Focusing on energy
and strengths
and strengths
How do we strengthen employee engagement?
Do we make full uses of everyone’s talents?
As an employer, how do we pay attention to vitality and health?
Can our way of conducting performance reviews be more effective?
How do we create space and peace of mind when the (work) pressure is high?
We know that happiness at work contributes to innovation and results. An organisation flourishes when its people flourish. Engagement is a catalyst for good performance. The question is: how can this be achieved? How do you create a positive working climate, in which people are energised? How can people stay mentally and physically fit in times of an increasing workload? And what is the employer's role in this regard? Belgium has a programme for work happiness, ratified by law. In other countries this is not (yet) the case, but organisations are increasingly aware of the importance of investing in well-being. Kessels & Smit helps you to realise these ambitions.
Working from strengths
Work happiness and job satisfaction stem from knowing that you are making a meaningful contribution, and from having the opportunity to use your own talents at work. But someone’s natural strengths and their skills are not always the same, and not everyone is aware of their own core qualities. With our interventions we help people to get to know their own and other people's talents. What energises you? When do you work in flow? And how can you use these strengths even more? To do your job better, to be more satisfied at work, or to find an effective new approach to a task that you need to improve on. We call that job crafting.
Other conversations
Working from talent and being aware of people’s energy requires different conversations. Dialogues that are inquiring and goal-oriented at the same time. That strengthen both the connection and individual ownership. How do you talk to each other in your organisation? At the formal moments, such as a performance review or meeting. And in the hallways or during lunch. Do you appeal to each other's talents, even where performance is still lagging behind? Do you look at what is already working? Or do you mainly focus on what is missing and what needs to be improved? With the help of simple interventions, you can change the performance reviews from a ‘tick-the-box’ to an energising moment, where performance and talent are really addressed. We help managers and teams with tools and conversation techniques in this regard. Simple. And effective.
Healthy and fit
Stress and fatigue seem to be part of organisational life these days. Burnouts occur at an increasingly younger age. No wonder organisations are asking themselves what they can do to keep a healthy staff. What is the employer's role in this? And what about the employees themselves? How do you build a vital way of working together in which it is normal to discuss the work pressure in a constructive manner? But a mindfulness course or fresh fruit in the workplace may also be part of the way forward. Together with organisations and their people, Kessels & Smit explores what is needed to be and stay physically and mentally fit. And we find that this search process alone can lead to an improvement. Attention makes a difference.
At the steering wheel
Working pressure is not always bad, just as happiness at work is not always necessary. Life - and therefore work - has light and dark times. Our interventions are about balance. And above all, about the ability to direct and take initiative. We are focused on ensuring that as an organisation, manager and employee have everything they need to monitor the energy balance for yourself. Together.
Related cases
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(Learning and) leading in times of crisis
Attention for social, mental and physical well-beingLeading in times of crisis, how do you do that? Nobody knows. Never before have we seen so much work happening from home. So we are all, both employees, managers and organisations as a whole, learning and pioneering at full speed.
A major insurance company asked itself: how can we support and accelerate the learning process of our managers? Department A may learn from what is already working in department B. That would help all those involved and strengthen us as an organisation.
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A healthy organization through mindfulness
Inner focus in challenging timesAn independent research agency in the field of sustainable development is strongly committed to the growth of its employees. The organisation therefore offers a comprehensive range of support for everyone's professional development. They also wanted to pay attention to work pressure. Realising that the work situation is increasingly demanding, management wanted to give employees the necessary tools and knowledge to deal with those conditions. The central question was: How can our employees, despite increasing work pressure, remain positive and keep their inner clarity and focus? Approach We started by interviewing employees: What makes this theme really important to you? What things do you find challenging with regard to this topic? How will you be able to notice that this process has made a difference in the end? These conversations helped us design a tailor-made program and it sparked off the participants' reflection process. So, the learning process had already begun. ... ›› -
Staying healthy under severe pressure
Developing a well-supported health policyA factory had to deal with shrinkage. Uncertainty about the company's future combined with high workloads took their toll on people's health. Relationships were under pressure, as there was less time for meetings. A staggering 20.5% of staff found themselves in the burn-out risk area. And more and more people were dropping out due to physical complaints. The company wanted a coherent, preventive approach to support its management and employees to (continue to) feel good and to (continue to) perform in times of great pressure. Approach The company's CEO and HR Director took the lead. Our first step was to engage the management team in a dialogue about their own well-being as well as that of the organisation. ... ›› -
Investing in talents, does it pay off?
Scientific research into a strengths-based approachWe regularly support people in teams and organisations to discover and deploy their strengths. Our experience is that this is very beneficial. Inviting people to think about energizers in their work and what they are good at proves to be a source of enthusiasm. And it improves mutual relationships. But how does it work exactly? That's what we wanted to investigate. That's why we started a scientific study together with Prof. Marianne van Woerkom and Dr. Christina Meyers of Tilburg University: What exactly is the effect if people participate in workshops in which they are invited to discover and use their talents? Approach We were able to work for an association of five primary schools. We provided workshops for their teachers. First, a start-up meeting where they reflected on their own strengths and designed experiments to deploy these in their job. In a second meeting, six weeks later, participants reflected on what was successful and where they had managed to use their talents more effectively. ... ›› -
Performance appraisals based on strengths
The power of internal facilitatorsAn engineering firm with 800 consultants wanted to renew their performance appraisal process. The fixed schedule of three interviews a year no longer sufficed. Moreover, they wanted to shift to a talent or strengths focus and give employees themselves a greater role in preparing and carrying out the appraisals. A strategy group was commissioned by the Management Team to work on this and we helped them to draw up a manual. The core of which is conducting a dialogue based on four guiding principles and a basic interview format. The crucial question then was: how do we help managers and their teams to embrace and apply this new approach without resorting to detailed standardized procedures? Approach The kick off took place on a management off-site where all team leaders, departmental heads and directors were present. The strategy group members took on an important role. Together with the HR consultants, they formed a pool of 12 process facilitators. With them, we prepared the programme, which aimed to inform and inspire managers for the new way of working. ... ›› -
Job crafting: using personal strengths in the workplace
A boost for job satisfaction and innovationThe world of libraries is changing. In addition to an extensive collection of books, modern libraries also offer a range of activities in the form of workshops and venues. The common thread is their mission: providing social value by contributing to the development of citizens. One library noticed that the broadening of their range of activities posed new challenges for employees. Therefore, they had worked intensively with the front office employees to explore and fulfill their new role. A process that was to everyone's satisfaction, as even the annual employee satisfaction survey conveyed. In this survey, the front office employees (e.g. the reception desk, hostesses, etc.) showed a greater appreciation of their work than the back-office employees. This sparked the desire to work with colleagues in the back office as well. What is changing in their work? And how can they tackle this innovation, making full use of their strengths and talents? Approach Adapting work by starting from strengths and talents is what we call job crafting. Research shows that this contributes positively to job satisfaction, involvement and innovation. ... ››