Few would dispute that the world in which we live and work is changing at an extraordinary pace. In this dynamic landscape, business executives face immense pressure to not only survive but thrive. In other words, they have to keep up with the pace while bumping up profits.
Continuous innovation is a strategy we hear trumpeted again and again as the key to edging out competition and driving growth. It’s no surprise then that agile principles are no longer exclusively used by software teams. They’re also being increasingly adopted outside of the software industry to speed up product and service innovation.
Agile Employee Engagement
A growing number of companies have been testing out agile principles in a less expected but highly impactful way: employee engagement. No longer considered a “soft issue,” there has long been hard evidence pointing to the connection between happy employees, customer satisfaction, and even profits. Forbes reports one of the most recent examples, a study from Gallup, which found that “highly engaged business units result in a 23% difference in profitability.”
It makes perfect sense. Engaged employees stay longer and provide better service. That makes customers happy, drives loyalty and productivity, and ultimately results in greater growth and profit.
Agile in Action
Can agile really be applied to the workforce as effectively as the software industry has applied them to products? For companies that have tried it, the answer is a resounding, “Yes.”
One of the earliest agile innovators was BBVA. After finding success implementing agile scrum units in customer solutions and engineering, the financial services organization decided to take the strategy company-wide. This included BBVA’s HR and talent group, which was responsible in large part for employee engagement initiatives.
BBVA shook up its traditional hierarchical teams, which included giving end-to-end autonomy to an Employee Experience group. By concentrating related processes in one group, it was able to not only implement more initiatives more quickly, but also to link activities to specific KPIs.
In the case of BBVA, the company proactively nurtured the connection between employee engagement and increased performance. By using agile principles to boost employee satisfaction, the company simultaneously encouraged greater productivity and more agile internal mindsets.
An employee survey is not an engagement program
Think traditional employee conversations or surveys can deliver engagement? SHRM reports that “annual reviews are time-consuming … and often focus on goals that are outdated or irrelevant.” By contrast, “Continuous feedback solutions improve collaboration, coaching, decision-making … skills acquisition, employee engagement, and retention.” In other words, the annual employee survey—that long-time business staple—is no longer enough. Achieving real results requires an agile approach.
The reason agile seem to be so effective is that, compared to the traditional annual survey which focuses on measuring certain perceptions at a moment-in-time (and then, too often, is forgotten until the following year), agile programs create opportunity for real-time actionable improvement.
As Gallup once put it so well, “Metrics on their own don’t drive change or increase performance.”
Where to Start
While a company like BBVA totally restructured its HR and talent department to create an autonomous Employee Engagement team, this may not be a viable solution for every business. Dedicated tools like CultureAmp give employees ways to provide feedback to managers and peers that’s both frequent and direct.
To be truly effective though, managers and senior leaders must to be ready and willing to act on the information received. And they must be aligned in how to to act.
This can be easier said than done. But in our experience, companies with a clear vision for why they exist and the ultimate impact they want to have on all stakeholders—in short, a clear brand—are the ones most able to act on feedback and engage employees in a meaningful and purposeful way.
Ask yourself:
- Should employees be focused on collaboration or customer service?
- Do you want them to be authoritative or approachable?
- What are the behaviors you are trying to encourage?
A strong brand platform can help answer these questions. It acts as a roadmap, helping employees at all levels of an organization understand where the company is going and the role they are expected to play in getting there.
Want to learn more about best practices for building a culture that drives employee engagement? Let’s talk.
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Originally published October 25, 2020.
