25 – 27 November 2019

Mar is a business-aligned HR professional with extensive experience in strategic HR, following an early career in Marketing and Communications. 

She is currently the Head of Talent and Organizational Development at Amadip Esment Foundation in Spain. Prior to this role, she has had a varied and international career. She was Global Marketing and Communications Director of Barclays Private and International Banking, based in London, where her leadership was recognized with the “Team leader of the year" award.

Following her passion for employee engagement as a key driver of customer engagement, she shifted her career to HR. Her expertise includes recruiting, onboarding, performance management, learning and development, talent management and high performing teams. She was Head of Performance Culture, Employee Experience and Employer Brand at TD Bank in Canada. She is a certified Executive and Team coach, a Myers Briggs Type Indicator Certified Practitioner and a Certified DISC Behaviour Analyst. She has guest lectured at business schools and universities and has published several articles on HR topics. Mar speaks Spanish, English and German.

Mar is a lifelong learner and in her current role she is focused on developing organizational capabilities by accelerating employee and team learning and becoming an agile organization.

About the Speaker :

Can an agile transformation impact employee engagement?

An interview with Mar Guerrero Busquets , Head of Talent and Organizational Development in Amadip Esment Foundation

Why is it important to drive employee engagement?

There are numerous research studies that confirm the link between employee engagement and productivity, with some of the identified levers being:

• improved customer experience, increased customer engagement and loyalty
• decreased cost (lower employee turnover and absenteeism)
• increased employee proactivity, flexibility, discretionary effort and innovation
  Employee engagement is also good from a workforce health perspective so it not only benefits the organisation and its employees, but society in general.

The other reason why Employee Engagement is important is because it remains an unsolved strategic challenge(and significant opportunity) for businesses, with the majority of the global workforce reporting that they are less than engaged.

What are the methods behind Agile Transformation?

An Agile Transformation is the evolution of the customer-centric organisation, striving to adapt to the fast changing, unpredictable and complex environment.  It involves a change in the organisational culture, behaviours, structure and capabilities.

The Agile approach includes 4 values, 12 principles and frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban. Without getting into the details, all this results in a series of practices designed to constantly test the environment, deliver little and often and better aligned to customer demands.  And this is the key. These methods promote collaboration, transparency, clarity, autonomy, flexibility and speed, allowing the business to respond more rapidly and accurately to customer expectations.

How does Agile Transformation impact Employee Engagement?

In my experience, Agile can positively influence Employee Engagement in two ways:

• by systematically integrating into the day-to-day, some of the factors that drive engagement: goal alignment and purpose, clarity of expectations, communication, autonomy, accountability, relationships and teamwork, feedback, recognition and opportunities to learn and grow.
• by minimising the employee irritants such as “wasted effort”, working harder but not smarter, or important information getting lost in communication.

Much like Agile, Employee Engagement is not like a switch you can turn on; it is rather an iterative improvement process with no defined ending that requires a deliberate leadership effort.

How does Servant Leadership fit into Employee Engagement?

As we know, the employee-manager relationship is a critical dynamic when it comes to Employee Engagement.

Servant Leadership is a style that believes that helping employees develop and grow is the route to organizational success. It is perfectly aligned with the key levers of Employee Engagement and shown to drive it.

A highly uncertain environment requires an adaptive approach, which is why the type of leadership that enables an Agile Transformation, seeks to energize the employees and maximize their creativity by empowering them.

Servant leaders focus on communicating a shared vision and purpose, active listening, promoting autonomy, collaboration, demonstrating appreciation for big and small contributions and above all, leading by example. This authentic approach helps people feel valued, creates a high-trust culture and helps employees perform at their best.

What do you hope to gain by attending the 2nd edition of Employee Engagement?

I always look to create opportunities to stay on top of trends, new information and best practices. I also enjoy connecting with peers from across Europe and learn from different approaches to Employee Engagement and other strategic Talent levers.

In addition, I have had positive experiences attending Marcus Evans conferences before, in North America - the events are well run and the content is insightful and value adding.

It is important to understand how to drive engagement through consistent attention to development of employees. Measurement of engagement is also a critical component to the coherent engagement strategy, and is an area of interesting debate, particularly when it comes to interpretation of data. Communication is considered to be one of the key building blocks to engagement and internal communications is another key area to build on to further engagement within a company. On the other hand, the movement towards increased digitalisation in various areas of the business has made an impact on engagement. But what exactly is this impact and how can we make the very most of it? At this marcus evans industry meeting, we will look into these unique areas that will make the picture clearer into the best strategic step forward. 

About the Conference :

Employee Engagement

London, UK

2nd edition