Measuring Employee Engagement

Trending seems to be the new buzz word. Today on Twitter, Mischief Managed, Mrs. Wesley, the British Open and Thanking God are all trending. In the world of work, Employee Engagement is definitely trending. 

In a previous position, I managed a large department of 44 people. At one point I had recently promoted members of the team to supervisory positions. Wanting to measure the level of communication and presentation of clear objectives, I sent a survey to all team members soliciting their feedback.  I was pleasantly surprised by the responses (which thankfully meant that I was clearly communicating with my new leadership team – whew).  

If you haven’t solicited feedback from your staff in a while, here are 12 questions  to spark a conversation.  Right Management also has a white paper called How do you engage with, retain and motivate employees? But remember, these kind of questions  can do more harm than good if you don’t take action on any deficiencies that might be uncovered.   

 

The Power Behind the Power Hour

I recently read an article by Tony Schwartz called, Working Harder Doesn’t Get You Ahead.  

By the end of the article he suggested tackling “your most challenging task first thing in the morning, for 60 to 90 minutes, uninterrupted.” I don’t always have free time first thing in the morning. In fact I usually have my first meeting between 8:00 am and 8:30 a.m.  However, it made me think about the list of Guiding Principles (how we define who we want to be and how we conduct ourselves) that my staff and I created last fall, one of which is, Power Hours – Permission to Focus.

The idea behind the “Power Hour” is to block out a specific amount of time to “power” through a task or project. This uninterrupted time can be an hour or it can be thirty minutes, whatever block of time you need depending upon what you hope to accomplish.  Because this is one of our organization’s Guiding Principals, there’s a great deal of consideration given to an individual who is taking their “Power Hour” and encourage team members to do so often. It’s one way we support each other and tackle those projects that have that looming deadline which appeared out of nowhere.

Let’s face it, our work days are busy enough, so giving your self permission to take a “power hour” may provide you with a bit of calm that we all need in our work days. Try it. Schedule a set block of time on your calendar to focus on your project and power through. You’ll be surprised at how much you can get done.

What’s your engagement resolution?

Now that 2009 is in the history books, it’s time to turn our attention towards the prosperity we all hope the new year will bring.  Traditionally, this is a time that we confidently look forward and make resolutions designed to better our health, relationships and lives in general.  Maybe you’ll give up the smokes, or drop those extra pounds that have been hanging around for entirely too long.   I wish you the best!

When it comes to your workplace, your resolutions will take the same level of diligence if you intend to succeed.  Chances are, you’ve already been forced to trim down and are as lean as you can be.  The new battle will be maintaining the staff you’ve fought hard to preserve, and keeping them engaged (or re-engaged) as the job market improves and their alternatives increase. 

According to BlessingWhite President and CEO, Christopher Rice, the following steps should be part of your resolution for success:

1. Quit or commit. You need to decide if you are ready for another year leading your company. You have been bruised, so make sure you are ready for 2010. If feel like you are working at Dunder Mifflin, then you need to move along because you cannot lead unless you are fully engaged. Your employees deserve more than a leader who is half-in.

2. Communicate the vision. You need to create excitement and trust in your leadership. You should highlight the initiatives of 2010 and create faith that your company is on the right path. Your employees now have a choice about where they work. The large majority want more than ‘just a job’. You had better inspire them to be part of your future.

3. Talk about careers again. The top reason employees leave a company is a perceived lack of career opportunities. Don’t be fooled into believing that your leaner organization can’t satisfy those cravings. You have more priority initiatives than employees, so there are plenty of opportunities for individuals to build skill sets, acquire valuable experience, or try something new! When you scratch the surface of what people mean by ‘career’ you often find it’s all about meaningful work and personal growth. Today’s careers are built not on promotions but on assignments.

