Posts Tagged ‘employee engagement’

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A New Year’s Letter to Employees: Watch, Ask, Think

Monday, December 30th, 2013

At the start of each new year, I like to draft a letter to employees from management – offering a perspective that brings in the new year in a more significant way. Last’s year’s letter was about asking employees to commit to being better – at work, home and with the planet. By each of us committing to improve in every area of our lives, we can affect significant change.

This year’s letter is about asking questions. See, all the information employees need to show up more significantly in their jobs comes from asking powerful and important questions. Most employees, however, feel that management is supposed to provide all the information, or the workplace culture doesn’t openly encourage employees to challenge or ask. We need their eyes, ears, thoughts and questions to gather information to build an exceptional organization. This year’s letter is about encouraging employees to get good at asking questions and using the information gathered for great action. Please use this with your employees if you like the message.

 

To My Employees,

A new year is here. This is a great time for us to recommit to our organization’s vision, to our customers and to our employees.

Our success happens when we are clear about our direction, have accurate information, then build and implement our plan. All successful plans start with knowing the facts, challenging things that don’t work and inventing new possibilities. To get the facts, we have to become masters at asking powerful and meaningful questions– to expand what we know and to develop new and stronger actions to be extraordinary in 2014.

This year, don’t accept things as they are. Ask how they can be bigger, bolder and better. Ask how you can share ideas with others, invent new things and expand our influence as an organization. Get comfortable asking great questions then using what you learn to make us better.

Here are some examples of questions to ask in the workplace:

1. What is one thing I can do today that will connect me more significantly to my team, solve a challenge, inspire and engage another, save money, invent a new idea, improve my performance, tell our organization’s story, offer feedback, be open to feedback, etc.?

2. How can we make our contact with our customers more of an “event” so they become more impressed and more loyal?

3. What are two ways to save X% from our spending on ___________?

4. What is it that makes our workplace a great place to work, and how can we do more of it? What challenges our workplace as a great place to work and what can we change to improve it?

In this process of asking powerful workplace questions, you will see the value of asking powerful life questions to help you show up more significantly in all aspects of your life. Thank you for your effort, dedication and commitment to excellence.

Wishing you and your families a happy, healthy and successful 2014.

Best regards,

Your Manager

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Only Some People Are Talented

Monday, November 18th, 2013

This is what an employee of a client of mine said to me this week. He continued, “And that we should only hire the talented people.”

This is worthy of a conversation. All people are talented.Each person has unique abilities that make him or her amazing at some things and very average at others. No one person is amazing at everything. Aligning employees’ abilities to areas that need what they do best and they will earn the title “talented” – capable, awesome, expert.

Another way to say this is that only some people fit the job. Only some people have the unique abilities that match the abilities needed to successful and consistently do the activities needed in the job. This is how to define talent – right abilities and fit for the job. Obviously, knowing how to define these abilities needed in the job allows companies to better source people who have what it takes to succeed in the job.

As a workplace coach and human capital consultant, I still see most organizations still rely on experience as the primary criteria from which to hire. The thinking is that if someone has been able to do the job in the past (mind you we don’t know at what level), they will therefore be able to do the job in my workplace.

But the statistics about employee engagement from the Gallup Organization shares that only 29% of employees show up proficient, passionate and engaged in their work. This low percentage happens because most employees are in jobs that don’t align to their core or best abilities – they don’t feel or act talented.

To be successful in today’s workplace, employees have to be good at the job (they have the right talents and abilities for the job) and like doing it (they have an interest or passion in the job). Just having experience doesn’t mean that an employee is both good at the job and likes doing it. I have spoken to many employees who move from job to job, blaming the companies when the real problem is they choose a job that they have experience in but no real interest or aptitude in.

A waitress I met a couple of months ago said it best. I was asking about items on the menu because I have some food allergies. She told me that I had to take the food the way they prepare it or I could leave. I asked what she thought that response would do for my loyalty; she quickly said she didn’t care. She said she has been working as a waitress for 25 years and has always hated that people want to make changes to the menu. She even offered that doesn’t like people.

On the resume this waitress had the experience. In the real world, she doesn’t have the talents for this job; she doesn’t fit. So if experience continues to be the lead criteria instead of talents and behaviors, this candidate would have looked like a likely high performer. True, if management knows about talent-based interviewing, there is a chance she could be found out in the interview process. But more than likely, she would be hired and then brought the same disappointing service to the new establishment’s customers. Though she has talents (because we all do) hers do not align to a job that puts her in regular face-to-face contact with others.

So, it is not true that only some people are talented. It is true, however, that only some people fit the job because of the thinking, talents and passions needed in the job to perform at a successful level. Define the talents needed in the job. Source those who have both the experience AND the talents and you access what it takes to create loyal and engaged employees.

For more information on rethinking your hiring or job alignment process, contact one of our Fire Up! workplace coaches, or see the tools and programs at FireUpYourEmployees.com.

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“Don’t Sit This One Out”

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

“Don’t sit this one out,” is a statement one of my CEO clients says to his staff. He continues, “Show up, step up and stand out – there is no room for any employee to sit out anything in the workplace.”

Statistics still show that employee engagement is still a problem. According to the Gallup Organization, fifty-two percent of employees do just enough not to get fired – they are disinterested in and disengaged from their work.Add to that 19% of employees who actively hate their jobs and then number of average performers moves to over 70% – employees who choose to “sit this one out” – to not show up passionate, committed and focused on performing. What kind of company can you have when more than two thirds of your employees choose not to bring their A-game to work?

