The UK currently ranks 33rd out of 38 European countries on employee engagement. That's not a stat to be proud of.
Despite all the time, effort and money that's been spent on tracking and trying to influence that over the past 2 or 3 decades, many businesses are still struggling to move the needle, or even recognise there is a needle to move. And the post-pandemic growth in the number of remote or hybrid workers has further complicated the issue for some too.
But it's not all doom and gloom. There are examples of great organisations and people who are bucking the trend, and even leading the world. What's their secret? Well, I'm pleased to say, it's not such a secret. The Engage For Success original Government Whitepaper "Engage For Success" written over 10 years ago clearly outlines the proven enablers of engagement. But I'm afraid to say, one of the foundations is something that gets overlooked, every day in many places.
I recently spoke to Marcus Lamont, Group People Director of NAHL Group, on an episode of Sticky From The Inside, the employee engagement, leadership and culture podcast, as to how they have achieved their engagement turnaround, and now sit at a staggering 82% engaged, as per Gallup's world-renowned benchmark, which recognises world class at 72%. And that's with an organisation that now has c.70% of its workforce either remote or hybrid.
The secret lies in their active focus in supporting the development of human relationship building, or soft skills, in their line managers. Not revolutionary you may think. But this layer of employees is often over-looked, or forgotten when it comes to this kind of development. Yet they are directly responsible for c.70% of what makes an employee engaged.
What follows is a full transcript of that conversation, where Marcus shares exactly what they've done, how they've done it and what the results have been. Alternatively, you can listen to that conversation using the player below.
Full Podcast Transcript
00:00:10 - Andy Goram
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing consistently successful organizations from the inside out. I'm your host, Andy Goram, and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them, and create tons more success for everyone. This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode, we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses. The sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work, and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it. So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
Employee Engagement Challenges
Okay then. For years now, employee engagement numbers have been frustratingly stagnant. Despite the amount of investment in countless initiatives, surveys, strategies, the needle hasn't moved much. And then the pandemic hit, and engagement levels plummeted even further, leaving many companies struggling to reconnect with their workforce. If you read any of the results of well-known engagement surveys right now, it's going to show you that we still haven't recovered to those pre pandemic levels. The shift to remote and hybrid working models has only exacerbated this issue, making it seemingly even more challenging to maintain a cohesive and motivated team. It's a story we've heard time and time again. But today, today we're bringing you a story of hope and transformation.
Now, while many organizations are grappling with presenteeism and disengaged employees in this new working landscape, one company is bucking the trend and seeing remarkable success. That company is the NAHL group, and they attribute their thriving workforce culture to one powerful factor, their team managers. Yes, the often-overlooked group of team managers are almost proving to be that elusive silver bullet for solving engagement challenges. Even in this remote and hybrid environment we find ourselves in. Now we know we need a clear vision, strategy and plan, but that's all for nothing if you can't inspire, motivate, challenge, stretch, manage, and lead the people on the front line to deliver consistently and willingly. So joining me today to share how their organization is forging ahead while others are struggling is Marcus Lamont, the Group People Director from NIHL Group.
Now, Marcus is, I think, and we’ll find out, a true believer in human leadership, in the power of engaging team managers. Marcus is going to share with us, I hope, the secrets behind their success, the strategies they've employed and why he believes team managers hold the key to unlocking a more engaged, motivated, and satisfied workforce, regardless of where they're located. So if you're a leader looking for answers and proof that someone is out there making it happen, or simply passionate about creating a better workplace, this episode, I think, is for you. So join us as we discuss how a dedicated, engaged team manager can help transform your organization. Welcome to the show, Marcus.
00:03:52 - Marcus Lamont
Thank you. What an introduction.
00:03:56 - Andy Goram
All big build up for big guests, Marcus. That's the Way it works, mate. That's the, that's the way we go. This topic of engagement. I mean, the podcast was founded on it, right? And we've been talking for nearly a hundred episodes about this stuff, right? But today, focusing in on this, this frozen layer almost within an organization, the team managers. The guys who are sat between those people sat in a room devising strategies, and the guys and girls on the floor actually making things happen and work, it's a really, really important layer. And I can't wait to sort of get in to discuss what it is you've been doing to drive some real success and change. But before we run headlong into that, Marcus, just do us a little favour. Introduce yourself a bit better than I've done. Tell us a little bit about you and your background and how you've got to where you are today.