4. Forget about performance reviews. You need to do ‘engagement reviews’. You already got rid of the people who needed their performance ‘fixed’. And when using the right definition, engagement actually covers off on performance: Fully engaged employees are at their peak — of maximum contribution and maximum satisfaction. When you focus on engagement, results — and retention — follow. Engagement reviews are vastly different in tone from appraisals. There is a lot more dialogue, and the manager is more likely to end up with a rating than the employee. Engagement reviews explore:

a) The strategy of the company
b) The importance of the employee to the success of the team and the company
c) What’s important to that employee (overall job satisfaction, meaning at work)
d) The employee’s career aspirations and growth goals
e) Focus and alignment of the employee’s talents and goals with critical organizational priorities
f) Your own engagement and commitment (unless, of course, you aren’t sure of your answer to ‘commit or quit’ above!)

Your challenge: Your employees don’t wear labels that declare their engagement level on their foreheads. And you can’t assume that the chronic complainer is totally burnt out and disengaged or that the team member who never makes waves is fully satisfied and aligned. Engagement reviews enable you to exchange information to ensure that the employees you rely on are connected to your organization’s larger purpose, getting what they’re looking for at work and applying their unique expertise to carve out a successful future in 2010.  See full story…

Now’s the time to start making sure that your organization is as fit as it can be for the year(s) to come.  The journey to success isn’t a sprint, it’s more of a triathlon.  With the proper training and execution, almost anyone can get there.  Me, I’m going to start by working up to ten sit-ups!

Employee Discontent Expected to Reach Crisis Level Next Year

 Employee turnover is expected to rise next year as a new survey shows that many workers are unhappy with their present jobs. Sixty percent of employees intend to leave and an additional one-in-four are networking and updating their resumes, according to research from Right Management. Right Management is the talent and career management expert within Manpower, the global leader in employment services.

Right Management surveyed more than 900 workers in North America and asked: Do you plan to pursue new job opportunities as the economy improves in 2010?
— 60% – Yes, I intend to leave
— 21% – Maybe, so I’m networking
— 6% – Not likely, but I’ve updated my resume
— 13% – No, I intend to stay

“The study provides a barometer of employee engagement in the workplace, with results that might alarm and surprise many employers,” said Douglas J. Matthews, President and Chief Operating Officer at Right Management. “Employees are clearly expressing their pent up frustration with how they have been treated through the downturn. While employers may have taken the necessary steps to streamline operations to remain viable, it appears many employees may have felt neglected in the process. The result is a disengaged and disgruntled workforce.”

Matthews cautions that the best workers are mobile in any economy. “We know that people are attracted by career development opportunities, attaining work/life balance and working for an innovative company culture. If management doesn’t provide employees with these opportunities, then workers are going to take their knowledge and skills elsewhere. Talented staff can change jobs because they can and want to, not because they have to.”

“As leaders, we need to accommodate different lifestyles and work choices and find ways to balance these with business needs to ensure high levels of productivity and performance,” states Matthews. “This influences how organizations attract, engage and retain talent. A segmented, customized and flexible talent strategy is critical to stem the alarming levels of employee turnover anticipated next year.”

Right Management surveyed 904 employees in North America via an online poll. The survey ran between October 19 and November 5, 2009.

Economic Downturn Rattles Younger Workers While Older Employees Tough It Out

Younger workers are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis, while older employees show greater resiliency in a recession-battered workplace where employers seek to do more with less, according to a new study by Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging & Work.  

The onset of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression has negatively altered perceptions about job security, supervisor support, job quality, inclusion and overall employee engagement in the workplace, according to the new report, “The Difference a Downturn Can Make,” part of the Center’s far-reaching Age & Generations Study. And as businesses strive to cut costs and increase productivity, American workers are reporting they are overloaded.

 Looking across different generations of workers, researchers found employees of all ages reporting a drop in employee engagement, a measure of how invested and enthusiastic employees are in their work. While employees overall report declining engagement, older workers in this study appear to be weathering the economic storm better than their younger peers.

 Workers among “Generation Y” — ages 26 and younger — report the greatest decrease in engagement. Those slightly older workers in “Generation X” — ages 27 to 42 — reported less of a decrease, while Baby Boomers and older “Traditionalists” — ages 43 or older — reported that their levels of engagement hardly changed at all.

