employee attitudes — metrics that will show senior management where HR programs are having a positive effect.
But HR can’t rely solely on surveys. Truly effective HR departments have an ear to the ground, creating relationships with managers and employees that allow human resources departments to take the pulse of the shop floor and office environment. This is where the “touchy-feely” side of HR comes into play. While the soft skills HR practitioners deploy are sometimes dismissed by business and finance experts (usually the ones who can’t appreciate that managing people and people skills go hand-in-hand), this very ability to connect with workers is what is required to achieve engagement.
Then comes the work of building programs that bind staff to the organization, creating an environment where employee engagement and productivity serve the bottom line. Hopefully you won’t have to fire any executives along the way.
But many HR professionals are still grappling with the meaning of strategic HR. How does one add value to the business and show senior executives that HR has contributions to make? One answer lies in the realm of employee engagement. It’s a predominant topic in this issue of Canadian HR Reporter.
On page 6, HR consultant and long-time Canadian HR Reporter contributor Daphne Woolf describes the issues behind what she calls “employment engagement.” It’s a term that symbolizes the two-way aspect of engagement — to get something from staff, employers must give something. When it comes to engagement, one thing employees need is supportive leadership in the form of bosses who know how to motivate and build teams.
Establishing a culture defined by the presence of motivating leaders is one of the biggest challenges for HR, as it means confronting poor leaders in the organization. To do this HR needs support from the very top. If the CEO and the senior team are unwilling to provide the coaching, mentoring and leadership development necessary to elevate weak leaders, and remove those who ultimately are unable to connect with their reports, then employee engagement will remain elusive. But if the will is there, engagement initiatives can successfully show that progressive people strategies add as much to the bottom line as state-of-the-art technology and business acumen.
So what does engagement even look like? In this issue’s HR Leaders Talk feature beginning on page 7, HR professionals describe how engagement manifests itself in their organizations, and what HR has to do to get a handle on this often elusive productivity ingredient.
Gary Burkett, head of HR at FedEx Canada, provides a straightforward definition: “An engaged employee is an employee who is satisfied, who is committed, who is loyal and who gives that above-and-beyond discretionary effort.”
To build an organization that can boast such employees, HR will have to do some ground work. First of all, if you’re not doing employee surveys, start. Employee attitudes and concerns must be catalogued. This allows HR to zero in on issues — working conditions, compensation, employee empowerment, recognition or otherwise — that impact engagement levels. Surveys also allow HR to benchmark hoped for improvements in employee attitudes — metrics that will show senior management where HR programs are having a positive effect.
But HR can’t rely solely on surveys. Truly effective HR departments have an ear to the ground, creating relationships with managers and employees that allow human resources departments to take the pulse of the shop floor and office environment. This is where the “touchy-feely” side of HR comes into play. While the soft skills HR practitioners deploy are sometimes dismissed by business and finance experts (usually the ones who can’t appreciate that managing people and people skills go hand-in-hand), this very ability to connect with workers is what is required to achieve engagement.
Then comes the work of building programs that bind staff to the organization, creating an environment where employee engagement and productivity serve the bottom line. Hopefully you won’t have to fire any executives along the way.
