15 November 2007

Making communications key to employee engagement

Research has identified the key drivers of employee engagement and the common theme throughout is effective communication.

Delegates at this month’s aspic seminar, run by The Item Group, heard the views and experiences of two speakers.

Nycomed’s Director of Organisational Communications, Mark Watkins, told the story of the Danish pharmaceutical firm’s recent purchase and integration of German company ALTANA Pharma.

The biggest issue faced was around the people with Nycomed’s culture being entrepreneurial, opportunistic and Scandinavian in contrast to Altana’s culture of strategy and policy driven, long-term thinking and German.

Five key challenges included setting up an integration project team drawn from both firms; working with senior management; engaging employees; addressing the very different needs around the business and resources.

To engage employees, three waves of survey were carried out to temperature test feelings and perceptions. This allowed the communication team to target areas such as line management communications skills that were barriers to success and to use preferred channels for dialogue.

Meanwhile, Director and founder of engagement consultancy Green Lion, Andy Parsley, outlined his view that people are the next step in delivering competitive advantage.

Research shows that only 35 per cent of the UK workforce are actively engaged. Twenty per cent are actively disengaged in organisations and the remaining 55 per cent just don’t care. The cost of disengagement to the UK economy is estimated at £38 billion a year.

Andy says that the three steps to successful engagement are leadership, respect and personal development.

Leadership must believe in the core values and the vision and communicate this compellingly with short term objectives. Our role as communications professionals is to help leaders to communicate effectively in their own style, tailoring tools and delivery style.

Respect is reflected in the fact that people do like change and want to be involved – if it is ‘done’ to you, you’re not as engaged.

And, Andy advised organisations to think hard about why they promote people. Not everyone is a natural leader or communicator and inputs should be measured so that not only the fact that the task was completed is a measure of success.