How HR Practitioners Can Connect And Empower Employees To Drive Critical Business Goals

Talent & culture: The engine of the modern connected enterprise

When the world first entered into the pandemic and companies went remote, the business landscape forever changed. The old “rules of work,” like being in the office five days a week from nine to five, no longer applied. While there’s no playbook on the best way to move forward, companies across industries have had to quickly build and adapt to new ways of working, all while maintaining business productivity and success. 

Human resource practitioners — which many companies are starting to rename the “People Team” ¬— are especially affected as we not only have to find new ways to do our own jobs, but construct successful remote work policies, procedures, and quickly invest in resources to support employees —all while ensuring employee engagement and connection to the business. 
 

As we collectively look to turn a corner in 2022, there will be companies that thrive in this new environment and companies that fail quickly. Companies that continue to rely solely on what’s worked in the past will be the first to go, while the companies that focus their efforts on building and maintaining purposeful connections between their employees and their business strategy will have a leg up on their peers. 

Experiment, Innovate, and Be Willing to Fail 

In recent years, we have witnessed a generational shift in employee expectations. The youngest generation of employees currently joining the workforce look for organizations that care about employees’ well-being, exhibit purposeful and mission driven cultures, have open and transparent leadership, and support a diverse and inclusive working environment. While this shift in employee expectations is nothing new, it certainly was accelerated by the dramatic shift in work-from-home culture due to the pandemic. There has never been such a thin line between “work” and “life” and HR practitioners had to quickly adapt and shift to operating under a trial-and-error mindset – testing what worked and what aligned best with employees’ personal goals and values and adjusting their organization’s offerings as needed. While this shift was almost mandatory, HR professionals will need to continue to be experimental, innovative, and willing to fail and learn from the mistakes made, especially in terms of connected work. 

Don’t Rely on Collaboration Tools to Build Connections

At the end of the day, humans are pack animals and social creatures that crave engagement with others. This manifests itself in the workplace, as employees seek interaction with their colleagues and connection to the mission and vision of the organization they work. The Great Resignation, Zoom fatigue, and employee burnout are just a handful among many examples of why a future where everyone is 100% remote isn’t sustainable – unsurprisingly, employee burnout levels remained high throughout 2021 and the Covid-19 pandemic. Critically, fully remote workers experienced more burnout than on-site workers. 

So how do we create employee engagement and develop a sense of purpose as an organization while working in a virtual or hybrid environment moving forward?

The collaborative technology and business ceremonies organizations use have the ability to make or break the company’s overall culture and employee engagement. To be clear: collaboration technology doesn’t mean Zoom or Slack. In the wake of Covid-19, most companies turned to those collaboration tools as a crutch to remote work–but that has driven burnout and strengthened silos. 

While communication and collaboration tools are indeed critical, it’s also important that organizations double down on their mission, vision, and values and make a dedicated effort to ensure employees have visibility into both the company’s vision and its business to drive engagement. Companies will also need to focus on investing in technology that understands when, where and how teams need to come together to perform work and provide the building blocks necessary for companies to build a truly connected work environment. Employees that can see and understand how their work has an impact are more engaged and driven to succeed. 

Employee Success + Customer Success = Business Success

Our mantra is that employee success plus customer success is what really yields the overall success businesses are looking for. Successfully achieving those two elements can drive real business momentum, but it requires dedicated attention, hard work, and creativity.

Leveraging technology, new ways of working, and removing disconnects between functional silos to operationalize and execute on prioritized initiatives will help lead to employee and customer engagement and success. 

After all, employee engagement and connection to strategy will drive a company’s ability to adapt and respond to change. Understanding the vision will only empower those to act responsively to ensure their work is driving critical business goals, even – or perhaps especially – in times of significant change.

While we will never go back to the “traditional” way of working, some core elements of business will not change. Today’s generation of employees will continue to look for organizations that are mission driven and value-focused, take socially responsible approaches to work, and make investments in the well-being of their employees. Ensuring employees feel supported and connected not only with their peers but to the mission and vision of the company will be crucial.

It will be vital for HR practitioners to encourage company leaders to adopt this mindset, if they haven’t already, and invest in building purposeful connections while preparing for the future of connected work.

Jay Nelson is the Chief People Officer at Planview. Connect Jay Nelson