Social engagement – fact or fiction?

 

   In my end-of-day keynote at Kenexa’s Euro Summit, I talked about how the social aspects of an organisation play an important role in influencing the engagement levels of employees.

I referred in particular to some of:

• Daniel Goleman’s findings on social intelligence
• Nitin Nohria’s identification of the bonding drive
• David Rock’s view that we experience the workplace in primarily social terms.

 

I used these arguments to suggest that much of what engages us at work comes from our relationships with the people we work alongside.

So I was paying particular interest to Jack Wiley’s keynote at the start of the day in which Jack described the findings of Kenexa’s 2010 WorkTrends survey, wondering to what extent this social type of engagement would appear in their research.

The answer is it didn’t.  Hardly at all – just in terms of the #10 reason that people leave (feeling part of a team)*.

 

I carried on anyway – and I don’t think anyone noticed the divergence in our views.

But what’s behind the discrepancy?  Who’s right, who’s wrong.  I’d love to learn your views.

 

 

* PS the social aspect of the organisation did come through in some of the other presentations.  For example, Stefanie Confurius from Philips talked about their focus on:

• Me and my company
• Me and my manager
• Me and my department.

 

Within this last area, Philips have been running some deep dive sessions and team building events to increase (social) engagement.

 

In addition, Nicky Ivory-Chapman from McDonald’s explained that one aspect of this company’s EVP is Friends and Family, which includes:

• Everyone treated the same
• Inclusiveness
• Diversity
• Same access to training and development
• Progress if they wish.

 

So it’s there, but still not that strongly…

 

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