Engaged Organizations

What does an engaged organization feel like or look like?  If you have ever wondered about these questions you are not alone.  Let’s use our imaginations for a moment.  

Imagine...

A large multinational company with multiple independent business divisions has decided to merge two business units that they have decided are close enough in purpose to benefit from unified management.

Walking down the halls of one division, let’s call it Division A, you hear excited talk about the new potential and opportunities that come from working with the incoming team members and the new strategic direction the organization will take.  Team members are working hard to prepare their clients, teams, and projects for the merger.  Leaders are actively walking around sharing information and recognizing the hard work the teams are doing to get ready.  In short Division A is an engaged organization with an engaged workforce.

Walking the halls of Division B we see people shuttered away in offices and cubicles.  Discussion during lunch at the water cooler is about who might get laid off and who is looking for a new job.  Leaders remain at their desks and leave their employees guessing to their fates and if anything is being done to prepare for the merger it is done to beat deadlines and without much concern for quality since it will soon enough be someone else’s problem.  In short Division B is an organization with engagement problems.

Looking at this example we notice several key elements to an engaged organization.  We see engaged individuals, engaged teams, and leaders creating engagement.   We also notice a different mindset to the approaching change and correspondingly different behaviors.  But what are the steps to creating an engaged organization?

At ALTEC we see creating engagement as an ongoing process that does not come with a “Mission Accomplished” banner to wave at the right time.   We do, however, believe that for organizations that want to focus on becoming more engaged, there are steps that can be followed to start the process:

• Identify Your Culture – What are the shared values in your organization?  What kind of language already exists in your organization to talk about engagement?  What strategic themes drive performance at your company? What behaviors are encouraged in the workplace to represent the values and strategy of your organization?  
• Define Strategic Engagement and the Culture to Support Engagement – Working with leaders at various levels within your organization ALTEC consultants will help to draft a vision for an engaged company, define the value behavior traits that reflect an engaged workforce, and align strategic work behaviors with engaged behaviors
• Create Communication Package for Your Engagement Message – How do you communicate with your organization why you are emphasizing engagement and what are you going to do about it.
• Conduct an Internal Employee Engagement Survey – ALTEC uses the EES created by ALTEC Dragon Willbe Zeng to benchmark organizations and evaluate their level engagement.  These survey results form the foundation for engagement action plans and how to execute those plans.
• Survey Results Feedback – Following an interpretation of the data by ALTEC consultants a communication package is designed to share results at all levels of the organization.
• Specific Organizational Interventions – based on your organization’s results ALTEC consultants will help to design interventions that trouble-shoot specific areas identified by the EES results.  These interventions have the goal of transforming the mindset and behaviors of your organization's workforce, leaders, and organization as a whole.

“ENGAGING THE DRAGON WITHIN”
ALTEC
Yueyun Building 18/F, No. 3, Zhong Shan 2 Road,
Guangzhou, China 510080
Tel: 8620 37621253 Fax: 8620 37621257
Website: www.altec.com.cn