You and I constantly hear the comment that our organization human capital assets are no longer engaged. Dale Carnegie Institute in a recent survey states that among the 1,500 employees, only 29% are fully engaged and 26% are disengaged. Almost half (45%) are partially engaged. One of the downsides of today’s organizational structure is that the environment that we work our human capital assets are driven to showing up for work for the paycheck. They are not engaged with the organization. But if we add the power of engagement to the equation so that we have both engagement and empowerment, the organization becomes more productive. This increased productivity ultimately leads to higher return on investments.

As organizational managers our first responsibility is to facilitate how we get our human capital assets to love our organizations based on how they feel when they are in our workplaces. Are they just a number or are they truly an integral part of the organization. Do our managers treat them as valuable assets or do they think of them as just a fly on the wall to be ignored? It is your choice whether you have engaged, empowered employees or continue just for the sake of operating.

In the field of genetics, we know from our high school science classes, the basis of the genetic message are the strands of matter which comprise DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) that contains the genetic instructions for the development and function of living things.  The main role of DNA in the cell is the long-term storage of information. In our business environment the main role of DNA in business is the long-term involvement of your human capital assets. So, if this is accurate and we believe it is, how do we make it work?

The TLS Continuum Empowerment Model can help you achieve this target. The model is based on a three-tier pyramid. The base of the pyramid is represented by the empowerment by management. It is in this stage that the work environment of the organization is established. This comes from the culture model set by the CEO along with the visions, mission and goals statement. It is here that all change efforts are aligned within the organization.

The second level of the pyramid is the utilization and empowerment of the cross-functional teams. The empowerment arises from the elimination of silos and a change in attitude. The organization no longer believes that silos is the way to go. It no longer responds to customers with the phrase “it is not my job.” The other benefit of this level of empowerment is an improved level of interpersonal relationships in the workplace as the team members learn to work together to achieve a certain goal.

The third and final level of the pyramid is the empowerment of the individual human capital asset. They come to feel and understand that beyond the employee number their views, thoughts and actions are respected and valued by management. Dr. Deming stressed the fact that we need to give employees the right to pride in the work they do through pride in ownership in their work. Management needs to be willing to give up some level of control and allow the individual employee to serve as the Anon of the processes. By this we mean that if an individual, sees something wrong with an organization process, they have full ability with the view of management to halt the process until the problem is fixed.

We stated earlier that we constantly hearing the comment that our organization human capital assets are no longer engaged. They are not engaged with the organization. But if we add the power of engagement to the equation so that we have both engagement and empowerment, the organization becomes more productive. This increased productivity ultimately leads to higher return on investments. We can argue with certainty that if we have employees feeling empowered to participate within the change management effort they will become engaged within the organization. If they are engaged and empowered the odds of change management being sustainable rise dramatically.

More information on how to empower and engage your employees can be found at https://tls-continuum-learning-center.thinkific.com/courses/Road-to.... Are you empowered and engaged? Tell us how you achieved this goal at dan@dbaiconsulting.com