Employee Engagement Can Make or Break Your Strategy
Most of us have seen strategies that looked great on paper but never seemed to get off the ground. Somewhere along the way, implementation faltered. Important goals fell by the wayside and the organization never rallied around the direction set by leadership. And still, business as usual carried on.
This sort of failure is practically guaranteed without buy-in and participation from employees across an organization. Throughout the government, senior leaders invest significant resources in assessing the strategic challenges that face their organizations and developing forward-thinking strategic plans, making it crucial that they make good on that investment and put those plans into practice.
Employees across the organization, at every level, have a part in carrying out new priorities, aligning their work with strategic goals, and identifying new opportunities for success. Employee engagement can’t be an afterthought; their understanding and level of buy-in determines whether a strategy successfully changes how the organization operates.
To improve your organization’s approach to strategy implementation, adapt widely used employee engagement techniques to the challenge:
Understand workforce perspectives – Make use of standard assessments, like the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, alongside tailored surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Build and maintain an understanding of the current attitudes, beliefs, challenges, and priorities of employees and how they perceive the organization’s strategy and mission
Link employee engagement initiatives to strategic goals – Provide employees across the organization with opportunities to ask questions and share ideas. Use strategic goals and initiatives as inputs to inform Individual Development Plans. Link communications, events, and engagement opportunities to specific goals and initiatives from the strategy
Use champions and relationship networks – Recruit respected employees from a range of roles and levels as champions of the new strategy. Help them understand and appreciate the strategy and earn their support. Interaction with trusted colleagues who advocate for, explain, and model support for the strategy can do more to engage the rest of the workforce in the success of the strategy than any top-down communications
If you are working to develop or roll out a strategy for your organization, focus on employee engagement early and often. It can make the difference between a strategy that supports the mission and one that gathers dust on the shelf.
About Arc Aspicio
Arc Aspicio enhances the future of our nation by creating bold ideas and bringing them to life. A consulting and solutions company, Arc Aspicio solves problems by applying our integrated capabilities in strategy, design, data, human capital, behavioral science, and technology. The company passionately pursues our vision to be the hub of creativity where people take action to change the world. To do this, employees collaborate with clients and partners to create solutions using a human-centered approach. Innovation is not possible without action. The company focuses on strategy first, then takes a hands-on approach implementing ideas to achieve results. Join Arc Aspicio and our Strategy Innovation Lab (SILab) by creating and sharing ideas to inspire people to change the world. Follow us on Twitter @ArcAspicio @SILabDC and learn more at www.arcaspicio.com.