Marcus Lamont’s Background
00:04:48 - Marcus Lamont
Yes, certainly. Thank you. So I'm Australian, born and bred in a little Australian town. And then I started my HR career with a fantastic organization, UPS, the brown delivery man. And it was, it was a fantastic career. And with, within that group, I built my HR knowledge. They then offered me roles, exciting roles, in Asia Pac and then over here in the UK. And what I loved about the business was they always gave you something bigger than you ever thought you could do just to prove yourself, to throw you in the deep end. But it was an incredible organization. So I got to the UK and then had been with them for 14 years, joined a very British firm, Everest Home Improvements, which really opened my eyes to a very different, different type of company. But again, for eight years, had a great experience with them sort of rebuilding that business. And then decided to do something very different, which was going to the legal sector, so why not, I suppose? And so I met the CEO of our NAHL Group just for breakfast, and the first thing he talked about was values. And I thought, if that's the most important thing to talk to a potential candidate about, then I'm sold. And I've been here for eight years.
00:06:15 - Andy Goram
And you say that with a smile on your face, which is lovely. Right, I mean?
00:06:18 - Marcus Lamont
It's the best job of my life. I have no qualms about telling anybody. Are you enjoying work? I love working here, and I think that's it sort of opened my eyes, because work can be good, businesses can be good. But when you wake up on a Monday morning and you want to come to work, which is exactly what I want for all of our employees, that's the greatest feeling.
That Sunday Night, Monday Morning Feeling
00:06:39 - Andy Goram
And that Sunday night, Monday morning feeling, I know it can sound like a bit of a cliche, but that whole thing, it's such a real, tangible thing people can relate to. You know, if you're sitting there Sunday night fretting, worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow, that's awful. And there are millions and millions of people around the globe experiencing that every Sunday afternoon. And yet there are groups, bands of people who are sitting, feeling quite different on a Sunday afternoon, excited about what's going to happen tomorrow. And if we could get more of that going on, the world would be a better place, I'm sure.
So, NAHL, what are you doing? Let's think about the transformation that that business has gone through to sort of set some context for today's conversation. So give some of that background.
The Transformation of NAHL Group
00:07:28 - Marcus Lamont
Sure. Absolutely. So an NAHL group is an AIM listed group, and it owns two divisions. One division is Critical Care. So a rehabilitation company. And the rehabilitation company is for people that have catastrophic injuries. So this is bad brain, spine. That's one division. The other division is the consumer legal division, which essentially helps people claim for accidents or injuries that they have where they need... we say getting a life, getting their lives back on track. But I think when I joined the company, the National Accident Helpline, which is the original company, was a lead generation business, really. And then from those leads, we gave them to law firms to process. In 2019, we decided to build our own law firm. And it sounds easy when you say it, but to actually build a law firm is far more difficult. And so right through from 2019 and through Covid and right up until today, we've been building a law firm which now is extremely successful, called National Accident Law. But that transformation is going from quite a simple business model to now quite a complex business model. It's been a very exciting journey. We've learned a huge amount, but we've sort of come out the other end with a law firm that is great for clients and great for our business.
00:08:54 - Andy Goram
And when you just started to talk about when you turned up at the business eight years ago, I imagine it felt like a very different place to how it feels today. So when you walked in, what sort of problems were you facing and how do they relate back to some of the things when we have mentioned in the introduction here about stagnating engagement levels and presenteeism and all those sorts of things?
00:09:21 - Marcus Lamont
I think the company was in a difficult sit, a difficult position when it came to engaging employees, and it wasn't from lack of trying. They had great values. Everything they were doing. You could say, yes, you're ticking all this, but all the boxes. But essentially, I walked into a business where they had a retention bonus, and I'd never heard of such a thing. They were paying employees a bonus for their first three years to help retain them in the business, which for me was a big red flag.
The second one was when they said we needed to employ some more employees. I couldn't get anybody to enter ads. So there was a reputation. Again, I'd never sort of felt that in a business where people don't even want to answer your ad and you're paying people to stay with you, they were trying everything that they knew to do the right thing, but there was just there's something missing. And I. I had to find out what that was, ask employees, listen to them, and then try and improve it, because that's not sustainable. I mean, money alone, spending nearly a quarter of a million pounds every three years on retention bonuses, 100,000 in the first six months on agencies to recruit your staff, that's not sustainable for a business.
00:10:35 - Andy Goram
No, but yeah, there are loads of people and businesses and organizations kind of using those tactics or having those costs in their attempts to deal with this sort of stuff. But I think what you just sort of said is really, really interesting. When you walk into a business and being frank, I suspect eight years ago that National Accident Helpline, that lead generation bit, the reputation, perhaps, or the image publicly of those sorts of companies playing directly to actually not even being able to recruit people. I mean, that. That's a difficult situation to sort of find yourself in. Right? And like you say, people trying to do what they consider to be the right things, but just not moving things forward, not finding the catalysts of change. That is, I'm sure, a real challenge many people are facing out there today. So this is why I think your story is really, really interesting and important, because even with that backdrop, you've managed to make some real headway, some real change, some real tangible differences. And now you work in an organization where that Sunday night feeling is a rare problem for people.
