employee engagement

Beth SchaeferJuly 28, 2022

Are We Moving Employees from Stakeholders to Customers?

Beth Schaefer – IPD Director

Note: This is the third blog in the Employee Engagement Series.

The first article looked at the origin of the Employee Engagement theory, and the second article defined the concept.

During this ongoing time of The Great Resignation, have your staff and employees moved from being stakeholders in the work of the organization to being customers of your organization?

I mean becoming customers in the sense that their voice is becoming a stronger and stronger consideration and factor in how you do business and structure your policies and work.

Attracting and retaining employees appears to be a stumbling block to many businesses attempting to return to pre-pandemic levels of building products, managing supply chains, and/or serving customers.

Just in my suburban neighborhood:

The DQ does not have enough employees to open its indoor service – Even though post-Covid would allow them to open indoor seating, they still offer only drive-thru, and in this heat wave, that line is 20 cars deep. I have yet to get in line.
The Papa Murphy’s in my neighborhood closes at 6 pm. Correct, no pizza after 6 pm. I seldom get my pizza ordered on time.
My local pub is no longer open on Sundays and Mondays so that their team can have “a weekend.” I miss Sunday dinners and not having to cook after a day of working in the yard.
Target had checkout lines 6 deep early on a Sunday morning and many empty shelves. For the past month, I have been trying to purchase legal pads only to find the shelf empty. And, I admit, when they were finally there, I hoarded and took 3 instead of just the 1 I needed at the moment.
Help Wanted signs, banners, and flyers are on pretty much every large and small business in my suburb. Yes, I am considering a side hack to add some extra income…

I am sure that you also have examples of supply chain shortages, shorter hours, and longer lines due to an employee shortage.

This is not just a dilemma for retail and hospitality, I know from talking with friends, family, and coworkers that many are burned out in their roles in teaching and child care, healthcare, IT, and marketing as they continue to cover for unfilled positions for many months at a time. Taking a vacation requires planning months before you depart and a month of catch-up when you return.

These shortages have many employers rethinking what they can offer employees. At some point, the hourly pay or weekly salary rate may not be enough; you need to have something extra special to retain talent – is that something extra special in Employee Engagement?

If you have not sipped from the cup of Employee Engagement yet, this may be your time to give it a try. Here is a starter kit from the experts with notes from me.

70% of the most effective employee engagement occurs with the immediate supervisor. If you are an immediate supervisor, you can use these ideas to start building employee engagement with your team.

My note: If you manage immediate supervisors, you may want to loop them in with some engagement training or some engagement information or… use these tactics with them to increase their engagement levels…

Thank your employees for the work they do. Be specific. Be in the moment. Be real.

My note: To me, this would include publicly praising your team and giving them credit while you take a step back from the spotlight.

Communicate as much as you can, as soon as you can, with as much detail as you can about the business, the problems, and the achievements.

My note: I think this demonstrates trust and respect; however, you also need to be respectful of the messaging your organization wants you to send. I am also a fan of well-orchestrated messaging.

Bring employees in on problems, listen to them, and foster a solution-centered or solution-focused department and team.

My note: I think this demonstrates trust and respect and helps to create a workplace based on reality, but positive.

Keep your promises. Do not promise something you cannot deliver. If you say you are going to do it, do it.

My note: I would add – do it promptly.

Create downtime for employees to get to know each other on a personal level. When a crisis occurs, people who care about each other are more likely to pitch in and help one another – whether one person is having a tough day or the whole team is having a tough day or it’s your busy season.

My note: You also need to take time to get to know your team members and staff. I have more to say on this topic, but realize that it needs its article. Look for an upcoming article on The Power of Workplace Chit Chat.

Using Employee Engagement tactics to create an environment where people want to work may be your next best strategy for retaining your people – especially if you cannot afford a salary bidding war.

Beth SchaeferJune 24, 2022

Employee Engagement Defined

No Hugs Here

In my previous writing, we took a look at the research that originally started connecting employee engagement to employee production.

