THE TOP FIVE WAYS TO INSPIRE YOUR TEAM

I guess it’s no surprise to anyone that empowering people makes the list when thinking about how to inspire your team - letting people push on and take opportunities to shine. But I think it’s very often the case with words like ‘empowerment’, our heart tells us it must be a good thing, but our head is saying, great but how exactly do I do that? This is where our people’s practical insights really help.

For Shweta Vyas, chief strategy officer at Risk in the US it’s quite clear: “It’s all about trust. I have a team of high-performing, driven, self-starters. They can do the job and they can do it well. What they need from me is support, coaching and enabling.  So, I try to spend my time serving as their sounding board, and hopefully, enabling them to fully own their projects and work relationships in a way that makes them more effective in their roles.”

Vinay Mummigatti, chief automation officer for Legal in the US, agrees: “I give freedom to my team to make bold decisions, take risks, make mistakes and innovate.”

It’s a similar story from Ken Fogarty, Group Treasurer at RELX based in the UK, who believes sometimes you just need to get out of people’s way: “I’m incredibly fortunate to work with a team of experienced, dedicated and highly skilled professionals so in many cases the best way for me to empower them to use their strengths is for me to stay out of their way. Once you get to know people well, it’s easy to see on which projects they’ll excel and on which ones they’ll need more guidance. I view my role as providing the right balance of support and always explaining how something fits into the bigger picture, but ultimately to let people do the job the way they think it should be done.”

Micheal Williams is senior director of data control in Risk in the US. He has been with us for 13 years and for him, autonomy and creativity go hand in hand: “It’s important to give employees the flexibility and autonomy to make decisions and think creatively to solve business challenges. We want our people to feel a sense of ownership when constructing a strategy. I’m a firm believer in creating a safe place in which our team members understand that true innovation requires a certain level of risk taking.”

Now for lesson three. Purpose, meaning and impact. What stands out across our business is people having a clear sense of purpose to their work, that work being meaningful for them and having a positive impact on customers and society are central to our success.

Vida Corsiga is the director of risk solutions operations for REPH in the Philippines, with a broader team of several hundred and a quietly confident leadership style: “It helps for us to come together in communicating and understanding the ‘why’ behind individual responsibilities to create a sense of purpose. It’s that clarity of purpose which matters almost above anything else. People being able to see a direct link between what they do and why it matters is hugely valuable.”

Micheal agrees: “As someone on my leadership team once said: It’s one thing to train employees what to do, how to do it and when they need to do it but the ‘why’ is much overlooked.  Taking the time to explain why we perform specific tasks and why that work is important to others within the organisation fosters the kind of meaningful work that leads to engaged employees.”

And in the Netherlands, it’s no different. Sjoerd Cooijmans, is HR director across all the businesses, based in Amsterdam and has been with us for over 19 years. Sjoerd links his people’s work with how it benefits society and customers, which can be hard to do sometimes for those in corporate functions: “I aim to continuously show my team how their work makes an impact, not only on employees’ lives but also on the customers we serve. Also, the recent COVID response showed how critical the role of HR is in business continuity and supporting the business to stay engaged, healthy and with that, productive. I have been amazed by the RELX Netherlands HR team and how they have helped the business on all fronts, which in turn is helping the wider COVID fight in society. I am very proud of them for that.”

Joanna Weller, global compliance counsel in Legal, based in the UK breaks purpose and meaning down yet further: “I seek to empower my team while focusing on our purpose, whether that be business purpose, team purpose or individual purpose. I also encourage collaboration so that the team works well as a cohesive unit. There is also a strong focus on well-being and psychological safety. In order for the team to remain connected to our purpose it is important that I provide my people with opportunities for growth and development whether that be in their chosen fields or within the various Rule of Law projects in which we are involved. We engage in LexisNexis’ Rule of Law Foundation initiatives and the programmes we run on gender empowerment. This also allows my team to do meaningful work outside of their day job. It’s hugely powerful.”

Jeffery has a simple mantra that works: “Keep the main thing, the main thing. This phrase allows me to keep mindsets focused on those activities most critical to driving the business forward.  By using this refrain, my team is better able to triage routine activities to simply become more efficient at tackling both the planned and unplanned events that arise in managing a complex business like ours.”