You talk about surveys and bits and pieces as well. What messages, what data, what insight were you getting when you looked at that sort of stuff for your business at that point in time?
What The Data Said
00:11:52 - Marcus Lamont
At the time, I think they did have some kind of engagement survey. From my days in UPS and Everest, we'd always used Gallup as a benchmark because it's an international benchmark for the Gallup Twelve questions. So we'd use those, and then we'd added some more questions to get insight for the business. So in the second year, we introduced our first survey, which is 27 questions and these gave us great insight over people's relationships with their line managers, how they think about the business. If they're proud of working for the business, what do they think about customer service? Do they know where a business is going? What about communication? So it was lots and lots of topics. And in our first year, I think our score was 60.1% Engaged. So we use the Gallup method of engaged, hard to decide, disengaged. So it's sort of quite a simple… disengaged, wrecking business. Hard to decide. Okay. But just coming in day to day, and then you're engaged, actually working hard to grow your business. That's where it was in 2017. And that survey gave us a lot of insight about where we really needed to focus our energies. But also benchmarking it against Gallup, you know, where everybody else is in the UK. And I think the UK last year was 10% engagement. So after working. After working on engagement, and like you said, all of us talking about it for 30 years, the UK is 10% engaged. So it wasn't. It wasn't horrible being at 60%, but certainly not where it needed to be.
00:13:27 - Andy Goram
I mean, I think that's the thing, is, it's all relative. I mean, you know, I sit here and listen to a number like. Like 60, and you go, well, even if you take a kind of, like, average of 35 or whatever it might be, 60 is not bad. But it wasn't where you needed it to be, and it certainly wasn't moving the dial like you wanted it to. And you've mentioned a couple of the questions that just make my ears prick up when you think about that, particularly around the relationship with your manager and how strong an indicator that is to engagement. Was that a particularly troublesome score for you at that time? Was that the thing that kind of really brought the insight through that? Hey, the solution that we've got to really focus on here is this relationship between manager and employee, or the other things that were sort of like, really waving flags at you?
The Important Relationship With Your Line Manager
00:14:17 - Marcus Lamont
No, no. That one really, I think, stood out because there's a lot of theorists that will say that use the same analogy of your relationship with your line manager is why you stay in a business. Your relationship with your line manager is why is the relationship or the person that inspires you, motivates you, makes you feel safe at work? All those things that that one person does, which is your line manager, because you're close with them. You're with them every day. You're talking about exactly the same sorts of things. If we can focus on that relationship and get that one right, Gallup says 70% of engagement comes from that. So, yes, all those other factors we would certainly look into. But I thought if I could focus on that group, a very large group across our whole business, they don't just make a difference with engagement, they make a difference with your trust pilot scores, with your customer service, with innovation, from that huge group of people that know exactly everything about your product and your service. So it was tapping into that golden thread across the business and going, if we can just do one thing, then this is going to improve so many things. That's why I thought team leaders was really where we needed to focus as much energy and as much resource as possible.
00:15:40 - Andy Goram
That's quite a brave decision, ultimately, right, to pick one significant thing to go after the pitfall many of us fall into when we're trying to sort of turn culture around or improve culture. Because, look, it is a complex beast. Because it is complex. People feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start and start lots of things and never finish them because there's lots of other things that impact and cause problems, or you get successes, but they're short lived. The simplicity, and I don't use that word correctly at all, but, I mean, the simplicity of focusing on that one key area of the business, to say,
“Hey, team managers, let's put all our energy, enthusiasm into that and see what happens.”
And having faith to kind of double down and push through it, that's. That's a really, a really brave thing to do, because in organizations, we are, I think, sometimes just predisposed to doing many things. If we're not doing many things, we're not really trying. How did the business feel about your resolution to focus purely on this, on this area? Marcus?
