(uplifting music)
- Hi, Andrew from SACS,
and welcome to video number five
in our six-video series
on workforce planning for the new normal.
What we've covered so far,
we've given you a definition of the new normal,
we've given you definition of workforce planning,
we've talked about the importance
of strategy and role clarity.
We've talked about the SACS model of workforce planning
where we gave you some really practical tips
on how to undertake workforce planning.
And in this video,
we'll be talking about leadership of workforce planning.
In the final video,
we'll be talking about the type of person
who might be able to cope with the new normal
because resilience is going to be part of the demands
of the new normal.
In this video, we're going to be talking particularly
about leadership of workforce planning.
Why?
Leadership of workforce planning
is absolutely crucial to its success.
If you do your workforce planning process well,
people will be highly engaged.
And so engagement is the characteristic,
It's a positive psychological characteristic
where people are committed to something,
they try hard,
they like it,
they get involved in that,
and they will support it.
And so a contemporary definition of engagement
is this definition from Bakker and Demerouti in 2011
where they identified that there are three characteristics
that seem to be present in many studies
across the world of engagement.
So Bakker and Demerouti are organisational psychologists,
and they were looking into the measurement
of this thing called engagement.
And in effect, they unified science's perspective
on what engagement is.
And they said that it has three characteristics.
The first is vigour.
In other words, people are highly engaged in their work
when they bring energy to their work.
They like to get to work.
They've got a sense of anticipation about getting to work.
So that's characteristic number one
of highly engaged employees.
Characteristic number two is dedication and commitment.
When people are highly dedicated to their work,
that's another sign of engagement.
They take their work as being serious,
they try hard to get better at it,
and they bring a sense of commitment to what they do.
And a third characteristic is a sense of flow,
a sense of engrossment in their work.
In other words,
they come to work,
they get absorbed into their work,
and happily engrossed is the term that's often used.
And this, the markers of this
are things like I'm sitting there doing my job,
either working from home or in the office or whatever,
I look up at the clock
and three hours have gone by
and I didn't even notice.
So that's indication of a kind of a flow state.
A guy called Csikszentmihalyi
discovered this going back a couple of decades ago.
And it proves to be a fantastic predictor
of things like wellbeing.
People who get into flow states more often
are happier and less depressed
than those who don't.
But it also works at the work group level.
So vigour, energy, dedication,
commitment, and flow,
or an absorption kind of an effect
where you get absorbed into your work.
If you're lucky enough to have those three things,
this is a great predictor of what you're likely to be
getting out of your work.
This is an area where engagement,
as defined by these three things
defines human happiness and wellbeing
because people, when they have high levels of engagement,
tend to be happier and more committed
to the organisation that they work for,
and they love what they do,
and they recommend it to other people.
So those internal benefits
include things like reduced staff turnover
and increased productivity,
but there are also external benefits.
When staff are highly engaged in this way,
they tend to end up with better profitability
for the organisation,
better growth for the organisation,
higher levels of customer satisfaction.
So there are internal and external benefits of engagement.
If you're going to run a workforce planning process,
this reflect on the degree
to which people are likely to support
the workforce planning process.
And we are going to suggest
that you should lead workforce planning
in such a way that people are engaged in it.
This is for a couple of reasons.
One is that if you trigger a workforce planning process,
you have to expect and understand
that there will be people who will be nervous
about what that means for me.
You know, organisational restructures
are sometimes part of a workforce planning process
because that's an important enabler
of workforce productivity.
If the structure is wrong,
that makes the workforce less successful.
Organisational structure reviews are difficult
for one very significant reason.
Some people get power,
and some people lose power in a restructure.
Now, if you get a power change,
that makes people very nervous.
If you cause the process to be run
in such a way that people are highly engaged,
you will get less resistance,
but also people will be more enthusiastic
about what the results are.
And as well as that,
they will contribute to their implementation
rather than fighting you every inch of the way.
Vigour, dedication, and absorption.
This is the result of a very big study
that SACS undertook with Deakin University,
going back about five six years ago now.
But what we did is we measured
the levels of engagement.
We used an internationally recognised tool
to measure the levels of engagement
of about 2,700 people across Australia and New Zealand.
But we also measured leader behaviours
that people had observed around.
We measured a bunch of them,
and 10 proved to be really predictive
of the levels of engagement of staff.
