What To Look For In An External Partner To Support Your Employee Engagement Strategy

Posted by Rick DeMarco on 10 August 2016

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Last week, I wrote about the challenge of securing necessary resources to develop and execute an effective strategy to create a culture of high engagement. Although all evidence would indicate that companies around the globe recognize employee engagement as one of their top challenges and key strategies to drive growth, customer loyalty, and satisfaction; those driving the efforts often struggle to obtain a budget and team to accomplish their objectives.   

Although I suggested some ideas on securing an adequate budget, there are often other reasons for resistance to properly resourcing these efforts. These include a desire to avoid hiring additional staff with all of the incremental costs associated with it, and taking focus away from other important initiatives to ensure that an engagement strategy is in fact executed. Finding the right external partner to support and augment the internal expertise and resources can have a significant impact on an organization’s success in creating high engagement, by providing a resource focused on this specific task that is not distracted by other responsibilities and that has a direct cost/value relationship. 

So what should you look for in a partner? First of all, with the rising importance of employee engagement as a strategy to drive growth and customer loyalty, many consulting companies are jumping on the bandwagon and claiming to be experts in the field. In reality, there are only a few who have founded their practice on a focus on internal branding and employee engagement. When I was Director of Brand Alignment at HP, I realized that I needed some outside help and did a search for organizations that were viable partners.  After reviewing their expertise, history, and offering, I realized that there were only a handful who focused on employee engagement as a core competency, rather than an add-on to other services they offered. Given that one of the barriers to closing the gap between acknowledgment of the challenge and a plan to fix it has been identified as a lack of knowledge regarding what to do, this expertise is critical in finding an effective partner.

Secondly, it’s important to find a partner that is collaborative and willing to meet you where you are in the process. Oftentimes, an outside partner feels compelled to follow their process and approach and disregard the work that has already been done. No one knows your business better than you and it’s important that a consulting company enters the relationship as a partner, combining their expertise and knowledge with that of the client, rather than as an external source telling you what you should do. It’s important to get past any perception that engaging an outside partner is an indictment on the internal skills and talent. We believe in the concept of “abundant mentality” that says that when you put together a group of talented and skilled people with a common objective, you will get much better outcomes and ideas than any one individual can come up with on his/her own.

Thirdly, the partner should be both flexible and highly responsive. Despite a commitment made by a company to an engagement strategy, day-to-day issues come up and can often derail the execution. An effective partner needs to adapt to changing priorities and conditions at the company and yet keep the momentum going. That also means that the partner must be very responsive when deadlines change, new priorities emerge, and changes occur during actual execution of the elements of a strategy.

So what are the benefits of finding the right partner to help with you internal branding and employee engagement efforts?

  1. An outside partner with the right expertise will be able to share best practices and effective strategies developed and executed by other industries and companies
  2. Because day-do-day distractions will occur, the partner can ensure that the execution of the strategy stays on track and there is no loss of momentum.
  3. Cross functional and cross business unit collaboration is critical in building a culture of high engagement. An outside partner can reach across any boundaries to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that all goals and objectives are aligned across the company.
  4. A partner with strong experience and expertise in the field can supplement the strategic thinking of the internal staff to come up with even better strategies and tactics than could be developed either totally internally or totally externally.
  5. A good partner can become an extension of the arms and legs of the internal staff, avoiding adding full time staff members, with regards to creative development, program management, and tactical execution.
  6. As an outsider, a good partner can challenge status quo and obstacles that get in the way of an effective strategy and execution with no concern over hidden agendas, in a very objective manner.

Choosing the right partner can have a significant impact on your success in both developing and executing a strategy to create a culture of high engagement. Do your homework. Make sure that the partner you choose supplements and augments your current resources and expertise, rather than attempts to replace them. The investment you make will more than pay for itself in effectiveness and efficiency and ensure that resources are not being spent on initiatives or efforts that really aren’t moving the bar.