Helping Managers Build Better Relationships
00:16:47 - Marcus Lamont
So, no, I think it was recognized that this was a group that we needed to focus in on the business, just didn't know how to do that. It was like, we know what we need. So do we go out and buy some training? Do we make sure they're happy? How do we make them happy? What actually do we do? Because you're absolutely right. There's lots of things we can do as businesses for engagement. We can chuck, we can chuck everything at the wall, and hopefully something will work. But essentially, if it comes down to the relationship, then that's where we focus. And we need to help our team leaders build better relationships. And I know in the past we've used the term soft skills that teach them soft skills. They're soft skills when everything's going well. When you don't have soft skills, then your business suddenly becomes very hard. And so there was a lot of support for doing this. It was then building a development program that wasn't just an off the shelf. How do you set objectives for your people or how do you communicate? It wasn't just off the shelf. It was built strategically for this group of people. And some of the things we needed to teach them were really, really deep concepts about relationships with people. It wasn't just they… as a manager, this is what you do. It's thinking about it. It's understanding how are the emotions of your employees, how do you deal with these and what are the concepts or theories you need to understand to do that properly? So there was a lot of support and it took probably about six months to build the program. And then we've refined it every single year to keep up with current trends, current thoughts, books that we've read. Obviously anything that Simon Sinek says, it's included as well. So, no, there was a lot of support for it.
Managers Are Often Overlooked
00:18:34 - Andy Goram
Well, that which is, which is great. And I think that's one of the catalysts behind, I think successful people change, culture change is united support from the exec table for starters. Right? Because if not everybody gets behind it and sees the value in it, at that point you want to hiding to nothing.
Before we start diving into perhaps some of the common challenges that you unearthed that team leaders were facing and then how the program supported them through those sorts of things. I mentioned in the introduction that this is group of managers can often be overlooked when it comes to these sorts of initiatives. In your experience to this point, did you think that this group has been often overlooked and not really focused on, or is it something in your career? It's always been a focus.
00:19:26 - Marcus Lamont
I agree. It is often a group that's overlooked because we need our senior leaders. We need our execs to be the best that they can possibly be because they're leading the organization, and ultimately the buck stops with them. I've seen in a lot of businesses, I think the biggest, the best training business I worked for was UPS, a global organization. Phenomenal training. They did two schools, a supervisor school and a manager school. You got one school in your career, and I was like, wow, you would hope that that was a phenomenal two-day school to give you as a business. If your, if your employees are staying with you for a decade, that's for two days to hope that a decade works well, you just do the maths as a logical person and go, I think it needs to be a bit more than this. So I think businesses do realize it. They just don't know how to do it or what to include in it.
And senior executive training is expensive, this kind of training for, if you own it in house, it doesn't need to be expensive. It just needs to be regular so that every single team leader or employee that wants to become a team leader is going through exactly the same. So suddenly your whole organization starts to think, manage people in exactly the same way. And that's why over a period of time, then your engagement scores can go through the roof. Because it isn't just the stop start. We've done it. We tick the box, actually. This is a continual process that the whole organization is learning. So the impact of team leaders is so great because they manage the biggest group of people in your business.
00:21:01 - Andy Goram
Yeah, they touch the most people. Right. They make the things happen. What I really like about what you're saying is that we're thinking about this good and hard, and we're trying to make it meaningful and purposeful and really attack the issues that people need help with that's going to help them help their people and ultimately help the business. So what were some of the most common challenges that you found team managers faced? Where were the biggest areas of help they needed?
The Biggest Areas Of Challenge For Team Managers
00:21:31 - Marcus Lamont
So when I look at what typically would happen with one of these team managers, or we call them team leaders as well, is they'd be quite successful in their role in their small team, and they'd be promoted. So suddenly they have to manage a group of people. They know the process, they know the product, they know the service. That's not the issue. It's managing people. And I think if you were to ask any manager across the world what is the hardest part of their job? It's managing people. And managing people just became harder because the group of employees that we used to have in the eighties and nineties were the Boomers and the X’s. And they were loyal, trustworthy, just do what they told they were, that kind of, then suddenly the generational change, we sort of get into the generation that was born in the early 2000, they're a very different type of generation. And as a manager that's, that's had some experience with all those generations, suddenly you have to be a really good people manager, a very empathetic, understanding, emotionally intelligent people manager.
00:22:37 - Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:22:38 - Marcus Lamont
Because if you're not, then you're not going to get the result that the business needs. So I think those team leaders really, that we had sort of in the role or coming through, really needed to understand what is the best way of managing people, which involves emotional intelligence and understanding what employees need from an employer, which I think has changed a lot.
00:23:00 - Andy Goram
And those are the things that people just take for granted. We talk about these soft skills which we've really, on this podcast, know that's a trigger words for me. And we take for granted that because we're humans, we know how to relate to one another, we know how to motivate one another, we know how to show empathy with one another. A lot of us walk around with this preconception that everybody sees the world like I do. And so then when I give them an instruction that makes sense to me, that they don't understand it well, they're just weird. Right?. But we're made up of so many different things. So what are some of the things that you've had to do to help people kind of see this stuff, get used to it, and then be able to kind of use it effectively? Marcus, what are some of the things that you've put in place?