So the concept is,
the way my immediate leader behaves,
not the chief executive,
the immediate leader to whom I report,
the behaviour of that person has a big impact
on my levels of engagement.
They also have a big impact on the people around me.
So their behaviours affect the behaviours
of the people around me,
and that, in concert,
has a big effect on my levels of engagement.
And so I'm going to focus on four leader behaviours
that prove to be very important for this process.
And the first of them is that leaders
who encourage autonomous decision making,
and by the way, these are predictors,
so this shows that this was the single best predictor
of levels of engagement from these 2,700 staff.
Levels of empowerment,
in other words, encourages autonomous decision-making,
proved to be the single best predictor
of whether people will be likely to be engaged in anything.
So what does that say about workforce planning?
Well, you have to get people involved.
If you do this with a group of five experts
in head office,
don't expect that it's going to run smoothly
in the implementation,
or that people are even likely to believe in it.
So when we run workforce planning projects,
we run focus groups,
we run engagement processes,
we run activities, we get people together,
and who will tell us how to improve certain things.
Empowerment is an incredibly effective way
of causing people to be engaged.
The reason I say this is that many organisations
tend to do these things almost exclusively top-down.
If you do it that way,
expect it to be less successful.
The second thing is optimism and positivity.
Now, when you start doing this,
as I mentioned earlier,
some people will become nervous.
Leaders have to be optimistic
about where this is leading us.
I know that there's a purpose to this,
and that's important for the corporate level
to make sure that all leaders are aware of,
and are kept up-to-date
with what's going on in this workforce planning project,
but then they should be optimistic.
Yes, this is leading this to a better future.
I believe that this is going to cause you, as staff,
and me, to have high levels of wellbeing,
but I also believe that it's going to pay off
in terms of satisfaction of our customers,
productivity of the organisation,
profit, commercial sustainability,
those kinds of things.
Negative pessimistic leaders
are not willingly followed by people.
That's why leadership evolved,
so that the people following a leader
had something to look forward to.
So that's the second leadership behaviour,
which is crucial.
Third, leaders have to be supportive.
So supportiveness might be about at an individual
and a group level to say,
"Well, look, the reason we're doing this
is to try to create a better future.
I want to know what will make this more successful for you."
And then supporting people
and being kind to them during this process.
Understanding if they're a little bit nervous.
Being open to discussions about,
well, how do I fit into this.
Being authentic with people.
Telling them when you can tell 'em.
And when you don't know, saying,
"Look, I don't know.
This is yet to be resolved."
That kind of all authentic conversation
can be very important in keeping people highly engaged,
and making sure that they feel
that they're part of the process,
and they're supported during the process.
And finally, of the big four behaviours
that drive engagement is creating a learning environment.
How do leaders create a learning environment?
Well, actually, the best way of doing it
is to get people involved.
If you give people a theoretical lecture
on workforce planning,
it's highly unlikely that that's going to have
much of an impact from a positive point of view.
What is likely to have an impact
is where you actually get people involved
in the workforce planning process,
you tell them what part of the process,
their activities contribute to.
And you give them a chance to really have a say
about what should be done in this area
or how things should be improved.
Now, I believe in this for a couple of reasons.
One is that it causes people more engagement.
But secondly, look, we're not the experts
that can come up with every idea,
particularly in an organisation.
The staff know a lot about the organisation
and they can often contribute
really clever and creative ideas.
So leading as a facilitator
can be very important in this process.
So as you're planning your workforce planning project,
think of these four leadership behaviours.
Empowering people, being optimistic and positive,
causing people to feel supportive,
and finally, making sure that they're so involved
that they're going to learn from the process.
Another benefit of the learning exercise
is that when you subsequently roll out the workforce plan,
you've got a group of employees
who understand what it's all about,
and will develop skills in workforce planning
so they can contribute ongoing.
Leadership, leadership can be very top-down
or it can be very facilitative.
Now, we've got a diagram here
that shows you three options of leadership.
And of course, this is a simplification.
We all know that it's not really three things.
It's a continuum with infinite number of points.
So at this end,
I am a top-down leader,
and I am going to tell you
everything that you need to do,
and I am going to afford you no input whatsoever.
At this end,
you are going to make every decision.
I, as a leader are going to make sure
that you make all the decisions,
and I will never tell you what to do.