 America’s older workers show all the signs of being more resilient in the face of threatening economic conditions, drawing on hard-earned experiences from the downturns of the past and a battle-tested perspective on the peaks and valleys of the market.

 “Some older workers have seen it all, and that gives them experiential resilience,” says Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, director of Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging & Work. “Younger workers just don’t have the depth of experience, which leaves them feeling less engaged in their jobs. But younger workers bring energy, enthusiasm, and idealism. In a workplace where older and younger employees work side-by-side, the give and take between young and old is a valuable resource employers should leverage to survive the downturn.”

 Researchers at Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging & Work report other findings from the Age & Generations study that suggest: 

• Perceptions of engagement, supervisor support, inclusion, and job quality declined after the onset of the economic downturn for employees who felt that their job security had decreased, but it stayed the same or only slightly declined for those whose job security had stayed the same or increased.
• Those whose job security decreased or stayed the same experienced a slight increase in work overload after the onset of the economic downturn, whereas those whose job security increased experienced a slight decrease in work overload.
• Those whose job security decreased perceived a slight decrease in team effectiveness after the onset of the economic downturn, whereas those whose job security increased experienced a slight increase in their perceptions of team effectiveness.
• While younger workers felt the effectiveness of their work team as a whole dropped as their job security declined, older workers felt the effectiveness of their team held steady even though they too reported a decreased sense of job security. 

In tough economic times, the multi-generational American workplace requires employers to take cost-effective steps to support their workers. It isn’t enough for employees to be grateful for their jobs; according to one researcher, employers need to show they are grateful to the employees that keep them in business.

“Employee engagement can be greatly enhanced by simple and cost-efficient efforts,” adds Christina Matz-Costa, research associate at the Sloan Center and one of the study’s authors. “Providing strong training and development opportunities, encouraging work team inclusion, and promoting a culture of workplace flexibility and supervisor supportiveness are all effective strategies that can maintain or boost engagement.”

To download a PDF copy of the full report click here.

Developing the Manager Within

Below is an article that I wrote for the Des Moines Business Record on Talent Management. Specifically on how to manage and help your up-and-comers.

Article:

There is one nice thing about working and living in America – OK, actually there are a few nice things. But one in particular is an individual’s ability to pursue his or her dream. With the right determination and skills, someone who starts in the mailroom could someday end up in the CEO’s office. Or someone who starts on the manufacturing floor a few years later ends up being the production manager running the floor.

There are tons of examples of how this plays out daily in America’s work force. The only requirements to participate are to have a dream, a solid work ethic and the right attitude. Although, with these scenarios there is a problem that might not be evident at first but eventually becomes more apparent.

The problem is twofold. First, companies believe that because someone is great at one thing, he or she will be great at another. For example, some companies believe that if someone is great at sales, he or she should be the sales manager. That is terrible thinking, because it assumes that the person would be a great manager of people. In the case of sales, if people are great at selling, let them sell and leave them where they are.

To continue reading click here.

Samsung Gets the Value of Employee Development and Training, Do You?

Samsung Electronics North America is on a new journey. Although well established as a global organization, it wasn’t until 2007 that Samsung established a full-time training function for its 10,000 employees in North America.”We’re really just starting to look at things like providing learning opportunities to employees at all levels, not just high-potential leaders,” says Randy Mase, director of training and development for Samsung Electronics, a North American subsidiary of Seoul, South Korea-based Samsung Group.

The company is making up for lost time. Samsung is increasing its reliance on e-learning to buttress instructor-led classes. And possibly by the end of 2008, the company plans to issue career maps to all employees.

“As you can imagine, that’s an extensive project. But we think it’s going to give people a vision [for career growth] that will help us with retention—and in the long term, with recruiting as well,” Mase says.

These road maps will spell out the knowledge, skills and experiences employees would need to pursue different assignments at any of Samsung Electronics’ eight North American subsidiaries. But employees who continually develop their skills won’t necessarily be in line for promotion.

