From The EarthAsylum Leadership Circle Newsletter

The Power of Employee Engagement - Part 2

In the last article on employee engagement, we talked about what engagement is, the relationship between employee engagement, high performance, and company growth, and the cost of low employee engagement levels.

In this article, I want to focus on what a manager can and needs to do to raise levels of engagement. But first, let's build a little on the definition of Employee Engagement ...

We stated in the last article that employee engagement is "the extent to which employees put discretionary effort into their work, in the form of extra time, energy and brainpower". A good definition to be sure but there's more to it than that.

Employee engagement can be broken down into two areas - the first being emotional and the second, rational. Within these we can define 9 core statements that characterize engagement.

The 9 Core Statements of Engaged Employees

Emotional

1. I would recommend my company to a friend as a good place to work.
2. My company inspires me to do my best work.
3. I am proud to tell others I work for my company.
4. My job provides me with a sense of personal accomplishment.
5. I really care about the future of my company.

Rational

1. I understand how my unit contributes to the success of my company.
2. I understand how my role is related to my company's overall goals, objectives, and direction.
3. I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond what is normally expected to help my company succeed.
4. I am personally motivated to help my company be successful.

Obviously, an employee who would make these statements is highly engaged, but our topic today is how to increase the level of engagement in those employees who would not make these statements.

Managers Make The Difference

As was concluded in part 1, the most critical element to employee engagement is the front-line manager.

1. Managers need to discover and develop employees' talents if they want to keep them engaged.
2. Employees must have a strong relationship with, and clear communication from, their manager.
3. Managers have to challenge employees within their areas of talent, and then help them gain the skills and knowledge they need to build their talents into strengths.
4. Managers should help employees develop ownership of their goals, targets, and milestones, so employees can enhance their contributions to the company and increase their impact.

But saying it doesn't get it done. Managers need to know how to do these things and, sad to say, most MBA programs don't teach it.

Additionally, managers cannot do it alone. The organization must adopt a "talent management" culture in order to make engagement initiatives successful.

That being said, let's look at a few critical fundamentals that will lead to positive results.

Four Fundamental Actions Leading to Positive Results

1. Clarify Expectations

Create Goal Statements that formalize the following:

• What is to be accomplished
• Who will be involved
• When the activity will be completed
• How much it costs and which resources will be used

Evaluate work against measurable standards

-Positive Results will most likely include:

 

2. Don't Leave Employees Out Of The Plan

Even the best plan can fail if the employees are not committed to it
Get Commitment
Get Accountability

-Positive Results will most likely include:

 

3. Meet On An On-Going Basis To Share Feedback

Increase effectiveness of communication
Increase competence and confidence
Increase productivity and accuracy
Encourage a higher standard

-Positive Results will most likely include:

 

4. Providing Factual / Behavior-Specific Feedback

Give specifics and facts of performance
Be clear about what changes are needed
Provide objective guidance and direction
Focus on behavior vs. attitudes or personal characteristics
Solve problems and move forward

-Positive Results will most likely include:

 

Conclusion

The four fundamentals outlined above are only a starting point, albeit a good starting point. They are generic to the desires and talents of individual employees but are essential to all employees. As you know, management cannot be covered in an article or even a series of articles. It is far too complex an issue. But by successfully implementing a handful of procedures, managers can achieve dramatic results leading to higher levels of engagement.

In the future, we'll go beyond the fundamentals and talk about Strengths Based Performance, intrinsic motivation, the power of empowerment - and how these topics relate directly to employee engagement and the bottom line.

 

The Value of Reflection

Anaïs Nin, in a more lucid moment wrote:

“We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

As we go through each day, our experiences and observations change us. So what we didn’t see yesterday we may see today, but only if we are consciously going over the old material in our heads and are challenging what we think about ourselves on a daily basis.

Unless we make a conscious effort to break this cycle, we will continue to reproduce yesterday’s thinking.

It is a self reinforcing cycle that gets us nowhere. Left alone, this mental inertia will cause us to miss the benefit of our experiences, our observations, and self study. We will instead, quite often find ourselves applying the same old excuses over and over again.

Our growth depends on the questions we ask about ourselves, not the answers we habitually get.

 

Reward Your Boss

In the best seller book One Minute Manager, we were told that a manager should try to “catch someone doing something right,” and then give that someone a “one minute praise.”

Roger A. Golde, on the other hand, tells us that bosses are not the only people who can give praise to others. Everybody can give praise to his or her boss, too.

In “Muddling Through, The Art of Properly Un-businesslike Management,” Golde advises you to “take care of your boss! The next one may be worse.” He says, “If we expect our bosses to be the mythical managers portrayed in bossolgy, we doom ourselves (and quite possibly our bosses) to constant disappointment and frustration. We must expect the boss to have important shortcomings for  which in large measure we (as direct reports) will have to compensate.”

“So, on those rare occasions when the boss in fact does something right,” Golde advises, “we ought to feel pleased or even grateful instead of the “It’s about time,” attitude.

Every now and then, we might even startle the boss by offering a word of encouragement or thanks.

 

Longing for the Sea: Employee Involvement

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea."

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sometimes managers complain that the people working with them, or those of other departments, are not involved enough in the business and do not show enthusiasm about their work. These managers often say that some employees "just don't care."

Successful leadership is one that enables people to exercise and enjoy greater freedom at work. The more freedom to decide how to do one's work to achieve the defined objectives the more involved and energetic the employee is.

About The EarthAsylum Leadership Circle

The EarthAsylum Leadership Circle is a business networking, support, and educational association started in January 2006 by six friends and family members who wanted a way to develop their own and other's leadership abilities.

We strive to understand and develop leadership skills and talent in a way that transcends trends and looks beyond short-term goals. We see our mutual role as supporting individuals and organizations in achieving effective and transformational leadership through life affirming and supporting practices.

Find out more at www.EarthAsylum.org...

 

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Find out more at www.EarthAsylum.net...

 

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