Overview

For nearly five years, Conscient Strategies has been engaged to work with the US Navy and its prime contractor to deliver a culture change initiative to the civilian team operating to repair and overhaul Navy ships.  Through our Performance Coaching program, we help our clients at four Naval Shipyards around the world accomplish their goals—return a submarine or Aircraft Carrier back to the Navy Fleet on time and on budget.  We do this by implementing a coaching based leadership change and increased employee engagement initiative in the Shipyards. We accomplish that mission by providing targeted, high-caliber performance coaching for key Shipyard staff via a time-tested embedded methodology.

Employee engagement is an on-going challenge at the Navy’s shipyard.  In most cases, the leadership structure includes older employees with a great deal of experience, and young employees with relatively little experience, and a divide in terms of ways in which to accomplish and motivate work. When we first began work with the shipyards, engagement was assessed to be at an all-time low. Conscient Strategies has been on the forefront of helping close the gap and boosting employee engagement.

Employee engagement is defined as the degree to which employees are motivated to come to work and contribute fully to the organization’s goals.  Further, there are three common attributes which promote employee engagement: vigor, absorption, and dedication. Vigor refers to a high level of energy and persistence. Dedication results from employees finding significance, inspiration, and meaning at work. Absorbed workers are concentrating on their tasks in such a way that it feels like they are in flow and time is passing quickly.  

Promoting employee engagement requires transformational leadership.  Transformational leaders tap into employees’ intrinsic motivation, which is the only sustainable way to drive high levels of commitment and performance. Tapping into intrinsic motivation requires emotionally intelligent leader behaviors.  When emotionally intelligent leader behaviors are exhibited, employees feel safe and experience an optimal level of excitement (not too much and not too little) for sustainably high performance. Conscient Strategies has been coaching and training shipyard leaders to adopt productive behaviors to promote the type of employee engagement described above.