Not many of our regular blog readers would be aware that Henricks Consulting now boast well over 220 existing clients. Those clients come from a broad range of industries including mining, utilities, supermarkets, consultants, financial services, charities and the list goes on. We’ve been extraordinarily successful over the last eight years and a big reason for that success is our flexibility and the breadth of services we are able to provide to our clients. However, recently we have become aware that many of our clients are not aware of the full capability of our organisation and we thought that this blog was a good opportunity to share some information about this.
The vision of our business is to: “Change the way that employees engage with their work.” That’s a big vision! We genuinely believe that our purpose is to partner with employers to help shift the way that their employees see work. The way they turn up every day and their attitudes and behaviour towards their team-mates. Most of us will be engaged in full-time work for at least 40 years before we retire. During those 40 years we will spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work and our uniting belief as an organisation is that we spend too much time at work to just survive. Work should be a place where we are energised and passionate.
Our uniting belief as an organisation is that we spend too much time at work to just survive. Work should be a place where we are energised and passionate.
We unashamedly provide a broad range of services because we know that this is the only way to tackle engagement. Some of our clients will want us to bring just one piece of the puzzle and that is fine by us. However, for those who want to go on the journey with us and take a true partnership approach, we want to be able to manage the whole process for you. Allow us to explain the way that our services all work together as part of our integrated service model.
First of all, we believe that employee engagement is, at its core, an emotional attachment to the workplace. It’s a feeling that is either there or it’s not. For many of us it’s hard to talk about feelings and it’s even harder still to change those feelings via analysis. That’s why we believe that the start of every journey towards employee engagement requires an experience that is so powerful that it jolts us out of our current way of viewing the world. This is normally accomplished with the help of our world leading Helping Hands Program (https://www.henricksconsulting.com/2012/helping-hands-info/) where we build prosthetic hands for landmine victims in developing nations around the world. For us and our attendees, this program is much more than just an opportunity to do some charity work. It’s an opportunity to re-connect with our inner child; that inner child that used to dream naïvely about changing the world. The program reminds us what it feels like to be engaged in 100% purpose-driven work and in doing so creates an opportunity to reconnect with the vision, mission and values of the companies that we work for.
Now we’re not crazy. No training program, irrespective of how powerful it is, will create lasting employee engagement in just a few hours. It’s just not possible. However, it will get employees to see the world from a different perspective and in doing so will create the momentum and opportunity for change. However, if those employees go back to the workplace and are forced through the same old processes (those same processes that created the issues you’re trying to fix by engaging us) then it’s only a matter of time before employee engagement becomes just an aspiration again. That’s where our generalist HR Consultancy Services come in. We have a range of tools available to evaluate what exactly needs to be adjusted with your current policies or processes. We have been engaged dozens of times to evaluate complex problems in the workplace and design tailored interventions. Normally those interventions involve re-alignment of your HR Policies and Processes. Once again, we have been engaged countless times to review and rewrite policies and processes for our clients. Since we’ve done it so many times, we also have access to a large range of benchmark policies and processes that enable us to do this work much more quickly than in-house teams could possibly achieve.
Finally, you cannot embark on a cultural change and employee engagement journey without acknowledging that it may be a difficult job and is likely to take some time. Is it worth doing? ABSOLUTELY! However, just like any strategic priority, if it’s worth doing, it’s also worth monitoring and evaluating carefully. That’s where our Measurement and Evaluation systems come in. Ever since we started this business our clients have asked us to help them with surveys, psychological assessments and 360 degree evaluation. Eight years down the track we now boast some of the most empirically validated tools in the market place. We have also recently launched a self-service web portal that enables our clients to administer some of those best practice tools for a fraction of the cost it would normally be via another provider. That self-service portal is called Workplace Pulse (www.workplacepulse.net) and we are VERY PROUD of this fantastic tool.
Of course, we round out our integrated model by acknowledging the fact that any employee engagement journey will take some time and refinement over the course of the journey. That’s why our integrated model is typically portrayed in a cyclical diagram. Employees need to regularly EXPERIENCE the change that you are trying to make a reality. Your internal systems and process must all be ALIGNED with that change. Finally, if you are truly committed to that change, then you will invest in measuring how you are going so that the initiative can be objectively evaluated over time.
We have not come across a single client yet who disagrees with the core principles embedded in our integrated model. If this model resonates with you and your business has some employee engagement challenges ahead of it why not have a coffee with one of our consultants and talk about the various ways we might be able to help. Whether you ask us to manage that entire journey, or just come along for one part of it, we would be delighted to discuss your challenges and plans with you. Obligation free of course.
To get in touch with a Henricks Consulting consultant please drop us a line at [email protected] or call us on (02) 8061-3918.