Personal vs. professional: why today's business leaders need to improve staff
engagement
Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy, CIPD
The modern workplace is very different to the one predicted for us in the middle of the
20th century. In 1953, Winston Churchill suggested that if economic output doubled then
the working man might be able to have "A four day week, and then three days of fun". 1
Twelve years later, in 1965, a US Senate subcommittee predicted a 22-hour working
week by 1985, and 14 hours by 2000. 2
The reality, of course, has been very different. Working hours have shortened over time
in the UK, to 36 hours per week in 2011 compared to an average of between 40 and 48
in 1952, 3 but a series of trends have combined to ensure that work has not changed in
quite the way envisaged by futurologists of the last century.
One of the main developments has been technological advance, with the arrival of
laptops, the internet, mobile phones and social networking all playing a role in reshaping
the modern workplace. Another has been the shift from a predominately manufacturing
based economy to a more service oriented one. As workers have left the production line
and become more involved in the delivery of high value services, a greater proportion
have been able to work outside normal working hours and away from the workplace.
These two trends, and others, such as the vastly increased number of women and older
workers now participating in the labour market, have blurred the edges between people’s
work and home lives and this has profound implications for business leaders who want
to get the best out of their people.
Perhaps most importantly, our increasingly flexible working practices mean that
traditional command and control styles of management have become less well suited to
the modern workplace. Managers can no longer rely on ensuring people work a set
number of hours and make x widgets per hour as a means of managing performance.
Instead, the extent to which organisations are able to encourage their employees to go
the extra mile voluntarily has become critical.
In order to achieve that goal, business leaders need to create stronger bonds of trust
with their employees by doing a better job of engaging with their staff. This is something
the UK government has been supporting through the work of its Employee Engagement
Taskforce, which was launched last year by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. The
1
'The Diary of Lord Moran, Churchill's Personal Doctor: part II', Life Magazine, 29 April 1966
de Graaf, J & Batker, D (2011) What's the economy for, anyway?: Why it's time to stop chasing
growth and start pursuing happiness
3
CIPD Work Audit: Britain at work in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, February 2011
http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4C4C717A-2EDD-424E-9BD0592367D444A6/0/5758WorkAuditWEB.pdf
2
taskforce is led by David MacLeod, who conducted a review into employee engagement
for the previous government. 4 That first review identified four key enablers of employee
engagement:
•
•
•
•
Organisational purpose - introduce a clear organisational purpose that
employees at all levels of an organisation understand and buy-in to.
Integrity - ensure the way people do business and relate to each other reflects
the organisation’s stated values
Engaging managers - ensure that managers at all levels of an organisation take
an interest in the people they are managing and know how to get the best out of
them
Voice - create systems that enable employees to feed their views upwards to
management and feel as though their views are respected.
MacLeod’s four enablers provide an effective starting point for business leaders that
want to build an employee engagement strategy. For many organisations this is a very
different way of operating and one that will not evolve over night. It requires a different
type of leadership, right the way down to front line managers, which enables and
empowers employees. Line management in the modern workplace is no longer simply
about managing processes and costs - it is increasingly about leadership and the ability
to win the hearts and minds of staff.
This is something the Chartered Institute of Personal and Development (CIPD) has been
exploring in its research on line management and employee engagement. 5 Our work
highlights the importance of line managers’ traditional role in setting clear goals and
objectives. For example, we found that employees at Standard Chartered value
managers and leaders who are consistent and honest with their teams, set clear
expectations for performance and give feedback with a positive tone.
Our research also shows that engaging managers provide one-to-one support to
undertake tasks and act as a coach to their employees. Just as importantly, such
managers show consideration and interest in employees’ individual lives – recognising
that what happens in people’s lives outside work has an impact on how they perform in
work. At Standard Chartered Bank this is already happening to some extent, with
employees noticing a change in senior management’s communication style as it has
become more personal.
Technological, demographic and economic changes will continue to increase pressure
on employers to embrace a wide range of flexible working arrangements in order to
attract, retain and motivate employees. However, genuine flexibility requires a cultural
shift in many organisations that redefines the relationship between employer and
employee. Leadership is no longer simply about the charismatic qualities of an
organisation’s chief executive. Instead, managers at all levels must become effective
leaders. Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, a professor at the University of Bradford, argues that a
new model of leadership is emerging in which, “the emphasis in not on heroism but on
serving and enabling others to display leadership themselves. It is not about being an
extraordinary person but rather a somewhat ordinary, vulnerable and humble, or at least
4
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2009) Engaging for Success: enhancing
performance through employee engagement London: BIS http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file52215.pdf
5
CIPD (2011) Management competencies for enhancing employee engagement London: CIPD
http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/research/management-competencies-for-engagement.aspx
a very open, accessible and transparent individual.” 6 Leadership then becomes about
building adult to adult working relationships based on the mutual trust and confidence
that is essential in flexible and high-performing organisations.
6
CIPD (2008) Engaging leadership - Creating organisations that maximise the potential of their
people London: CIPD http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F72D3236-E832-4663-ABECBCC7890DC431/0/Engaging_leadership_STF.pdf