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Engaging for success: Enhancing performance through employee engagement
Case Study
West Bromwich Tool and Engineering
One of the workplaces we visited, West Bromwich Tool and Engineering, is a
traditional metal-working small company where much of the work is perforce
repetitive and not particularly stimulating. Owner Stuart Fell nevertheless
believes – and acts on his belief – that his largely unqualified workforce,
numbering under 100, are his greatest asset, and that the way his company
succeeds is by creating the circumstances where his employees can – and want
to – give of their best. Even in the current tough climate, with staff having to
be laid off, the care and consideration with which the workforce are treated
means they are willing to go the extra mile when circumstances demand,
including hiring vans for a late production run across the country to ensure a
delivery deadline was not missed. “It’s about fairness, treating people as
individuals, about giving individual operators the right to work out for themselves
the way they produce the required number of parts per hour. The most stressful
thing in life is having no control. We have continuous improvement because the
staff here have ownership of the process. We’re not an organisation; we’re a
community. And we all have the pride of knowing that we’ve contributed a small
but essential component to every BMW mini on the road today.”
Case Study
Fujitsu Group
The European IT services arm of the Fujitsu Group runs an employee survey
every 18 months in order to understand the engagement levels and issues of
its workforce.
A few years ago, survey results revealed that career development was one of
their UK employees’ major concerns. After analysing the results more closely
with the help of employee focus groups, it became clear that the company did
in fact have many tools available to help with career development, but they
were not well publicised. Employees had assumed that, having received little
communication on their development, the company was unable to support
them in this respect.
In response to this feedback, Fujitsu published a detailed 20-page brochure for
its 12,000 UK-based employees, summarising its career development principles
and practices. This covered a multitude of learning related topics ranging from
professional communities and learning academies, to career mapping tools and
workshops to help employees manage their own career direction.
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