And Carlos’ customer focus serves to reinforce meaning for his team: “I keep my team at the frontline of our business by delivering solutions and new experiences to our customers. To me this feels like not just executing tasks but changing our customers’ lives.”

And a final word on this lesson from Vinay: “I spend considerable time in sharing the purpose of our team, the broader value we are creating and explaining the strategy and road map. I also share regular updates on how our team is performing against our goals. My aim is to help every team member understand how their role connects with the larger organisation and how they are contributing to the enterprise level success.”

When we talk about employee engagement, we often mix it up with all sorts of different business initiatives. The truth is, as we have heard, all these things are just a supporting act to the main drive of engagement, which is to help people see the connection between the work they do and the strategy of the organisation - hence people having meaning and purpose to their work.

The fourth lesson is about providing clear career development opportunities for people as Shweta so eloquently sets out: “I don’t think any of us want to feel stagnant in our jobs. It is important to create an environment where our employees know how to navigate career and development discussions. My team wants to know there is a way for them to continue to progress their careers at RELX. If I don’t help them meet those goals and chart their path to their next role internally, they’ll find someone who will help them figure it out externally. And that’s a loss of good talent.”

Jeffery agrees: “When colleagues feel they have good career opportunities, it allows them to see a path for continued career growth, development and greater contribution. The ability to visualise how you will be able to grow your career, expand skills and contribute to the organisation on a larger scale is a powerful motivator to sustain employee engagement for the long term and keep morale high.”

Back in the Philippines Vida shares the same sentiment: “When employees feel there are good career opportunities within the business, there is perception of eventual professional growth within the organisation, therefore promoting retention.

And the final word again on this lesson from Vinay: “We are most productive when our skills and passion are aligned with job responsibilities. I try to create opportunities for our teams where they can showcase different types of skills across people, process and technology. My focus is to understand the core strengths and passion in our team members and align each person to appropriate job functions or opportunities. I also promote job mobility within my organisation and outside of my team, so the team always feels confident that they are not locked into a restrictive situation or role.”

And finally, the fifth lesson. Here we pull together all those little things that make a marked difference in helping to inspire teams, from being responsive and providing flexibility to being more than just a team and inviting surprise guests to team calls…

For Joanna, one of those little things that makes a huge difference is flexibility: “My team is based all over the world and many of them have families. It is important that I acknowledge that there are time-zone constraints as well as personal matters which will affect how they work. I give each member of my team the flexibility they need to be successful in their work.”

“We are more than a team, we are a family,” said Carlos. “And a regional family at that. I do my best to keep people engaged and motivated through our monthly achievements meeting, where we celebrate successes together.”

For Shweta enabling her team to help others makes a difference: “We make room for team members to do the things that really matter to them. This can be through volunteering, giving back to the community or working on employee resource groups.”

And for Ken it really is the little things that sometimes we overlook that count: “I try to lead by example by doing little things like responding quickly to emails from team members and willingly helping out colleagues in other areas. I’ve found that if you do these little things in most cases it’s reciprocated which increases productivity and engagement. I’m somewhat fortunate that there are a lot of projects in treasury where one is able to quantify the benefit of work easily. I think it’s important to be involved in projects where you can see the value of what you are doing and how it contributes to the larger organisation. In my experience, seeing lots of little wins gives a sense of accomplishment. I also think it’s important to recognise success, which is not something I’ve always been good at. But I’m trying to get better.”

Back in the Netherlands Sjoerd has never lost sight of the power of doing something out of the ordinary once in a while to keep things fresh. “Smart people don’t need hand holding or a manager to tell them when or how to do things. In my view they only need a clear goal and the autonomy to figure out how to get there. I have always enjoyed that from my manager, so I try to live by that in how I manage others. It is also important to create a psychologically safe work environment where it is okay not to feel okay, to challenge each other to get to a better outcome and most importantly, have fun in doing it. I recently invited a goat to a video team meeting. It's a thing now apparently - for fun. Her name was Lulu. I must say, I wasn’t sure what to expect as it surely was one of the weirdest things I have done at work, but in such a stressful and difficult time it was a truly welcome and funny change. She actually answered a question.”