“There are lots of ways a person can progress and develop within a job. What we want to do is make people’s jobs richer,” Mase says.

If you are wondering what resources are out there to help you up-skill and develop your employees at an affordable cost, click here.

Engaging Employees Tops Leadership Priorities in Tough Times

Engaging employees to ensure organizational alignment and commitment is the most important leadership practice to achieve business goals in tough business times, according to more than half of senior leaders and human resource professionals surveyed by Right Management.

Right Management polled over 650 senior leaders and HR professionals in North America to gain insight into their most important leadership practices to achieve business goals in tough times. According to the survey, the most important leadership practices are:

• 51% – Engaging employees to ensure organizational alignment and commitment
• 21% – Clearly defining roles and expectations
• 13% – Making efficient and informed personnel decisions
• 15% – Developing current skill base and capabilities within organization

The weak economy and chaotic financial markets are hitting businesses hard and forcing them to make tough people decisions, said Owen Sullivan, CEO of Right Management. “It’s in times of hardship and uncertainty that leaders are investing more in engaging and aligning their employees to reap the utmost commitment, productivity and focus. Leaders know that it’s only the collective talent of their workforces that will pull them through.”

Sullivan notes that in tough times leaders are reconsidering their priorities to ensure the viability of their organizations. “Leaders are being forced to make very tough business decisions in order to not only survive, but to come out stronger. Leaders need to convey difficult messages that help their workforce understand the rationale for current actions while also instilling confidence and commitment so that objectives can be met.”

Click here to read more.

Layoffs an Excuse to Shed Bad Hires?

Nothing is as tricky for hiring directors as making the right employee selection from a field of applicants. Research released by the Washington-based Recruiting Roundtable underscores this point. It finds that either organizations or their newly hired employees wind up regretting their choice. The result: Employees are less committed to their new organizations, costing organizations millions of dollars in lower performance and higher turnover. The study aims to quantify the negative impact of poor hiring decisions. One key factor is that about 40 percent of new employees say the information they received when applying for the job turned out to be “less than accurate.”

The Roundtable study analyzed data from more than 8,500 hiring managers and 19,000 of their most recently hired employees. Three important reasons emerged to explain why companies consistently fail to hire high-quality candidates: “[Companies] over-rely on candidates describing themselves,” rather than forcing them to demonstrate their abilities; organizations don’t “follow a consistent, evidence-based selection decision process”; and employers “fail to provide the candidate with enough information” regarding the true nature of the job.

Hmmm,companies misrepresenting their job and candidates misrepresenting themselves – sounds like business as usual. That is one of the biggest problems when companies allow their managers to hire from “gut” feelings as opposed to any outside measurement of candidate suitiblity.

Are You a 360 Executive, Manager, Worker?

With all the news about layoffs and downsizing I thought I would tackle the subject of relevancy at work. The more relevant you are to your company the better the odds that you won’t be the one being let go. I wrote this for the Iowa Association of Business and Industry.

Article:

At first glance that may seem like a strange question. In actuality, it is probably one of the most important questions you can ask yourself. Can you honestly say, “Yes, I am 360!” Can you honestly say, “I know what it means to be 360.” From what I see, most people in the workforce would have to answer “no” on both.

Your next question would probably be, “what the heck is a 360 and how do I become it?” Being 360 means you understand everything about the business where you work and what’s going on around you. Most managers and executives focus only on their area of supervision and beyond that have a very superficial knowledge. Being 360 means you are fully engaged in the company and trying to understand how everything fits together and how to ultimately derive success.

Click here to continue reading.

Employee Engagement Deteriorates as Financial Crisis Worsens

In the wake of recent economic turmoil, employee engagement figures to be more critical to business health than ever, yet new scientific research shows employee engagement on the decline. A recent national study by Modern Survey has shown employee engagement levels dropping in every category measured, including a 7% decline in the number of employees that say they “take pride in their company.”

