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Posted by Marbenz Antonio on August 16, 2022
Highly engaged workers increase productivity at work, but they can also hasten and improve the effectiveness of your change management efforts.
Nearly 1.4 million employees, according to studies, confirm the link between performance and employee engagement. Employee engagement is a significant and strong predictor of individual performance, productivity, profitability, and customer service rating, according to nine performance outcomes that were measured.
Therefore, it’s important to maintain high levels of engagement whenever we introduce change into the equation to guarantee that everyone is invested enough in the change to support and promote it in their workplace.
Kotter mentions “motivating and inspiring” others throughout a shift as one of the three important elements of change leadership. How therefore can we effectively inspire and engage our audience to achieve positive change?
Barb Grant, Lead Change Management Practitioner of barb@barbgrant.com (Wellington, New Zealand), a former guest speaker for the Change Management Institute, offers us some excellent starting points for achieving that ideal engagement.
Being present, according to her, is an important factor in inspiring and motivating others.
The easiest way to accomplish this, according to Barb, is to take a few deep breaths, let go of whatever you have been focusing on or worrying about, and then start by being attentive and present with the other individuals in the room.
This can also be a great approach to begin a session with a huge audience, a one-on-one customer, or even a small group. This is a useful approach to “clear the decks,” so to speak because everyone you connect with has competing challenges and things going on both professionally and personally.
Barb suggests care while acting as a facilitator since it inhibits you from entering genuine creative expansiveness and coming up with the audacious and most useful ideas and solutions. She also warns against trying to control too much of the discussion.
If others see that you are simply checking items off your list and moving quickly through things without giving ideas time to marinate, input to be heard, or debates to take place, this can also seriously hinder your connection with others.
Walking in someone else’s shoes, even for just a moment, and adopting their perspective are powerful ways to engage with them, help you understand where to go to meet their needs, and help you focus your goals, according to Barb.
Empathy for employees can increase engagement and foster a culture of trust, respect, and a sense of being heard. Starting by simply listening to employees and demonstrating empathy is a fantastic way to cultivate both of these and get the important involvement needed for effective change. Trust and respect for the changes you are leading are essential components of leading change.
Since humans are social creatures, communication is essential to participation. Five communication strategies to encourage involvement in change communications are described by the late Alison Davis, founder of the internationally recognized employee communication firm Davis & Company (New Jersey, USA).
As a widely recognized authority on employee communications, Alison Davis has made remarkable achievements that we recognize and remember in this article.
Employees are likely to turn to one another once changes are disclosed to discuss them, express their worries, and gossip about them. Use this to your advantage, advises Alison, by setting up casual coffee talks with no planned topics of conversation. Making time for senior leaders to meet with staff members over coffee fosters an environment where workers feel comfortable discussing issues and concerns with management.
By the end of the discussion, the manager will have a better knowledge of the concerns of the workers and be in a better position to work with them on the change while taking their concerns into account.
Alison recommends using Change Champions to inform people about what is happening and the next actions during the change process. One of their duties would be to generate enthusiasm for the change, increase awareness and understanding of the anticipated transitions, pay attention to other employees’ worries, gather feedback, and identify any knowledge gaps.
Change Champions can act as your eyes and ears on the ground and significantly contribute to the development of team motivation and engagement for upcoming transitions.
Giving people the chance to interact is one of the best ways to increase engagement. Holding problem-solving sessions is one of the simplest ways to accomplish this, according to Alison. Include them in helping to shape the processes involved in the transitions, she says, as they will be more committed to seeing it through when they are part in working out the specifics of the shift.
According to Alison, employee engagement and wellness go hand in hand. Employees are happier at work when they are experiencing their optimum physical and mental health.
It’s a good idea to encourage and engage workers with wellness offerings. For example, you could hold meditation sessions during lunch breaks or hire an in-house masseuse to give shoulder massages. You could also set aside a regular fortnightly or monthly afternoon for a team-building activity or social event, or you could just offer employees a discount on coffee at a nearby café. Since happy employees are engaged employees, a little bit goes a long way.
To acknowledge employees’ dedication to the transitions and help keep them motivated and engaged in the process of change, Alison advises celebrating accomplishments along the way.
Celebrating little successes in the change process helps to demonstrate to staff that, despite their small size, transitions are taking place and that the systems in place are effective. Another important aspect of this celebration is acknowledgment, which encourages other workers to join in. Before you know it, a few incremental victories lead to a significant transformation.
Using the gamification strategy is a fantastic and enjoyable additional means of motivating people. Gamification, according to Euan Wu7 (Sydney, Australia), a previous guest speaker for The Change Management Institute and Director of The Change Compass, is the use of game design to circumstances that are not games, with the main objective being to increase stakeholder engagement.
Gamification can be a really effective strategy for getting people to adopt change, whether it’s through presenting a challenge, converting objectives into points, having a leaderboard, competing with yourself or other employees, or just having fun. Gamification is very engaging and inspiring because it taps into people’s natural curiosity, fun, and competitiveness as well as their sense of accomplishment and community.
Stockholm is an excellent example of how gamification has successfully influenced behavior. There, a staircase next to an escalator was converted into piano keys that played notes when stepped on. It resulted in a 66% increase in stair usage.
Image courtesy of Euan Wu
Fun seems to be the key to making changes nearly invisible, which can be quite useful because it can reduce the tension, anxiety, and hesitation that are frequently linked to change. Therefore, the next time you add a new procedure or step to your world of change, why not consider whether it may be made more fun, amusing, or even like a game?
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