Note: This article is part two of a three-part series highlighting the key tenets I have found that build and sustain a Best Place to Work: culture, employee engagement and organizational development. Throughout the series, I’ll share the practices around creating shared ownership of culture, engaging and supporting employees as they evolve, and investing in developing people for what comes next.
In the first article of this series, I explored how culture is created through the shared beliefs, behaviors and experiences that define how people work together. Everyone has a role in building and sustaining that culture.
But how do we create an environment where employees want to take an active role in shaping their workplace? That's where employee engagement comes in.
So what exactly is employee engagement? Gallup defines it as the involvement and enthusiasm employees have for their work and workplace. Similarly, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) describes engagement in terms of employees' satisfaction with their work, pride in their organization and belief that their employer values their contributions.
But engagement isn't something organizations can create through a single program, initiative or annual survey. It requires ongoing opportunities for employees to contribute to the organization and its success.
Research reinforces this approach. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) emphasizes the importance of employee voice and demonstrating how organizations respond to employee input. Similarly, Gallup highlights that employee surveys are most effective when they lead to conversations, shared ownership of solutions and meaningful action.
These principles reflect how we've approached employee engagement at Beach Cities Health District (BCHD). I think about our practices through three interconnected actions:
LISTEN (Voice): Are employees heard and understood?
INVOLVE (Influence): Do employees help shape decisions and solutions?
ACT (Ownership): Do employees take responsibility for implementing solutions?
Together, these practices move employee engagement beyond collecting feedback to creating shared ownership of organizational success.
LISTEN (Voice): Are employees heard and understood?
Every organization has opportunities to collect employee feedback. Surveys, one-on-one meetings, team discussions and informal conversations can all provide insights into the employee experience.
Asking employees for feedback and truly listening to what they have to say are not always the same.
Listening requires curiosity and a willingness to hear things that can challenge our assumptions. It means asking questions without assuming you know the answers and recognizing that employees closest to the work have valuable perspectives on what could be improved.
It’s also important to recognize that employees aren't the same people they were when they joined the organization. Their professional goals, personal circumstances, priorities and expectations evolve. What engaged someone five years ago may not be what engages them today.
Organizations need to continually understand the needs of their employees rather than assuming what worked in the past will continue to work in the future.
An Example: At BCHD, our annual employee engagement survey is one of the formal tools we use to gather employee perspectives and identify opportunities to improve the workplace.
We maintain standardized questions to measure trends while inviting employee task forces and the management team to identify additional topics to include in the survey that reflect current workplace challenges, emerging needs and organizational changes.
We also partner with the USC Master of Science in Applied Psychology (MAPP) program, whose master's-level students analyze the results and present findings at an all-staff meeting. They facilitate breakout discussions where employees explore the findings, provide context and help us understand the story behind the data.
This approach allows us to go beyond survey scores to better understand what employees are experiencing and why.
Listening shouldn't stop at collecting feedback. Creating opportunities for employees to discuss their responses helps us understand the experiences behind the numbers and adds context to the quantitative data.
INVOLVE (Influence): Do employees help shape decisions and solutions?
If there is an issue or concern in the workplace, it is not management's responsibility to automatically fix it on behalf of employees. While leaders are accountable for addressing organizational challenges and making decisions within their authority, they don’t need to develop every solution themselves.
Employees should be included and empowered to create solutions. Once we understand an issue, we ask employees what is working, what is getting in the way and what they need to resolve it. Then give them opportunities to recommend and help develop solutions.
Employees experience the organization's policies, systems and practices every day. When we invite employees into these conversations, we gain their knowledge, creativity, perspectives and commitment to making things better.
An Example: At BCHD, employees apply to participate in cross-departmental task forces and work groups to address organizational priorities. We've established groups focused on technology, community health priorities, safety, worksite wellness, DEI initiatives and performance and compensation practices. These groups bring together employees with different roles, experiences and perspectives to examine challenges, explore options and develop recommendations.
Rather than having management independently develop solutions, employees bring firsthand knowledge of workplace challenges and opportunities for improvement, helping shape recommendations that are more likely to gain support and be successfully implemented.
Not every employee needs to participate in every initiative. The goal is to create meaningful opportunities for employees to influence decisions where their interests, experiences and expertise can add value.
ACT (Ownership): Do employees take responsibility for implementing solutions?
If employees help identify a problem and recommend a solution, they should also have shared ownership in taking responsibility for making that solution happen.
Too often, organizations ask employees for their feedback, develop recommendations and then hand the work back to management to implement. While leaders are responsible for providing direction, resources and support, employees can play an active role in carrying out the changes they helped shape.
This creates a deeper level of engagement. Employees aren't simply waiting to see whether leadership acts on their suggestions. They become accountable for contributing to the outcomes and are given an opportunity to shine and be seen for the value they bring.
An Example: At BCHD, we want employees to have opportunities to carry their ideas forward and take responsibility for implementing approved solutions. We do this in several ways:
Owning employee engagement action items: Following our annual engagement survey, organization-wide and departmental recommendations are incorporated into action plans. Employees are assigned responsibility for specific action items, helping implement the improvements they identified rather than relying on management to make changes.
Implementing task force and work group recommendations: Employees who help develop recommendations also participate in putting approved solutions into practice such as coordinating events, hosting trainings, developing content for newsletters, etc.
Presenting recommendations and progress: Employees present their work at department meetings, all-staff meetings, leadership meetings and even Board of Directors meetings. They communicate their recommendations, explain the rationale and report on progress.
Developing policies and procedures: Employees help draft or revise policies, procedures and processes that result from their recommendations, applying their firsthand knowledge to make changes practical and effective.
These opportunities strengthen an employee’s ownership over outcomes while building their skills, confidence and understanding of organizational decision-making.
When employees help develop a solution and take responsibility for implementation, it becomes shared ownership and accountability.
BOTTOM LINE: Engagement Creates Shared Ownership
After 15 years as a Best Place to Work, I've seen how employee engagement requires more than asking people how they feel about their jobs. It requires creating opportunities for them to influence the workplace and take ownership of making it better.
The practices of “Listen -> Involve -> Act” reinforce one another. Listening without involvement can leave employees feeling unheard. Involvement without action can create frustration. And taking action without giving employees ownership misses an opportunity to build their commitment and accountability for the changes employees want to see.
Just as culture is something everyone helps create, employee engagement is a shared responsibility. Leaders create the opportunities, provide support and remove barriers. Employees bring their voice, ideas and commitment to turning those opportunities into action.