Engaged employees are more productive, more profitable and more customer focused, so how good are we at ensuring the workers genuinely feel appreciated?
by Ian Redmond
21 February 2008
It may be seen as an obvious step, yet engagement of employees is not as commonplace as you would like to think. In First, break all the rules (Simon and Schuster, 1999) and in the April 2002 edition of the Journal of Applied Psychology (Gallup) research demonstrated how engaged employees are more productive. It also showed engaged employees as more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave. So, how do we engage with our employees within our business?
1 Communicate
Share your knowledge (as much as you are able) with your staff. Knowledge is not power – it’s what you do with it that matters. Tell people what you can, explain when you can’t, and welcome their feedback, thoughts and ideas.
Ensure that you know your audience and adapt your message accordingly so that it has the best chance of being understood and accepted by everyone. Keep it simple – use plain and direct language to help staff concentrate on your message rather than deciphering the words you are using. Reinforcing the message and check that you’ve been understood – repetition, repetition, repetition! Re-emphasize key points to get the message across clearly. Request feedback to ensure there are no misunderstandings. Remember to listen: good communication is a two-way process.
Be credible and make sure you do what you say you are going to do or you will have to work twice as hard in future to make your staff believe you.
2 Interest
How well do you know your staff on a personal level? Imagine the benefits to your team or business if you took more time and effort to connect with each individual. Why would a member of staff want to take more responsibility within the business if their manager didn’t do this? Building relationships is not an optional extra to be squeezed in each month when the ‘diary card’ arrives; it’s a cornerstone of your success as a manager: build rapport.
3 Atmosphere
What do you do to create an atmosphere that encourages an engaged workforce? What actions are you guilty of that discourage employees from getting more involved? Top managers know that their every thought, word and action is responsible for creating the culture – good or bad. They allow staff to empower themselves, they establish clear boundaries, involve staff in decisions and reviewing performance and they encourage staff to challenge processes etc constructively. They take genuine pleasure in other people and their success and look for opportunities to celebrate successes. They understand that, as a manager, their success is our success.
4 Value
People become genuinely engaged in activities when they have an interest in them. The more they can contribute the more you increase the opportunity to generate an interest. How much opportunity do you create for your staff to participate in decisions, planning, idea generation and following through on action plans? Remember the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
5 Expectations
How clear are your employees about what you expect of them? Our experience suggests that there is always opportunity to improve in this area. We recently ran an Expectation Exchange exercise as part of a team building programme with some fascinating results. We helped the team describe what they expected from each other in specific situations, producing clear gaps which were leading to dissatisfaction from both sides. By the end, the team in this example understood each others positions better and got rid of a few hindering differences between the team and the manager which improved their team working approach
6 Feedback
When was the last time you provided each member of your team with some personal and motivating feedback? How often do you do this? Catching people doing things right is just as important as correcting feedback. Employees who understand what is expected of them and know how well they are performing against these expectations are more likely to feel cared for at work and perform better.
Ian Redmond is a director with Explore Training and Development
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