If you’ve ever wondered how critical employee engagement is to business success, consider this: about 70 percent of employees are not engaged in their work, which costs our economy $350 billion annually.
These are formidable stats, but in a recent Forté webinar, Lauren D’Innocenzo, PhD – associate professor of Organizational Behavior at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business – offered suggestions for how organizations can shift those numbers in a more positive direction.
During the webinar, Building an Exceptional Culture of Inclusion, Trust, and Empowerment, she shared a framework to “improve engagement and retention by creating an exceptional culture of inclusion, trust and empowerment.”
Inclusive Environments Encourage Diverse Voices
Inclusion is often mentioned alongside diversity, but how do they differ? Dr. D’Innocenzo defines diversity as “giving everyone of different backgrounds and experiences a seat at the table. Inclusion is giving everyone at that table a voice.”
While diverse teams abound within organizations, their impact varies because not all teams leverage diversity.
For example, it’s not enough to allow employees the opportunity to speak out, Dr. D’Innocenzo explains. Employers also need to encourage them to do so. “Asking what people think, encouraging them, telling them that you value their opinion…creates a safer environment where people feel like they can speak up,” she says.
Research supports this more active management approach, which Dr. D’Innocenzo says “can actually make a very tangible difference and a positive effect on (others’) behaviors,” as well as enhance engagement and retention.
Diversity is giving everyone of different backgrounds and experiences a seat at the table. Inclusion is giving everyone at that table a voice.
Likeability Inspires Trust
Another essential component to Dr. D’Innocenzo’s framework is trust. There are two ways to view trust professionally, and both matter: affect-based trust and competence-based trust.
Competence-based trust leads people to seek co-workers who know what they’re doing and can get a job done, while affect-based trust has to do with likeability. A Harvard Business Review study found that competence and likeability are both very important qualities in managers and co-workers, but people more often choose likeability over competence when selecting who to work with.
So, what does likeability have to do with trust? Dr. D’Innocenzo explains, “An important factor of trust is how we feel about people. Do I believe in your intentions? Are you a good person? Can I work with you? Do I like coming to work with you?”
If the answer is yes, these trusting, meaningful relationships will lead to higher engagement at work. “The key takeaway here is that how you make people feel matters,” Dr. D’Innocenzo says.
An important factor of trust is how we feel about people.
Building Trust Through Appreciation
How can individuals and organizations build trust?
Dr. D’Innocenzo shared examples about the power of showing appreciation, based on the research of Adam Grant, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
In one study, participants submitted their resumes and received an acknowledgement that their resume had been received, while the other group received both an acknowledgement and a word of thanks. Afterwards, the first group’s self-worth increased by an average of 25 percent, confirming that a simple acknowledgment has value. However, in the second group, which received additional appreciation, self-worth went up 55% on average.
Dr. D’Innocenzo says the significant difference in self-worth leads to higher engagement. For example, the research team decided to look at how self-worth correlates to helping behavior. They asked both groups from the original study to participate in an additional study. About one-third of those from the group that had only received an acknowledgement the first time agreed to stay and help, while two-thirds from the group that received both acknowledgement and appreciation did so.
In these examples, acknowledgement and appreciation had a tremendous impact on how people felt about themselves and thus how they performed.
“When we show our appreciation, it helps to build trust,” Dr. D’Innocenzo concludes.
Empowered Cultures Perform Better
Like inclusion and trust, empowerment is an essential piece of the engagement puzzle. “At its core, empowerment is the feeling that my work has meaning and purpose, and I have what I need to be successful,” Dr. D’Innocenzo explains.
According to Dr. D’Innocenzo, when people feel empowered, “they are more motivated at work, they perform better, and they’re willing to go the extra mile to be more productive.”
It is no surprise then that empowerment research studies show that performance increases up to 30 percent when empowerment improves.
Dr. D’Innocenzo highlights some key characteristics of empowered cultures:
- Accountability: Employees can voice their opinions and make decisions, but they also must be held accountable. “It’s not a free for all. We need to have some guardrails around how we involve people in the decision-making process,” Dr. D’Innocenzo explains.
- Control and Flexibility: Empowered employees feel like they have more control over decision-making and outcomes, as well as how and when they will carry out their tasks. COVID revealed that remote or hybrid work can be highly productive, and the flexibility that comes with that is empowering if employers continue to “allow people to choose how they do their tasks,” says Dr. D’Innocenzo.
- Meaning: Employees feel that their work matters and has a genuine impact. “When employees have meaningful work, they are willing spend more time on it, an average of one additional hour per week,” Dr. D’Innocenzo says.
- Competence: Competence and confidence expand among empowered employees because they feel like they know what they’re doing and have the tools to be successful.
Additional benefits of empowered organizations are higher retention rates (companies with highly engaged people have about a 54% increase in employee retention) and more satisfied clients and customers (empowered, engaged employees’ positive attitudes trickle outside the organization).
Organizations that prioritize inclusion, trust, and empowerment increase employee engagement and their bottom line – and create an unshakeable foundation for continued success.
Learn more about Drexel LeBow’s Executive Education programs.
Organizations that prioritize inclusion, trust, and empowerment increase employee engagement and their bottom line.
Meet the Speaker
Lauren D’Innocenzo, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior, Managing Director, DBA Program, and Provost Solutions Fellow at Drexel’s LeBow College of Business. She is an applied researcher and studies the science of teams. Practically speaking, her emphasis is on how to leverage the knowledge, skills, and abilities of team members and encourage effective team processes through leadership, productive interactions, and supportive environments. Dr. D’Innocenzo’s work spans industries including military, healthcare, manufacturing, and technology in a variety of capacities such as data-driven research, executive education programs, and consulting. Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed academic journals, she has received over $4.5 million in grants to study leadership and teams and was named Top 40 Under 40 Business Professors by Poets and Quants.