The Seven "C's" of Employee Engagement

We've all seen the studies that speak to the impact on productivity of employees who give their company their discretionary effort.  The person who pulls an all-nighter to be ready for a customer presentation.  Or the one who travels tirelessly to connect a company globally.  When our employees go "above and beyond" to achieve, we say they are engaged.  And we all want to know how to make more engaged employees.

My experience teaches the there are seven "C's" of employee engagement.  I must credit IBM with the beginnings of this framework, as I learned most of this from my time with IBM in Chicago.  I've tested this informally ever since and have yet to find a framework that is more memorable and relevant.

So, what are the seven "C's" of employee engagement?  Here goes:

1. Customer Capability (I'll count two "C's"' here)
2. Compensation
3. Career
4. Connections
5. Community
6. Culture

Customer Capability may be the most important and yet most over-looked "C". Employees must be proud of their product and/or service and how it enables customer success.  Ask employees to design, sell, make, deliver, service or bill for products or services that are a poor value for their customer, and over time they will offer less and less of their discretionary effort.  I'll write more about this and post to this blog later.

Compensation is a pre-requisite for engagement in two ways.  First, employees must perceive that their base rate of compensation is competitive within their market. Especially today in the age of Linked In and other such social media, where headhunters can identify and contact employees with ease, having a competitive, market-based rate of pay is a must.  In addition, employees must associate recognition and reward with accomplishment.  If genuine accomplishment requires "above and beyond" effort, then it is not hard to see that a company will need to recognize and reward such effort in order to sustain it.  Sustained "above and beyond" effort is employee engagement.

Career is so important to engagement and, in my experience, the number one reason why employees are not engaged.  If employees are to sustain their engagement, they must be working in service of something bigger and more meaningful than the next merit increase or promotion.  They must have a career goal in mind, and they must context their accomplishment and professional development against that goal.  When this exists, so does discretionary effort.  When it doesn't, my experience teaches that "above and beyond" effort is not sustained.  I'll write more about this and post to this blog later.

Connections are another imperative of employee engagement.  This was a particularly challenging imperative in the sales and services world of IBM where the old IBM means "I've Been Moved" was transforming to IBM means "I'm By Myself".  In the sales and services world, IBM had either road warriors who traveled constantly or people who were deployed 100% to a customer location.  In more and more instances, employees found themselves living and working in places far away from their managers.  Creating linkages to colleagues and mentors and yes, even one's manager was seen as essential to the attainment of one's discretionary effort.  I'll write more about this and post to this blog later.

Similarly, a company's place in the Community in which its employees live and work is an essential of engagement.  Commitment to community makes employees proud to be associated with their company and brings a measure of stature to those who can say they work there.  I've seen this again and again with companies like Intel in Oregon, IBM in New York, Cisco in Silicon Valley and Lockheed Martin in Dallas / Fort Worth.  Miss on this and a company will not sustain employee engagement.

The last "C" of employee engagement is Culture.  Simply put, if a company is to have engaged employees it must care about engaging employees.  Caring about means prioritizing and resourcing efforts to earn their discretionary effort; meaning, this must be supported by the most senior leadership.  Senior leadership sets the culture through its priorities and investments.

Where might senior leadership start?  Context priorities and investments against the first six "C's" as an enabling framework.  Solve for customer capability, compensation, career, connections and community and you'll have a culture of employee engagement.

Paul E. DuCharme. October 2012