Recruiting and retaining talent is the #1 concern of companies around the world. Especially in Singapore’s candidate-driven market, successful employee engagement strategies are a clear competitive advantage. Multiple studies show that the level of employee engagement is directly linked to talent attraction, retention and improved work performance.
Harvard Business Review, Engagement Around the World, Charted
However, the new “Global study on Engagement” by the ADP Research Institute, identified another factor influencing employee engagement. ADP surveyed more than 19,000 workers across the globe of which only about 16% of workers are fully engaged. China and India saw the biggest changes.
Interestingly, some factors that companies look at when trying to understand engagement – for instance age, gender, location – were not that determinative as you would expect.
THE POWER OF TEAMS
While some countries, policies, and behaviors had a clear impact, the research reveals that the engagement drivers occur mostly inside an organization. The one factor that transcended all categories was whether the worker is part of a team.
Across the globe we can see that teams drive engagement. That is great news as so many other factors lie outside an employer’s control. A recent study from Cisco revealed that “when a team member’s level of engagement falls from the top half of the company to the bottom half, their likelihood of actually leaving the company in the following six months increases by 45%.”
With researchers estimating the replacement cost of a frontline worker with roughly half of that worker’s salary and for knowledge workers 2.5 times the salary, this can become quickly very costly.
Leverage the Power of Teams to drive the engagement in your organisation. Get inspired by the following articles to improve the team experiences in your company.
THE POWER OF HIDDEN TEAMS
Though feeling like you are on a team is fundamental to engagement, it is true that some teams are far more engaging than others. In the most engaged teams — the top quartile — 59% of members are fully engaged, whereas in the bottom quartile 0% are. The ADPRI study strongly suggests that a number of key factors separate the best teams from the rest. Read more about the conclusions for leaders about how to improve their teams: 1. Focus on trust. 2. Design teams for human attention. 3. Learn together. 4. Put team experience above team location. 5. Make all work more like Gigi work.
KEEP YOUR COMPANY’S TOXIC CULTURE FROM INFECTING YOUR TEAM
Sometimes even well-intended managers act in ways that they’re ashamed of.
Why on earth would people violate their own values?
In my experience, it has less to do with a person’s individual flaws (though I do believe that there are far too few really good leaders in our organizations — and far too many who are subpar or downright awful) and more to do with the culture that these leaders operate in. If you are wondering whether your organizational culture is unhealthy, here are some of the signs I have seen in the companies I have studied.
AS YOUR TEAM GETS BIGGER, YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE HAS TO ADAPT
Julie Zhuo, vice president of design at Facebook, shares the five most striking contrasts between managing small and large teams: Direct to Indirect Management. 1. Direct to Indirect Management. 2. People Treat You Differently. 3. Context Switching, All Day, Every Day. 4. Pick and Choose Your Battles. 5. People-Centric Skills Matter Most.
BONUS: Build a Tower, Build a Team
Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the “marshmallow problem” — a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average?
Would you like to know more about how we can help you increase performance in Asia-Pacific? Get in touch with us here.
ABOUT TIMEO-PERFORMANCE
The Skills Factory for your performance in Asia-Pacific
Through recruitment, training and consulting, Timeo-Performance provides solutions for increased performance of companies, teams and individuals. As our clients are in the center of global business and often serve the APAC region, our solutions need to be sustainable in a multicultural and remote context.
Our joint venture with Akteos, the European leader in intercultural training, and partnership with digital learning solutions provider CrossKnowledge have therefore been organic and logical additions to our service.
Timeo-Performance has been helping companies in APAC increase business performance since 2008 with offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
