From Resilience to Growth: Re-engaging Your Workforce for the Long Term
Organizations have gone through a period of unprecedented disruption. We now have a critical opportunity to reshape, reimagine, and re-engage our workforce for long-term sustainability. Industry leaders are signaling a major shift in focus, moving away from crisis-response topics and toward foundational areas such as employee trust, recruitment, and organizational culture (Smith, 2022).
Finding new ways to earn the commitment of your staff is no longer a luxury; it is essential for organizational success. However, the strategies that worked in the past may no longer be effective in a post-disruption world.
The HRD Perspective: Unleashing Expertise
From the perspective of Human Resource Development (HRD), our aim is to innovate and discover methods to unlock human expertise, thereby enhancing organizational performance (Swanson & Holton, 2009). By applying evidence-based practices to boost employee engagement, we observe a direct link to more employees actively contributing to the organization's mission, vision, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
At H&K Advisors, we track the impact of engagement through the Three Ps:
Passion: The emotional connection to the work.
Productivity: The efficiency of the output.
Performance: The quality of the final results.
We define engagement as:
"The amount in which employees are willing to invest in the organization’s success." (Hurtienne et al., 2024)
Four Strategies to Re-Engage Your Workforce
Moving away from "survivor mode" requires a deliberate evolution of your internal processes. Here are four research-backed strategies to re-engage your team:
1. Reimagine the Work Environment
The disruptions of recent years have changed our work environments in ways we never imagined. Instead of mandating a return to old norms, involve your workforce in reimagining the future. When employees are encouraged to be innovative and supportive of their new environment, their engagement increases significantly.
2. Update the Strategic Plan
Every organization responded differently to recent global shifts. As you update your strategic plan, do so transparently. Provide organizational members with the opportunity to evaluate the current status and suggest improvements. Inclusion is a powerful driver of engagement.
3. Transition from Training to Development*
Many employees have spent years simply trying to keep up. Now is the time to move from "survival training" to intentional professional development. Investing in your employees' growth clearly signals that you care about their future.
4. Facilitate Cross-Functional Networking
Extended periods of disruption often lead to departmental silos. Actively sponsor networking opportunities and events that allow employees to meet peers from different departments. Building these internal connections strengthens systems thinking within your organization.
Partner with H&K Advisors
The shift from a resilient culture to a growth-oriented one requires expertise and a structured approach. H&K Advisors specializes in guiding organizations through this process by embedding every intervention in research and human-centric design.
Are you ready to reimagine your organization's future? Contact H&K Advisors today to schedule a Workforce Re-engagement Strategy session.