Now, of course, neither of those is perfectly correct.
A good leader has the capacity
to transit from one point to another
depending on where the needs are.
But we, in this diagram summarised three key points.
So this is where you are being the boss.
This is top-down leadership.
And top-down leadership is crucial.
You can't be a leader if you can't tell a person or a group,
"This is what we need to do in this situation.
The board has decided.
The good Lord on high has decided, whatever.
This is something that we have to do.
This bit's not negotiable."
That's good leadership.
There are also times when you need to consult people.
So a consultative leader
is somebody who retains the decision,
but goes out and asks staff,
"Bill, what do you think?
"Mary, what do you think?
"Jane, what do you think?"
"John, what do you think?"
I then go back to my office as a consultative leader,
and I think about what they've had to say,
and then I decide.
"Okay, we're going to do X."
Now, consultation,
people have often been disappointed in consultation
because if you don't do exactly
what an individual has told you you should do,
they'd think that you've just being a top-down leader.
And not only that,
they may even think that you've been insincere.
You were pretending to consult them
where you really had your mind made up all the time.
So those characteristics
are the characteristics from consultation,
but it is true to say,
just like there are times when it's necessary
to be a top-down leader,
there are also times where it's necessary
to be a consultant.
And the third component,
and the bit that's most really done
is where you act as a facilitator.
And a facilitated leader is somebody who leads staff
through a process.
They are here, five of them in a room,
and this may be a physical room,
or it could be a Zoom room, or a Teams room,
but the leader leads a process
where he would state a challenge
or an opportunity to the staff.
He would probably split them into groups,
splitting them into small groups to think
is a really valuable way of running such a facilitation.
And the skills that the leader demonstrates,
and not the skills of telling or of consulting,
they're the skills of facilitating individuals
to form groups to work together on solutions.
And a truly facilitative leader
is in fact somebody who will decide
the ultimate outcome by virtue of democracy.
The majority of people want this,
so that's what's going to happen.
And by the way, that is far better than seeking consensus.
The facilitative leader doesn't seek consensus.
True consensus is really achieved
when you're dealing with sensitive,
or difficult, or contentious issues.
A facilitative leader is somebody
who uses a democracy kind of approach.
People are told upfront,
"Okay this is the issue that we are going to discuss today.
And before we get into the conversation,
let me tell you we're going to decide on a majority basis.
51% wins this debate."
And so people then have their say,
they describe their solutions,
they're split up into small group to come up with ideas,
but ultimately, the group votes.
And then the facilitating leader facilitates a process
where members of that facilitating group
then assume responsibility
for implementing whatever it is
that has been decided.
That's the optimum version of facilitative leadership.
Now, when you do that,
your levels of engagement are optimum.
Does that mean that you should
undertake facilitative leadership all the time?
Well, of course not.
There are times when you should tell people
you have to do this.
There are times when you should ask their opinion.
But there are also times when you should run
a facilitation process.
And when we look at leadership styles
across Australia or New Zealand,
in fact, the research
indicates across the whole Western world,
facilitative leadership is the rarest form of leadership.
And it's used too little.
In engagement in workforce planning,
it's a idea to be very facilitative.
Think of the four key behaviours that we described earlier
as leading to engagement.
Number one is empowerment.
Well, facilitative leadership
is of course, highly empowering.
The second was about being optimistic and positive.
Don't you think that behaviorally,
if I'm causing my staff to decide something,
isn't that, of its intrinsic nature, optimistic?
Am I not showing them
I believe that they will come up with good solutions,
which is the ultimate in optimism in the team's eyes.
The third thing,
will people learn from this process?
Well, of course they will.
Doing this will cause them to be much more engaged
in what the issue is.
And finally, is it supportive?
Well, once more, it's very supportive
because you are empowering people.
You are demonstrating that you trust them
and that you believe in them.
That's about as supportive as it gets.
These are the videos that we've covered so far,
and we've just finished
on the topic of leadership of workforce planning.
The next video will be what type of person copes
with challenging times?
Everything we know about the new normal
is that it's not going to be easy.
It's going to require a lot of flexibility,
a lot of work, a lot of skills development.
People will be facing situations
which will be much more ambiguous
than they would've been
let's say a decade or two ago.
Join me for the next video
to find out what kind of person copes well
with the new normal.
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