A scientific study of national worker opinions by Modern Survey confirms that employee engagement as a whole has clearly declined over the last year. An astonishing 21% of U.S. workers were actively disengaged as of this past August when the study was conducted, a difference of four percentage points from August 2007.

Included in this national study were five questions that measure the extent to which employees take pride in their company, believe they have a promising future at their company, recommend their company as a great place to work, go “above and beyond” their normal job duties to help their company succeed, and intend to stay with their company.

These questions were first posed to a nationally representative sample of the U.S. workforce in August of 2007, then again in August of 2008. The survey was conducted via the internet, and was completed by 1000 U.S. adults (18+ years old) who matched census data in terms of age, gender and region.

All five components of the Engagement Index show erosion in favorability, and organizational pride shows the largest (and most statistically significant) decline over the last year, dropping from 78% favorable in 2007 to 71% in 2008.

Now only about half of respondents said they are willing to put in extra effort to help their company succeed and only about half say they intend to stay with their company for a long time, both figures reflect a five percentage point drop from 2007.

Does Kindness Build Retention and Employee Engagement?

If you feel that your boss is kind, chances are you look forward
to going to work every day, you’re more likely to put in a little
extra effort, and you might even delay that search for a new job. But
if you work for a boss who is a bully, all bets are off. That’s
according to a new survey conducted by American Management Association
(AMA) that examines how a boss’s character affects employee
performance and retention rates.

AMA surveyed 662 members and customers on a number of workplace
issues and character traits. First the good news: 75% of respondents
regarded their supervisors as “kind.” Now the bad news: 14% of
respondents indicated that their supervisors were, in fact, “bullies.”
The remaining 11% were neutral about their boss’s character. According
to the survey results, kind managers are associated with superior
performance in a number of ways.

“The AMA survey clearly shows how employee-manager relationships
influence performance, productivity and even bottom-line results,”
said Edward T. Reilly, president and CEO of American Management
Association. “It’s the law of reciprocity: When a manager shows
concern, his or her employees, in turn, support the manager. They do
this by putting forth a maximum effort, being more dedicated to the
organization, and by helping to achieve corporate goals.”

The AMA survey asked respondents if they plan to work for their
company for a long time. According to the results, 84% of employees
who report to kind managers said yes, whereas only 47% of employees
who report to bullies agreed. Similarly, when asked if respondents
look forward to going to work every day, 74% of employees with kind
bosses said yes, while only 32% of employees with bullies as bosses
agreed.

To see full study click here.

Audio: Gen Y – In Their Own Words – Danielle

After noticing the amount of interest in the Gallup Q12 employee engagement study I decided to take it to the next level. This topic and study by far out ranks any other post on my blog. So with that in mind I set out to make it my own in order to give you insight into what the working generations are really all about. I thought this would be a different twist on the topic instead of me telling you what they think – I decided to let them tell you in their own words. So I re-wrote the Q12 questions and renamed them the N12+ and tried to make them more conversational.

So what you have below is the culmination of that in the form of a recorded discussion between me and a Gen Y’er named Danielle and her thoughts and opinions on what it takes to engage her at work.

If this gathers as much interest as the other generational and employee engagement posts, I will continue to interview and discuss these questions with working members of the other generations as well. So stay tuned.

Click below to listen to my discussion with Danielle:

Playback time for the Audio is 15 minutes.

How to Boost Your Job Satisfaction

You dreamed about an ideal job in which you’d be motivated, inspired, respected and well paid. And for a while, your job may have been all that.

But now it seems the honeymoon is over. You’ve lost your job satisfaction, and you find it harder and harder to get through the workday. And that means your stress is mounting. Learn what you can do to reignite your job satisfaction and reduce your stress.

Why you can lose job satisfaction

Lack of job satisfaction can be a significant source of daily stress. To help get your stress back under control, figure out what exactly has caused you to sour on your job.