The Practical Solutions To Building Soft Skills
00:23:49 - Marcus Lamont
So I think the first one was we introduced, we call it P2L, or Pathway to Leadership. It's a twelve-month development program. And that sounds fancy. It really isn't. It's seven modules of training, which takes about half a day per module. And the things that we train people on apart from the basics. And I think the basics are important of how to communicate, how to present, how to set objectives. All of that is important. But we go into topics like what is the shadow you cast? What do you leave when you're not there? What is the impression? How important is it to provide feedback properly? But also how do you take feedback? Are you an example of somebody that relishes the development, impact of feedback? What is a trust equation? There is an equation to trust. Are you a credible person. Are you reliable? What kind of relationships do you have? And who are you in this relationship for yourself or in this for your employee? Those kinds of conversations, I find, really sit well with managers that go, you know what, it isn't just like you said, the way I want to do it is the way I'm going to do it. So I'll communicate. And that's the right way. Actually, you communicate to the ears you're listening into, as opposed to this is just how I do it. And so it's really turning that table on. who is the servant here? It's not the employee, it's a manager. Because your job is to remove the obstacles and ensure that, you know, you realize their potential and give them the best opportunity to succeed. Those are the kind of topics that we built into P2L. And I think that's, that's been the defining factor. Is changing really their mindset about what a manager is or what a leader is. That sort of then leaks into your culture and creates your culture.
00:25:44 - Andy Goram
How have you found. Because I, I love running programs like, like you've just described. I. And watching the growth in the room, firstly, watching the confusion and anguish that,
“Oh, my God, I've got to do this? It feels very complicated and it feels like I've got to adapt a lot and it's going to take a lot more time and I don't want to do it.”
These are often the things, I think that put people off and why this sort of change fails, because it feels too complicated, too overwhelming at times. How have you helped people kind of get over that? What you mean? I've got to talk to everybody differently the whole time and it's now going to take me tons longer to get my message across. How do you help people deal with maybe that impression of what the change is going to be like and actually see through that change the mindset and look at the positive benefits that they'll get on both sides of the coin if they are able to deliver this sort of stuff.
00:26:40 - Marcus Lamont
That's a really good question. I think when we become more self-aware about what works on us, we'll realize that that's what we need to do. That's what works with all of us. We're all exactly the same. I'll give you an example. So one of our key principles is to maintain and enhance self-esteem. I ask a question of all of the students. When has your motivation ever been triggered? When have you ever felt motivated and inspired when somebody's belittled you? Well, nobody has. And I think when it's put like that. It feels quite natural and normal to be treating people like humans. And I think when people see that, it's a natural connection, they go, of course you would, but nobody teaches you that.
00:27:26 - Andy Goram
No.
00:27:26 - Marcus Lamont
You see, from school, a teacher tells you to do something and you do it. Your mum and dad tell you to do something and you do it. The pattern of learning has been tell-do. So when you get to work, unless somebody shows you a different way of doing it, that's the only thing you've got in your armoury. So you sort of do the same thing over again. So it's really. I think it's. It's helping them understand this isn't just what you do, but this is why you do it. And this is how you feel when it's done to you like that. I think when people get that, then suddenly they go, you know what? I'm motivated to be a better leader because I know how it feels to be led properly.
Unlocking Empathy
00:28:01 - Andy Goram
I think it is. That's the way you unlock the empathy thing, right? Because sometimes we struggle with the concept of empathy until we feel it. It gets conflated with sympathy, but you can feel it in the room, can't you? When the penny drops, it is literally like someone's turned the lights on behind somebody's eyes and they go, oh, oh, okay, right. And I think this is what I'm fascinated by, the sort of program that you put together because it plays to those tunes of so much team leader development is focused on the functional aspects of their role. And many, many people in this position are accidental managers. They've been good at a job, technically. The next bit of progress is to start looking after a bunch of people who do the job that they did, but they've now got to do that job and manage people, and not just manage people, because we say manage. We want them to lead, really. And there's a bit. There's a big difference between the two. And they fall into this stuff and think that we're just bludgeoning away at what I used to do in the way I used to do is going to be the solution here. I've been successful, they do what I've done, they're going to be successful. Just doesn't work like that, does it? It just doesn't work.
00:29:13 - Marcus Lamont
Yeah, absolutely it doesn't.
00:29:16 - Andy Goram
The other thing I'm fascinated, right, is I think when we have spoken before, I've searched for the silver bullet in what was the biggest thing, what was changed and you're like, no, Andy, it's always been the little accumulation of the little marginal gains. But what does that look like? And how. Because I've been on Execs, we want big things. We like big things because we can see big things. How do you keep that momentum going? And altogether, all those little marginal gains, how do you keep that in view?
