We all use zippers

Last year, RedBalloon was acknowledged by Hewitt Associates as one of only five employers to be accredited as the best places to work in 2009. I have had many discussions with the people from Hewitt and they have shared much of the research outcomes with us. I like hearing about the theory about why we have achieved such a high engagement score.

The reality is we tried a lot of things – some worked, some didn’t. We have made mistakes on this journey for which we have paid dearly, it is only now as we mature as a business that we have more things that are working, than not working.

So when people ask the question: “Tell me the ‘one thing’ that has caused engagement in your business…”, really the answer is: “Never giving up”. We keep doing new things, investing in our people and making sure that we know what makes our people tick.

There is no doubt that leadership is a big part of this. In fact, Hewitt says that organisations that have a clearly defined purpose are what that people believe in and want to be a part of.

When I speak about engagement, one of the first questions is usually: “But you are a smaller organisation with less the 100 people, you can still get in a huddle, and people have easy access to you… this is much tougher in a big business.” Well of course being the person I am my instant reaction is ‘Don’t give in’, just because it is hard, doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. There are massive global businesses that have amazing engagement scores – think Google, or Apple.

Engagement comes back to a shared belief in ‘why’… that is the single-minded purpose.

I met Martin Nally from HRAnywhere at a lunch today, where I spoke on employee engagement. He came up to me afterwards and shared a delightful story about engagement.

Some years ago he was in an HR role for Pasminco in Tasmania. He was tasked with increasing engagement (not sure if that exact language was used). The zinc produced was 99.4% pure and this is something that everyone could be very proud of… however it really didn’t mean that much to the average employee on the shop floor.

Eight hundred of the Pasminco workers were brought together in one room… his job was to engage them. A cynical bunch, he started by asking them all to stand up. Then he asked them to each look down and see the zip in their overalls, he asked ‘what does it have written on it?’. One employee yelled out ‘YKK’. Martin beamed, ‘exactly’ he announced, ‘YKK means that the manufacturer uses our zinc in every zip they make… how does it feel knowing that we are in the front of every pair of Levi’s?’ The group cheered… they got it, they could see the difference they were making.

Martin went on to produce a massive global map that had sample products from all around the world of what the zinc was used for. The team got it… it was no longer the best zinc they were producing, they were helping people everywhere on the planet live their lives.

When trying to understand purpose, I often keep asking the question ‘why?’, in order to get back to the difference we are really making to people. I want to improve employee engagement in Australia (even by just 1%), which is what ‘Changing gifting in Australia forever’ means to me.

Thanks Martin for such a vivid story.

Naomi Simson is the 2008 National Telstra Women’s Business Award winner for Innovation. Naomi was also a finalist for the Australian HR Awards and a finalist for the BRW Most Admired Business Owner Award in 2008. Also in 2008 RedBalloon achieved a 97% Hewitt employee engagement score. One of Australia’s outstanding female entrepreneurs, Naomi regularly entertains as a professional speaker inspiring middle to high-level leaders on employer branding, engagement and reward and recognition. Naomi writes a blog and has written a book sharing the lessons from her first five years.