BACK ON THE TUBE -- There was a good note on the Communicators' Network today by Jim Shaffer about employee engagement.  Maybe you saw it?

Jim's an interesting guy.  He was leading the communications business at Towers Perrin when I first joined that company.  Now he's got books out and is doing some interesting stuff.

His view can be badly summed up as follows:

'Engagement is a state of mind.  It increased productivity.  You want that.  And it's improved by a lot of small things, many of which the communications team can deliver.'

And, of course, he's right.  He's even got the numbers to proved it.

The bigger question for me remains, how do you sell that to the CFO and the Director of Strategy?  Jim alludes to it in his note but misses the biggest issue.  IMHO.

Executive Committees aren't generally seized by issues they don't know they have.  And engagement tends to be one of them.

Do you recogmise this:

"When I started out, No one asked me how I felt.  I just did what I was told.  And I liked it!"

So, what do execs care about?

Business leaders focus on issues that they know they have like:

• delivering the strategy
• managing organisational change
• hiring top performers
• fighting off hostile competitors and suitors
• reducing costs and
• increasing sales

Is employee engagement the answer to all of these?

No.  (If you think so, re-read the top bit.)

But most of the things you do to increase employee engagement are.

/df

P.S. Readership of this blog appears to have more than doubled in the last 36 hours.  Anyone know why?