The Rules of Engagement white paper
Download the white paper
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A project team at The Training Foundation has been researching employee engagement for four years. The more we dug into the latest research, from occupational psychology, neuroscience and genetics, the more we became convinced that employers are generally missing the engagement wood for the trees, or, to use another arboreal metaphor, barking up the wrong tree!
It is clear that employees make engagement decisions on fundamentally emotional grounds. However, generally organisational development has followed a ‘rational-brain’ paradigm for 100 years. There has been little place for emotions in the Scientific Management model, nor in the behavioural science approach to management. As a result, most engagement strategies being employed are focused on secondary issues for employees such as flexible work patterns, or pay and reward systems. This approach underestimates the crucial need to satisfy six innate emotional drivers.
Managers play the pivotal role in that. The primary issue for employees is ensuring that managers have the leadership skills to engage with their people, to engender ‘go-the-extra-mile’ attitudes. Managers’ own attitudes and behaviours are the key influencers of individual and team engagement.
Engagement is a complex matter, however, we believe there are three simple underlying concepts. Given their universal significance, and to use a military analogy, we have termed them the Rules of Engagement - employers are in a battle after all!