Now that the Christmas and festive season is over, organisations’ managers need help to keep the season of ‘good-will’ going within their teams. This undoubtedly will have a huge influence on how engaged and motivated the organisations’ staff will feel as they return to work in 2013. January is all about new beginnings but it generally takes a few weeks for staff to ‘warm up’ and get back into the swing of things after the long break. 

Jane Sparrow, managing director of behavioural change consultancy in Northern Flight explains that this is a golden opportunity for HR professionals to encourage managers to put engagement at the top of their agenda and help employees feel re-connected and ready for the months ahead as quickly as possible. Prior to any action, spending some time planning is important; just as it is necessary to make an effort to invest in ideas on how to help staff feel more positive and focused in the weeks ahead.

Sparrow identifies five steps that can get January off to a flying start. These can definitely be used with any organisation’s reports, which could be shared with all managers, focusing on the important function managers have as ‘managers-as-engagers’.

Primarily, as soon as everyone returns back to work it is important to book a team breakfast or lunch, even a virtual meeting could serve the purpose, to bring everyone together. Deliberately, one should allow plenty of time for an informal chat and important bonding; this will surely allow your team to know each other as people and not just colleagues. Be interested in what people choose to share with you and be willing to be open, too. Store any insights they share with you and think how you could use this to help formulate your engagement plan for them. For example, someone might reveal that they worked/helped in a charity institution during the Christmas period.  As soon as you see that the people have had a good opportunity to catch up and share their festive stories, you can then start to focus the people on their work.

Act as the Prophet and reflect on the company’s vision for the future and what it seeks to achieve in the coming year. Think about what the company’s vision means for you personally and how it fits with your own sense of purpose and the values you hold dear. Remind yourself of what you enjoy about work and from where you get your energy.  It is important to spend more time doing what you love in 2013, and this should include the time you spend at the workplace.

At this point you should be confident about your own engagement levels and this puts you in a great position to influence others’ engagement! Now is the time to be their Prophet and outline your hopes and dreams for them as a team and why you believe you will all be successful. Keep future focused and really positive by using assertive and positive language. This is a stimulating role, an important one that without any doubt will help spur people into action.

Once you are clear about the future and the direction, you need to provide some of the detail and colouring pertaining to what the future journey is going to look and feel like. This is your time to become the Storyteller and make the journey as meaningful and relevant as possible. Use insights you’ve gleaned from your own personal reflections to help build the story. It is important not to forget to include some emotion too – hard facts and figures won’t be remembered, at least not as much as a story that connects with the audience. Analogies are also a great way to help people imagine and remember important concepts and issues around your story.

Finally, your role now is to be the Strategist and ensure that all those hopes and plans for engaging your team in 2013 actually happen! Book a one-to-one meeting with every team member to discuss his or her personal development and plans for the year ahead. This will set the tone for what you expect and hope to see in terms of performance from your team.  This will also put you in a position as a truly engaging manager who has used all the insight to make a plan that is personalised to them and reflects their unique levers for engagement. 

Sparrow states that her research shows that managers are the weakest at being the Strategist when it comes to engagement, so despite these suggestions being quite simple and obvious, chances are managers won’t actually get round to doing it! Managers therefore need to be very interested in how the plans are progressing, especially through the one-to-one meetings, and think about what further support and advice they might be able to offer to all.  

Ms Brincat Peplow is a researcher at the Foundation for Human Resources Development