Engagement – emotional or transactional?
Please see below a report issued by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). It is quite a document (36 pages) and is steeped in jargonese, etc., but a very interesting read if you can manage it. It talks of two types of engaged people, emotional and transactional; the former being those employees who do more than just their tasks and the latter being those who do nothing more than what is expected of them.
It obviously chimes with my (our) principles of truly engaging with all stakeholders. The report highlights that putting people under more stress (they call it work intensification) increases the likelihood of employees “just doing their jobs” and no more. In a supportive environment this is reduced and the likelihood of employees “going the extra mile” is increased.
The report states that Senior leader and line manager behaviours that are shown to foster employee emotional engagement include being open and accessible, providing clear direction and performance feedback, sharing information and being ready to listen, and offering mentoring and guidance.
On Tuesday 29th May my colleague, Mike Johnson, will be presenting at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (I Mech E) in London. Much of what he’ll be talking about is a reflection of this emotional engagement and he’ll be relating a recent case study of his where this behaviour was so critical to success. If you are member of that institute why not attend and find out first hand from Mike what this is really all about in practical terms?
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