While there is little argument on the benefits that derive from employees who are enthusiastic about their work and committed to their organisations, the methods used to increase employee engagement vary between companies. However, research by human capital and management consulting firm Aon Hewitt points to one quality in particular that “Best Employers” share in successfully creating and driving highly engaged workforces.
“In the results of our research we consistently see that the best employers have more highly engaged leaders – in fact, twice as many as the market average,” says Fritz Yeung, the company’s Best Employers – Hong Kong programme lead. “The behaviour of these leaders is perceived positively by 85 per cent of their employees. Organisations with such leaders have twice as many highly engaged employees as ones that don’t.”
The research forms the core of Aon Hewitt’s 16th annual Asia-Pacific Best Employers programme. Over 630 organisations and 800,000 employees participated in the programme, making it the largest study of its kind in the region. The awards for the Hong Kong segment of the programme will be presented on July 15, 2016.
Mary Yu, head of talent solutions at Aon Hewitt Hong Kong, says that while such leaders come in many shapes and forms, the company has identified the key pillars that engaging leadership is built on following interviews with hundreds of executives for its separate “Engaging Leader Study”.
“The first key pillar is critical experience,” she says. “Engaging leaders have had experiences that transformed them. These experiences always entail some challenging or tough assignments that required them to navigate through some ambiguity.”
These experiences, Yu explains, have taken the executive out of their comfort zone. They have not only enabled them to grow as a person and as a leader, but have also helped shape their core guiding beliefs – which forms the second pillar. “These core beliefs include the idea of servant leadership. In other words, leadership is a responsibility, not a status or a reward.”
The third key pillar identified by the study was behaviour. “Engaged leaders shape their own engagement,” Yu says. “So they, themselves, are engaged and display engaged behaviour when leading their team. They also strive to stabilise and energise their people.”
Just as real pillars need strong foundations, there is one factor that supports all actions of engaged leaders. “Underlying all this is authenticity," Yu says. “Their behaviour is authentic, not faked – and only authentic behaviour can be sustained.”
The study also found that many engaged leaders are using new digital technologies to connect with their people. “Technology makes it easier for people to collaborate online with their peers, get instant feedback and be recognised for their achievements – as well as enhance the visibility of leaders,” says Kelvin Lam, head of HR technologies at Aon Hewitt Hong Kong. “If you are a leader, then leveraging technology also allows you to see the performance of your people relative to the targets you’ve set for them.”
Lam adds that better “talent outcomes” – such as improved succession planning and talent development – can be enabled through enhanced learning experiences. Many technologies these days allow for gamification or virtual role-playing, which can provide a channel for potential leaders to “try on” a position in an organisation – along with its responsibilities and duties. “This gives them a virtual experience without really affecting actual business operations.”
Adopting any new technology can be disruptive and unsettling. However, if properly managed, the positives can far outweigh the negatives. “From our study, organisations that are better at adopting new technology focus a lot of resources and effort on change management before, during and after its adoption,” Lam says.
The Aon Hewitt team were also able to extract from the study techniques to increase the engagement of “disengaged” leaders. Yu points out that one of the best ways to start is to leverage existing engaged leaders as agents of change. “Beyond this, our research indicates that leaders, like most people, are engaged by having career opportunities within the organisation, by the pay, by being recognised, and by the strong reputation of the company they work for.”
She adds that in Hong Kong, the study identified two unique engagement drivers for leaders. “The first is empowerment and autonomy. Second is an enabling infrastructure that can help those leaders effectively execute their job.
Tzeitel Fernandes, managing director of Aon Hewitt Hong Kong, says that her team strongly believes that the qualities it takes to be an engaged leader can be trained and developed.
“Of the three pillars that shape an engaging leader, the one an individual probably controls the most is the critical experiences,” Fernandes says. “When it comes to these experiences, we talk about an individual raising his or her hand to do a new type of project, or a special assignment with cross-functional teams. It’s something they can volunteer to do to gain that experience.”
She suggests organisations highlight the fact that these opportunities exist and encourage ambitious employees to apply for them - or else suffer the consequences. “Often an individual chooses to leave the firm and gain that critical experience somewhere else.”
BEST EMPLOYERS 2016 HK EVENTS SCHEDULE
June 3, 2016
Judging day by six judges from HR, business, media and the academe
July 15, 2016
Best Employers Hong Kong 2016 Awards and Learning Conference
Information:
Contact Elaine Liu at elaine.liu@aonhewitt.com
This article appeared in the Classified Post print edition as Driving staff to success.
