Peter Drucker’s Paths to Creating an Engaged Worker outlines how the Father of Modern Management perceived engagement and how to make it happen. Drucker called out a four prong strategy for engagement that can now be supported by the latest in unified talent management technology:

1. Careful placement and promotion
Job and cultural fit assessment information captured in the recruiting process can now be combined with an enterprise performance management, internal mobility and succession planning system. That structured consistent approach helps ensure that promotions are determined by fair and collective decisions based on experience and performance.

2. Demanding high standards of performance
Performance management that measures goals with performance reviews combined with ongoing goals/reviews rather than annual performance cycles help foster a culture of performance. Challenges are then considered the collective norm rather than the individual exception.

3. Providing workers with information
Performance management that aligns goals from the top down and bottom up provides the continuity of business thought that all employees need to find relevance in their daily tasks. Systems that support cascading goal alignment, ongoing feedback, mobility, and dialogue create an information channel where all employees can measure themselves, their colleagues, and ideally own their part of the business.

4. Encouraging workers to acquire managerial vision
In addition to cascading goal alignment across the enterprise, unified talent management provides visibility into succession planning, career development, and internal mobility. This transparency helps workers understand where the company is going and how their current and futures roles align to the business.

Motivating people: Getting beyond money in McKinsey Quarterly points out that cash is not always king. For those with satisfactory monetary compensation, you can unlock hidden performance with three engagement keys:

“…praise from immediate managers, leadership attention (for example, one-on-one conversations), and a chance to lead projects or task forces…”

All three relate to Drucker’s points when formalized in ongoing performance processes, transparent succession planning, and aligning individual goals with business goals.