CHANGE, TRUST & ENGAGEMENT
can do it better than us,” she said. “What does that mean for people at work who are likely to experience change? These are questions around remote working, managing a virtual workforce and having real connections. We have to think of change as continuous. How do we accept that change is the norm?”
TRUST IS A CASUALTY OF CHANGE She cited a recent OECD report which showed workers often displayed a lack of trust in senior management. The report found that 92 per cent of workers trusted their colleagues, 80 per cent trusted their line manager, but only 37 per cent trusted senior management at the organisation where they worked. “How well does senior management take an interest in their
workforce?” she asked. “If we are talking about the old style of command and control – is that leadership model really the best option? What are we doing to stop managers with regular staff turnover? Managers need to be adept at getting the best out of people. We want people giving their best ideas and collaborating.” If people feel that there is a genuine connection, even if there are
tough times coming, they are more likely to trust senior managers. Voice is vital for younger workers and they need to know what
is going on, feel able to share their opinions, be involved, and experience people being treated as individuals.
BUILDING ENGAGEMENT She said managers could build engagement by:
• Creating the environment where people can better connect and decide to work, learn and change together
• Moving from command and control to direction and capability- building
• Designing work that is meaningful • Supporting the team • Enabling diversity and employee well-being • Deliberately developing organisational learning
THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF HR HR has an important role to play in employee in engagement, she said. This could include follow through on employee surveys, addressing the most frustrating ‘pain’ points; helping line managers deal with stress and manage uncertainty; develop engaging managers through recruitment and coaching; design better roles and challenge poor practice and find ways to help employees feel that their voice is heard and that they have the capacity to grow in their career. “In tough times, it is about two-way communication,” she said.
“It is important to earmark the people you want to keep – get them involved in the change and to keep the lines of communication open with your staff.”
NEW WAYS OF WORKING Dr Holbeche and Ben Renshaw, author of Purpose, then opened up the discussion to delegates, addressing questions on remote working, leadership models, and toxic management. “Remote working – the model of having your intact team in
front of you all the time – is going,” said Dr Holbeche. “However, it is still a problem for managers managing people that they don’t see. It’s about building trust – asking what do we mean by good performance – what are the outcomes and do we agree these?”
She cited the case study of EDF Energy, which has lost many
of its physical offices. “They looked at the psychological effects of this and realised
that not everybody enjoys working from home,” she said. “What people miss most is the social side.”
PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKING One solution was to build peer-to-peer networking and encourage sharing on specific issues. Another possible innovation is to bring employees together, preferably for up to a week, to get to know one another and find opportunities to build trust. Another case study was the engineering company Atkins, which
has offices across Europe. “As part of a cultural shift the CEO introduced a cadence call
– sharing what is going on – with all of the 500 managers tuning in. It was supported by a Yammer feed (a social networking service used for private communication within organisations), and issues were addressed in real time. It led to everyone feeling much more part of the business.”
TACKLING TOXIC LEADERSHIP On the issue of toxic leadership, delegates raised the issue of psychological safety as being what drives engagement. The younger generation will walk away from this type of management, meaning that replacing a toxic leader is cheaper than retaining them, even if they are good. “Many of the scenarios I enter are the result of toxic leadership,”
said Ben Renshaw. “In leadership terms, the sweet spot is high performer, high collaborator, but what if you have managers who prize success by silos?” He explained that at a recent Google conference, the vision for
engagement was for: team first, psychological safety – creating a space for people to learn, fail, learn from their mistakes and move on – and the willingness to celebrate other’s successes. “Change is constant – meeting new people, doing new things,
having new challenges, if they can stretch to it,” said Dr Holbeche. “It feeds the appetite for doing new things. People grow most through extreme examples of leadership – it helps people define what their personal preferences are. In the case of very good bosses, people remember them for a long time.”
LISTENING TO DIFFERENT OPINIONS “It’s fundamental that you deliberately attract and listen to different opinions and new ways of thinking,” said Ben Renshaw. He described a coaching role where he went to help a government organisation where many people had 30 or more years of service and there were 16,000 colleagues. “There, the idea of training was met by paranoia and cynicism.
When I showed up, people thought they were going to get fired.” He said it was important to redefine the role of the leader. “If you really think about it, the fundamental role is to engage.
That’s a different mindset. High performance research is about focus. Most people are very rarely present. Most of the time we are distracted by noise, both internal and external. This takes away from our ability to focus.”
Watch a video interview with Linda Holbeche and the highlights from the Festival of Global People at
relocateglobal.com/festival-of-global-people-2019
Join our Agility Forum at
thinkglobalpeople.com 12 | RELOCATE | SUMMER 2019
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