Searching For The Employee Engagement Silver Bullet
00:29:49 - Marcus Lamont
So when I think about the. I mean, I love your idea of a silver bullet because you're right. I don't know how many exact meetings or board meetings I've been into where they like, if we could just get a silver bullet. You're absolutely right. But if you think about what a team leader can do for your business and all the small things across a large group of people, and I think about... So a team leader can increase your engagement because Gallup says that 70% of engagement is attributed to the line manager, they can lower our employee turnover, which saves us, holds the skill that you've spent so much money developing in your employees. They can increase the service to your customers because they're supporting your frontline employees, making them, making them feel safe, giving them the knowledge and the security that they can go ahead and do whatever it takes to help your employee. They support employees through tough times in their lives. And we can talk about COVID. That's a tough time in people's lives, but that's, there's challenges in everybody's life, and that can affect the way that the employee does their job. So having somebody there that's going to be… not help or fix, but support them, suddenly they can focus in on their job. They can feel cared for, and somebody has concern, and so they're… you'd want to work hard for your line manager. They provide the business with a ready made management team for five years. They make your place a great place to work, so it's easier and cheaper to recruit people. And then during tough times, they hold your team together to continue to perform, until you get to the good times where suddenly your business explodes. So I can't find another benefit, another silver bullet that will give your business so many things. It all ties into the team manager. So that's for any business. Do you want all of these things? Every executive I would talk to says, absolutely, that's what we'll work hard for. Then. Then there is a silver bullet. It's your team leaders.
00:31:52 - Andy Goram
I think this is the fascinating thing because there's loads of seen and unseen things within that massive list that you've just talked about. Many of those things are trackable, and often us on the Execs want the ROI to be plain and simple in our faces. I mean, I think out of all of that list, the biggest, most tangible number is that, that turnover effect. If you add in the recruitment costs, if you add in the induction costs, the retraining costs, the new kit costs, the let's be honest, we haven't managed that person properly and they're a problem. We've got to get them out costs. If you lump all of that in measuring against retention and the efforts that you've put in, that is a big return.
00:32:42 - Marcus Lamont
Enormous. And you've got loss of productivity from your new trainees and female, outgoing, non performing employee. That's sort of three to six months of an employees. It's enormous.
00:32:53 - Andy Goram
And I think this is the thing we're looking for silver bullets. But it's not just one silver bullet. I think we're talking. It's lovely. The idea that, you know what? This group of people, this group of managers could be this silver… I think they're holding an arsenal of bullets, is the way that I look at this. These are the people that can fire some very accurate, useful bullets. Right? In our organization.
The Role Of Trust In Employee Engagement
You've talked about empathy. What role, though, linked to that, has trust played for these team managers? Both from actually, I guess, the organization, putting faith and trust in them to sort of really, I guess, move the engagement and productivity, their own teams forward, because there's a, there's a huge amount of trust signal there, but also helping them manage trust in their teams, which, you know, some may see as a dark art, but I don't hold that. I think there are, there are practical things you can do to manage trust. How have you kind of focused and supported those things in your business?
00:33:58 - Marcus Lamont
I think trust is the most important thing in your business because without trust, then you have no relationships and businesses are built on relationships. So I think when it comes to trust, we, as a business, we set ourselves a benchmark of trust, and we use John Blakey's – The Trusted Executive, his nine habits as our benchmark, and we adopted those as a business. The management team said, yes, we're going to manage to these habits. And by managing to those habits, trust is now at the core of our business, and particularly with those team leaders. To feel that managers, higher level managers, hold themselves accountable to a standard means that they have to hold themselves to a standard as well. And I think gradually your trust becomes a normal part of your organization. So your communication with your team leaders, their communication their comfort with communication to their employees about what's truly happening in the business. I mean, in our business, we do, we do lots of transparent communication. We say the good, the bad and the ugly to our employees to say, this is, we need your help. When people feel engaged and that they're an important part and they know everything, they feel safe, they're willing to help you out in the tough times. Yeah, I can't overestimate. I think trust is the key to a successful and sustainable business.
00:35:24 - Andy Goram
And you've linked in the communication there as well, because the belief in what a manager is saying to their team echoes, multiplies with the level of trust that they have in that business. And then actually communication becomes a lot simpler. Challenge becomes a lot simpler, actually stretch and responsibility giving becomes a lot easier when you combine those things. Trust is the absolute platform for that.
