UK Prime Minister Gives Full Backing To Employee Engagement
The UK is leading the way in employee engagement. It is wonderful to see the UK government get fully behind employee engagement and take the next step beyond the wonderful work that was done by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke’s on Engaging for Success.
Here are some major snippets from the UK New Services:
The Prime Minister today gave his backing to a new independent Employee Engagement Task Force during a launch event at 10 Downing Street. The Task Force will ensure that a range of practical opportunities are made available for organisations wanting to learn about engagement. It will share good practice, generate debate and offer support via a new website. It will build on the report ‘Engaging for Success’, which David MacLeod and Nita Clarke produced in 2009 for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
At the launch of the Task Force, Prime Minister David Cameron said:
“This taskforce has my full support because I know that it will work to bring together two of my government’s top priorities – delivering sustainable growth across the UK, and coming up with new approaches to help people improve their wellbeing.
“I think the public and private sectors can learn a lot from each other. This initiative fits well with our agenda of devolved power and authority and shows how effective companies can be when they feel empowered. I am delighted that the Employment Engagement Taskforce has come together to develop practical ways to help all employers learn from the best, to break down barriers to engagement and to raise the profile of this whole agenda.”
Employment Relations Minister Edward Davey said:
“Workers know better than anyone how the firm they work for can grow, innovate and succeed. For any business or organisation a committed and involved workforce that are all pulling in the same direction is essential.
This isn’t just about ending “them and us” attitudes. It’s about a better way to work. Employee engagement is essentially about growth, so it’s right the private sector should lead this taskforce.”
Chair of the Employment Engagement Task Force David MacLeod said:
“If employee engagement and the principles that lie behind it were more widely understood and shared we could see a step change in productivity and performance across the UK, and a rise in levels of employee wellbeing and motivation. Engaged employees will be key to growth in the private sector and ‘better for less’ in the public sector.”
Vice Chair Nita Clarke said:
“People are at the heart of success for companies and organisations, so whether or not the workforce is positively encouraged to perform at its best should be a key consideration for every leader and manager, and should be placed at the heart of business strategy. Where this happens the results are transformational. Spreading this message widely will be the key task of this new employer led task force.”
The Task Force will collaborate with leading academics, think tanks and leading practitioners.
It will report back next year on the strategies it recommends that organisations should adopt to promote best practice and learning. The Task Force will also tackle key issues identified in the MacLeod Review such as the barriers to wider adoption of engagement, how to harness engagement for innovation and how to maintain morale through difficult challenges such as downsizing. The remaining members will be confirmed when the Task Force next meets in April.
I trust this will make a big difference and increase employee engagement in the UK and encourage other governments around the world to step up and create fuller engagement for all! Click here for more information and to read the original news release. I wish everyone involved the best of success!
~~~~~~
David Zinger is devoted to employee engagement and he is thrilled by the steps the UK government has taken to increase employee engagement. You can learn more about David and his work on engagement at www.davidzinger.com.
Thank you for sharing David. Many of our US government agencies and cabints could benefit from a comprehensive initiative to jumpstart engagement. We’ll keep up our energy in the trenches and keeping moving forward to a more engaged future!
I explored some story and narrative based approaches to employee engagement in this short 2 minute video that may be of interest to folks:
http://www.vimeo.com/14952441
Here are a few questions and sound bites from the video:
Are clowns and other corporate amusements in your line up of employee engagement activities? Maybe we opt for more serious stuff like corporate score cards and employee surveys to produce the data our organizations thrive on.
Let’s be honest: what are our real intentions for doing these things?
Are we trying to placate employees or can we find an effective way of inviting our employees to mix together their energies, talents and visions
Are we committed to conferring with our employees? Do we understand when collaboration makes sense and when itâ??s possible? Can we stay engaged with our employees?
It turns out putting the multifaceted natural capacity of stories to work leads to a whole host of new organizational engagement strategies and tactics you may have overlooked.
Warm regards,
Terrence Gargiulo
WEB: makingstories.net
BLOG: makingstories-storymatters.blogspot.com/
TWITTER: twitter.com/â??makingstories
PHONE: 415-948-8087
You’ve got the story. I enjoyed the brief video. Well done.
