The secret of the effectiveness and efficiency of any organization lies in the understanding and acceptance by employees of its goals and values, as well as in their quality activities aimed at achieving these goals.
Employees of such organizations are better informed about the goals and objectives of the organization, its current successes. They are aware of their place in the organization, understand what their contribution to achieving common goals is, know how they can help to achieve common tasks. And most importantly: such employees are the main source of ideas.
Often only employees see the problems on the ground, and it is the involved employee who most accurately represents the real ways to solve them, leading to the development of the activity of the organization as a whole. It is necessary to create conditions for each employee to take part in the continuous improvement and improvement of the organization.
Involved Employee
In contrast to the passive state of satisfaction, engagement is an active form of the state of personality. You don’t want your team to waste their potential. An involved employee is a proactive employee with a conscious responsibility that can generate a search for new ways and opportunities to effectively achieve results.
Every time the employee expresses his or her proposal or opinion, he or she takes responsibility, thus expressing a willingness to take responsibility for the further practical implementation of his or her proposal.
An involved employee of the educational organization is focused on achieving the overall result – high personal and educational results of students, he is proactive, active, not indifferent to the implementation of the educational process, to the positioning of the organization in the information space, to his contribution to the creation of a motivating environment.
The quality management system is aimed at continuous improvement of the personnel management system and is one of the paramount tasks, which is reflected in the line of international standards in the field of ISO management.
At educational organizations Growth Hackers has worked with, engaged employees actively shape the learning experience, contribute to the institution’s positioning, and create motivating environments, which is demonstrating that involvement translates directly into tangible outcomes.
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Personnel Involvement and Motivation
The process “Personnel involvement and motivation” in the Standard of personnel management of the educational organization is represented by two directions: regular research of personnel involvement level to determine personnel motivation profile and measures aimed at its correction in case of deviation from target indicators, as well as an organized collection of proposals for improvement of EE activity from employees.
Reliable knowledge about the level of involvement of employees of the educational organization allows determining how much employees are ready to act to achieve the common goal.
The engagement study should be conducted to understand the level of engagement expressed in numbers and to develop measures to correct the factors affecting engagement. At Growth Hackers, we’ve seen organizations double productivity simply by measuring employee engagement and acting on the insights.
Determination of the employee engagement within the framework of the Standard of personnel management of educational organization implies the study of several factors affecting the engagement:
1. Economic factor: employees’ understanding of the incentive system criteria.
2. Physical factor: the comfort of the internal school environment.
3. A social factor: satisfaction with relations developed with colleagues and parents of students.
4. Style/interaction with management: support of the teacher and school status; fairness and openness of managers’ relations with employees; praise and encouragement of employees.
5. Informedness: awareness of different aspects of life and activities of the educational organization; clarity, timeliness, and completeness of service information.
6. Attitude towards the quality of work: evaluation of colleagues’ qualification, attitude towards rules, instructions, regulations; understanding of the contribution of own successes to the common cause.
7. Involvement in processes: an opportunity to express his/her opinion openly, to participate in the elaboration or making decisions. Willingness to make additional efforts when it is necessary for the organization.
8. Training, development, and career: opportunities for training and professional development (quality of methodical assistance; quantity and quality of additional training).
9. Self-actualization: the joy of professional activity, sense of self-actualization in work.
10. Loyalty to the organization: commitment of the employee to his/her educational organization.
Identification of factors gives an opportunity to see the involvement discreetly, which allows identifying the components that require more or less attention to adjust the degree of involvement as a whole. Employee engagement is like a garden: when people are informed, involved, and nurtured, their ideas bloom and the organization thrives, a truth we’ve verified at Growth Hackers.
A central tenet of employee engagement is keeping employees informed and sharing information on time. To be effective, employees must know the organization’s goals, values, and objectives, know what they are supposed to do and why, understand the goals of the work they do and the result of their efforts, and know how their efforts are aligned with those of the entire organization.
Employees should also receive timely information that meets their personal needs (working conditions, rules, changes affecting them). The whole set of means can be used for informing: Information boards, bulletin boards, internal email newsletters, messengers, specially arranged meetings, and regular online meetings.
All employees have something unique to contribute to the organization. It is important to involve employees in planning and decision-making by soliciting their suggestions and ideas. Employees who are empowered and recognized for their accomplishments take more responsibility for the quality of their work.