Reasons why you may have lost job satisfaction can include:

• Bickering co-workers
• Conflict with your supervisor
• Not being appropriately paid for what you do
• Not having the necessary equipment or resources to succeed
• Lack of opportunities for promotion
• Having little or no say in decisions that affect you
• Fear of losing your job
• Work that you find boring or overly routine
• Work that doesn’t tap into your education, skills or interests

Take some time to think about what motivates and inspires you. You may even want to work with a career counselor to complete a formal assessment of your interests, skills and passions. Then explore some strategies to increase your job satisfaction.

The link between work approach and job satisfaction

Work is often approached from three perspectives. Usually all three perspectives are important for job satisfaction, but one is often the priority:

• It’s a job. If you approach work as a job, you focus primarily on the financial rewards. In fact, the nature of the work may hold little interest for you. What’s important is the money. If a job with more pay comes your way, you’ll likely move on.
• It’s a career. If you approach work as a career, you’re interested in advancement. You want to climb the career ladder as far as possible or be among the most highly regarded professionals in your field. You’re motivated by the status, prestige and power that come with the job.
• It’s a calling. If you approach your job as a calling, you focus on the work itself. You work less for the financial gain or career advancement than for the fulfillment the work brings.

Do you recognize your approach to work? One approach isn’t necessarily better than the others. But it’s helpful to reflect on why you work if you’re unsatisfied with your job and are ready to move on. Think about what originally drew you to your current job, and whether it may be a factor in your lack of job satisfaction.

Strategies to improve your job satisfaction

Depending on the underlying cause of your lack of job satisfaction, there may be several ways to increase your job satisfaction.

Set new challenges
If you’re stuck in a job because of lack of education or a downturn in the economy, it doesn’t mean your work has to become drudgery. With a little imagination, you can create new challenges and make the best of the job you have. Here are some ideas that may help.

• Improve your job skills. Imagining yourself in your dream job, you might envision yourself as an excellent project manager — a confident communicator and a highly organized person. Why not work on these skills in your present job?
• Develop your own project. Take on a project that can motivate you and give you a sense of control. Start small, such as organizing a work-related celebration, before moving on to larger goals. Working on something you care about can boost your confidence.
• Mentor a co-worker. Once you’ve mastered a job, you may find it becoming routine. Helping a new co-worker or an intern advance his or her skills can restore the challenge and the satisfaction you desire.

Beat the boredom
Does your job seem boring sometimes? Do you run out of things to do? If so, your abilities may not match your responsibilities. Here are some suggestions:

• Break up the monotony. Take advantage of your work breaks. Read. Listen to music. Go for a walk. Write a letter.
• Cross-training. Does your work consist of repetitive tasks, such as entering data or working on an assembly line? Talk with your boss about training for a different task to combat boredom. Once you’ve completed the training, you can switch back and forth.
• Volunteer for something different. If you hear that your company is launching a new project, volunteer for the work team.

Keep in mind that boredom can literally be deadly if your job involves working with machinery or caring for people. If your mind wanders to the point that you put your life or the lives of others in jeopardy, take action now. Talk to your supervisor about new challenges you can take on or seek a new position.

Stay positive
Use positive thinking to reframe your thoughts about your job. Changing your attitude about work won’t necessarily happen overnight or increase your job satisfaction overnight. But if you’re alert to ways your view of work brings you down, you can improve your job satisfaction. Try these techniques:

• Stop negative thoughts. Pay attention to the messages you give yourself. When you catch yourself thinking your job is terrible, stop the thought in its tracks.
• Put things in perspective. Remember, everyone encounters good days and bad days on the job.
• Look for the silver lining. “Reframing” can help you find the good in a bad situation. For example, you receive a less than perfect performance appraisal and your boss warns you to improve or move to another job. Instead of taking it personally or looking for another job right away, look for the silver lining. Depending on where you work, the silver lining may be attending continuing education classes or working closely with a performance coach and having the satisfaction of showing your boss that you’re capable of change.
• Learn from your mistakes. Failure is one of the greatest learning tools, but many people let failure defeat them. When you make a mistake at work, learn from it and try again. It doesn’t mean that you’re a failure.
• Be grateful. Gratitude can help you focus on what’s positive about your job. Ask yourself, “What am I grateful for at work today?” If it’s only that you’re having lunch with a friendly co-worker, that’s OK. But find at least one thing you’re grateful for and savor it.

