How to mobilise the potential of your staff with effectiveness and benevolence

In the current climate it can be hard to stimulate staff and mobilise their full potential. The health and economic crisis is forcing company directors and managers to use levers other than financial resources or social occasions in an effort to ensure that everyone gets involved and can enjoy fulfilment in the firm. So how best to motivate the troops for greater efficiency and to reach your objectives? Agnès Brunet Desarnaud (EDHEC 2003, founder of Anagramme Formation) kindly answered this question for us during the webinar organised by the EDHEC Alumni Occitanie Toulouse club on 4 March 2021. Here she explains how to engage staff members and achieve greater peace of mind.

Lack of motivation or reliability, internal communication problems, managerial difficulties, need for fresh impetus ... do you sometimes face these problems? Here are the solutions to boosting the commitment of your staff and therefore your company’s performance.

Taking the “human” dimension into account 

This dimension comes into play at all levels of the firm. And so to determine the origin of any difficulties you might be facing, Agnès recommends evaluating key issues linked to the human factor such as staff development, remuneration, the resources made available, internal communication, cooperation and strategy. This process will steer you towards the necessary responses for staff looking for meaning or recognition, in need of support, training or hands-on supervision.

3 key principles to getting your staff involved 

What could be more satisfying and motivating for a manager than work well done by staff members who are happy to be involved?   

To reach this holy Grail, Agnès recommends 3 principles:

1. Plant and nurture the seed of meaning 
2. Professionalise your management approach
3. Form your Golden Circle

1. Plant and nurture the seed of meaning 

In a company, the notion of meaning amounts to “understanding what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and how you’re doing it”. Which is not straightforward for everyone! 

 So your staff can find meaning in their mission, Agnès recommends considering these 4 things:

• Raison d’être: every staff member must understand the company’s place in society.
• Direction: every staff member must take on board the company’s objectives to know how to channel their efforts. 
• The role of each position: every staff member must understand how their role is important in relation to the other cogs that keep the firm turning.   
• Feelings: every staff member must feel they are in the right place and listened to.

 In short, the employee who understands the direct impact of their actions on society will find it easier to commit to their work. Engaging your staff will get them to sign up to the firm’s strategy and facilitate cohesion, something that has become all the more important with teleworking. For even when on their own, all staff members must feel they belong to a community. Developing a shared action plan is an example of an effective tool to explain what must be done and get staff involved.

2. Professionalise your management approach

Management skills need to be learned! Yet in France 40% of managers are reported never to have undergone specific training. The consequences are all too clear and costly: 

- Lower productivity (estimated between -16% and -22%) as a direct result of poor management.

- Risk of absenteeism (in France the average rate is 18.6 days per year per employee).

- Costs due to the departure and hiring of staff.

 Dysfunctional management is revealed in different ways: 

• Staff positions and boundaries become blurred, employees have poor knowledge of the correct procedures and their work tools are ill suited. 
• Staff don’t take part in decision-making, there is little cooperation or cross-departmental projects, managers are regularly called upon to settle disputes, and objectives are personal rather than collective.
• Communication is poor, with few exchanges between the different hierarchical levels, meetings are ineffective and results are unclear.
• Successes are not celebrated or recognised, and failures are sanctioned. 

 If you have identified such failings in your firm, it is time to invest in training for your managers.    

3. Form your Golden Circle 

The idea is to surround yourself with the best people. It is obviously damaging both for business and from a human perspective to keep someone who lacks motivation and is ineffective in a highly visible position. As Agnès explains, “emotional contagion” is a key element: “our brain is more receptive to negative than positive emotions”. And so leaving someone in the same position who generates a poor mindset runs the risk of “contaminating” others. To surround yourself with the right people, it is also important to make sure there are no injustices between staff members (remuneration, procedures, etc.). A study published in the Harvard Business Review in 2018 showed a direct link between perceived justice in a firm and levels of staff commitment. Finally, to make sure your circle is made up of positive individuals, you must take an interest in their life cycle within the position they occupy. This involves 4 phases: exploration, mastery, maintenance and disengagement. Agnès recommends particular vigilance during the exploration phase (does the staff member quickly move on and master their position?) as well as the disengagement phase (whose boundary with maintenance is a tenuous one). How can you ensure a staff member is motivated? By simply asking them and empowering them to shape their own journey. Both formal interviews, like annual appraisals and professional meetings, and informal discussions are opportunities to talk about this and identify the ways each party can effect change.

How to tackle teleworking 

One of the challenges inherent in teleworking is maintaining links. It is now clear that commitment has improved in firms where it was already high, but has declined in those where it was fragile. Agnès’s advice is to apply the same approach to remote working as on-site presence and accentuate it. Everyone’s responsibilities must be clarified to create a reassuring environment for all: which areas of work can be covered with complete autonomy and which ones need to be validated by their superiors? You can also get staff to reflect or work on topics that are not directly linked to their responsibilities but will effectively mobilise their enthusiasm and offer some perspective (training plans, sharing advice and experience, etc.). Finally, when it comes to teleworking, the “informal” dimension (which is essential) has been lost. How can it be maintained when there are no longer any get-togethers around the coffee machine, at lunch, in seminars or team-building sessions? Simply by showing that you’re still available, perhaps by simply picking up the phone to call staff and have a chat. 

Lastly, as you will have understood by now, the idea is to approach all of these questions with common sense in a constructive way!

If you wish to discuss these issues or other aspects of management, don’t hesitate to reach out to the EDHEC Alumni community and check out our programme of webinars, which cover various themes.