Employee engagement models routinely incorporate leadership, autonomy, flexibility and empowerment. A sense of purpose, clear objectives, and a degree of motivational incentives also help. But without a sense of inclusion and belonging, engagement will continue to fall short. Belonging and inclusion work hand in hand to produce an engaged and high performing workforce.
The burning question is how might you engage your workforce differently to sustain that engagement over time to ensure inclusivity and belonging?
The missing ingredient in the engagement recipe might be everboarding. While everboarding is not a new idea, it gives organisations a fresh approach to welcoming employees and connecting them to the company’s purpose, values and strategy. It helps leaders release their people’s potential. It also enables teams to align their performance with strategic goals and contribute at their highest level.
Present and connected
Most organisations have solid onboarding programmes that help new employees build good working relationships and kickstart their learning and career growth. But what happens when the onboarding process ends? What is in place to consistently align all employees with the organisational culture, refreshed strategies and their unique contribution? Without this, people struggle to feel valued and connected.
Most often, onboarding focuses on new hires only. The opportunity to engage the larger majority of the talent pool tends to be left to management performance processes. As a result, the question worth asking is this: is it time to replace traditional onboarding programmes with a fixed start and end date in favour of an ongoing process that continuously builds connection and helps people relearn new ways of working?
Connectedness is a flywheel for performance
People who get genuine satisfaction from their work are more present and committed. They feel connected to the organisation and feel that they belong. Everboarding is the methodology that helps organisations and individuals build that connection continuously.
Used effectively, everboarding helps to evoke thoughts like: “I can grow here”, “I can perform here”, “I can collaborate for impact here”, “I feel I belong here”. It helps organisations shape their performance environment through culture-aligned habits. Managers encourage the right behaviours, use employees’ strengths and apply positive coaching feedback. In doing so, leadership teams tune into every employee’s voice, including those who are quiet or marginalised.
Some truth-seeking questions…
- How is my organisation helping our employees feel included and connected?
- What beliefs do our organisation hold that creates a sense of belonging?
- What role does our current onboarding play in helping to build diverse, inclusive high performing teams?
- How might everboarding help us get the most out of connection-building and trust-building conversations?
- In what ways can everboarding help us truly shape and retain our talent pool for the future?
Everboarding is not a one-size-fits-all silver bullet, however, when it is tailored to your organisation’s unique needs it can ensure a sense of inclusivity and help to build an enabling environment where people can fulfil their potential.
The gist is that when people feel they belong, they perform better. If you want them to belong, you need to immerse them into the culture over time – this means building an everboarding connection continuum that works for your organisation.
For guidance on how to make the move from onboarding to everboarding in your organisation, contact Irwin van Stavel at irwinvs@lrmg.co.za or contact LRMG: +27 87 941 5764 www.lrmg.co.za
The LRMG group of companies specialises in igniting the high performance of people. We have a 25-year track record in partnering with high-consequence industries.
