We need to get back to basics to re-engage stakeholders and employees – and we need to start now
Stakeholder engagement, particularly employee engagement is a big issue at the moment.
CEOs are writing strongly worded letters and stomping their feet on stages to get people back into offices to re-engage their workforce.
Even the Vic Govt is back-peddling on it’s two-day WFH legislation idea – it’ll be interesting to see what happens there…
The problem is people don’t particularly want to engage or feel happy about going to work in an office five days a week – but it’s now a buyer’s market and productivity is on the floor, so be wary.
Having run an Ask Me Anything on stakeholder engagement, I thought I’d share some of the challenges, insights and sentiment.
I also reached out to Tom Mendoza – former President of NetApp and one of the most inspiring leaders I worked with as an employee.
I asked him how he managed to engage and motivate a global workforce to achieve incredible things while also making work a fun place to be.
His response was this:
“My take at NetApp was if we could get everyone to understand and buy into the mission, be willing to sacrifice when necessary, we could do something very special. My efforts to engage them were all in service to making that happen. Key was hiring people who were looking to be in that environment. Without that, it would not have happened.”
Tom used to travel the world meeting with employees, customers and strategic partners. He had a gift – built on dedicated practice – of sharing company insights with people and making them feel both valued and part of something important.
The conversations that had the most impact on me were in the brown bag sessions. It was hard work and time intensive for Tom, but he made you feel like you were in the inner sanctum of the business and someone who was important to its overall success.
When you consider this data:
- Only 21% of employees globally are engaged
- Women and those under 35 are experiencing the steepest declines
- Burnout and lack of support are real threats to productivity and morale
I wonder how many leaders today are running sessions like this with their teams as part of their employee engagement efforts?
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AMA Insights
Challenge: Developing strategic partnerships and corporate relationships has become significantly more difficult with the rise of remote work. The process is slower, less organic and requires more deliberate effort to achieve meaningful engagement and outcomes.
Insights:
- Building relationships now takes 50% longer than before
- Outcomes seem few and far between given revolving doors at leadership levels*
- Phone calls, especially at targeted times (8am or Friday afternoons), are proving more effective than emails or virtual meetings for outreach
- There is a need to “be on the patch”, be where stakeholders are and find creative ways to connect, relate and gather people together, even if virtually or in hybrid formats
- Relevance is everything
*more to come on this topic!
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Challenge: For small businesses, especially those with a mix of office-based and on-site staff, fostering internal engagement is difficult. Physical separation can lead to communication gaps and a lack of organic team development.
Insights:
- Regular site visits and calendar reminders help initiate and maintain contact, but systems are often manual and not automated
- Leadership endorsement and the use of “ambassadors” – team members who are skilled at warming up the room and fostering engagement – are valuable, yet have been overlooked or forgotten in the pursuit of newer approaches
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Challenge: Organising effective team bonding events is complicated by diversity in interests, ages, cultural backgrounds and language proficiency. There is also a noted “social skills gap” post-pandemic, with some team members displaying shyness or reserve.
Insights:
- Activities like cocktail masterclasses may not suit everyone; inclusivity is crucial
- Gathering feedback through surveys or suggestion boxes and rotating event choices, can help ensure everyone feels included
- Cooking classes, charity work and culturally diverse activities (e.g. country-specific meals, MasterChef-style events) have been successful in breaking down barriers and fostering team spirit
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Challenge: Remote work and multicultural teams introduce communication barriers, including language differences and difficulties in conveying messages effectively to stakeholders, especially in large organisations or government settings.
Insights:
- There is a need to tailor communication strategies to different audiences and ensure clarity of message
- More than one leader needs to be communicating and messaging needs to be on point
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I’ll leave it there for now, but if you’d like the full breakdown of insights just ask and I’ll send it to you.
Given all this, I am not for a second proposing an end to WFH – tech firms have been successfully engaging staff all over the planet for decades.
We need to find the right balance to deliver the outcomes businesses so desperately need.
There will probably be some pain and awkwardness in bringing people back together, but people are also craving in person connection – so do it in a way that’s relevant to them and don’t shy away from the difficult conversations.
We’ll run another AMA in September so keep an eye out for the details – it won’t be a LinkedIn “Live” – that was a nightmare!