Employee Engagement: 4 Engagement Hacks for the Innovative Manager

(Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series on employee engagement.)

Now let’s discuss some options for increasing the level of positive engagement in your work environment.

Most agree that employers and employees share responsibility for the factors that create an engaging work environment. In a recent survey conducted by Training magazine and The Ken Blanchard Companies, individual respondents saw it as their primary responsibility to improve the factors of:

Meaningful WorkAutonomyWorkload BalanceTask VarietyCollaborationConnectedness with LeaderConnectedness with Colleagues

They saw their managers as primarily responsible for improving the factors of Feedback, Procedural Justice (Fairness), and Performance Expectations, and they saw senior leadership and systems as responsible for Growth and Distributive Justice.

It is critical that employees understand where they have the power to control their own destiny, and when they need to speak up if a system is broken and needs to be changed.

Social networks help with engagement because they facilitate an employee’s ability to publish content and connect easily with co-workers and managers.  The latest in intranet technology is what I call a super-intranet, which is designed to be a welcoming source of information and support as well as a hub for real-time interaction.

A wonderful example of a well-executed super-intranet is NASA’s Spacebook.  Launched in 2009, Spacebook is a professional network that lets NASA people around the world interface with each other through the use of user profiles, forums, groups, and social tagging. Employees have their own pages where they can publish their own status, share files, follow others’ activity, and join communities of interest.  Spacebook aids the discovery of new ideas and approaches and encourages knowledge transfer as shifting demographics threaten NASA’s ranks.

Given the number of virtual employees in most modern organizations, paying special attention to their engagement is essential.  The most effective virtual teams have access to sophisticated collaboration tools so that project work is efficient and seamless, and they use instant messaging, videoconferencing and super-intranets like Spacebook to converse in real time.

The best virtual teams have also met in person more than once. Because they have had the opportunity to build in-person relationships, they are less likely to experience misunderstandings and breeches of trust.  Engaged virtual teams also know and communicate with their manager well.  Weekly check-ins and occasional visits support the virtual team member’s affiliation with and loyalty to the organization.

Employers are beginning to recognize that one progressive and linear path in which all employees move from Points A to B to C it out of sync with many individuals’ desire for a life cycle-focused career.  For example, many aging Baby Boomers are opting to dial-back and work part-time instead of fully retiring so that they can continue to contribute brainpower while setting aside time for health and family concerns.

Deloitte believes that long-term employee engagement and retention will result from a new method of career design it calls mass career customization.  Through a combination of climbs, lateral moves, and planned descents, individuals are able to pursue personal and professional goals while remaining tied to the organization.  Although career customization sounds like it would be difficult to implement, it really starts one manager to employee conversation at a time.

What are your engagement hacks?  What do you do as an individual and as a manager to keep your team energized and committed?

(Photo credit: Businesswoman Drawing Out Innovation via Shutterstock)

Alexandra Levit is a career and workplace expert at the Intuit Quickbase Blog, a daily source for advice on how to be exceptional at your job. You can follow her on Twitter at @alevit.

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Employee Engagement: What Is It Anyway?

(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two part series on employee engagement.)

Now that the job market is improving somewhat, organizations have started to think more about retention, and the concept of “employee engagement” is being bandied about in offices across North America and Europe.  But what exactly is employee engagement, how do you know if you have it, and why should anyone care?

Let’s begin with a simple definition. Employee engagement is a person’s degree of attachment to their company, role, and co-workers.  When employees are engaged, managers don’t have to force them to perform or monitor every task.  Rather, they are intrinsically motivated to do what’s in the best interest of the organization and can be trusted to do terrific work.

Employee engagement is not the same thing as employee satisfaction.  The latter term was invented during the industrial age, when factory owners needed to ensure that masses of angry workers didn’t mutiny.  Satisfied employees don’t treat the organization as part of their family like engaged employees do, but they also aren’t gunning for its demise.

To some extent, it’s easy to tell if an employee puts in that intangible but emotionally charged extra effort on the job.  But for those who like metrics, the good news is that there are many reliable ways to measure employee engagement.  Gallup, for one, has based its survey model on more than 30 years of in-depth behavioral economic research with 17 million employees.

The company’s researchers identified 12 core elements, which they called the Q12, that predict employee and team performance and also link to essential business outcomes.  The questions include:

Do you know what is expected of you at work? Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right? At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages your development? At work, do your opinions seem to count? Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important? Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work? Do you have a best friend at work? In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress? In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

It’s easy to create a similar questionnaire to track engagement in your organization. You can ask these questions monthly, quarterly, or annually and have employees rate how much they agree or disagree on a scale of 1 to 5.

It has been well demonstrated that the advantages of an engaged workforce include increased productivity, retention, and customer satisfaction.

Engaged firms have higher profits too.  According to the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study, high-engagement firms grow their earnings-per-share (EPS) at a faster rate (28 percent) while low-engagement firms experienced an average EPS growth rate decline of 11.2 percent.  Likewise, HR consulting firm Hewitt Associates found that highly engaged firms had a shareholder return that was 19 percent higher than average.

