People engagement is a minimum expectation for any team, product, project, and organization. It is a never-ending journey, yet many projects or organizations go awry and lose the required focus. Many organizations fail to embark on that journey. As a result, they’re setting their people (and their bottom lines) up for failure.
Why is people engagement crucial? How do you measure it? Improvements can only come when you know what needs to be done and why, along with the relevant impact or desired change.
What is People engagement?
Many Scrum Masters recognize that engaging the team members plays a critical role in Agile success. But far fewer can define engagement and why it’s so important. What is the so-called engagement? What is the role of Scrum Master in this front?
Team Member engagement is the measure of how motivated a person is within their job, team, and organization. When someone is highly engaged, it means they’re invested in their work, energized by their peers, and committed to their product and/or company’s long-term mission and vision.
Put simply, engagement measures an employee’s level of satisfaction at a given point in the employment lifecycle. The higher the level of engagement, the greater the likelihood that the person is enjoying a positive experience. By engaging your hard-working folks and low-performers alike, you ensure your people can come to work energized—and deliver their best.
Why is an engaged Scrum Team important?
Flip this question on its head: What happens when your team or a few members of the team are not engaged?
When team members feel disconnected their work begins to suffer which ultimately impacts the product / increment delivery. Team member is less likely to go the extra mile for their others and is going to do the bare minimum to stay afloat in their role. And when they decide their organization can no longer support their growth (professionally, monetarily, or otherwise), they’ll leave for a company that can.
Now imagine that effect multiplied across an entire workforce, and the dangers of disengagement become amply clear.
An engaged Scrum Team is critical to productivity—and, by that definition, it would impact your profitability and customers (directly).
We do not even count the losses that we have made by hiring the wrong person or backfilling the position. If we start to calculate the amount of time, effort, and energy that is wasted, more so from the management level, our growth in terms of EBITA would be going north. But, alas, it is considered an element of doing business. No doubt that people would leave, but by retaining them for a longer duration, you are increasing your margins, as well as customer satisfaction.
Improvements to the employee experience can also carry over to the customer experience. If you’re taking steps to improve employee satisfaction, chances are your customer satisfaction ratings will get a boost, too.
Habits of engaged employees and companies.
Engaged team members would have some habits you simply won’t find in other employees. They show up to work with energy and often a genuine smile. They go the extra mile in their role—by working late occasionally or offering to help employees with too much on their plate. Above all else, they’re excellent teammates who contribute to a healthy team dynamic.
Benefits of engaged team members.
When a team member is engaged, that inner fire tends to spread. Others feel the energy. They spend more discretionary effort and aspire to be better team players. Given are a few of the many benefits of engagement:
- Higher productivity
- Greater profitability
- Lower employee turnover
- Fewer safety incidents
- Stronger customer loyalty
- Lower employee absenteeism
Consider this list of benefits, and the takeaway is clear: Employee engagement can transform your business.
Make no mistake: A ping-pong table and office snacks aren’t enough to entice today’s talent. More than ever, people want a fail-safe environment—one where they can be their authentic selves, and work in a way that’s both stimulating and sustainable.
The different levels of engagement
You may know an employee is highly disengaged, but unless you know what is driving disengagement, how are you supposed to take action?
There are four drivers of employee engagement:
- Job fit: Alignment between an employee’s responsibilities and their natural tendencies and career aspirations
- Manager fit: The relationship between the employee and their manager.
- Team fit: Chemistry with teammates, and overall team cohesion
- Organizational fit: connection to senior leadership and the company culture
When a team member achieves fitment across all four factors of engagement, they’re more likely to be engaged overall. By contrast, when one or more factors are lacking—a person doesn’t gel with their team, the culture, etc.—they’re more likely to become disengaged over time.
One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to engagement. Job satisfaction may look wildly different to one team member as compared to another—it all depends on each person’s natural behavioral drives. By understanding how to motivate your scrum team members based on their unique needs, Scrum Master can ensure that they are taking an active approach to prevent disengagement and improving the experience.
Don’t try to boil the ocean. When in doubt, look for ways—even if seemingly small—to improve one or more of the four drivers of engagement.
Here are some examples of ways to improve engagement:
- Have regular career pathing discussions with your team members.
- Build awareness as a Scrum Master and address relationship gaps.
- Encourage a healthy work-life balance (and lead by example).
- Build trust by leading remote-friendly team-building activities.
- Recognize your Scrum Team Members for a job well done, or when a Sprint has gone well (more so publicly than privately).
- Write personalized “thank you” cards for your team members.
- Embrace hybrid work by allowing people to choose where they work (as long as the work is getting done, the goals and objectives are achieved of the product/sprint).
Once the Scrum Master discovers effective employee engagement best practices, it’s time to think about the bigger picture with the strategy. Scrum Master should take a proactive approach by surveying the team members about their experiences with the project/organization. Identify the biggest opportunity areas, so one can swiftly act on their feedback.
Investing in and measuring engagement
Investing in engagement today can pay dividends in the long term—but only if you know how to measure your progress.
Collecting employee feedback has always been important, but now it’s mission critical. Organizations live in a post-COVID world—one dominated by discussions about mental health, social equity, and personal freedom. Throw economic uncertainty into the mix, and you could make a strong argument that employee engagement is in a recession of its own.
The impact of managers and leadership on engagement
As a Scrum Master, you have an outsized impact on engagement. It’s incumbent that you don’t just listen to your people, but that you advocate and fight for them.
Taking action is a collaborative process. Give your people the forum to voice their opinions and propose ideas for change. Once you’ve agreed upon a plan of action, see to it that you follow through on that plan. Lead by example and encourage other leaders / Scrum Masters across the organization to follow suit.
The role of engaged employees in your hiring process.
Engagement doesn’t just make for a great employee experience—it makes for a great hiring experience, too.
One of the best ways to create a world-class onboarding experience is to involve existing employees, preferably high performers already in the role. Doing so can help accelerate a new hire’s training while providing invaluable mentors they can lean on in their first 30 days.
By having engaged team members, you ensure new hires are exposed to the very best your organization has to offer. By contrast, if you let disengaged team members run the show, you risk discouraging new talent before they even wrap up their first day.
Identifying disengaged employees at your workplace
A proactive approach to engagement isn’t without its flaws. Employees can still fall through the cracks and become disengaged.
Put simply, the four factors of engagement can double as “four forces of disengagement.”
You can probe for these negative forces with the right conversations. If you sense morale is low among a group of employees, bring it up privately during your next one-on-one meeting. Consider asking the following questions:
- Are you enjoying your current role?
- Do you feel supported by the team?
- In what ways can I improve as a Scrum Master?
- How do you feel about the state of the company?
Disengaged employees are never a lost cause. Equip yourself with effective tools—and a positive mindset—and you’ll ensure you’re setting up your people for success.
Look forward for your feedback and comments … your personal experience on this front, we all can share and learn from each other’s experience
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