Winning the Employee Engagement Battle

The state of worldwide workplace environments and company culture is not a healthy picture.  In fact, it is downright dreadful.

The way we’re working is not working. Even if you are lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing make much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet you’re still answering emails until you fall asleep.

Increasingly, this experience is more becoming commonplace. It's not just with larger organizations or even middle mangers, but also to with top executives. This is a huge issue facing many organizations today.  That problem is the lack of engagement. Just 30 percent of employees in America feel engaged at work, according to a 2013 Gallup report. Around the world, across 142 countries, the proportion of employees who feel engaged at work is just 13 percent.  Additional studies reveal that two-thirds of workers do not feel that they have a strong work culture, while 66% of all employees do not see opportunities for professional growth.  Only 21% of workers feel valued in their workplace.  These are indeed very sobering trends!  Is it a wonder that Gallup found that 87% of the global workforce disengaged?

For most of us,  work is a depleting, dispiriting experience, and it’s getting worse.  Organizations are spending huge amounts of money to support employees who are going through the motions biding their time or who just want to quit.  That equates to lost individuals, lost opportunities, lost productivity and lost revenue. Money does not buy engagement, people who care and commit to listening, sharing and taking action do.

Demand for our time is increasing exceeding our capacity – draining us of the energy we need to bring our skill and talents fully to life. Increased competitiveness and a leaner, post-recession work force add to the pressures. The rise of digital technology is perhaps the biggest influence, exposing us to an unprecedented flood of information and requests that we feel compelled to read and respond to at all hours of the day and night.  The problem also stems from managers who are diffused and have no idea on how to engage their teams, as well as top leadership who are consumed with quarterly returns and not the success and livelihood of their most valued asset their people.

I understand these problems are not simple to solve.  Let me offer some thoughts on ways to begin to move forward.  The organization's CEO needs to become the Chief Engagement Officer daily, being authentic and true to their values, setting the vision and the culture that moves the company to an employee centric organization.  Middle managers need to be trained with new skill sets to assist this movement down into the company. In fact, we all need to take responsibility to learn new skills and lead.

The battle for employee engagement can also begin with these 3 steps: A commitment to listening, followed by a commitment to sharing and then committing to taking action.  Let's  look at these briefly.

• Commitment to listening ~ companies invest in annual employee survey's to get feedback.  Frankly, this is not enough.  To offer more rapid and actionable feedback survey's need to be weekly or bi-weekly.  How can that be done? Leaders taking the necessary time to ask their employees what's affecting them and regularly having these conversations while effectively clarifying and listening to gather information that really makes a difference.

• Commitment to sharing ~ How often does collected employee survey data go into a black hole? Whether the information is good or bad letting people know that they have been heard shows that you are absorbing their feedback.  Keep sharing regularly.  Repeat and refine step 1.

• Commitment to taking action ~ It is not enough to know your employee's pain points, you need to take action.  Leaders can easily create an action plan with quick, easy wins and harder more substantive wins.  Quick wins begin to build momentum while buying time, energy and other resources to tackle the harder issues that will really pay dividends. Celebrate the wins by repeating steps 1 and 2.   Think of it this way: Enable, Engage, Empower, Enhance.

Finally, here might be another starting point. In First Break All The Rules, business consultants Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman drew from Gallup Organization interviews with more than a million employees over a 25 year period to come up with 12 questions that “measure the core elements needed to attract, focus and keep the most talented employees.”  These questions are:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work? 2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? 3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? 4. In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work? 5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? 6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development? 7. At work, do my opinions seem to count? 8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important? 9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? 10. Do I have a best friend at work? 11. In the last 6 months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress? 12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

By paying attention to questions such as these, astute managers and leaders can look through their performers’ window and better help them improve engagement and performance.  As Buckingham and Coffman discovered, “those employees who responded more positively to the 12 questions also worked in business units with higher levels of productivity, profit, retention and customer satisfaction.”

What do you think of these questions? What one step can you take or how would you begin to break through your behaviors to begin addressing your team and individuals with intention, purpose and determined emotion? We would love to hear from you with comments or questions. Send me a note via email at brad@aperiocoaching.net or on Twitter @bparcells.