One of the most powerful outputs that we have seen from our Keep it Alight – Next Level Change support is to really engage employees at a meaningful level. We have used it to great effect to empower people by getting them involved in how to implement a strategy.
One of the most important engagement enablers is ‘employee voice’. This is a great way of hearing what employees think in a structured way that directly impacts what they do – and how they do it.
When Exec teams create strategies, they look forwards. They don’t necessarily have the skills or knowledge to determine how that strategy should be implemented at a really granular level of detail. Often, it’s teams working with customers that have a really strong view on how a particular strategy should be best carried out – and it’s important to listen.
Clients have used our Keep it Alight support programme to effectively engage with people at all levels of the organisation, to ask “how should we do this?”
It’s an inspirational activity as people feel genuinely engaged and consulted. They have the opportunity to be part of a bigger plan. It makes it real for them and they also feel much more connected to delivering ideas which have come from the people doing the jobs.
How does it work?
With one of our clients, in the health sector, we spent time with experts in one clinical area. They saw the existing strategy and understood the direction they needed to take. However, it wasn’t fully meaningful to them in their roles.
They were asked what they would do to achieve the strategic goals in their area. They knew the frustrations that both they, and their patients, had with the current approach and they offered an alternative approach.
We used the principles from our Ignite Change – Take Action Handbook to help them develop their plan, ensuring that it still met the strategic goal. The strategy was transitioned into something that still worked towards the same target, but took a far more pragmatic and patient-focused route.
The teams were clear that no extra cost should be added (in fact, ideally, cost would reduce), but the quality and access targets were still crucial. “Their way” showed that there was a better way and the results proved it!
They had higher engagement from ‘at risk’ service users, and the teams were more engaged as a result.
This was a great example of how effectively engaging your people can drive empowerment and ownership to great effect.