More job satisfaction can mean less stress

Whether your work is a job, a career or a calling, you can take steps to restore meaning to your job. Make the best of difficult work situations by being positive. Doing so will help you manage your stress and experience the rewards of your profession.

Gallup asks 12 Questions to Measure Employee Engagement

Just how effective is your mechanism for collecting feedback on the engagement levels of your workforce?

After hundreds of focus groups and thousands of interviews with employees in a variety of industries, Gallup came up with the Q12, a 12-question survey that identifies strong feelings of employee engagement. 12 key employee expectations that, when satisfied, form the foundation of strong feelings of engagement.

Results from the survey show a strong correlation between high scores and superior job performance.

To see the 12 questions and survey results click here.

The Gallup Q12 is copyrighted by the Gallup organization.

Stop Micromanaging! Five Tips to Help

Stopping micromanaging or the “my way or the highway” type of managing isn’t easy to do, so here are five points to keep in mind as you work to unleash, not limit, the potential of your team.

Remember you’re a leader first, expert second. When you coach your team members to best apply their knowledge and skills, you’re leading. After all, they are experts too. You don’t need to have all the answers. Shift from being an expert to an expert leader of people. Thomson quotes The Leadership Pipeline as she emphasizes the importance of this transition for new leaders: “The most difficult change for first time managers is to learn to value managerial work rather than tolerate it. They must believe that making time for others is a necessary task and their responsibility.”

Keep to the what, not the how. As a leader it’s your job to assign a problem or task (what has to be done) by clearly describing the desired outcome and all the parameters or constraints that your employees need to work within (e.g., scope, timing, resources, decision-making authority, internal politics). Your team members need to process the information you provide and explore ideas to determine the best course of action. Let them apply their creativity and expertise. Wood suggests advance planning as a way to keep to these boundaries: “One Vice President at our firm realized that by thoroughly planning the what — all the background information he thought his team member needed to know to be successful — it’s much easier for him to let the employee own how the work gets done.” Dana Zarnoch agrees with the recommendation, explaining, “A common mistake is that managers think they’re being clear about what they want only to find that they’re not. When their team member says ‘I get it,’ they actually don’t. It’s a frustrating situation for the manager and the employee. Working on the wrong things when you think you’re working on the right things is incredibly demotivating.”

Provide context. Employees also need to understand why their assignment is critical, explains Zarnoch. “Our research indicates that people want to be part of something bigger. That connection to customer and organizational benefits motivates them to do their best work. In addition, when employees understand the business context they make better decisions.”

Ask open-ended questions and listen. Since you’re not directing employees on the how of a task, you need to explore ideas with them. And despite your best intentions you might find yourself talking a lot about your ideas. Wood’s advice for redirecting the conversation is to ask open-ended questions. She says, “Tell yourself, ‘let me stop my mouth, ask a question, and then listen.’ Your team member will immediately re-engage. It doesn’t have to be an awkward situation.”

Know when to tell. There are times when there may not be a lot of options or room for new ideas. Zarnoch cautions, “If there are regulations that restrict the solution or you’re faced with a situation where you absolutely must be directive, don’t waste your team member’s time exploring ideas. As a leader you need to ask when you can, but tell when you have to.”

Micromanaging is a loss for the organization, a frustration for employees, and a waste of your time as a leader. So remember that the best way to achieve results may not actually be your way.

Original Source: BlessingWhite

10 Tips For Engaging Your Employees

Here are ten steps you can take to ensure higher levels of engagement among your team members:

1. Reflect and recharge. Where are you on the engagement spectrum? (See # 9 below for clues.) You can’t help your team much if you’re spinning out of control or disengaged. If you’re not engaged, consider what matters most to you. Then consider where the organization needs you to focus your talents. Can a few job tweaks improve things? If you are fully engaged, how can you “infect” others?

