Ralph Gaillard reviews the book The CEO: Chief Engagement Officer: Turning Hierarchy Upside Down to Drive Performance by John Smythe. Review highlights book’s discussion of employee communication and engagement.
Employee engagement, the workplace phenomenon that propels employees to become passionate about their work, their employers and the company’s long-term objectives, is all the rage right now within the HR community, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The economy is just keeping its head above water, while news of layoffs and weak corporate profits currently dominate the headlines — which translates into a workforce that is nervous about loosing their jobs and less than focused on their daily work assignments. Enter employee engagement initiatives, which can go a long way in calming employee anxiety about their job status — and actually boost their morale and productivity.
However, like most workforce strategies, there’s a right and a wrong way to approach the engagement process. Luckily, John Smythe’s book, The CEO Chief Engagement Officer: Turning Hierarchy Upside Down to Drive Performance
The 226-book also contains interesting case studies of how companies are “living the dream” of engagement. What’s unusual is that these company examples are actually a captivating read — a rarity for most business books. Further, the case studies demonstrate how engagement can impact employee retention and workforce satisfaction rates as well as hard business metrics such as product quality and workplace safety benchmarks.
Thankfully, Smythe spends considerable time looking at the differences between employee communication and employee engagement, a common point of confusion for engagement novices. In explaining those distinctions, Smythe might have given HR, senior executives and communicators a new road map for getting employees to eat, sleep and drink the company. In the end, he finds that authentic employee engagement comes down to opening up the decision making process to folks outside the cozy, wood-paneled confines of the C-Suite.
The question is whether traditional business managers are ready and willing to embark on such a radical road. Smythe’s book gives HR managers, the true and rightful initiators of the organization’s engagement process, a compelling case for helping company leaders take the leap and realize that’s “ok” to share the decision making duties with their employees — who are eager for the opportunity.
I give this book four out of five stars.
Ralph Gaillard is the Executive Editor of HR Insight and Group Publisher of the Strategic HR division for M. Lee Smith Publishers. For nearly 20 years, Ralph has worked in the publishing and marketing fields, with a specialty in creating executive education programs, building strategic partnerships and launching new products. Ralph has worked for various information publishers, including Lawrence Ragan Communications, a leading provider of corporate communication information and training. He was also an account executive for The PBN Company, an international media relations firm based in San Francisco. Early in his career, Ralph worked for the Chicago Tribune as an editorial researcher and at The Washington Post as the staff researcher for National News. He is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management, the International Association of Business Communicators, and the American Society for Training and Development.