Debate: Engage and empower

How do you define employee engagement?

If we show people they’re valued they become more fulfilled at work and have a heightened sense of wellbeing and businesses improve.

Carole Calland: It’s a case of measuring where staff are and benchmarking engagement. We do that with surveys and follow on with a strategy. That might include such things as health and wellbeing screenings.

Andrew Dewhurst: I really dislike the phrase, ‘employee engagement’. I prefer ‘colleague collaboration’.

Andrew Henderson: It is not just about employees, it is about people and that includes the stakeholders interacting with the business.

We need to create customer loyalty and the only way to do that is by creating a high performance culture which is based on engaged people.

Liz Pollard: Organisations with poor engagement have managers and leaders maintaining too much control. They’ve got that fear about telling employees too much.

That is about leaders and managers empowering through delegation and trust.

What’s the leadership style? Do the employees have a voice? And how much empowerment is given?

• See the full debate in Lancashire Business View #81