00:35:50 - Marcus Lamont
Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, trust, trust is one of those things that gets built over time. And so you get, you feel trust for one conversation. They tell you something and it can be believed. So it's one of those things that grows. It isn't something that automatically happens and it can be damaged quite quickly. So it has to be truly at the heart. There has to be some pure intention behind it. It can't just be, oh, we're going to increase trust has to be something that is part of how you manage your business and how you communicate with your people for it to truly be there.
Forging And Encouraging Accountability
00:36:24 - Andy Goram
I would imagine that the group of people you're dealing with, in the main, will take real benefit from all these concepts that you've shared with them, will take a lot of positive messages for themselves and their own levels of trust right within the business, being focused on and being supported and being helped. How do you get them to relay this down the chain? So the focus on growth, the development, and what empowerment really means in their teams and forging and expecting accountability from the people that they work with. Are these, are these concepts that you, that you cover within this bit of training and help them get to get, but also deliver through their teams as well?
00:37:06 - Marcus Lamont
Absolutely. All those concepts about how do you set objectives, how do you tell somebody about their, what do you expect them to do? Be very clear then how do you set a compelling vision? So not just this is what we need, but why do we do this? What's our purpose? Why is this going to get us the best result as a business? The other thing I think we've tried to do is we focus on the purpose of our business. Now, business is helping people. Essentially every business within the group, we are a very caring company. So we attract caring people, people that want to care for somebody else. And so I think when we can focus on our purpose, the result, which may be our profit, that's a result of all the work that we do. When we focus on the purpose of the business, then that purpose runs like a seam through everybody. We're not doing it just because that's a process. We're doing it because we're going to help somebody. We're going to help rehabilitate that person back to a great life. We're going to help somebody that has had an awful, terrible accident and they can't work then to help them back in. I think that purpose runs very strong in our culture. It just becomes what we do because we're all feeling it as opposed to the nuts and bolts of what you do.
00:38:18 - Andy Goram
I think. I think when you align all those things and you can connect what drives the business with what drives the people within it, then brilliant, amazing things happen. And all this has great benefit for the business. Right? You've achieved some wonderful things. Don't be bashful, Marcus. Share some of these things. What's been the result of all this focus and effort?
The Benefits Of Employee Engagement
00:38:41 - Marcus Lamont
So I think, and this is a business wide thing, we're so proud of the accolades we've achieved. And these are, I think we take these just because you put so much work, every individual in business works so hard for these to create a great place to work. But we got, we were in the top 100, both divisions have been in the top 100 small companies to work for in the last three years, which has been fantastic to have that. Our engagement scores, we finished our latest survey, which was 82% engaged. And against Gallup's most award winning companies in the world, they got a score of 72. We got 82. So we're just, and I think this is a celebration because it isn't just up to our managers, it's up to every single employee to create a culture and to get higher scores, everybody has to play such a big part of it. It isn't just the HR team or the CEO. Every single person has to be involved in this. So we probably don't shout about it outside of our business, but we feel proud inside of the business because each person did something to get that.
00:39:54 - Andy Goram
Because it's doing what it needs to for your business, which is amazing. And I think if I get my numbers right, that's in a business where 70% of its employees are remote or hybrid. Is that right?
00:40:06 - Marcus Lamont
Correct? Yes, that's right.
00:40:08 - Andy Goram
So, what's the secret?
Engaging In Remote & Hybrid Environments
00:40:14 - Marcus Lamont
If in 2022, 2021, when we went into COVID, if somebody had that secret, they would have made a fortune because we didn't know how to do it like every other business. And I think we've just… One of the things we did coming out of COVID we said to employees, look, we've worked like this. How do you want to work? And 85% of our employees said, there's a lot of benefits to this. It's given me my life back. You know, I don't need to travel as much. I can see my kids, my dog's happy, all those benefits. And so we said, well, as a business and as a group, a community of people, we need to try and make this work. So let's learn how this works.
One of the biggest pointers I took was from a Harvard Business review, because when we went into COVID and we all felt isolated, that that automatically had a damaging effect on relationships, no matter how close we were with people. The isolation. And the Harvard Business Review in 2020 said that a sense of familiarity is key to good communication. And familiarity isn't the length of time you see somebody. It's a frequency with which you see people. And so we sort of took that as that's a great theory. And from when we implemented hybrid and now remote working, we work hard on the frequency with which we see people. So we'll do things such as, every morning, every team has a meeting, and that meeting isn't to talk about work. It's a talk about what did you watch on tv? Or how was your weekend? It's a familiarity. We try to recreate what we used to do in the office. Which when you walked into your office before COVID, everybody talked about what you had for dinner, how the kids are doing. I knew what your grandma's birthday was. We knew so much about ourselves. That was relationship building. We've tried to recreate that as much as possible, but it's been… We've had to create it, as in, we're putting in a meeting to talk about a killer question. We're putting in a meeting to do a quiz with you. We're putting in a meeting… These things aren't work wise, but a lot of our day in the office never used to be work. It was about building those relationships, and that was essential for business. So we've sort of tried to do that across our business, and we've got some crazy ideas. I mean, we do Biscuit Briefings, Commni-Cakes, crazy things that sound a bit bizarre, but actually it's just one more opportunity to get people together to share things about themselves, to learn more about the business, and then they go back to their home and their desk and start working.
