Engaging Renault Truck employees with the World Café concept
How this innovative technique helped re-engage employees hit hard by the recession.
by Amanda Jongeneel, Director, EM(IC)*
The Office for National Statistics confirms Britain is suffering the worst economic output since 1980. Not surprisingly it's a major news topic every evening and it's the water-cooler conversation of the moment. However, I believe this constant focus on negativity around the office doesn't just damage employee engagement, it can actually slow a company's recovery.
The importance of optimism
We're surrounded by gloomy news and employees will naturally get together to talk about it. Constant negativity can lead to a downward spiral which depresses people's mood, tone, energy and motivation. Once in the downward spiral, optimism and confidence disappear, yet these are the behaviors that people really need to get through these difficult times.
Optimists bounce back quicker and they tend to be more resilient. Resilience is important as it sees people through difficult times. Therefore, if a work force can't hold on to its resilience it will take much longer to recover from negative change. Returning to profitability and efficiency will be a much slower journey.
Re-engaging after a recession
Re-engaging a workforce during or after a recession may seem impossible when budgets have been cut, events are being cancelled and it's difficult convincing employees that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train. Yet it needn't be difficult or expensive.
Re-engaging the workforce after the recession needn't be expensive.
It can be as simple as giving people the opportunity to focus on what's right, successful and positive in their environment to speed their acceptance of change and rebuild their optimism.
In this current market we've found demand for World Cafés has increased significantly. They've historically been used to resolve political conflicts, disputes in governmental and community-based organizations. At EM(IC)* we've taken the concept and applied it to the corporate environment.
World Cafés draw on positive psychology techniques, focusing on strengths and what works well in a company, and encouraging employees to discuss how to replicate that across the business.
How does it work?
The World Café takes an employee group out of the conference room environment and into a relaxed, bright café-style room. The ideal number of participants is around 80. Delegates are seated at small tables of five or six, with one World Café-trained facilitator per table.
The host introduces the event, explaining how the development of the brand/strategy/change won’t be successful without the employees’ involvement. The host introduces a question: the question must be emotive and positive. For example, “consider a time when you’ve felt part of a great team. What was it about that experience that made it so positive?” or “What’s the most passionate you’ve seen your colleagues and what brought about that passion?”
Consider a time when you've felt part of a great team.
It’s critical that the questions are designed in such a way as to encourage people to discuss actual positive experiences. The facilitator helps the table of attendees to unravel what made that experience so positive and encourages them to draw parallels and connections between their experience and their current environment.
The facilitator also encourages delegates to draw, write and doodle key comments, stories and inspiring ideas on the paper table cloths.
The conversations are concluded and the host takes around 20 minutes to manage feedback and group discussions on the key themes and ideas.
What can be done with the results?
The output from the World Café – having been captured on the table cloths – provides clear detail of what employees feel strongly about and what the communication team and management can do to support their people.
There’s a lot of information to be gleaned from this exercise and it’s critical that it’s used appropriately and fed into the brand/change strategy. We see great results when companies stop trying to find and fix what's wrong or broken, but start focusing on what's right instead.
We see great results when companies stop trying to find and fix what's wrong, and focus on what's right.
This technique is a cost effective alternative to a conference. What makes it unique is that it not only rebuilds optimism, pride and confidence in a company, it generates positive stories and legends, a clear picture of the common themes that people feel passionate about, as well as input into a company's internal communication strategy.
Renault Trucks case study
We recently held a World Café for Renault Trucks UK Ltd as their marketing and communications manager Penny Randall explains:
“The commercial vehicle market, like the rest of the automotive sector has been severely impacted by the recession. When the market, in effect, collapsed during the last quarter of 2008 employees both within our dealer network and at our UK HQ were finding it very hard to remain motivated."
The focus was very much on the negative and morale was low. We needed to find a mechanism to help us refocus them on the positives and to provide us with a starting point for our 2009/2010 internal communications strategy.”
We ran a World Café with 240 people at the beginning of February 2009 and the results were quite amazing. Employees very quickly realized that, although the situation is far from ideal, we have a lot of success and best practice to share and that we're more than capable of weathering this storm. The event itself was highly motivating and we had excellent feedback from many delegates following it."
Employees quickly realized that we're more than capable of weathering the storm.
Of course, it’s important to realize the World Café isn't a ‘one-off’ approach that will solve all your problems. You have to take the information that comes from it and work with it."
It must be built into your internal communication strategy and you need to work hard to use the feedback from the Café to continue to remind and motivate the employees."
Diminishing budgets and difficult markets don't need to have an adverse effect on a company’s ability to engage its employees. Using positive psychology techniques like the World Café can give employees the opportunity and space to focus on the positives, rebuilding a work force’s shattered morale and bringing optimism and pride back to the people who need it the most.
Take a look at this film for further insight into how Renault used the World Café concept.
Have your say
Have you taken part in a World Café? How did you find it? What other techniques are being employed to re-engage and motivate the workforce? Share your opinions with us, below.
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