Your Own Place

supporting people moving to independence

Rebecca White

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Our top three areas for staff engagement in 2020

With greater access to local, national and international research, we hear the Gallup statistics a lot these days.

That leaders and managers can make a massive difference to staff wellbeing and that 87% of employees worldwide are disengaged at work is a real ‘dur’ moment for any of us that have been poorly managed (which is clearly most of us at some point).

Should someone running a tiny enterprise be worrying about this?

How many HR departments are putting meaningful actions into place to address the challenges of the workplace?

Assuming we have our ears and eyes open to what’s going on around us, there is a wealth of advice, data and ‘good practice’ to draw on. And in the social media age we’re all shouting about the great stuff we do with our teams. With this bombardment critical faculties have never been more important.

Having worked for the local authority, I’m conscious that trying to shift culture, invest in people and bring about change can pretty much only be achieved by superheroes.

So when you give up on being a superhero (or waiting for one) you start your own business. This means working for a micro enterprise you have it really easy ;). You can build culture and employee engagement from the bottom up and tweak it quickly and transparently when it falters. We can choose our people with care. At scale it becomes about systems that don’t forget people.

In this knowledge my focus for staff engagement in 2020 will be the following three things:

⁃ Finalising and communicating our Staff Engagement Strategy embedded in our values. This will include wellbeing, staff remuneration, volunteering at work, flexible working and living our values through who we partner with and buy from.

⁃ Developing metrics across the organisation, the team, the Board and myself to ensure real progress as well as a sense of shared common purpose.

⁃ Being financially sound. Healthy finances mean better job security, prospects to develop, exciting projects and more resource to relieve pressure.

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Awards – love them or hate them

Awards – someone who rather impressed me said something quite early on about awards. It was 2015 and I was eager to learn and find ways of getting our message out. She said we should apply for everything going. That awards were great exposure. She went on to tell inspiring stories of deals she had struck with people through awards ceremonies.

Now having been momentously unlucky with awards it’s time to pause and reflect. It’s time to be honest about what I really feel about them and their role in our sector.

The Pros: Exposure. There’s little doubt that winning can give you some exposure. A bit like an MBE, some people clearly like having the letters after their name and in their LinkedIn title. Maybe these people are more strategic than me and thinking about their consultancy careers after they’re done with their business.

It’s quite fun. You don’t get many jollies in our industry. I don’t own a cocktail dress and don’t often get to really dress up. In my mind these events are fun and a welcome light relief from the day job. (That’s rarely the case by the way, they are exhausting to fit in and I still don’t/won’t own a cocktail dress).

Meeting inspiring people. You really do. Any opportunity to meet new people, people not like you, is to be relished. However, an awards ceremony is not generally conducive to meaningful conversations.

Network on the night. A bit. As above, sitting at large and noisy circular tables is actually a bit limiting and you often don’t know who else is in the room.

An opportunity to reflect. This is important and we can all be bad at it. It’s good to look at how far you’ve come and stop and consider momentarily what this looks like from the outside.

Cash. If it comes with a cash prize, then obviously that’s great. It’s quite rare though.

Credibility. Rightly or wrongly in some people’s eyes it gives you credibility. Personally I would question most people’s expertise on the shortlisting panel, in my sector. Nonetheless, there’s something about being an ‘award winner’ for many people that can’t be denied.

The Cons: Self-loathing, self-promotion and imposter syndrome. All wonderfully connected and what probably contribute to not having a great time on the night (that and the not winning). I was brought up to be modest and quiet about achievements. Good old English self deprecation was key. So naturally the braying that is inherent in posh frocks, social media images, glitzy events and people richer/more important than me is acutely uncomfortable.

They take time. The forms often flatter to deceive. There’s page after page, often lots of financial information that requires trawling through historical accounts and impact reports. To be honest, I don’t really have the time.

And time is money. The time to compete, to self-promote and then to attend is all time when I should be supporting the team. This must be balanced carefully.

And the organisers’ and sponsors’ money. No doubt someone can tell me what these events cost to put on. We work in an arena of often acute suffering and deprivation. One of our values is Equality. These events do nothing to address this and I can’t help but wonder what the pooled resources could achieve elsewhere. It makes be extremely uncomfortable (again!).

Networking. Networking is of course what you make it. As mentioned above it can be an opportunity, but rarely is in my experience.

Having recently been in the 100 Inspiring Women in Norfolk list I can testify that this meant something. It meant something because a colleague nominated me. And she did it with sincerity. My respect for her means something in this context. Equally, awards for the business are not about me. The team should be rewarded and I would love them to win an award – just for them. Quietly, cheaply and sincerely.

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Taking your safety net for granted

Do you have a safety net? Is it a rainy day fund, parents, a partner or perhaps a friend you trust with your life?

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a Spark Debate as part of Hot Source Norwich, on homelessness. With plenty of compassion and commitment in the room, it was Alex that really stood out. At 18 Alex found himself homeless after been chucked out by his parents.

Alex came from a really normal family and no one had told him about places to go for help, housing benefit or any of the other institutional or systemic safety nets we are lucky to have in our society. If Alex hadn’t spoken last Wednesday evening, you wouldn’t have known he’d been homeless and slept rough. He didn’t have the cliched shaggy beard, missing teeth or sleeping bag of the rough sleeper.

What struck me most of all though was his answer to what might have prevented his rough sleeping and what helped him. His responses are the hardest for a society or organisation to replicate. He cited luck and humanity! He met his girlfriend and others at the right time who helped him.

It reminded me of how easily people become homeless – and the luck or chance of having a safety net. I know that I could do literally anything and my dad would still take me in and bail me out. What must it feel like not to have that? How many of us never consciously realise that we take this for granted and the incredible sense of self, security, resilience and belonging it gives us? Without it, when things go wrong, they can go very wrong and very fast. And that’s down to luck.