00:42:52 - Andy Goram
But I think this is what's fascinating. You come back to that shadow of a leader concept that you talked about. You know, for me, the biggest part of that whole, that whole piece is what ultimately, as a leader, what you show to be important through your words, actions, what you measure, how you show up, ultimately becomes seen as important to the people that you work with. And by really focusing intentionally on Biscuit Briefings and Communi-cakes. But the showing that actually we think it's important to make time to maintain relationships and understand more about each other and have conversations, and that not every second of the day is about working on a project. It's about working on ourselves as a team, too. That showing that that is important becomes important. And then we double down on those sort of things and we get the great results. I think that the danger, or the trap that people have fallen into with remote and hybrid is because we can now be more efficient not having to travel. We can fit more into our day. We're cramming more of that project stuff into the day, which is actually causing us the problem. It's causing the lack of connection, the lack of relationships, the increase in burnout, the increase in isolation. When you're proving it doesn't need to be that way.
The Importance Of Human Relationships & Needs
00:44:08 - Marcus Lamont
No, you're absolutely right. It's really the human aspect of work. We can. We're not machines that can be crammed. And we can do that, you're absolutely right. We can. We can productivity wise ourselves like mad because nobody's disturbing me. And that's lovely. But actually, what we need as humans, I mean, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I hate to go back to an old what do we need? We need belonging. We need to feel valuable. We need to be appreciated. We need somebody to tell us, recognize us for the work that we've done. All those things happen through relationship. They don't happen through us just tapping away. And those, that relationship takes communication. You seeing somebody understanding them, understanding you and them knowing you, all of that was such a valuable part that used to happen without us even knowing. Now we've realized it's important. We have to implement that. We have to create it in the virtual world to get the benefit that we had when we were working in the office.
Sticky Notes Of Wisdom
00:45:08 - Andy Goram
Well, and you're proving you've done it, which is a marvellous segue for me as we come to the end of the show, in that we've got to the part I like to call Sticky Notes. Marcus, right, where I'm looking for you to consolidate these last eight years of wisdom and learning onto three little sticky notes, my friends. Three little gems of wisdom that if someone is sitting there going, you know what, how do I grow engagement? How do I build relationships within the business? How do I move this stuff? Or how can I unfreeze this frozen middle layer of managers to do the things that we need them to do? If I was to ask you that very long, over complicated question, what? What three pearls of wisdom would you share with us today?
00:45:50 - Marcus Lamont
Okay. Um. The first one would be to commit resources to training your team managers. As much resources your company can afford, commit that to training them, because even bad training is better than no training.
The second one would be look at the relationship between your line manager and employee and create as many opportunities to build and strengthen that relationship as possible. And you can be as creative as you want. But essentially, we know as humans what it is to create relationships, its frequency of connection.
And then the third one, I think what's helped us is I mentioned John Blakey's book, The Trusted Executive, before. having a benchmark of how you're going to manage your people that creates trust. Because it's written, it's easy for people to see. It's easy for us as individual managers to measure ourselves against. Having a benchmark says we're taking this seriously. It isn't just the HR team, or one manager that thinks this is a good idea. As a business, we're adopting a benchmark.
00:46:57 - Andy Goram
Brilliant. Marcus, thank you for those lovely, very, very useful, and entirely practical sticky notes today. Really appreciate that. I've loved talking to you. I just love talking to people who are making all the theory that's out there about this stuff actually work in practice. So thank you so much for sharing that with us today. I really appreciate it.
00:47:20 - Marcus Lamont
Thanks so much. This has been a great conversation.
Podcast Close
00:47:23 - Andy Goram
Well, I've really enjoyed it, and I look forward to our next conversation. So please do take care, Marcus, and I'll see you again soon.
00:47:30 - Marcus Lamont
Thanks. You too. See you later.
00:47:31 - Andy Goram
Okay, bye bye. Okay, everyone, that was Marcus Lamont. And if you'd like to find out a bit more about him or any of the things we've talked about in today's show, please check out the show notes. So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like, comment and subscribe. It really helps. I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.
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