Budgeting as an employee engagement strategy? Yes, it sounds ridiculous. Who looks forward to budgeting?
For most of us the answer is: “Not me, not ever.” So how can budgeting (a process that is as dreaded as a dentist appointment or tax season) actually improve employee engagement? At the core – it’s about having your voice be heard.
Think of budgeting as the ultimate employee suggestion box. Budgeting becomes a collaborative process when you employ a decentralized or distributed model. With decentralized budgeting individual managers are responsible for submitting a budget for their department. They submit their ideas for the best use of the organization’s funds, articulate their rationale, and explain how it moves the strategic agenda forward.
And surprisingly, research shows that this simple process – having the opportunity to promote and justify ideas in a collaborative budgeting model – actually increases employee engagement.
With collaborative budgeting employees are more likely to feel as if they have been “heard”. They also report an increase in feeling respected and have increased satisfaction. And surprisingly, these increases in engagement hold true even if their final budget is cut.
At XLerant, we’re big advocates for collaborative budgeting and employee engagement. Mostly because we feel it gives you the most accurate final numbers. And when you get the best thinking from the experts (your employees) you can better align your budget to the organizational strategy. In fact, we even built our tagline around it: “Engage. Empower. Achieve.” So as you might suspect, we have a lot of resources on the subject. To learn more about budgeting as an employee engagement strategy please check out our page dedicated to employee engagement strategies for finance professionals.
*If you are the person who looks forward to budgeting, please email us – we want to know why, and we invite you to write a guest blog!
