Involved employees: invaluable to the company

Low employee engagement has long been an important topic for human resources (HR) professionals. This notion of employee engagement still represents a difficult challenge to overcome. Numerous studies underline the negative impact of disengaged employees on an organization, while also demonstrating that engaged employees add organizational value to a company not only through higher productivity, but also through greater productivity. a company not only through increased productivity, but also by measuring customer satisfaction, low staff turnover, profitability and innovation.

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Major differences between involved and uninvolved employees

One of the most important investigations on the subject was published by Gallup in 2013. This study shows that 70% of American workers are not reaching their potential in the workplace, and identifies their lack of motivation. Organizations urgently need to create a supportive culture that recognizes the value of engaged employees.

Four critical capabilities differentiate engaged employees from the rest:

• Knowledge acquisition. This includes processes, routines and theoretical knowledge as well as practical skills. Engaged employees learn these processes through active discussions that enable them to express their concerns and discover personalized paths to acquiring information. In contrast, disengaged employees passively follow established procedures without criticizing them or seeking to improve them.
• Knowledge sharing. Involved employees share their knowledge with others transparently and appropriately, and understand that all the organization's activities and projects are interconnected and have a reciprocal impact. In contrast, disengaged employees work in isolation. They are disconnected from the rest of the company and unaware of how their actions contribute to or impact the bottom line.
• Problem-solving. Engaged employees can easily apply their knowledge and/or solicit the expertise required from others to deal with problems quickly. However, disengaged employees lack the organizational know-how and have limited visibility of the organization's strategy and vision to adequately solve problems.
• Alignment with the corporate vision. Engaged employees remain vigilant and actively seek ways to acquire and develop the skills needed to proactively respond to current and future business challenges. Disengaged employees tend to feel that their creativity is stifled by the organization's rigid grand strategies and business plans.

Qualities of engaged versus disengaged employees

As companies seek to increase employee engagement, it's essential to foster a participative culture where employees fully understand and feel invested not only in day-to-day operations, but also in the company's strategic objectives. This culture requires skilled managers who seek the opinions, critical feedback and recommendations of their employees. In addition, these managers must be transparent to their teams, providing insight and justification in their business decisions.

Spreading this idea of joint collaborative effort sends the message to employees that their opinions and ideas are important to the overall well-being of the organization, giving them a higher position in terms of goals and community spirit in the workplace. Employees see their efforts as contributing to and aligning with organizational goals, which motivates them to do their jobs more thoroughly and with greater involvement.

The Self-Developing Organization concept

The concept of Self-Developing Organization (SDO) was introduced by Josh Bersin when he became interested in the need for organizations to provide their employees with development and training opportunities. What we need to understand with this concept is that an employee has the ability to experiment, learn and develop to better meet an organization's objectives, as well as his or her own personal and professional aspirations.

An SDO understands the importance of each role or job to the overall success of the organization. This approach creates the conditions for the continuous development of all employees' organizational capabilities, and their capacity to learn and innovate. This is the essence of an SDO.

At the heart of the SDO lies the vitality and adaptability of each individual, who will be expected to follow a self-learning course of personal and professional development, enabling him or her to contribute effectively to the organization's success.

An essential objective of an SDO is to enable the success and development of each individual. Each employee understands and determines with greater precision the path best suited to his or her own professional development objectives within an organization, all within a well-defined framework, helping them to identify the actions and content that will take them forward.

• Adopting this new approach enables companies to create an environment where employees feel empowered to pursue their own personal development, whatever their role. In this way, knowledge acquisition is no longer the sole responsibility of management and highly specialized experts, but each role or position within the organization is responsible for its own learning and development path.
• Another important element for the organization is the need to exchange information that is open and transparent. Such an information-sharing approach generates more knowledge and, consequently, more competent employees - it inspires trust and facilitates collaboration between teams.
• Learning programs and activities, whether formal or informal, are easily accessible to all members of the organization. Employees find it easy to identify these initiatives and determine which activities are most relevant to enriching their professional development.
• Managers at all levels of the organization need to combine their own development with the need to know and develop the capabilities of their teams.
• Organizations need to create conditions that encourage professional mobility, and ensure that individuals have a clear vision of the different types of career paths available to them.
• Aligning individual behavior with corporate objectives becomes intuitive. Information on the strategic objectives of individual departments and the organization as a whole, as well as contributions, are easily accessible to all employees.

Self-Developing Organization keyword cloud

A SDO offers individualized development right from the start (or even before the first day), which impresses new employees. Professional development is fundamental to the company's culture and is a personal experience for each employee. While employees receive guidance from managers, learning officers, trainers, etc., it is their responsibility to define their own development in the context of their short- and long-term goals within the organization.

In short, an SDO understands that its talent drives business growth and provides a competitive advantage - and that it must nurture and develop this talent to ensure its full potential. It recognizes that it must enable individuals to easily identify development opportunities and define a personalized path for their professional evolution, and that it must also put in place learning tools that are not only easy, but also enjoyable to use.

Digital transformation and the Self-Developing Organization

In today's digital world, employees expect a certain level of involvement through the tools they use to achieve the best results. Employees will not accept procedures that encompass isolated applications. That's because these procedures result in a fragmented experience as they engage in the learning activities required to reach their developmental milestones. Accessible and continuous learning, linked to the right stages of professional development, is a key element of growth.

Learning technology enables organizations to manage training and learning programs, including the administration and delivery of targeted, context-appropriate learning. In addition, learning technology typically designs the user experience in a consumer-specific style, in terms of visuals and feel, which highlight ubiquitous applications such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc., as these are the applications that employees are most familiar with and use on a regular basis. The result is an infrastructure that optimizes learning processes by making training available anywhere, anytime.

Digital transformation and SDO

Regardless of their level of structure and formality, the available learning offer not only enables employees to familiarize themselves with processes and procedures, but also fills gaps in skills and expertise, thus improving employee engagement. Organizations therefore need to ensure that employees are well informed about all the learning and development options available to them.

While an organization's human resources management may recommend specific development options, it is the responsibility of its employees to participate in the learning activities they consider most appropriate for their development within the organization.

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Employee engagement: key points to remember

In today's business environment, maintaining a highly productive and engaged workforce requires organizations to address human resource challenges - insufficient skills, inadequate or non-tailored training, few opportunities for development and advancement, or misaligned corporate objectives and strategies.

The SDO approach describes a game-changing method for the way companies attract, mobilize, develop, engage and reward their people. Organizations that adopt this approach offer diverse, highly individualized solutions that enable employees to pursue rational, training-based development in line with the most important imperatives of time and place. In this way, they provide the tools needed to easily identify development options and define a personalized path for professional evolution.

These organizations also recognize that fostering collaboration and continuous development keeps employees engaged and productive, leading to better business results. Finally, SDOs realize that individuals are most interested in those organizations that offer well-established learning and development plans, keep them involved, and provide the best possible overall work experience.