Enablers of Engagement

Fifteen key considerations for enhancing team engagement

Author Maria Noone.

Team engagement refers to the discretionary effort that an individual or team is fully absorbed and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the reputation and interests of the organisation they are a part of. Research tells us employee engagement has a direct impact on performance outcomes. International research studied 49,928 work areas inclusive of healthcare with nearly 1.4 million employees. It confirmed the connection between employee engagement and key performance outcomes on consumer feedback, profitability, productivity, staff attrition and turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage (theft), employee absenteeism, patient safety incidents and quality.

Employee engagement levels can vary widely, ranging from disengaged individuals to fully engaged ones, with many falling somewhere in between. For instance, disengaged employees may be in their roles merely for survival, while those who are not fully engaged might stay for job security or location. There are also employees who feel a sense of belonging to their team or organisation, as well as engaged employees who sense their importance and commitment to the work. Finally, highly engaged employees are often self-actualising and on a path of constant improvement. Given the diverse levels of engagement and their impact on the entire organisation, it is crucial to actively monitor and foster employee engagement.

To enable team engagement first know your team:

Every team is different with a culture of its own, nuances and best qualities. To create meaningful engagement in your team, first understand who they are and what makes them tick. Consider:

• What is the team personality?

• What are team members telling you that they need?

• What do you observe that makes the team engaged, perform, inspired?

• What are the team's strengths, qualities, and vulnerable points?

• How do they perceive your relationship with them?

• How full is their agenda and time?

• What is the status of the teams’ wellbeing, their health?

• How well do they have the resources, skills, capacity, and sufficient time to do their work?

When creating employee engagement plans:

• Identify the underlying reason(s) contributing to the disengagement. For example, is it about workplace relationships? Is it about trust? Is it about feeling disempowered?

• Create and write a desired vision / goal / outcome. 

• Design an engagement plan to support and meet the vision, outcome, and goal being met.

• Involve people whom the plan is for. Give people a voice throughout the process.

• Commit only to what can be achieved. Do only what you can achieve based on resources, time and motivation.

• Engagement plans have a limited life cycle. As engagement levels improve, the plan will need updating.

Fifteen enablers of engagement

There are various approaches to enhancing employee or team engagement. Below are fifteen enablers to consider that emphasise principles, values, and behaviours over rewards and material gains.

Enabler 1 - Connection

People need to feel valued both in life and at work. Building connections and relationships is fundamental to our nature and can enhance support systems where individuals can share ideas and support each other in their roles. The dynamics among team members and their manager greatly affect trust and performance. Awkward or uncomfortable situations in the workplace can create unease and divide teams. It’s essential to find resolutions quickly. Leaders who hesitate to address workplace tension and conflicts can experience a negative work environment. Unresolved conflicts can lead to discomfort and division; thus, leaders must address issues quickly to avoid a negative work environment. It's crucial for statements like “employees are our most valuable asset” to be backed by actions. Initiatives like work-life balance programs can foster a more supportive atmosphere.

Enabler 2 – Development

Many staff members seek skill development, professional growth, and career advancement. Opportunities include courses, webinars, mentorship programs, job swaps, and coaching. Employees can share valuable content to aid others, and building a pool of subject matter experts enhances team expertise. Skilled team members can mentor others, fostering development. Offering advancement opportunities, job rotation, and stretch goals helps retain talent while maintaining accountability without micromanaging.

To enrich duties and responsibilities, focus on individuals’ strengths. While some may not seek to expand their skills, meeting role requirements is acceptable. However, if improvement is necessary, discussions about upskilling are crucial. Leaders should foster confidence, identify potential leaders, and nurture their qualities for the benefit of the team and community. Ignoring team strengths can lead to decreased enthusiasm and wasted resources.

Enabler 3 - Clarity

Teams thrive on certainty and clarity, which includes clear direction and plans. Ambiguity can cause confusion and frustration. Some employees want to understand the practice or team purpose and vision, and how it impacts their roles, while others seek details about their day-to-day responsibilities. While long-term certainty may be difficult to provide during emergencies, short-term clarity through updates can help. Effective communication is closely tied to clarity. The precision and accuracy of information, instructions, and guidelines are crucial if people are expected to follow them. Establishing specific forums, meetings, or platforms where staff can voice their concerns and ask questions can help clear up misunderstandings and address frustrations. When employees are given a platform to contribute to these discussions, it enhances accountability and follow-through. However, over-communication can also be overwhelming, so it's essential to be strategic about "how often" and "how much" information to share.

