One of the questions we repeatedly ask ourselves is: “How have we helped our clients and their employees be more successful?” As one of our key drivers, this is not a question we ask lightly. We are passionate with helping everyone succeed through creating simple and accessible solutions. That passion includes mentoring, education and offering leading ideas that can be used by everyone.
Our approach focuses on education, empowerment and delivering actionable information across the enterprise. This approach can be disruptive for some organizations and individuals. Especially those who have focused for years on gathering and manipulating data instead of analyzing and driving decisions. They can feel a bit lost during the transition. However, once they recognize the benefits of actionable information and embrace this shift, their engagement and effectiveness increases dramatically.
WHY?
One of the benefits of actionable information is unlocking the value of your resources. Employees that no longer have to search for relevant data or re-do their analysis when they find errors in the data, are more satisfied and engaged at work. They know that the information they are getting is accurate and actionable. They can drive decisions without having lingering doubts if they are recommending the right course of action for the organization.
How do you enable your employees to be successful?
The illustration below is from a recent book by Mark Royal and Tom Agnew. “The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration–and Get the Most from Your Employees.”, copyright 2012, The Hay Group, Inc. Royal makes a case that it’s also important for managers to combine both engagement and enablement to ensure high levels of employee satisfaction and productivity. If those things aren’t done, he says, workers left on their own will resort to one of three choices: 1. seek to solve problems on their own; 2. “disengage,” thereby reducing the level of energy and commitment to their workplace; or 3. find a new job.
As you can see, the engagement portion of the illustration is about leadership and culture. However, the enablement section is about giving your employees the ability to succeed. Many organizations have leadership in a culture that supports their employees. Yet, they don’t always provide the necessary elements to allow them to be successful.
Many organizations focus on buying the newest tools to help their employees. Sometimes new tools are like a pretty Band-Aid over an old wound that will not heal. The Band-Aid can be bright and shiny at first, but over time it will fade and eventually fall off while the wound continues to fester unless you help it heal from within. The organization can also wind up with a hodgepodge of tools that do not address the underlying issue.
Tools by themselves do not provide actionable information that enable employees to be successful. However, selecting the right tools is a key part of an overall information strategy. A true information strategy provides the right business context, data quality, training, change management, roles and responsibilities, as well as ensuring integration back into the business processes.
Providing actionable information to your employees is giving them the power and inherent authority to make decisions and drive the business forward. This is one of the key elements to providing high employee satisfaction, engagement, success and retention.
Many organizations choose to implement an information strategy to help drive their strategic business initiatives. One of the hidden benefits of this implementation is enabling their employees to be more successful. As the illustration above displays, the employees’ engagement and enablement makes them more effective and drives the increased success of the organization.
What steps are you taking to equip your employees with the information they need to meet and exceed their objectives and drive business forward?
