Businesses talk a lot about staff or team engagement but not many do it really well.
I was sitting in a conference once and the speaker – who was a HR expert – was talking about engagement. His organisation’s research showed that the industry benchmark for staff engagement is 65 per cent.
I was blown away by that. It means that in an organisation of 35 or 40 people, you could have 12 to 15 people who are disengaged with the business and that’s best practice!
I had been disappointed because we had five or six people in our business who I felt weren’t engaged.
In retrospect, maybe we were being a bit harsh on ourselves, but engagement is really critical to success. Your team is the lifeblood of your business and they often hold the closest relationship with your clients.
So what does it mean to have an “engaged” team? To me, it essentially means your team members are infected with a passion for the business, the vision and your clients and will independently work hard to reach the group’s goals – even when you’re not there. This translates into results for your bottom line.
Here are my five top tips for creating an engaged team:
- Have a clear vision: People can’t engage with the business if they don’t know what you stand for. When you have a clear vision for the core of why you exist and what you want to deliver, it’s much easier for the team to get excited about it. You don’t need a script for that because it’s something genuine and authentic.
- Hire the right people: Getting the right people can be a make-or-break proposition for your business. I chose people to join our leadership team who shared a vision and could contribute to it and, importantly, cared. This means we have a core group of people who are always advocates for the vision of our business and can keep that spirit alive in the broader team.
- Create an atmosphere of trust: When something goes wrong in your business, the most important gift your team can give you is honest information about what the problem was so you can learn from your mistakes. But people won’t be honest and transparent if they feel as though there’s a chance it will come back to bite them. You’ve got to get that framework in place where people feel that it’s ok to give honest feedback without fear, and to know it will be valued and will be beneficial to the business. This won’t happen without trust.
- Make passion part of your culture: Your team may never be quite as engaged as you or believe in the vision as much as you do but they don’t have to from day one. Give it time and keep building the culture as part of a broader vision. As the leader, you need to communicate to your team what they can do to assist each other and clients, and make sure they understand their purpose and feel like they’re adding value to people. This creates a culture where people feel passionate about helping others and when you have a culture like that, people get dragged along with it without even realising it.
- Keep engaging: Engagement isn’t a one-off event; it’s a constant progression. You need to keep trying, keep engaging, and keep learning. You need to constantly keep reinforcing the vision so people don’t become complacent or forget.
As a leader, you can’t be everywhere at once but when you have a highly engaged team, you can at least make sure the vision is upheld at every level of your business and that’s the next best thing.
Simon has 14 years’ experience in wealth management and accounting services across operations, strategy and acquisitions. He is the co-founder and managing director and chief executive of Prime Financial Group Ltd (ASX:PFG).
Simon is also a people expert in the No More Practice Transformation Series and features in the No More Practice 30 Day Business Challenge.
