Each month, we ask our panel of business and HR leaders about the hottest topics impacting employee engagement in UK businesses.
In January we asked about the link between employee engagement and high-performing teams.
Here’s what our leaders told us....
(To find out more about how we conduct the survey, or to get involved read to the end of the article)
High employee engagement and high-performing teams go hand in hand.
Almost all of our panel said that they strongly agreed that there was a link between high-performing teams and employee engagement.
We asked our panel to share their views on a scale - with 1 indicating that they didn’t see a link and 10 indicating that they saw a strong link.
Our average score from our panel here was 9.2 - indicating that our panel were really clear that high employee engagement and high performing teams are closely linked.
Focus on individual performance or team performance? The jury is still out.
We wanted to understand some of the important elements of creating a high-performing team.
We started off with a tough question (our panel told us it was tough in their comments!) - asking if they prefer to focus on individual performance, or the performance of the team as a whole when developing a high-performing team.
We ended up with a split panel on this question. 51% of the panel said they’d focus on individuals and 49% said they’d focus on the whole team.
Here’s some of the comments we captured here:
“I generally find though that if you focus on building personally fulfilled, self aware, emotionally intelligent, psychologically safe individuals - then *they* will work together to lift team performance.”
“Focusing on individual performance in reference to how it affects the whole team is important. Focusing on the team performance without individual focus can lead to mediocre results”
“When leading a team is a multifaceted issue. How one engages with the individual AND the team AND the dynamic that exists. Employee engagement is key to that continued development particularly in challenging times.”
Connection & personal fulfillment top the list for ways to engage a high-performing team
We asked our panel which factors they thought had the highest impact when it came to the engagement of high performing teams:
- 32% said connection & the communication of goals, vision, mission and values was the most important factor
- 32% said personal fulfillment such as reward, work-life balance and career development
- 25% said leadership
- 6% said wellbeing was the most important factor
- 5% chose “other” (many in the comments said that they wished there was a “all of the above” option!)
“I think is a combination of all the options”
“Communication has to be at the core of everything.”
“Getting an inspiring and motivational leader will help all other aspects of employee engagement such as wellbeing, personal fulfillment and communication. An inspirational leader will cover all of these as a part of their normal role”
Employee engagement will become more key for creating high-performing teams in remote workplaces
The majority of our leaders felt employee engagement will become more key in creating high performing team as the move to remote workplaces continues.
We asked the panel: on a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high) to what extent to do you agree with the statement: "increased remote working makes employee engagement more important to achieving high performance".
Our average score here was 8.0 - indicating that over 75% of the panel agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. However, there were around 25% of the panel that felt strongly that this statement wasn’t true.
“I think this is very individual so would find it difficult to score. I agree working from home aids work life balance and well-being in general but not everyone has sn adequate space in which to work, logistically or psychologically.”
“I think engaging people is harder remotely- it isn’t impossible but it takes more effort - you have to think it through more. A simple Teams meeting with the Team once a week, once a day doesn’t do it
“Sharing vision as a leader is difficult and remote employees will certainly get a watered down version of it - having face to face time focused on leadership and rally cries is important.”
So what are the key takeaways?
From our research some key themes emerged;
- High employee engagement is key to a high performing team - they are closely linked
- There is no “best practice” when it comes to the best place to focus when developing a high performing team; individuals or the team as a whole - it’s likely to be a great blend of both
- Two employee engagement factors came out top for developing high performing teams; connection and setting the vision for the future…
- And personal fulfilment - although the secret recipe is likely to be a blend of all elements of employee engagement
- As we move into hybrid / remote working practices and the challenges that brings to organisations, it’s likely to become harder to develop high performing teams
- The need to focus on employee engagement for developing high performing teams and high performing organisations is as relevant as ever. As the workplace continues to change and adapt, this key area of focus is unlikely to change in its importance and results.
Some of the other insight experience and comments our leaders shared on this topics can be seen below;
“Employee engagement is absolutely critical to high performance. A high performer in a toxic organisation will never thrive. The great thing is, one generates the other, high performance leads to higher engagement and vice versa. So the magic keeps on happening.”
“Remote working creates huge challenges for building engagement. Increasingly individuals expect to be able to work remotely at least a few days of each week. But it is very hard to build the same connections remotely - the ‘leader’ becomes less visible/accessible by not walking the office, so the responsibility needs to be shared across the rest of the organisation. This can then sanitise the experience for team members as they don’t have the same personal connection.”
“team and individual both v important. I think you’ve focused on a fundamental point here….engagement is vital to performance of individual, team and overall business. Remote working makes this more difficult and yet also provides opportunity for people to have a better balance”
“people managers (rather than top-table) need to understand their role to act as leaders. In our organisation they often look up for guidance creating a vacuum for those lower in the hierarchy. Long story short, the principles of leadership need to be embedded in all people managers (and individuals themselves) so that people understand the need to all be pulling the business in the right direction - rather than just assuming the CEO does this”
“It’s important to work with individuals but you must also ensure you have a high performing team so they cannot be ignored. Team dynamics are essential everyone needs to work together well, they need to communicate and they should have different skills to make the whole better. But it always starts with the individual hence my answer. You need you know yourself first before you can get value from the whole”
“Trust between leader and employee particularly in current hybrid environments is critical . Get that right and your employee will go above and beyond if they feel the organisation leadership genuinely care not just about their performance but their welfare and wellbeing . A balance is needed.”
“I think there are a myriad of factors and by addressing with the individual you can build a team profile, performance and trust. Different people will be motivated and driven differently and therefore as a leader you have to work hard to gain trust and then drive performance as individuals but communicate and link how this works as a team and wider teams then business..”
Be part of something special....
The Space 'Feedback 500' is a piece of monthly research we conduct to understand more about the topics affecting employee engagement. Each month we send our leadership community 5 short topical questions via WhatsApp. All responses are captured anonymously. We have leaders from a wide range of sectors including: HR consultants, recruitment, retail, automotive, creative arts, construction, technology, utilities, e-commerce, digital, marketing, legal, health, public sector and education.
