In the pressure cooker business world we live in, change and uncertainty have become commonplace. No longer can organisations rest on their laurels. Plans must be put together quickly, decisions made and deadlines met.
A few months ago, I caught up with a CEO from a midsize firm for lunch. He was keen to tell me that people only care about money. His business that he had successfully co-founded, was built purely to enable himself, his co-founders and employees to support their families financially. He made out that was quite noble. Yet, there was no focus on how his organisation created value for their clients. The value was all inward. When I asked him what his company stood for, his brand proposition, he told me it was to enable his employees to feed their families.
Years ago, an aspiring general manager had the misguided idea that reducing biscuit purchases would enable a hospital to save around $3,000 a year. The thinking was that nurses had two biscuits during morning tea and they could change to one biscuit in the morning and one in the afternoon. Alternatively, they could just skip afternoon biscuits. After all, wasn’t it enough to just have biscuits in the morning?
Measuring and improving employee engagement is often revered as the holy grail to improving business performance. Moderate employee engagement results encourage the C-Suite to pat themselves on the back. But ask the CEO some truth-seeking questions and they confess that despite good employee engagement levels there are a few problems that are still impacting performance – employees not being fully challenged, certain leaders unable to harness the collective intelligence of their teams and frustration around constrained expansion plans.
According to a Canadian research firm, trust between a manager and employee, is the most important predictor of employee engagement.
Today’s tricky business challenges requires leaders with increasingly sophisticated skills around fostering innovation, inspiring others, and collaboration. These competencies all require being able to build trust first.
At this point in time, there are many people in fear and anxiety. As a leader, you’re undoubtedly feeling panicked about what you can do to help your employees, family friends and organisation.
Over the years, I’ve worked with many CEOs across Australia from predominantly midsize companies. Some will complain about their people not being fully productive or trusting others in the organisation. They despair at how their staff gossip and assume the worst-case scenario.
Recently, I chaired the two day Melbourne HRD HR Summit that included heads of people, culture and learning from a variety of well-known Australian and international brands. Companies such as Spotify, Australia Post, Telstra, Hesta, St Vincent de Paul Society and Mirvac.