We are coming to the end of the year and predictions for 2023 have started to emerge one after another. All professionals whose job is people management know that their job is not as easy as it used to be. We are going through a period of unimaginable change. Employee engagement was very important yesterday, but it has become extraordinarily important today.
Check out these examples!
Employees used to be afraid of being fired; now employers are afraid of employees quitting.
In the past, everyone went to work in the morning, now no one (except field workers) feels such an obligation.
We used to think that our skills would be enough for us in the future, now we cannot predict the future.
Many more examples could be given, but there is one thing we must accept: We need to look at Talent/People/Employee from a different perspective, no matter how you phrase it. In Gartner’s Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders in 2022 report, the impact of leadership and management is in the first item. HR leaders globally recognise that preparing leaders for the future is one of the most important challenges. It seems that leadership roles are becoming increasingly complex and what is expected of leaders is changing. Gartner defines the new generation leadership as “Human” Leadership. “Human” Leadership is based on three key characteristics: authentic, empathetic and adaptive.
That’s the type of leadership we need for high employee engagement.
The report coincides with the work done by Engage & Grow. (We encourage you to read our compassionate leadership e-book)
Almost all of the findings, including Gardner’s report, tell business leaders:
Understand your talented employees and empathize with them; humanize your approach to leadership, and adapt to change, don’t fight it.
Accept flexibility and recognize people’s need for autonomy.
Stop seeing them as silos and personalize the employee experience.
Recognise the value of your talented employees and provide them with the “work experience” they need.
Believe – here and now – that investing in employee engagement will save you from unnecessary recruitment processes, unhappy customers, the danger of quiet quitting and becoming a thing of the past.