Even the organizational psychologists are singing the praises of employee engagement.  A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology claimed that resulting impact on revenue ranged from $960,000 to $1,440,000 per year per business unit when comparing those companies in the top quartile on employee engagement versus those companies in the bottom quartile.

On the flip side of employee engagement is employee disengagement, and this presents an even bigger issue.  Before continuing with the discussion of disengagement, let’s characterize three types of employees:

Actively engaged: These employees are always looking for ways to improve and work more efficiently.  They go above and beyond the call of duty to exceed expectations so that the company is more successful.

Not actively engaged: These employees show up to work and do their jobs, and leave as soon as the clock strikes 5PM.  They may be happy enough with their work, but have no desire to excel or help take the organization to new heights.

Actively disengaged:  These employees are holding a grudge against the organization and look to undermine it at every turn.  They are the most dangerous because their negative attitude is contagious and can result in very real performance and morale problems.

In the U.S., the estimated cost of disengagement in the workplace, which includes the actively disengaged and the not actively engaged, is over $350 billion in lost productivity, accidents, theft and turnover each year.  Gallup recently found that approximately 71 percent of American workers are not actively engaged or actively disengaged.

When you consider these numbers, it’s no surprise that the majority of employees would be happy to leave their current organizations if a better opportunity presented itself.  And this is going to be expensive.  According to Ross Blake in his article Employee Retention: What Employee Turnover Really Costs Your Company, talent replacement costs an organization between 30 and 50 percent of the annual salary of entry-level employees, 150 percent of middle-level employees and up to 400 percent for specialized, high level employees.

Hopefully you’re now convinced of the need to address employee engagement with a fresh eye.  Later this month, we’ll explore some ways managers can improve team member engagement.

(Photo credit: Business Engaged via Shutterstock)

Alexandra Levit is a career and workplace expert at the Intuit Quickbase Blog, a daily source for advice on how to be exceptional at your job. You can follow her on Twitter at @alevit.

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5 Management Practices That Kill Employee Productivity

Effective leaders set their teams up for success. This requires that they avoid any management practices that could potentially kill employee productivity. Inept leadership styles come in all flavors, from the disorganized or forgetful boss to the extreme micromanager. Here are five practices that are guaranteed to sink your workers’ efficiency — and the alternatives to supercharge it.

Fear is a powerful motivator, but managers who regularly threaten job security and employees’ livelihood run the risk of paralyzing their team. Employees who are afraid to lose their job may bow under pressure, waste company time looking for jobs “just in case” or gossip with coworkers — all activities that kill morale and decrease productivity.

Instead, cultivate a culture centered on trust, respect and engagement. Such a work environment encourages growth, learning from one’s mistakes and effective communication. Engaged workers who aren’t afraid of being fired can relax and focus on doing their best work. Similarly, disengaged workers can destroy team morale from within.

Managers should praise publicly and counsel privately. Criticizing a team member in front of his peers is embarrassing for him; it also has an awkward, demotivating effect on his coworkers, who may now be fearful to make a mistake.

If you need to counsel an employee, do so in a way that won’t attract attention or distract others. This is especially important in offices with glass-walled meeting rooms or open floor plans, where it’s easy for others to see and hear sensitive meetings.

When I worked in an open-plan office, I’d initiate all one-on-one “development” meetings with an instant message or a short email that explained why I wanted to speak with the team member. Then I’d approach the employee and say something like, “Hey, let’s go take a walk. Will you be free in 10 minutes?” We’d then head to a nearby park, where we could speak freely. Because the company had cultivated a culture of trust, feedback and engagement (see No. 1), employees learned to look forward to these “walks” as opportunities to improve.

Managers who hold the strings in every regard aren’t leaders — they’re tyrants. Employees who are mere pawns can quickly become disengaged; they have little incentive to go above and beyond in any particular task.

Employees who have ownership over a project are emotionally vested in its success. That small measure of recognition builds accountability. An employee who is the point person for a project may go above and beyond to coordinate his teammates, meet project deadlines and communicate their progress with you.

What practices separate your peak performers from your average performers? Ineffective leaders micromanage top performers or ignore their prowess altogether, essentially getting in their way or demotivating them.

Good managers recognize and acknowledge high-performance workers. Give these team members responsibilities that best leverage their skills. Meet with these individuals and ask what tools they need to do their very best work. Try to understand their work processes and how they may differ from the rest of your team.

Managers love meetings because it enables them to catch up on projects and disseminate instructions to key team members all at once. Many employees hate meetings because they’re poorly managed, irrelevant to their work responsibilities or held at a time of day that isn’t conducive to a long attention span. This disconnect between managers’ needs to stay “in the loop” and employees’ distaste for meetings can add up to energy lulls and decreased productivity.

Try these tips to running effective meetings to alleviate productivity loss in your office.

In an office setting primed for productivity, every leader would intuitively know how to manage their teams to peak efficiency. By avoiding these management practices, managers will be five steps closer to that optimal environment.

(Photo credit: Businessman Office via Shutterstock)

Marissa Brassfield is ridiculously efficient. She's a productivity expert, high-performance author and communication efficiency specialist whose workshops help cutting-edge teams do more in less time. Connect with Marissa on Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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