What’s your biggest expense but also your biggest asset? Staff. So how are you going to get the best out of them, especially when budgets are tight? By fostering engagement – the process by which people who work in your organisation feel invested in what you are trying to achieve and are motivated and empowered to take action accordingly.
Research shows that the more engaged staff are, the more successful their organisation is. In the culture sector, the benefits are: larger audiences; more members; increased donations; a stronger reputation; and reduced staff turnover and sickness.
So, what needs to happen to get staff engaged? As someone who’s worked a lot in this space, I believe it comes down to three things:
- Having a sense of purpose.
- Feeling in control over how the work happens.
- Being cheered on every step of the way.
Here are five things you can do to ensure these needs are being fulfilled:
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Define your brand strategy
Start by ensuring that you have a concise strategy that answers four key statements for your organisation: what you do (your offer to the public); how you do it (the values you lives by); the impact you want to have (your mission) and what your ambition for the future is (your vision).
Involve staff in developing these points to ensure they truly reflect your organisation and its purpose. This strategy is the DNA of your company that everyone should be using to steer their decisions.
In the cultural sector it’s vital to have this strategy agreed and understood across the organisation, because many departments will be developing programmes, dealing with the public and creating communications to their various audiences. If everyone isn’t clear internally about what you’re about, your external expression will be confusing and (worse) actively off-putting.
Tell people about it
The next step is to tell everyone about your brand strategy – not once, but over and over again and through every channel you have. Do presentations, give out postcards, put up posters, make it the screensaver on the intranet and reference it in opening night speeches.
Ensure it’s in the introduction to your corporate plan and all other strategic documents. Express it through all staff touch-points including job ads, appraisals and induction materials.
Make sure you communicate it in format as well as content. For example, if you’re a museum and you’re all about art and design, make sure your materials are beautifully designed and full of pictures of your collection.
Explore what it means in practice
Make sure everyone understands the changes that could be needed to align their work with the strategy. Spend time talking with your teams, encouraging questions, comments and exploring what it will mean for their work.
Ask them to take action accordingly; it’s often not about doing lots of additional activity, but adjusting existing activity or behaviour. Use the strategy to help decide on priorities: what are you currently doing that doesn’t fit and should be stopped? Empower your teams to identify and implement changes.
Give them control over their work.
Walk the talk
You might have everyone fully aware of the strategy and clear on the required actions, but in our experience, the big challenge is getting people to believe that you’re serious about the new approaches and the difference they will make.
There’s often reticence and cynicism to overcome at this point, however the key is for leaders to become role models for the preferred behaviour, by living the values.
It’s all very well writing them on a postcard, but if it’s not obviously put into practice, it just proves the cynics right (“that whole process was a waste of time; nothing changes here”).
Leaders take note. If one of your values is openness, perhaps start running Q&A sessions with staff to explain the decisions you’re making. If one of your values is generosity, then when you see ungenerous behaviour taking place in your management meeting, call it out to show how it’s not appropriate. It’s dealing with the difficult issues that will really gain your staff’s belief and respect.
Recognise and celebrate progress
The minute someone makes any effort to further align their work with the organisation’s core story, recognise and celebrate it. Quick wins are vital in the early stages, as are sharing practical examples of what you’re looking for.
Eleanor Appleby is a consultant with Jane Wentworth Associates
She will be speaking at MuseumNext Dublin on 18-20 April
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