BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

2. Create a high-engagement workplace

Because modern business competition is more about a battle between rival workforces than it is about technology, innovation and strategies,companies coming from emerging market economies need all the intellectual input they can get in order to have a chance of becoming a serious player in the global marketplace. For that reason, the new breed of South African manager will have to find ways of harnessing the energy and intellectual capability of all the company’s employees and focus these on innovatively growing the organisation.

The key is to utilise the skills and experience of each and every employee simultaneously and collectively. This goes beyond the collection of ideas in the company suggestion box. It’s about encouraging one’s employees to willingly orientate their thinkingtowards creating a better sense of synergy through their skills and experience, which in turn will develop a greater sense of commitme_nt to the organisation. Managers and employees need to work better as a team, which could produce future leaders who are able to motivate company employees to follow them. The goal is to align employee views on issues such as company goals and objectives, product quality, customer orientation and satisfaction, and the company‘_scompetitive position.

Many organisations try to persuade their employees to share in the company’s values, ideals and expectations, but from an operational perspective. There is, however, a need to create impact at a strategic level. The creation of strategic fluidity via the ongoing utilisation and coordination of employee skills and expertise will assist in giving an organisation the advantages it needs to improve its competitive prowess. A useful tool for accomplishing this is the employee-engagement survey. Essentially, employee engagement measures employees‘ cognitive linkage, emotional attachment, their willingness to go the extra mile for the organisation, and the extent to which they are committed to the organisation, its values and goals.

Strategic thinking is often not shared with employees, and strategies are developed and introduced without the people or company being ready to receive them. Strategies are often developed and introduced no matter what state the company is in. Many companies also waste corporate energy in the pursuit of overambitious and often unachievable goals. This results in poor productivity, high employee stress, high rates of absenteeism, as well as poor morale. This can have a detrimental effect on the implementation of company strategy, but it can be avoided, or at least minimised, in a serious consultative process with employees.

A good example is the case of a well-known international office equipment company that has a strong representation in South Africa. I was called in to examine the problem of poor morale and the resultant bad performance of the sales team. The situation that had developed was having a detrimental effect on the company’s overall performance and the implementation of its growth strategy. I discovered that the lack of morale, motivation and, therefore, poor sales team performance were the symptoms of a more deep-rooted problem.

Every year, sales management set the sales targets, which were then ratified by the managing director. Although each individual sales representative was consulted, the consultation process was tantamount to tokenism. The annual sales targets were always higher than the previous year’s target, not by a reasonable amount, but by a massive margin. This led the sales team to believe that their bosses were never satisfied and wanted more and more in order to fuel what they believed to be the unreasonable demands of the shareholders. The sales team believed that with the restructuring of the targets on a proportional representation basis, annual targets could be achieved. When management refused, employee turnover rose, and the company started to falter and put itself into a disadvantageous competitive situation relative to its competitors.

One of the responsibilities of a manager is therefore to build confidence in his or her employees. Confident employees behave in a self-assured and caring manner towards customers, suppliers and other stakeholders, thus projecting a positive image of the company. Company culture is reflected in the behaviour of its employees. Managers who develop a culture of confidence in their employees will be rewarded with people who take the initiative to creatively solve problems, and who look for new and better ways of improving company efficiency and competitiveness. This will be of great value in times of uncertainty, increased global competition and even economic transition within a nation.

Many companies in South Africa use the employee-engagement survey as a management tool, but really only to measure job satisfaction and job involvement. As such, the tool is often under-utilised, because there is a rich vein of potential knowledge in the component subjects that often remains untapped. Many managers do not wi_sh to go any further than conducting the analysis and then leaving it at that. Often, no action is taken on the results — no feedback is given to employees.

The individual topics in this management tool provide the manager with the guideline he or she needs to improve the intellectual output _of the organisation.’

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