Member Article

Employee Engagement & Investors in People

Investors in People turned 21 this year and ever since its launch, supporting employee engagement has been at its centre.

Employee engagement is all about building a strong relationship between an organisation and its people - inspiring, challenging and supporting employees at all levels so they can deliver what the business needs now and in the future. It is a fundamental part of putting people at the heart of a business.

Working with the Investors in People framework, organisations can drive actions that empower team members to take initiative and serve collective interests, without having to micro-manage.

In other words, Investors in People can offer the opportunity to engage people in the workplace so that they are able to participate in decision-making and therefore take responsibility for organisational success.

At a time when the British economy needs a return to a successful, highly skilled manufacturing base, Ford Aerospace – based in the North East – is a model example of what can be achieved by engaging people with business strategy.

With its roots in the aerospace, defence and high technology sector, Ford Aerospace had suffered, like so many others, from the impact of the financial crisis. As recently as a couple of years ago it was losing money and struggling to survive.

But then Mark Podmore arrived as the new managing director with a stack of new ideas on how the company should be run. As well as investing in developing leading edge technology, Mark saw that it was critical to get his workforce on side and much more actively engaged in the direction and progress of the business.

This involved a big culture change in the way the organisation operated. Fortunately Mark rapidly gained the trust of people at all levels of the business and the overwhelming majority bought into the new approach.

“Investors in People gave us a framework to wrap up everything that we were doing and to recognise that we were going in the right direction,” Mark commented.

And the results are clear to see in the firm’s rapid progress.

Within months of the new approach, business started to improve and the company is now thriving. It exports about a quarter of its output to countries like China and Brazil and is poised to increase its headcount from about 100 to 120. The company also won a ‘Culture for Success’ award last year.

To find out more about Ford Aerospace and how they have used Investors in People to transform their business and employee engagement, check out the November issue of People Business, the national Investors in People newsletter, available to download at www.investorsinpeople.co.uk

If you would like to find out more about Investors in People and how you work with the framework to improve employee engagement and organisational performance, contact idg, official partner for the North of England.

How Investors in People can help with employee engagement:

• Developing business strategy: working with your people to build a clear and compelling vision, strategy and business plan
• Strengthening leadership: through a clear plan for building and continuously improving the leadership skills you need now and in the future
• Developing managers: by ensuring managers are clear about the capabilities they need to lead, manage and develop their people (and that the organisation helps them build and continuously improve those skills)
• Building dialogue: so that information flows around the organisation, eradicating silos, and that all communication is two-way
• Creating a culture of openness and trust: in which employees are trusted and supported to make the contribution expected of them, without being ‘micromanaged’
• Involving employees in decision making: from high level decisions to routine day-today decisions about their own job (leading to creation of more meaningful roles)
• Ensuring equality of opportunity: so that people at all levels have access to the same opportunities and support, and that every one has the chance to achieve their potential

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by idg .