Employee engagement needs to be high on the agenda when resources are limited

The CIPD's last quarterly Employee Outlook survey suggests that staff are working harder and longer hours than ever before.  However, organisations that become complacent about their existing staff are potentially building up a storehouse of conflict that can directly and indirectly sabotage an organisation's best-laid plans. 

Employee engagement needs to be high on the agenda if the organisation wants to continue to function with more limited resources.  While organisations take great care to craft their corporate communications, the reality is that for most staff, the words and actions of the line manager is likely to be the biggest key influence on whether staff are will be on board or not. 

One of the most effective things that line managers can do to encourage employee engagement is to spend time talking to each individual staff member about their career as opposed to their job. Encouraging staff to be honest about their career concerns and aspirations is the key to finding ways in which organisational and individual objectives can be more effectively entwined. Yet this is a strategy that is vastly underused within organisations.

Individuals may want promotion, work-life balance, security, to be an expert in their field, or none of these things. It could be just to earn a regular salary and leave at 5pm. Most people are realistic in their expectations and can understand what may or may not be possible.  However, the discussion in itself can be used to generate solutions and opportunities that work for both parties.

For example, even where opportunities for in-house career progression have dried up, individuals can still actively develop their career.  Where budget is tight or non-existent, low- cost solutions could include the staff member being mentored or mentoring others, work shadowing, training others, help in developing peer and professional networks, reading and research, taking up external voluntary roles, etc. 

Where individuals feel they are stagnating in their job, job enrichment will become important. They could be delegated some more senior tasks, write a research report, join a project team, contribute to the company newsletter or help facilitate social media networks for the organisation. Explaining the purpose of the ‘stretch' activities and the skills and behaviours being looked for, will help them understand its value to them as an individual as well as the organisation.  Otherwise there is a danger that they could just feel that more work is just being dumped on them.

In the event that staff within the organisation are made redundant, then outplacement support is helpful psychologically and practically for those who are leaving as well as those who are staying. Where exits are handled badly then the negative internal PR can significantly lower employee morale and trust levels. Outplacement companies are experts in providing supported exits and can usually supply a range of solutions dependent on budget.

Where there is no budget for outplacement, then HR teams may themselves offer staff leavers some job-search support, for example helping with CVs.  However, the demands on the HR team means that this is rarely sufficient and is frustrating for all concerned. At the very least the HR team should be sign-posting individuals to relevant outplacement organisations that can help them.  In addition, if the organisation is willing simply to process the invoice for an outplacement service and offset the sum against the individual's final redundancy amount, then while it costs the organisation nothing at all, the individual can save hundreds of pounds on VAT and tax.     

Even when money is tight in an organisation and some of the organisational changes are painful, there is plenty of scope to maintain and even enhance employee engagement.  Organisations who pay attention to this will be more likely to sustain performance levels even in difficult conditions. Whereas even the most well-resourced organisations will struggle if its staff are demotivated and distrustful.

Corinne Mills is managing director of Personal Career Management