Last week, I was in Abuja for a special department’s retreat in one of the government’s important institutions. At the retreat, we discussed how policymakers could think and act like the owners and produce terrific policies that advance development in Nigeria.
It is not uncommon for leaders in business and public organisations to cast a vision of the result they want to achieve at the beginning of the year. The set goals for the year are often ambitious, breathtaking, and demands more energy and commitment from the employees.
All organisations, be it business, charity and government institutions want to do better than what was accomplished in the previous years. Leaders want to increase shareholders’ value, profitability, gain more market share, deepening existing customer relationships, and become the industry giants in their sector or industry. All the ambitious objectives must have the support and the commitment of the employees to succeed irrespective of the market conditions and other environmental factors.
It is pathetic that most organisations did not take into cognizance the goose that lays the golden eggs in their plan to get more eggs and lead the market. Most leaders desire to be better in result and output without commensurate investment in the employees’ productivity and mental capacity that will deliver the result.
Read Also: Nigeria, rest of Africa to start getting vaccines from Covax end on Feb
For example, an organisation operating with a level 1 leadership mentality will find it difficult to derive commitments from her workforce. The employees follow the leaders at level one because they have to. The employees’ commitment, positive energy and drive to be productive at these organisations are at the minimum level. Minimal because the leadership level is positional and going the extra mile is not in the workbook.
For organisations to gain traction in any economic terrain, especially in a difficult one like the COVID era, employee engagement for commitment and productivity is sine qua non.
Employee mental and emotional wellbeing must be factored in when making plans for the year and during the performance target setting. Increasing the figure without a commensurate increase in the workforce’s productive and workforce capacity is like starting a train when the rail tracks have been removed. Not planning for employee productive capacity is often the bane of leadership frustration. No one can give what he or she doesn’t have.
One of the ways to engage employees is the annual retreat. Annual retreat must be carefully planned to make it worthwhile and productive. It must be organised in a way different from the usual training or meeting with the staff. It must align the employees’ objectives with the organisation’s goals for the year to get to a middle point where authenticity is established effortlessly. Without align individual goals with corporate goals, leaders will struggle to drive maximum commitment and positive energy from their teams.
One of the strategies my team at Mentoras Limited adopts to facilitate effective retreats and training programme is the use of the coaching approach. In coaching, we allow the employees to generate answers to a problem or objective at hand. When employees intrinsically see the reasons to do more and achieve far better than the last results for their teams, the case of productivity and performance is settled. They will go on the extra lanes without being demanded to do so. They will do all it takes to satisfy customers and live as brand ambassadors to the organisation.
Without employee engagement and commitment, productivity is a mirage especially where people follow the leaders for his or her position.
Organising and inviting employees for an annual retreat is recognising the potential role and investment needed for the employees to be best. At retreat as facilitators, we infuse in client’s the power to be at their best. The annual retreat if professionally planned is a platform to collectively agree where the team is, where the team wants to be at the end of the year and how to get to the place the team wants to be. The team does not need to be part of determining where it wants to be at the end of the year, but all the members must be actively involved in navigating the vessel to the desired destination. Hence, a group of employees with a moderate level of skill but a higher level of ownership mindset in their thinking and actions will do better than a team of superstars without commitments.
Here is an experience to show how an effective retreat and coaching method can lead to an optimum employee engagement level. A company was not satisfied with the level of its budget performance six months after the retreat. Our sales pitch to have a coaching session for the company’s worst offenders was approved after a series of fruitless efforts. I love working with the organisation’s worst offenders. Give me people you cannot wait to sack for behavioural and productivity reasons and see the magic coaching can do. We were given thirty worst offenders who presumably were at the retreat to eat and wine. After two weeks of coaching, the company saw massive attitudinal changes that turnaround the worst-thirty offenders. Lateness to the office, sick leave and idle time were eradicated. The output of this group increased with 90% of the worst-thirty staff surpassing their sales budget in 90days.
One by-product of the coaching exercise the directors didn’t like was the group’s penchant for closing work at the agreed time plus extra 30miles. This is strange to the company’s culture of closing late. When the group was asked why they all close early and resume early the next day, they responded that ‘productivity starts at night not in the morning’. They claim going home early enabled them to think and plan for the next day, which helped them be more productive. The worst offenders were transformed into an important group of a productive asset through coaching and specific employee engagement.
Therefore, it is important for organisations to engage their employees at regular intervals, especially at the beginning of the year. The annual retreat should be treated as a change management event with an objective. The objective is to improve the commitment and productive capacity of the employees.