Enabler 4 – Feedback

Feedback is an important two-way process. While it is often given by managers to their staff, it is less common for feedback to flow in the opposite direction. Effective feedback should be viewed as a learning opportunity that helps develop both staff and leaders. Although it can be uncomfortable, leaders who seek feedback from their teams about their leadership style can increase their awareness and identify behaviours that are effective and those that are not. Feedback can also include information about how the performance of services or projects is tracking against milestones, as well as the challenges faced by the business. This is a valuable time to gather input and feedback from staff.

Enabler 5 - Recognition | Surveys consistently show that employees often receive immediate feedback when their performance is poor or below expectations. However, these same employees report that praise and recognition for strong performance are much less common. Performance reviews should place greater emphasis on highlighting and developing employees' strengths. It's important to keep track of small improvements the team is making and encourage individuals to share their successes and observations about their peers. We should promote behaviours that align with the organisation's values and those that employees appreciate. Holding tri-annual meetings to acknowledge and recognise achievements can have a significant impact. Incorporating various themes and the diversity of cultures during meetings or during gatherings that share an appreciation of effort and performance.

Enabler 6 – Meaningful contribution

Every generational group wants to feel that their input is valued and that they are making a meaningful contribution. While enjoyable and simple activities play a role, achieving satisfaction at the end of the workday is crucial, along with the right conditions to foster that satisfaction. It's not just leaders who wish to contribute to initiatives and activities that create a positive impact; staff members share this desire too. Being involved in setting goals and milestones for important initiatives, understanding one’s role in achieving those goals, and witnessing progress can significantly boost energy and motivation levels. When obstacles arise, teams can come together to find solutions.

Enabler 7 – Control and empowered

People value having a say in their work's flow, quality and pace. Leaders can foster this by involving employees in discussions that affect their roles and consulting them about their needs. For instance, can accommodations be made for parents regarding childcare? Are flexible schedules an option? It's important to seek input from staff, especially those on the frontlines, as they have valuable insights. Leaders can gather opinions through informal one-on-one conversations,  meetings, surveys, suggestion boxes, etc. To address staff needs, leaders must actively listen, provide a platform for expression, and commit to action. Empowerment occurs when ideas of staff lead to tangible outcomes.

Enabler 8 - Collaborate

Research shows that employees who work in teams and build trust and cooperation among members tend to outperform those who lack strong relationships. Collaborative opportunities enhance team-building skills, improve communication, and often lead to results greater than any individual could achieve alone. However, effective collaboration requires adherence to key principles, including clear goals, established criteria for teamwork, guidelines for decision-making, and strategies for handling disagreements, as well as general courtesies. The challenge for leaders is to encourage individuals to prioritise collaboration over personal interests. This can be accomplished by redirecting focus toward the overall team goal. When opportunities for collaboration are available and staff are engaged, the outcomes can be highly rewarding.

Enabler 9 - Integrity

Integrity is a significant value to uphold. While it is often desired, achieving it can be challenging, especially when promises are affected by the inability to follow through. However, if staff, leaders, and practices consistently demonstrate integrity, it can bring tremendous benefits, including improved professional reputation, trust, and credibility. People want to take pride in their jobs, performance, and the organisation they work for. Employees who believe in their organisation—and in one another—are more likely to feel excited about its success and dedicate their time and energy to it. To build a culture of trust, certain conditions are essential: integrity, transparency, the commitment to honour agreements, follow-through, adherence to standards, and promptly rectifying mistakes when they occur. Additionally, it is crucial for leaders and executives to "walk the talk." If staff members are expected to meet certain standards, leaders must similarly uphold these expectations to earn respect and avoid judgment.

Enabler 10 - Confidence

Lack of confidence and courage often prevents people from speaking up, leading to task avoidance and anxiety. This low self-esteem contributes to stress, resulting in behaviours like passive-aggressiveness, defensiveness, and procrastination. These behaviours stem from feelings of insecurity and fears of making mistakes or facing judgment. To build team members' confidence, leaders should encourage them to step outside their comfort zones while allowing room for experimentation. Acting as coaches, leaders can turn mistakes into learning opportunities. As team members feel safer to express themselves, their confidence will grow, creating a team of capable problem solvers.