Employee engagement – the discretionary effort employees bring to their work – continues to be a problem in many companies. Let me share some of what this CEO has implemented in his company to encourage his people not to sit this one out.

1. He ensures information moves freely. Create an obstacle to information and both engagement and performance suffer. A-level employees want to work in organizations that share all information – the important and the trivial – so employees are constantly informed. It is hard to be engaged and excited about work if you don’t what is true or what is happening next. Increase management communication with employees; create an intranet, send a weekly email or host team meetings. Insist that information not only be timely and accurate, but that all employees be part of the information flow.

2. He ensures performance expectations are clear. A particular form of information that needs to be absolutely clear is performance expectations. Performance expectations define the performance “done right” – this is so employees know what the completed task done well looks like. With the clarity of expectations, the employee now has the ability to determine how to achieve the expectation – employees have a performance voice and ownership in the process. Ownership increases engagement.

3. He ensures that all employees contribute improvement ideas. Train employees to be opportunity-hunters; have them regularly review every aspect of the business and suggest ways to add greater value, improve the quality of the service event or anticipate a future challenge. Applaud employees for their ability to watch, connect and focus on ways to improve.

4. He ensures everyone is held accountable. By training managers to become more coach-like, employees are held more accountable for not only their results, but their thinking. Managers are trained in how to coach their employees – how to ask more questions to help them generate their solutions and own their performance.Shifting managers’ mindsets out of telling into asking and holding accountable shifts the role of manager throughout the organization.

In great organizations, committed to doing great work, there is no room for anyone to sit any part of the day out.These organizations hire based on talent, define performance expectations, move information freely, think innovatively and hold each other accountable. These steps are intentional – to raise the performance and engagement of each employee.

How engaged are your employees and what are you doing to constantly improve it? If your team is close to the national average where 70% of employees are in some form of disengagement, what will you do today to change things? When it comes to employee performance and engagement, you just have to get it right.

Need help engaging and inspiring great performance from your team? , we are certified workplace coaches who have developed the Fired Up! Process - talent-based tools to help you attract, hire and retain today’s best employees. We can help.

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Performance = Personal Energy X Engagement

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

“Personal energy is the single most valuable asset in business today.” Robin Sharma

Your people are your profits. Your business is successful (or not) because of the energy and engagement level of your employees. And as managers and leaders, you have the ability to influence this. You can’t control your employees’ energy and engagement, but you can inspire both.

Consider that “energy” is the degree of effort, and the attitude and outlook that an employee chooses to bring to work (it is a choice). Consider that “engagement” is the degree of interest, willingness and ability that an employee has in his work. So performance is then equal to the energy times the engagement – or, the effort times the interest.

Notice that we as managers have a greater ability to affect engagement more than energy because we can realign employees into roles to better connect them to their abilities.  Employees, however, choose their energy levels. Improving this takes more specific effort than improving engagement.

To see how these attributes impact performance, draw a graph where the horizontal line is labeled “energy” and mark it low on the left, high on the right. Label the vertical line “engagement” and mark low on the bottom, high on the top. This is the engagement and energy grid that can be divided into four quadrants.

Quadrant 1: low energy, low engagement. These employees bring little to the job. They show up with neither effort nor interest – they have low energy about the job and don’t have the right abilities to do the job well. This is generally due to a job and culture that doesn’t fit the employee, and an employee who may be more negative, cynical and complaining – not just about the job. Which of your employees are here?

Quadrant 2: high energy, low engagement. These employees have a positive outlook and bring great energy to the workplace but they don’t succeed because their abilities don’t fit the abilities of the job (right attitude, wrong talents). Employees become disengaged when they don’t feel capable and competent (this can move them back to Quadrant 1 – low energy, low engagement). Realigning this employee to a job that better fits his abilities can make a significant different in performance. Which of your employees are here?

Quadrant 3: low energy, high engagement. These employees still have average performance because their effort level is low, though they connect with the work – they are interested in and likely good at it. These employees fit the job, but don’t have strong powerful personal energy. As in Quadrant 1, these employees are more negative, cynical and complaining – despite the fact that they like their jobs. Coaching is a sound response for these employees as it has the ability to help the employee change his energy level. Which of your employees are here?

Quadrant 4: high energy, high engagement. These are actively engaged employees. These employees have an anabolic and positive attitude, energy and personal standard of excellence, and are a good fit for the job. They show up ready to make a profound difference and should be coached to support their need to constantly learn, improve and add value. Which of your employees are here?

Working with employee energy shortages requires a different response than with an engagement shortage. Because employees choose their energy level (in work and life), many times the primary way to help a low energy employee is through coaching (with the manager or an outside coach). Coaching looks to identify and create responses to blocks to positive energy; an employee must see the need and commit the effort to change.

Engagement, on the other hand, can be addressed by realigning employees to roles that better suit their talents, strengths and passions. Engagement increases when employees feel capable, competent and interested in what they do.

Energy times engagement equals performance. Know how to help your employees increase their energy and their engagement. Increase both and performance rises.

Contact me to learn how coaching can help move your employees to Quadrant 4. More tools and ideas are at  WorkFiredUp.com, your resource for hiring and retaining an A-level workforce.

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