The Engagement Coalition
On a hot and sunny day in central London a group of people came from far and wide for the first ever communications lab engagement collation event. What we all had in common is a passion for this thing called engagement – whatever that might be, but let’s save that debate for another day…. The communications lab put the event together to provide a space for like-minded people to talk, share and collaborate on all things engagement. And talk and share we did (the next event will feature collaboration)! What became clear was that we are all experiencing similar challenges; the issue of embedding engagement, making is business as usual and not “something HR does” was common. In David Macleod’s terminology I guess what we were talking about was how to move from transactional engagement to transformational engagement. When we talked about our triumphs, pretty much everyone talked about still being here, talking about this stuff and making it happen, as a real achievement. With the recession it could have gone two ways and I, for one, am pleasantly surprised that this is still on the agenda for many companies. Yes of course I believe it should be but I had thought it would be one of the first areas to be axed when money got tight, and while it’s not a bed a roses out there for us, we are still here! Long live engagement – I love my job!
