Have Tolerance for Honest Mistakes If You Want to Engage Employees
OPINION |

Have Tolerance for Honest Mistakes If You Want to Engage Employees

TO DEVELOP GENUINE TRUST BETWEEN COMPANIES AND THEIR EMPLOYEES, TRANSPARENCY, PERSONAL GROWTH, THE QUALITY OF THE WORK ENVIRONMENT AND COMPANY BENEFITS, WORKTIME FLEXIBILITY, AND THE SHARING OF OBJECTIVES ARE ALL CRUCIAL. ONLY THIS WAY CAN ENGAGEMENT BE DEVELOPED, ACCORDING TO SERGIO PICARELLI, BOCCONI ALUMNUS AND MANAGER OF ADECCO GROUP

by Emanuele Elli
Translated by Alex Foti



The relevance of engagement in management of human resources is not a recent discovery, but it is sought within companies like never before. Digitization, leading to the intermediation of technologies in all relationships, has made the issue even more current, making it almost mandatory for every company to develop engagement policies for and with its employees. The Adecco Group is well aware of this. In addition to encouraging such logic within the holding company, it applies it to the research and training of personnel for thousands of companies, both large and small. "Actually, if we are talking about engagement, I have never perceived a significant difference between large companies and SMEs", says Sergio Picarelli, 50 years old, Bocconi Class of 1993 graduate in Business Administration, who has managed The Adecco Group for 25 years. Starting next January, he will be responsible for North America, UK and Ireland for all Professional Staffing activities. "Maybe they call it by a different name, but it is certain that all companies are looking for a better commitment from their employees. No organization that wants to last over time can disregard building a network of common values. Sharing such values is what creates trust, and only through genuine trust can solid engagement develop.

➜ What are the dynamics of company-employee relations that go in this direction?
First of all, transparence in communication and a sense of responsibility (accountability) at any level of the organization. However, I personally have a point that I want to make and this is one’s right to make errors, a right that companies must acknowledge all their employees have (as a consequence of their trust in them). If they deny the possibility that people can make mistakes, they become rigid and conservative organizations.

➜ Often engagement is used as a form of internal marketing by companies. What are instead the tangible signs that an organization is acting on the promise to create employee involvement?
The aspiration for an organization must be to have a perfect work environment because losing a valuable human resource is detrimental to the company. This is also the case at The Adecco Group: for us, striking the right work-life balance ì means devoting attention to people and valorize their talents and ambitions, in a positive climate of collaboration and exchange, which includes projects that promote employee well-being and satisfaction. These are the elements that have allowed us to be, for the fourth consecutive year, among the top companies for employee satisfaction, winning the 5th place in the category “Best Workplaces Italy 2018: Large Companies”. It is necessary to nurture people's skills by means of career development paths and improve the workplace every day through smart working, worktime flexibility, company welfare, growth opportunities, as well as occasions to properly celebrate successes on the job.

➜ What role do economic rewards play in the employee engagement process?
There are many research studies that investigate the reasons why people leave the companies they work for and economic reasons are never at the top. In most cases, people quit because they do not find support, transparency, clarity on the prospects for growth they expect from their supervisors, as well as an insufficient sharing of how objectives are determined and pursued. Salary issues are seldom the sole reason for quitting a job. Sure, professional growth and compensation are an important part of the engagement dynamics, but they tend to be short-term remedies with temporary effects.

➜ Is it easier for companies to develop engagement when the company is in the black or in the red? Above all, of the two cases, when is engagement more important?
When things go well talk of engagement is cheap, but it's only when things don’t go well that you see the actual results of the work done on employee engagement.
 

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