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IES Annual Members Conference 2013: The Many Faces of Engagement

IES’s annual conference explored different aspects of employee engagement. Participants from our member organisations and invited guests contributed to a lively debate about this compelling, yet often slippery, concept.

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Network News Issue 4

Jointly written by Dilys Robinson, Luke Fletcher and Lisa Hughes

IES’s annual conference explored different aspects of employee engagement. Participants from our member organisations and invited guests contributed to a lively debate about this compelling, yet often slippery, concept. Here we offer a brief overview of the event; a full writeup of all the learning points and key topics is available here – LINK

The conference chair, Sally Hopson, Customer and People Director at Pets at Home, kicked off the conference by outlining Pets at Home’s successful approach to employee engagement. She described the company as having a natural shared purpose, with almost all employees being pet owners themselves. Sally proposed a basic equation to explain the business case for engagement: engaged colleagues provide a better service to customers, increasing customer loyalty, which leads to increased profits.

A thought-provoking session delivered by Linda Holbeche, co-Director of The Holbeche Partnership and Visiting Professor at Cass, Bedfordshire, Imperial College and London Metropolitan Business Schools, explored the contentious idea that by seeking to improve engagement, organisations might actually be making matters worse; it is time to re-evaluate and rebuild the psychological contract.

David Macleod and Nita Clarke, who jointly chair the Engage for Success movement, set the context: employment trends are moving away from engagement. However, successful companies – such as those supporting the work of Engage for Success – know how important it is. Nita encouraged the audience to go out and make the case for engagement.

John Greatrex, Group HR Director at Unipart Group, presented a practical and embedded approach to employee engagement. He recounted the story of how Unipart incorporated engagement strategies within continuous improvement and lean practices. This interconnectedness has been the crucial success factor for Unipart’s employee engagement strategy.

Wendy Hirsh, Principal Associate at IES, described her work with Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc, to find out if organisations could have a positive impact on people. Norman Pickavance, former Group HR Director, Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc, then described how, when he joined, people were worried about losing sight of where the company had come from. Engagement initiatives resulted in improved customer feedback, exit interviews were more positive, staff turnover decreased from 40 per cent to 15 per cent, and more highly engaged stores were shown to have higher sales.

Nicola Carter, Senior Employee Relations Adviser at the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), described the context for engagement in higher education. There have recently been changes in the higher education sector and within universities, support staff are more likely to be extrinsically engaged, whereas academics are more likely to be intrinsically engaged with their own work. In periods of change, however, it is important that all staff are engaged with the wider university.

Karen Cregan, assistant HR Director (Strategic Developments) spoke specifically about the University of Chester, which is tackling engagement with a very limited budget. The university incorporates engagement into each strand of its HR strategy, e.g. well-being, reward and recruitment.

Professor Katie Truss, Head of the People, Management and Organisation Group at Kent Business School, University of Kent, examined the perspectives of employee engagement from two key stakeholder groups: academics who research the topic and practitioners who enact the practice. Academics prefer precise definitions, a focus on the individual and on psychological processes, and want to identify theoretical explanations for phenomenon. Managers and practitioners prefer loose definitions, a focus on the organisation and on HR/ managerial strategies, and want to ascertain the practical impact of a phenomenon.

Mary Mercer, Principal Consultant at IES, facilitated an interactive debate about engagement challenges and successes. Learning points were identified under four headings: localised initiatives; the role of managers and leader; organisational context and change; and measuring engagement and developing a strategic view.

Finally, the IES research team presented the projects and work that they have conducted on the area of employee engagement and its links with leadership, performance management, and pay and reward.

The 2014 conference on Thursday 16 Octoberwill focus on Strategic HR, exploring the issues through case studies and evidence of what really works. As always, the day will allow you to learn from others and have an opportunity to contribute to the debate.