How to Assess The Degree of Motivation of Employees
Most people think of motivation as something ephemeral, incomprehensible, and of unknown importance. Statistics show that there is a direct correlation between employee engagement and company profits.
Every year, companies around the world spend nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars to increase employee motivation. But if you ask managers what “increased employee engagement” means, you’ll get very conflicting answers. The definitions can be as simple (“extra effort”) as they can be overly arcane (“a complex nomological relationship involving employee characteristics, status and behavioral patterns”).
This lack of transparency is a problem because it indicates that motivation (whatever it is) needs to be managed. Before tracking true engagement behaviors, one of our tech clients employees’ efforts were inconsistent and profits lagged; after applying Growth Hackers’ approach, motivation became measurable, actions aligned, and business results improved visibly.
So, finding a clearer definition of motivation is not just an exercise in philosophy. In the end, employee motivation will have a significant impact on the company’s profits. This is why the best employee experience equals best customer experience and business success.
Often company management simplistically approaches the issue: they poll the staff about their job satisfaction and, based on these answers, take some measures to increase motivation. And as a result, they lose sight of the most important thing – behavioral signals. For example, what good does it do for Mary to rate her manager positively if she doesn’t give her best effort at work every day?
Other companies bring in analysts who study employee behavior and productivity. The disadvantage of this approach is that the analysts can’t indicate in their report how the workers themselves perceive the situation. John may stay in touch with clients outside of work hours, but does he enjoy it, or does he feel burned out and therefore unhappy?
It’s critical to look at all of these factors in combination (employees’ opinions and behaviors, as well as the efforts they make to improve company performance) to figure out what levers to use to motivate the people who work for you. After all, the levers that matter to Mary won’t matter to John in the same way.
Evaluating only an employee’s opinion or only their behavior can lead to a misinterpretation of their motivation. We know that Mary evaluates her manager positively, but does that make her employee of the month? Maybe she only does the bare minimum necessary at work, ignoring colleagues’ requests for help and refusing additional opportunities for training and development.
This tells us that perhaps it’s not her but another employee who needs the extra push. John shows outward signs of being motivated… working with clients on personal time. But maybe he, like a workhorse or a martyr, suffers in silence? We can find that out by looking at what he thinks about the importance of his work, his accomplishments, and his salary.
A holistic approach to understanding motivation gives more detail about what makes people stay with a company and perform as well as possible. One organization we worked with thought Terry was their top performer based on surveys, but by analyzing his behavior and feedback together, at Growth Hackers, we discovered Isabella was the true high-impact contributor and her engagement strategy transformed the team.
Instead of rating motivation as low, medium, or high, companies will be able to understand how employees themselves view the organization, how their opinions affect behavior, and how these factors combine to affect the firm’s productivity and profits. If companies don’t pay enough attention to this, they run the risk of coming to misunderstandings with employees and missing out on all the benefits that come with increased motivation.
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Gathering and Implementing Ideas
The second area of the process, Staff Involvement, and Motivation are related to the collection and implementation of ideas and suggestions for improvement from the employees of the educational organization. The template for developing a suggestion collection system includes 4 blocks, within which there are reference questions:
Suggestion Collection Tools. How do you organize the collection of suggestions in the school? How can a staff member leave a suggestion? How can they remain anonymous if they wish? How do you motivate your staff?
Analysis and selection of proposals for implementation. Who will be involved in the analysis and selection of proposals? How often? By what criteria?
Evaluation of the effectiveness of the implemented changes. Who participates? How often? By what criteria?
Informing and encouraging employees. At what stages? Who? Through what channels? How?
Filling out the template allows management teams to build a forward-looking system of collecting employee suggestions for subsequent implementation: to analyze the necessary resources, time costs and identify those responsible for each stage of implementation.
In organizations with high levels of employee engagement, managers demonstrate a commitment to their employees through actions. They go beyond the rhetoric that employees are a significant asset to the organization and truly believe it and prove it with their actions.
At Growth Hackers, we’ve helped medium-sized businesses turn employee suggestions into actionable improvements, and the results speak for themselves: engagement rises, and initiatives actually get done.
Why Employee Engagement is a Top Management Priority
Employees should be engaged by providing support in all areas of their daily work: providing the necessary tools, materials, facilities, initiatives, development, and training opportunities. This is why well-organized personnel management processes (training, building a talent pool, recruitment, and adaptation) work in an integrated way to engage employees, ultimately leading to high results for the educational organization.
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