What Are Your Barriers to Engagement?
I spend a fair bit of time thinking about barriers to engagement and over the last few weeks, I have been having a lot of conversations about why programmes, training and initiatives aren't successful.....
We can't just say 'bad culture' anymore, we need to go deeper.
These barriers are the obstacles that prevent people from 'fully participating in an activity, organization, or community'. Each one comes with it's own challenges and solutions.
While they can be physical, psychological, social, or structural, in an environmental context, experience suggests that we should be focussing on:
👀Lack of Awareness or Information
Even though we literally communicate 24/7 and often can't switch off, a lot of people in an organisation still manage to slip through the comms cracks. If they don't know about something, they can't get involved. Don't assume people know anything.
⌚Time
Most people I speak to seem to be doing multiple roles and with no head space for what might be considered 'nice to haves'. Ineffective environmental management can finish a company, it needs to be prioritised.
😱Fear or Lack of Confidence
This is more important than we realise I think. When people don't know or understand something, its easier to ignore it than ask for help. This is why I most enjoy training with a small group, its conversational with no pressure or expectations. Environmental risk is not intuitive like safety, people need time to understand the what, where, why and hows.
🥱Lack of Interest or Motivation
This is a big one. It is easy to say people don't care, but they usually do. They just haven't found the right outlet to demonstrate this care. It is also true that showing a slide deck of monthly stats is not going to excite an audience. Understand what makes people tick or they will see zero value in participating.
🕸️Complexity
In industry we often overcomplicate things. Just don't. What can go wrong, how can we stop it or mitigate the problem. It really is that simple.
❌Negative Past Experiences
This is a difficult one to get over and must be based on trust. We always say you don't get many chances to roll out something new to your workforce so you must follow through and demonstrate your commitment with relevant feedback and tangible results. Its all about trust. People won't buy in to you unless they have confidence you can deliver.
⚙️Technology Barriers
How many routes of communication are you using? And NEVER rely on a group email account! Everybody absorbs information differently and while we have the most amazing digital tech to reach people on the moon, the best engagement is seeing the whites of people's eyes when the penny drops in a F2F set up. It is just priceless.
Ever thought why you aren't 'moving the needle' on environmental engagement? You might be surprised.
