Employee Engagement: Former CEO Interview [Expert Insights]
A company may be defined by its values and represented by its executives, but it is also reliant upon a high level of job satisfaction from each employee who ultimately drives growth and success. Employee engagement is a loosely defined term, one which centers on creating a positive workplace atmosphere that encourages staff to enthusiastically work in accordance to the needs and vision of their employers.
Cameron Hay, former CEO, Unitron
For Cameron Hay, former CEO at the innovative and successful company Unitron, the name of the game is respect. Unitron, a rapidly growing company that operates internationally, has been able to “maintain and strengthen employee engagement” throughout its evolution.
“At all times you have to respect the individual, and that doesn't matter what position you're in," Hay explained. “Power doesn’t change your ability … to see people as people.” In his HR philosophy, examples must be set from the top down, because the atmosphere and culture of a company are reflected through the standards set by its leadership.
Hay learned this lesson early in his career, working as an engineer for IBM before deciding to further his education and move into business.
For him, a defining characteristic of companies with thriving employee engagement is the ability to translate values into action, and enact them within every level of a company. Hay and fellow leaders articulated six key values, such as “we are united”, “we act with integrity”, and “we pursue the wow” as a way to share the type of culture they wanted to build, and the types of behaviors they wanted to promote.
Notably, he said of techniques such as this, "They're not just slogans on the wall, they're things that basically do permeate the culture” by being integrated at all levels of the organization, and by being recognizable through actual behavior. Employees from all departments were recognized and rewarded for actions that were aligned to those core values that stood out to customers, management and co-workers.
However, this seemingly simple solution of following through on ideals can cause immense problems if not enacted properly. "The big thing is you've got to enter into engagement philosophy authentically,” Hay commented. “You've got to have values that are real values, you've got to make promises that you're prepared to keep to your employees, or I think you get a backlash. For example, management cannot say they value integrity if they don’t practice it all the time. Great people will not stay with companies that are inauthentic, or have values inconsistent with their own.”
| "At the end of the day, are people going to go through a wall for you at the company when you need them to?" |
The essential need for strategic HR development is currently taking greater precedence than in previous decades.
According to Hay, people used to tend toward one or two jobs in a career span, making them less likely to quit as a result of job dissatisfaction. Now, employee engagement is a far more important factor.
"It's a huge competitive environment to get the very best people, to get the very best out of them," said Hay. He continued, “If we do HR right as a small company, we can compete against anybody.”
However, the real challenge, he said, is introduced when a business begins to upscale. "They grew out of their ability to maintain that really cool [start up] culture," Hay noted, referring to companies whose success diminished as they grew.
In a more personalized work environment, employees tend to vest more into the values and ideals of the company, and take greater satisfaction out of their employment. Hay cited Google as an example of a company which has grown stronger with size, due to its ability to “make them [employees] feel like they're the very best people."
Hay had one question to evaluate the effectiveness of employment engagement strategies: "At the end of the day, are people going to go through a wall for you at the company when you need them to?" Take a look at your place of work. Would you?
Lindsay Purchase interviewed Cameron Hay on behalf of TribeHR.
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