People Engagement sessions in Melbourne and Sydney

I'm presenting a couple of sessions at this year's "National HR Solutions/Strategies Summit" happening on 13-14 May at the Bayview on the Park in Melbourne and on 17-18 May at the Amora Jamison Hotel in Sydney.*

The sessions are entitled, "It's not Business. It's Personal" - People Engagement that works, on how to use the people-centred practices of Appreciative Inquiry and the Solutions Focus to turn engagement strategy into everyday reality. 

There's a white paper on the subject too, a version of which will be available via this blog in the near future.

For the moment, here's an excerpt from the report summary below:

High people engagement is a hard thing to get right but the payoffs are tremendous – in monetary and nonmonetary terms, including:

•  improved operating income and higher profitability 

• better company performance 

• lower staff turnover, absenteeism and sick leave 

• better customer satisfaction and increased sales

Engagement describes a relationship and, like any relationship, it takes time and constant attention to nurture its development. And business-as-usual doesn’t cut it. Because it’s not business, it’s personal.

Making business personal means having a people-positive culture. Appreciative Inquiry and the Solutions Focus offer practical, action-based ways to quickly bring out the best in your people and, by extension, your organization.

The Solutions Focus in particular is such a SIMPLE (though not easy!) approach that people quickly find themselves asking different questions and interacting in more positive and productive ways. And so “the way we do things around here” starts to shift in ways that actively engage people, because they’re the ones doing the shifting.

Your organization’s engagement strategy will stand or fall based on the ability of your people managers to make it real as they engage with people. Think of the numerous touch-points in your organization where engagement is created (or lost) every day. Equipping your people managers (a.k.a. your engagement allies) with these AI and SF tools can speed up that shift toward a healthy engagement culture.

Remember the engagement gold standard: when your culture fosters adult, two- way relationships between leaders/managers and employees, in which challenges are met and goals achieved, you get good people engagement, increased contribution and better business results.

Turn the “soft stuff” of human behaviour into your competitive advantage by engaging the whole person: make your business personal.