Webinar Details

Employee Engagement – How to do it

There is clear and mounting evidence that high levels of employee engagement correlates to individual, group and corporate performance in areas such as retention, turnover, productivity, customer service and loyalty.

David MacLeod and Nita Clarke were commissioned by the Department for Business (BIS) to take an in-depth look at employee engagement and to report on its potential benefits for organisations and employees.
The Secretary of State for Business, Lord Mandelson, encouraged the independent reviewers to examine whether a wider take up of engagement approaches could impact positively on UK competitiveness and performance, and meet the challenges of increased global competition.

The independent reviewers’ answer is an unequivocal yes.

The report argues that wider delivery of employee engagement could have a positive impact on UK competitiveness and performance both during the downturn and in powering through to recovery. It concludes that while there are some excellent examples of good employee engagement, there are barriers to uptake, particularly amongst smaller businesses, and that Government can play a unique role in giving the subject profile, and bringing together role models with those who have delivery mechanisms and levers to help galvanise the collective effort.
The Government has accepted the recommendations of the report, and has now launched a campaign asking employers what would help them better engage with their employees.

NHS Medway Maritime Hospital is the largest and busiest hospital in Kent – treating around 400,000 patients each year.  In 2009 the Foundation Trust launched a leadership development programme designed to help build employee engagement.

The mission at Best Companies is to encourage positive engagement through the adoption of Best Practice in a way that prmotes employee welfare. Since their launch, 200,000 companies have participated in a Best Companies Survey.

Speaker Profile – Rita Lawrence
Rita is Head of Learning and Development at Medway NHS Foundation Trust. She works with a team of people who are all committed to really putting Learning & Development on the map at Medway and being innovative in the approach that they take.

Her previous roles were mainly in the City and has she worked for two of the biggest Insurance Brokers Marsh and Mclennan and Heath Lambert. All of her roles have been in the learning and development field which she finds challenging and enjoyable.

Speaker Profile – Wayne Clarke
Wayne is Managing Partner at Best Companies. Recently voted one of the top 30 thinkers in HR, he is an economics graduate who spent 10 years building his career as an internal communications and employee engagement practitioner. He has worked extensively throughout Europe and North America in the design and delivery of complex people engagement programmes for global organisations.  He enjoys applying his creativity to the challenge of helping to create better workplaces. He advises leadership teams and CEO’s on how best to communicate and engage with their people, but maintains a ‘street level mentality’ in being focussed on helping to improve the experience of the workplace for the benefit of employees and customers.

Speaker Profile - David MacLeod
David has a portfolio of responsibilities which include being a Non Executive Director of the Department for International Development, and of the Ministry of Justice. He is a visiting Professor of the Cass Business School and a Fellow of the Ashridge Business School and Sunningdale Institute. He is also an associate of the Institute for Government.

Early in his career he was Head of Marketing for the Dulux brand before going on to be Chief Executive of European and then Global businesses. He also spent a year and a half working in the Cabinet office.

He has co-authored a book called The Extra Mile on the theme of how to engage your people to win and is co-author of the MacLeod Report to Government called Engaging for Success.