Leaping into better employee engagement

February, leap year, and relationship focus

As the month of love, February is already pretty heart warming, but throwing in it being a Leap year, dials up our focus on relationships and whether really we’re on the same page as the people we spend time with.

Whilst they say around 30% of personal relationships start over the water cooler, I’m not advocating for romantic love being in the air in the workplace. However, there is a lot to be gained from considering if the match between companies and their colleagues is shared, or really if you should be swiping right.

In dating, people can miss out on their perfect match by overlooking shared values and interests, andby prioritising looks, jobs, and location.  

The problem is these factors can easily change over time, but the core values that you’re going to end up living with forever can be a little hard to change.

The importance of shared values in workplace relationships

And so back to the workplace – the same principles when you are courting or being courted by your next employer should be front and centre. Salary and the day-to-day aspects of the work you do can change, but the values and mission of the company should be clear and consistent.

It’s central to what we do at Leopard Co, and through the consultancy we provide to clients who need to transform and empower their colleague community.

So back to it being a leap year – special for some, but actually at Leopard, driving people to leap into action is something that’s a 365 (and a quarter) day-a-year focus.

Introducing the LEAP Model: Empowering colleague communities

A group of Leopards is a Leap, so it’s in our nature to understand how to harness the power of people and help organisations to work as one pack, whilst balancing the understanding that every workforce population features a diversity of perspectives, motivations and interests.

Being clear about values is important, but we need to be honest that not everyone is engaged at work for the same reasons.  Traditional people engagement strategies have attempted to impose their identity on their colleague community without recognising that there is huge diversity in what motivates people and how they behave.  Telling people that the organisation has ubiquitous values like…‘Brave, Ambitious and Human’, is a great start, but more importantly, is ensuring that the organisation helps team members understand how they can live these values in their own way.  And Values are nothing without a Mission – it creates the Why to help colleagues understand, what’s in it for them.

Our approach is to centre on playing to the strengths of the colleague community, recognising that every colleague can contribute in their own way, to achieve the organisation’s mission. The behaviours that need to be articulated to help organisations to fulfil this mission will vary, subject to role type, individual skills and motivations.

We call this – the LEAP (Leadership Engagement Action Plan) – so in the spirit of this being the month of love, we’re sharing our expertise to help organisations understand how they can increase people engagement and love for what they do in the workplace.