Employee Empowerment as antidote against disengagement. Keynote delivered at the HRM Inspiration Day 2018.

1. Employee
Empowerment
ANTIDOTE FOR DISENGAGEMENT
THE KBC CASE

2. About
Revolv
We help organizations build a culture
that sustainably commits clients,
engages staff and allows the
organization to be agile.
We connect strategy with identity.

3. About
Revolv
We work on four domains:
Revolv
your culture.
Revolv
your leaders.
Revolv
your teams.
Revolv
your self.

4. About
Revolv
We use a four-step process:
Unlock
Commit
Empower
Engage

5. About Thomas Geusens
Recruiting workforce with
Randstad - 2006
Team coach & alignment
facilitator - 2008
Co-founder of Streetwize - 2010
Bringing street skills to
companies
Founder of Revolv - 2016

6. About Ellen Van Beek
Advocaat Balie Antwerpen
Advisor Kabinet Port of
Antwerp
Department Head Change,
Communication & L & D
Department Head Order & Trade
Digitalisation & near shoring

7. Storyline
1. Disengagement
2. Employee Empowerment
3. Three actionable areas:
a. Cultural fit
b. Leadership & team climate
c. Resilience

8. DisengagementTHE PROBLEM

9. Disengagement – trends
Disengagement is defined as “the level of an employee’s psychological disconnection with their
organization”.
37%
44%
45%
Stay
Strive
Says negative things about their organization and acts as
non-advocates
Intends to leave their organization in the long run
Is not motivated to give their best efforts to help the
organization succeed
2 ptns
Say
2 ptns

10. Disengagement
41% 42%
40%
38%
35%
37%
48% 48%
46%
42%
40%
42%
47%
44%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Global Europe Belgium

11. Disengagement in reality
Near shoring: transfering your job & redeployment
• Inability to find solutions for simple issues
• Inability to answer the ‘why’-question
• Inability to speak up during meetings

12. Employee
Empowerment
THE ANTIDOTE

13. This is Empowerment

14. Employee
Empowerment
• Emerged from opposition movements like the civil rights
movement and the women’s movement and is originally about
emancipation
• Brazilian scientist and philosopher Paulo Freire is one of the
founders of the concept
• Freire created the basis for a dialogue between leaders and
employees about limiting work conditions
• Only emerges when people, together, try to break seemingly fixed
patterns in their work environment and expand their possibilities
for action.

15. Employee
Empowerment
Empowerment doesn’t start with big words
but with small actions
Like storm with a soft whisper in the garden
Or the cat who gets crazy in the head
Like large rivers
with a small source
hidden in the woods
Like a sea of fire
with the same match
that lights a cigarette
Like love with a glympse
a touch something that strikes you in a voice
Asking yourself a question
That’s how empowerment starts
And then asking that question to someone else.
(after a poem of Remco Campert)

16. Employee
Empowerment
LEADERSHIP &
TEAMS
RESILIENCE
CULTURAL FIT

17. Cultural FitACTIONABLE AREA 1

18. Cultural Fit
4P® framework maps 4 universal sets of
values: process, performance, people
and pioneer.
4P®

19. Fit
Energy
givers
Energy
drainers
Values
Strategic
ambitions
Strategic
struggles
Values
Company culture Motivational profile

20. Cultural Fit
Underestimation of psychological contract
Loosing people
Reflection on organisational & MT driving paradigms
Transformation of the USS Management Team
Underestimation of psychological
contract
• Loosing people
• Reflection on organisational & MT
driving paradigms
• Transformation of the USS
Management Team

21. LeadershipACTIONABLE AREA 2

22. Leadership
Leaders who do not act dialogically,
but insist on imposing their
decisions, do not organize people,
they manipulate them.
- Paulo Freire

23. Formal
Leadership
It’s widely assumed that formal
leaders have a huge impact on
(dis)engagement.
Goleman (2004). What makes a
Leader? Harvard Business Review.

24. Formal
Leadership
Correlation between leadership styles
and engagement.
0,54
0,44
-0,18
0,32
-0,29
0,57
0,46
0,42
-0,26
0,43
-0,25
0,54
Correlation between leadership styles and engagement
Goleman KBC
Affiliative Coaching Coercive Democratic Pacesetting Visionary

25. - 360° feedback & dashboards
- affiliative leadership: human contact, trust & vulnerability
- coaching leadership: empathy & creative thinking
- visionary leadership: purpose & storytelling
- democratic leadership: diversity & participation
Formal
Leadership
Formal leaders need to be hired, trained
and incentivised on affiliative, coaching,
visionary and democratic leadership
styles.
So how can we support the development
of empowering leadership styles?
Affiliative Coaching Democratic Visionary

26. 75% of the real company culture is
situated in the spontaneous, informal,
invisible areas of the company... the
reign of the informal leaders.
Viral Change: The Alternative to Slow, Painful
and Unsuccessful Management of Change in
Organizations (Herrero, 2004)
This area can not be controlled, only
disturbed. By focusing on the
empowerment of the informal
leaders, you can create a movement,
that works virally.
Informal
Leadership

27. Informal
Leadership
Change Agent Index, 2016
Intakes & coaching of informal opinion
leaders
Empowerment masterclasses
‘Local’ meetups

28. ResilienceACTIONABLE AREA 3

29. Resilience
Study on attitudes towards the
Ceaucescu era in 2010.
53% liked it better before 1989.
Empowerment is tough love...

30. Resilience
1. The ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or
misfortune; buoyancy.
2. The property of a material that enables it to resume its
original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or
compressed; elasticity.
3. Sustainable over time.
Employee Empowerment means
taking risks. Empowered people
experience successes and failures.
The ability to deal with this is a
crucial element.
So how can we support resilience?

31. Resilience
The Victim’s Triangle
Procurer
Victim Facilitator

32. Core Talents
Core Talents are about someones
nature, potential and intrinsic
motivation. They tell you what gives
you energy when you act from your
authentic self.
Your complete Core Talents
constellation shows your ‘maximum
positive elasticity’ for completion of
your life work: becoming fully who
you are.
Fit
Potential &
energy
givers
Core
Values
Limits &
energy
drainers

33. Q & ATHANK YOU