2. Hire “engage-able” team members. One HR leader we interviewed underscored this point: “Our number one problem was lack of fit. We needed to hire people who could be successful. Instead of training square pegs to fit the round hole, we now try to hire round pegs.”

3. Earn trust every day. Trust provides the essential foundation for your effectiveness as a manager, whether we’re talking about engagement, innovation, or high performance. To build it, you need to reveal who you are as a person. Your title and accomplishments aren’t enough.

4. Stress employee ownership. You can’t create an engaged team if your employees don’t have clear visions of personal success. Make sure they know that you’re available to provide guidance, remove barriers, and help them find fulfilling work. However, they are ultimately the ones responsible for their success.

5. Find out where the bus is going — and remind people of the destination. If you’re not clear on your organization’s strategy, find someone who can give you some answers. Demand clarity — you owe it to yourself and to your team. Once you are clear, help your team members understand their role and prioritize the myriad tasks they face each day to achieve meaningful results.

6. Remember that feedback is a gift. Employees want feedback. They deserve information that can help them achieve their goals and the organization’s. Let them know what they do well so they can keep doing those things with confidence. Suggest course corrections to help them use their time and effort most efficiently.

7. Talk and listen more. Communication (especially in today’s email-driven workplace) is often one-way. Conversation, on the other hand, is about dialogue between two or more people. Conversation drives clarity. It is by far the most effective vehicle for providing performance feedback. It is the only way to efficiently generate new ideas for increasing business results and personal job satisfaction. It helps prevent misunderstandings. It builds trust.

8. Match projects, passion, and proficiency. Every person comes to work with a different combination of personal values, talents, and goals, which they are looking to satisfy on the job. They don’t necessarily want a lofty title, a higher salary, or your job. If you can help them connect what’s important to them with what’s important to the organization, you can make a positive impact on their job satisfaction, commitment, and contribution.

9. Get to know your team members. You don’t need to be their friend. You do need to know what makes them tick. Where are they on the engagement spectrum? Pay attention. Ask questions. More than three-quarters (79%) of employees in North American don’t qualify as “fully engaged.” They are:

• Almost Engaged: Among the high performers and reasonably satisfied with their job. They have the shortest distance to travel to reach full engagement, but are also at risk of jumping ship if the offer is right.
• Honeymooners and Hamsters, who contribute little to the success of the organization. Honeymooners are new to the organization (or to their role) and aren’t yet fully productive. Hamsters may work hard but are focused on the wrong things (they’re not “going anywhere,” like hamsters running on a spinning wheel).
• Crash & Burners: Disillusioned and near exhaustion. They are top producers who are not satisfying their personal definition of success and satisfaction. If left alone, they may slip into disengagement and bring down the morale of those around them.
• Disengaged: The most disconnected to organizational priorities, who are not getting what they want from their work. They may stick around because of what they get (a decent paycheck or favorable job conditions) but they’ll contribute minimally. Some disengaged employees will leave, but more likely they’ll just talk about leaving — and bring everybody else down.

10. Tailor your coaching strategies. Invest in your Almost Engaged team members, providing feedback, more resources when possible, and continuous opportunities to excel. Get your Hamsters on the right track if they are happily lost or spur them into action if they’re coasting by providing or by reinforcing expectations and communicating changes. Help the Honeymooners understand their top priorities and discuss what they specifically need to do to be successful on the job. Take a timeout with the Crash & Burners to take stock of how they’re feeling and clarify what personal success looks like to them. Then provide more resources if you can, development opportunities, feedback, and perspective when competing priorities loom large. Size up your Disengaged. You may need to coach some out of the organization for their own good… and yours. Spell out expectations with the rest, take stock of their interests and talents, and try to provide opportunities for them to do work that matters. And don’t take the Engaged for granted. Full engagement is hard to sustain on one’s own. Nurture them, recognize them, stretch them, and develop them. Keep them involved.

But remember, as a manager — the catalyst for successful workforce engagement — you need to be enthused and in gear in your own job every day. Now scroll up and re-read Tip #1!