Over the last few months I have read countless articles touting the need for improving workforce engagement. Given the “sky-is-falling” lament due to the Great Resignation it makes one wonder how epic is our collective failure. Are we failing or is this a long overdue cross-industry correction? Are we embracing this self-inflicted down-sizing? Are we hearing the urgent message to do more with less? Are we recognizing we need to do a better job with enabling stronger engagement with our remaining workforce? Funny thing how failure can be an urgent call-to-action to better connect our existing workforce. Connect them to what?

I can think of a number of things that connected my engagement in previous roles. How about connecting us to:

• Capability to successfully execute our work as a cultural and environmental priority
• Success through Leadership bent on connecting us to innovative capability and support
• Optimized workflows that streamline our work seamlessly, frictionlessly and ubiquitously
• Access to information, resources, performance support, and learning WITHIN our workflows
• Access to tools and technology critical to efficiently complete our assigned tasks
• Visibility to our performance results measured by metrics that are fair and relevant

You may easily think of other things that influence your own engagement, but one thing is consistent – these engagement factors are cross-industry relevant. If a workflow exists those items listed above are not only relevant, but they are also critical to sustaining engagement. Look at the list above and consider how well your organization is connecting your workforce to these engaging factors.

I strongly feel something else has cross-industry relevance that we cannot overlook – Ground Zero – where these engagement factors manifest and how well they align with reality found in the heads and hearts of the workforce. Point-of-Work is ground zero…where performance actually takes place…where measurable value is created, protected, grown, compromised and/or lost altogether based upon the degree of successful task-level execution in workflows.

If we plan to integrate new technology like Augmentir’s AI-powered Connected Worker Platform we should first assess Point-of-Work to determine readiness of the workforce to adopt the new tech with embedded work practices as well as build innovative solutions that will expand engagement and job satisfaction at the Point-of-Work. Integrating innovative technology like this can impact all six of the engagement factors listed above. Why not divert the Great Resignation and transform it into the Great Resolution…the resolution made at the workforce level to stick around and enjoy their successes?

Sorry if that is a bit sappy, but if our workforce truly is our greatest asset, we should take innovative steps to demonstrate our corporate commitment to their success. Let us enable the connections to their success, and I would wager job retention will improve. Hey, it’s cheaper to keep ‘em engaged than it is to find and train new ones.

Gary G. Wise
Workforce Performance Advocate, Coach, Speaker
gdogwise@gmail.com 
(317) 437-2555
Web: Living In Learning
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