Communication • Generate more interest in the engagement process by shining a spotlight on it. As action plans are made and groups begin to take employee engagement seriously, provide encouragement and support through internal communications. For example, you can use your company newsletter to talk about engagement and its progress throughout the organization. • Collect and publish engagement success stories as they happen. • Use engagement success stories to demonstrate examples of out-of-the-box thinking or any other desirable attribute that the organization wishes to increase and promote. • Keep senior leaders updated regarding the employee engagement initiative and its impact so that they don’t lose sight of the importance of the initiative. • Schedule and conduct manager and employee informational sessions of engagement programs.
Accountability • Ensure that there is a single owner for your employee engagement initiative. While engagement is everyone’s responsibility, driving the process is a senior-level responsibility. • Challenge senior leaders to take a personal interest in increasing employee engagement. The senior leadership team first needs to work together to set cascading organizational goals and objectives to increase engagement on an enterprise level. Second, they should create action plans with both their direct reports and their entire business unit or group.
• Ensure that accountability (what needs to be done, by whom, by when) for engagement actions is clear. • Incorporate expectations for increasing engagement into the performance management system. The clearer you can be in advance regarding team and individual accountability, the stronger the results. • Provide ongoing progress reports to senior management, so that they can calibrate programs against goals and close any gaps