Context: Company Y is a small hospitality business located in the heart of Auckland City. Company Y has less than 15 employees in their team, who all have different levels of experience, backgrounds and ages. For some of the employees, working at Company Y is just a job to get some extra money while studying; for others, working at Company Y is their career and passion.
Challenges:
- After conducting a workplace survey, figures showed that their engaged employees represented between one-quarter and one-third of the workforce and this was evidenced by their positive attitude about work.
- However disengaged employees, had a glass-half-empty attitude about the company and the type of work they performed.
Strategies:
- Company Y had worked with POD in the past, and knew that POD could assist to further enhance the level of employee engagement in the business.
- Company Y identified that they wanted to develop a strategy that covered both sides of the engagement spectrum and which focused on recognition, motivation and relationship building.
- In collaboration with the leadership team POD conducted regular coaching sessions to help Company Y develop and implement a recognition and reward scheme that recognised high performing staff. Employees who received recognition for their expertise were (and still are) motivated to perform at even higher levels.
- We had to think about how to address the the challenge for the client to create enthusiasm about work when routine job functions were anything but exciting. One strategy we implemented involved challenging employees to think of ‘stretch’ goals apart from the ones outlined in their job description. This included thinking of ideas aimed at improving processes for performing their job functions. Employees whose suggestions for improvement saved the company money and resources were subsequently rewarded.
Outcomes: Our achievements were measured through a second workplace survey conducted a year on after POD helped Company Y. The results showed that 95% of the respondents agreed that the company’s business vision, values and goals are clear, communicated to all staff and evident in all that they do.
This was further supported by Company Y’s improvement of overall productivity and successful achievement of annual targets.
