This week the Government announced an Employee Engagement Task Force as a follow up to the review on employee engagement by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke in 2009, which was done for the previous government.
The good news for people managers is that the output of the task force will be practical advice and "best practice" learning on how to achieve better employee engagement.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the focus for the task force was on supporting two top government priorities - delivering sustainable growth and helping people improve their wellbeing.
However, you could query whether the government's thinking on employment issues was joined up. For example, the original Macleod report said on page 66:
."..we would argue that these higher expectations [of more engaging work] are not limited to one particular demographic. Increasingly employees expect to be treated as human beings with rights and responsibilities as, for example, the introduction of the right to request flexible working for those with children or caring responsibilities recognises."
Yet in the same month the employee engagement task force was announced, the government released plans to scrap regulations giving parents of children up to the age 17 the right to flexible working hours in order to reduce the burden of employment law on SMEs.
Could it be that smaller companies, who employ the vast majority of people at work in the UK, don't need to engage their workforces as much as larger ones?
Cameron's statements about HR management have been inconsistent, as Michael Carty pointed out in a blog post this week.
The Macleod review did a good job of identifying the barriers to employee engagement, At the heart of it there seems to be a fundamental tension about the extent to which an employer can align its goals with the aspirations of individual employees.
A lot of the literature on engagement and talent management seems to assume that employees want to give themselves body and soul to achieving the organisation's objectives.
But employees are not all corporate clones and they might have other ideas. They might want to spend more time with their families, or they might want to spend more time on pastimes they find a lot more engaging than what they do at work. They might not even agree with their employer's business strategy for ethical or other reasons.
Let's look forward to practical advice on how you engage different sorts of workers in different sectors, turn bad managers into good ones and how we can measure engagement.
The Taskforce will produce a report next year on strategies for "best practice" and learning. You can see the members of the task force here.
Other developments
EasyJet's Carolyn McCall to speak at HR conference on "silo syndrome".
Read the latest Ashridge Journal with articles on performance-related pay and mindful leadership.
The Chartered Management Institute responds to the government task force on employee engagement by recommending companies offer shares to staff.
XpertHR Employee engagement conference takes place on12 May in London.
A blog post on the five most important talent management metrics.
And finally, not sure what you will make of this, but AIG, the insurance company that in 2008 got an $85 Billion US government bailout as a result of their inability to pay debts following the credit crunch, was recently a case study at the fifth Annual Internal Branding and Employee Engagement Conference in Miami.
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Comments (2)
Noel, you make some interesting points. I was particularly interested in the theme that smaller companies may not need to engage the same way larger ones do.
It seems the Task Force has just one SME representative out of all those huge companies. Surely this needs to be re-dressed - even if engagement isn't such a problem for SMEs, the ovewhelming majority of people do work for them.
Posted by Kay Phelps | April 1, 2011 3:37 PM
Posted on April 1, 2011 15:37
I hadn't noticed there was only one SME represented, Kay, so thanks for pointing that out. I'm not sure if engagement is less of a problem for SMEs - it could be more of a problem for many. The other problem that occurs to me reading your comment is that the approach you take in a multinational is going to be very different to that of a small company so whatever practical recommendations or guidance comes out of this task force it must address the needs of SMEs too.
Posted by Noel O'Reilly
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April 1, 2011 3:46 PM
Posted on April 1, 2011 15:46