Enabler 11 – Resources and tools

Occasionally, workarounds may be necessary, involving double-checking, triple-checking (just this once), or creating extra steps to compensate for a lack of tools. Not having a say in new software or technology is not unusual. However, when these practices become the norm, they lead to frustration and complaints, as well as ineffective use of resources. It is essential to provide the tools, equipment, and resources needed for individuals to fulfil their responsibilities and meet expectations. It is necessary to prioritise the acquisition of essential tools to do the job, and engage with decision-makers for their support. This demonstrates to staff they are valued.

Enabler 12 – Problem solving

Collaborative problem-solving offers several benefits for team members, including a shared understanding, improved cohesion, and increased productivity. These benefits include developing a shared understanding, being on the same page, and feeling positive about finding solutions. Brainstorming sessions can energise the team, promote cohesion, and foster a sense of productivity and progress. Additionally, collaboration builds confidence among team members. Leaders can adopt a coaching approach rather than simply directing the team whenever there is an opportunity for staff to address individual issues. Similarly, leaders can take on a facilitative role when addressing collective team challenges. This approach should also extend to solving broader service issues.

Enabler 13 – Team culture and values

Team culture and values can be established through intentional design or can naturally emerge from the behaviours within an organisation or team. Nowadays, it is uncommon for businesses to operate without a defined set of values for employees to follow. If a team culture is lacking, creating one can help address various issues related to disengagement. This is especially beneficial if the team is experiencing complacency, ongoing conflicts, or if a general revitalisation is needed. Developing a successful team culture requires input from all team members; it cannot be solely based on the leader's ideas. The process of creating a team culture offers a valuable opportunity for team members to express their concerns and collaboratively find a way forward, focusing on a shared set of principles and attitudes.

Enabler 14 – Team vision, purpose and goals

Although organisations typically have overarching visions, purposes, and goals, it's essential for teams to establish their own objectives as well. Ideally, these team goals should contribute to or align with the organisation's broader objectives. Goals are crucial for teams to understand what they are working toward, what they need to achieve, and how they can measure their progress over time. A team vision should be clearly articulated and serve as a source of inspiration and motivation for its members. The team's purpose defines its primary reason for existence. It's important to set a realistic number of goals that maintain a healthy balance; having too many can lead to demotivation and disengagement. Regularly revisiting and reviewing the team’s vision, purpose, and goals is a valuable practice. This process ensures that all team members are aligned, feel heard, and can recognise their contributions to the organisation's overall efforts.

Enabler 15 – Debriefing

Debriefing in the workplace is a valuable way to share information and knowledge aimed at alleviating tension around problems and reducing stress. All teams can conduct this process on a semi-regular basis, such as during team meetings or brief stand-up sessions. It is especially beneficial for one-on-one conversations as well as team debriefs. These discussions provide a healthy opportunity for reflection, sharing experiences, and ensuring everyone is heard and understood. They also facilitate learning from past experiences and signal emerging concerns before they escalate.

Applying the enablers to the real context

Step 1: Understanding the situation and desired outcome.

Clearly describe a real workplace situation surrounding the engagement of the team or a staff member that you would like to see improved. (Names do not need to be shared). State what outcome you would like to achieve if the matter was resolved. Use the questions below to guide your reflection. Stay focused teasing out the context surrounding the matter. Do not labour on the problem, and avoid trying to solve it during this step.

1. Describe the current situation. Where is the disengagement occurring (alternately where would you like engagement levels to be improved)?

2. What about the above is an engagement problem? Describe the impact or possible risks.

3. Options tried to-date. What (if anything) has been tried to date to remedy the situation?

4. Name the desired outcome - what would you prefer instead? By when?

Step 2: Brainstorm for solutions.

Reflect on each of the enablers of engagement and brainstorm ideas that may help meet the desired outcome. This exercise will require you to look at the situation with a wider perspective than you may have done to date. (Note: Not all enablers will be applicable.)  The enablers can be used in combination with each other or in isolation. Be open to being open, be explorative in your mindset.

Step 3: Select appropriate solutions 

Discuss or reflect on the solutions that have been brainstormed. Consider how they can take form in a plan, or whether they need further development with additional input from other key stakeholders.