Everyday Superheroes!

Why? Because we're not waving but drowning!

In what many would see as a "no s**t Sherlock" declaration, the CIPD announced today that there's seemingly an age-related engagement issue undermining UK business.

This is just the latest in the steady-cascade of dire engagement statistics from all the major HR research houses.

Rather than describe the water to the drowning man, here are some practical suggestions for addressing these problems, all as ever based on recent client experience:

There's plenty of doom and gloom about. But it's always this way in the eye of an economic storm. Yes, there's a certain macabre fascination watching the car crash that is European finance play out before our eyes. But as the ancient wisdom goes, the fast track to feeling more empowered is to focus on what you can personally influence. We all have some degree of empowerment in the workplace whether we're the CEO or ceo.

If the barrage of statistics are to be believed (and it's not fair just to trust the bad news), companies with high employee engagement levels grow on average 4.5 times faster than those with low levels (Hays 2010).

We know that engaged employees are:

R- receptive

I - involved

P- proactive

E - energised and energising

WASP males don’t tend to get too many invitations to be involved in the promotion of diversity management; which is a shame really.  I’m a firm believer in the notion that the promotion of diversity should embrace the full range of stakeholders and should truly practice inclusiveness in the way stakeholders are engaged with the philosophy or it runs the risk of being seen as a marginal activity aimed at an exclusive audience.  Within businesses, this means adapting the language used to promote diversity from the usual hearts, flowers and equality stuff to appeal to left brain and bottom line thinkers. As with the CSR and sustainability agenda, It can be done, as it makes damn good business sense. But a “push” communication approach may be one of the reasons why the diversity flag bearers within organisations sometimes find themselves struggling for real influence at the top table.

So-called social media, the much abused misnomer for the relatively new technological, almost virtual, communication gathering points fed largely by constantly evolving gadgets, is literally fantastic.

What had latterly been the stuff of fantasy has led to social and business revolutions, has liberated many-a-Dilbert from their cubicle and has clearly added a whole new dimension to communication. I’m a big fan. However I’ve always maintained that Facebook would never replace Face-time and it would appear that I’m not alone.

Tom Peters, trans-generational management guru supreme, has been ranting increasingly vociferously about the role of first-line managers on Twitter. At the core of his ongoing thesis are two things:

1. An organisation is ONLY ever as good as its cache of first-line managers

2. First-line managers are a direct reflection of the cultural tone set by the senior leaders; their experience and their training and development.

I couldn't agree more. In Brand Engagement, based on two decades of working within the engagement field, I reversed the logic of CEO as the primary communicator vociferously arguing the case for the ceo (chief engagement officer) or first-line management community.