Do you have players in the arena? Are they ready to win for you? Engaging your players is an essential part of winning. Are you succeeding in boosting engagement? There is a direct correlation between performance management and engagement. And the potential impact on the entire company is not negligible! Companies with a high engagement rate increase customer satisfaction, productivity, sales, and profitability.

 

Here are three ways to boost engagement:

1. Audit and adjust your current performance management system

Since performance is directly linked to engagement, it is essential to have an optimal performance management system. If you have proper performance management processes, engagement will naturally increase. Too many organizations rely solely on annual meetings. While necessary, annual performance meetings are not enough to boost engagement.

Feedback on performance should be frequent and relevant.

Most companies conduct annual reviews to provide feedback and evaluate performance. And yet, humans are looking for things like meaning, opportunities to grow, a manager-coach who uses their strengths rather than obsessing over their weaknesses, and they are hungry for relevant information. Half of your employees come to the office with the intention of making a difference, but never give feedback – or they aren’t asked. (Gallup Poll on Engagement) Here are some examples to inspire you to boost engagement:

• Have a one-on-one, rather informal meeting mid-year to review annual goals.
• Have monthly or quarterly team meetings to give visibility on the progress of annual objectives, changes in vision, the overall performance of the company.
• Take the time to hold project review meetings (post-mortem).

In addition, to be efficient, you need to know… What to do!

Although it may seem trivial, I come across many teams and managers who are unclear about what they should do, for when and for what purpose. And so, if by reading the few inspirations above you have realized that you don’t have a goal or that they are not clear, it’s time to create some.

Clarity makes for performance.

To finish this point, two keys to remember:

1. Are the expectations clear?
2. How often do you review/discuss performance?

2. Train your managers, train yourself

To stimulate engagement, managers must be equipped, supported, and trained to have effective evaluation meetings (which we have just seen in point 1). Here is a list of key leadership skills to develop: being understood, listening, giving constructive and adjusting feedback, having difficult conversations and developing empathy. It would also be relevant to develop not only his leadership, but his agility. That is to say, to open up to one’s context, to the different realities to better anticipate and innovate, for example. These skills will create a different confidence in you, and around you. This will help boost your team’s engagement.

The two keys to this point:

1. Develop the skills needed to drive engagement and communicate clearly by daring to have difficult conversations.
2. Develop the behaviours to be in harmony with the context, and to take actions and decisions that are fair and relevant in the context (be more agile!).

 

3. Appoint managers for the right reasons

I see happy and winning managers as much as unhappy managers. I often encounter the following unfortunate situations:

• The manager was promoted as a “thank you” for his performance in the company.
• The manager was appointed by his seniority in the company.

For example, a top salesman, a top engineer… A top expert who was starting to be demotivated and who wanted a promotion. And some of them are not that interested in a management position, but they don’t see any other possibilities either, so they accept. These examples are not the best recipe a priori, and still, do not always lead to failure!

The expert manager can be an excellent manager.

It needs goodwill, support and training. This will make his journey easier. It’s not just the expert manager who needs goodwill, support and training! Each promotion in management requires support to be more successful, faster, and to remain committed to the organization. Each level of management has its own challenge!

The two keys to this point:

1. A bad person in the wrong place, or unaccompanied, struggles to be hired, and is certainly not the best person to engage and mobilize your team!
2. Each level of management needs to be developed.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, to engage high-performing players and boost engagement, I invite you to:

• Revise your performance appraisal process by adding more dimensions and ensuring that it offers frequency and relevance.
• Train managers to stay engaged and able to engage individuals and mobilize teams.
• Appoint managers for the right reasons: they want to, they have the potential.