David – you already know of your ability to motivate me. And I do genuinely admire your enthusiasm for this.
And I may be wrong, I often am.
My heart sank with this news that the UK Government has launched a taskforce to boost employee engagement. However well meaning this taskforce is I shudder when government, any government, starts fiddling with the concept of making work better.
As you say, the taskforce is to be headed by David MacLeod, an eminent speaker and writer on this subject. I know he’s an eminent writer because I have a stack of ten copies of Engaging for Success (co authored by MacLeod and Nita Clarke and contributed to by me and doubtless hundreds of others) doubling up as a footstool in my office. Engagingly supportive.
And I know that MacLeod is a highly polished speaker on the subject of employee engagement. I’ve seen him speak several times over the years (including once at a conference I disorganised in April 2010) and he’s good at it. Good at repeating the same story, using the same slides, same jokes, same pleas. I am not convinced that he has the vigour and rigour to drive this along purposefully. Mind you I’m unsure anyone could drive this in a useful way unless that by useful we mean appeasing government bureaucracy, or driving the whole damn thing off a cliff.
I’ve seen a list of people appointed to the taskforce and I see no footsoldiers – no one with real and current front line knowledge. So far the appointed are the establishment. You don’t get different thinking without….difference. Do you?
I believe engagement is simple, and that doesn’t mean it is easy. When I blogged about this quite a conversation emerged – here is the link to it in case folk are interested to take a look at other perspectives.
http://stopdoingdumbthingstocustomers.com/engagement/disengaged/
Like I say – I hope I am wrong, I often am.
Cheers – Doug
Hi Doug:
I am often wrong, about 50% of the time. Part of my thinking is that any movement towards fuller engagement is a step in the right direction even if it provokes other points of view, concerns, consternations. I do not have the experience of being close to the UK like you are and I have not seen who was appointed to the task force. Time will tell yet I hope engagement spells the difference. Watch from Canada,
David
Hi David – I thought you and your readers might appreciate seeing this:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=418886&NewsAreaID=2
It’s a link to the taskforce announcement. In addition I have learned of plans to establish a “guru group” within the project. I’ve been invited to participate. I’m no guru and I look forward to seeing if I can help co-create something purposeful. Funny how things ebb and flow eh?
Cheers – Doug
See below for the list of people appointed to the taskforce so far. All good well meaning people I am sure. I’m going to contact David MacLeod and suggest that maybe – just maybew, this group could benefit from the addition of a few folk nearer the coal face. I will let you know if I get a reply.
Alex Lewis – BAE, HR Director
Alex Wilson – BT, Group HR Director
Andrew Moys – JLP, Director of Communications
Angie Risley – Lloyds, Group HR Director
Dame Carol Black – Wellbeing National Director for Health and Work
Doug Mclldowie – GKN, Group HR Director
Geoff Lloyd- Serco Group, HR Director
Jacki Connor – Sainsbury’s, Director of Customer Service
Jackie Orme, Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
James Chalmers – PWC, Head of Strategy & Talent
John Taylor- ACAS, Chief Executive
Jonathan Austin – Best Companies, CEO and Founder
Katja Hall – CBI, Chief Policy Director
Kevin Goodman – Babcock, Group Director OD
Louise Beardmore – United Utilities, Head of Engagement, Leadership & Learning
Louise Smalley – Whitbread, Group HR Director
Mervyn Thomas – DfT, Whitehall Engagement & Head of HR
Mike Cherry – FSB, Policy Chairman
Peter Thomas – Institute for Government Director, Transforming Whitehall
Richard Baker – Virgin & VC, Chairman Virgin Active
Russell Grossman – BIS, Director of Communications
Sue Round – British Gas, Director of L&D
Sarah Veale- TUC, Head, Equality and Employment Rights
Sir Eric Peacock – SME Sector
Stephen Dando – Thomson Reuters, EVP & Chief HR Officer
Stephen Lehane – Boots Group, HR Director & Corporate Affairs Director
Tanith Dodge – Marks & Spencer, HR Director
Veronica Hope-Hailey – CASS Business School, Professor