IAM Talking: Employee engagement, BIG E vs little e – With Robb Webb, Chief Human Resources Officer for Hyatt Corporation and Dan Keldsen

Information Architected

Today, the topic is Employee Engagement, and what engagement means from several perspectives.

Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Architected.

Today IAM Talking with Robb Webb, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) for Hyatt Corporation, and who has been described as the “Culture Guru” for Hyatt Corporation, in Talent Management magazine (see article at TalentMgt.com).

Big E Engagement vs. small e engagement – what is it?

Robb’s take on engagement is that there is a divide between Big E Engagement, which in his experience has a “programatic” feel to it. Big E Engagement is a process of engagement that may happen once a year, in a set period and with specific metrics attached to it, more formalized and “rare” than a constantly running process.

Contrast that with small e engagement, which is a more “in the flow” engagement process that happens every day of the year, with a constant pulse check of employees to understand how they are engaged, what is or is not working, and adjust more in the moment and immediately, than with a potential delay of months or years.

“Change is a door that you can only open from the inside.”

In this interview with Robb, he made the interesting point (which is obvious and perhaps stunning in hindsight, the “Curse of Knowledge” that the Heath Brothers talk about), that engagement isn’t necessarily just about employee engagement. Engagement is what happens (or doesn’t) when any two people come together, whether that is an employee and a manager, employees as peers, employees and customers, etc..

Are you empowering ALL of the potential people in or around your organization, to be as engaged as possible?

For customer-oriented industries, like the hospitality industry, are your employees (teammates) empowered and engaged in solving problems on the spot without management oversight?

If not, what’s the impact on your customer’s perceptions of the company and it’s products and services?

If so, what are you doing to provide both flexibility for your employees to solve problems, while spreading best practices and worst practices across the organization?

Comments or Questions?

There is much more in this interview on Employee Engagement with Robb Webb, CHRO for Hyatt Corporation – and I highly recommend you take the 18 minutes or so to listen in for some thought-provoking ideas on why employee engagement matters, and how you can get involved in BEING engaged, whether you are a manager, employee, or anywhere within the organization.

If you are interested in employee engagement, register now for a free 30-minute consultation on whether the scenarios you’re looking at are the right targets for successful employee engagement.

Any public questions, comment below, and we’ll answer and discuss together.

Listen now!

The post IAM Talking: Employee engagement, BIG E vs little e – With Robb Webb, Chief Human Resources Officer for Hyatt Corporation and Dan Keldsen first appeared on Information Architected.