Both of these are very important right now in light of The Great Resignation. Engaged employees are more likely to stay with your organization. And you need all employees to be more productive because so many positions are unfilled.

The next set of blog articles will:

define employee engagement,
provide the benefits for employee engagement, and
tell you how to avoid common mistakes if you are investing in employee engagement.

Engaged Employee Definition: Out of Scope

Let’s start with what an engaged employee is and is not.

Bosses can breathe a sigh of relief. While there are several definitions of an engaged employee to choose from, the one thing they all have in common is a lack of syrupy-sweet over-complimentary supervisors.

No rainbows. No unicorns. No puppies. No puppies riding rainbow-colored unicorns.

Phew.

SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) provides a list of words to describe a disengaged employee:

pessimistic
self-centered
negative
gone a lot
takes credit but passes blame
egocentric

Interestingly enough, a synonym for disengage is undo. If you are unfortunate enough to have a disengaged person as part of your department or project team, you can clearly see how behaviors of an unengaged employee could undo the productive work of others.

Along this same line of thinking, Sibson Consulting defines 4 categories of engagement:

So… if employee engagement is NOT about feel-good platitudes, bonuses, and pizza parties, what is it?

Engaged Employee Definition: In Scope

I read a lot of one sentence definitions for employee engagement, and this one summed it up best:

Employee Engagement =

What employees thinks about your company and how it impacts their mindset, attitudes, and behaviors on the work they do that day.

I like the that day because employee engagement can wax and wane. If your employees are engaged that day, you might use these adjectives to describe them:

motivated
invested (in their work)
self-driven
committed to the organization
find work challenges to be enjoyable
connected to their team and coworkers
satisfied with their job

Interesting to note some items that are missing from the list, such as breeze through the day, find their jobs easy, always have a smile. Engagement is not about being happy all the time or never having problems to solve. Engagement is about feeling good about solving problems, contributing to the organization, and providing a valuable good or service to the people who need it.

Now that you know what employee engagement is, the next article will look at the benefits of investing your time and money in engaging employees.

RESOURCES

Beth SchaeferMay 16, 2022

Employee Engagement = Employee Retention: Fact or Fiction?

Since so many employers are dealing with exiting employees and an accepted premise is that employee engagement leads to employee retention, I thought my next blog series should provide some tips and strategies for keeping your employees engaged, and thus, retained.

However, as I started looking through research articles, I noted that there were some articles that basically accused employee engagement as being, in my words, a lot of mumbo jumbo.

What?

I had to dig in. Here is what I learned.

Most employee engagement can be traced back to the work of William Khan in the 1990’s. At this point, I had to agree with the naysayers – anything that came out of the 90’s probably should be questioned:

Lunchables as a healthy meal
Neon windbreakers
Overalls with one or both straps down
Tickle Me Elmo
Butterfly Clips

Just kidding, the 90’s were all that and a bag of chips.

Since I have not actually studied Khan, my first step was to investigate his theory. Here it is in a nutshell – or the fraction of a nutshell.

Khan provided the original employee engagement framework. He said that people’s personal engagement (bringing your “preferred self” to your tasks) requires 3 psychological conditions. He then defined those conditions for the workplace engagement.

Psychological Conditions for Personal Engagement

Feeling Safe

Meaningfulness

Having Energy and Resources

Khan Framework for Workplace Engagement

Physical Engagement

Cognitive Engagement

Emotional Engagement

Khan’s Definitions and Connections

Khan defined physical engagement as using your mind and body to get your work done. He equated people’s willingness to use their energy to do their work with people who felt confident (or felt safe) in their role.

Khan equated cognitive engagement with traits such as creativity and decisiveness. When people are able to be creative or self-empowered in their jobs, they are more likely to find them meaningful. The caveat is that to reach cognitive engagement, people need to understand the employer’s vision and strategies and how their role connects to both.

Khan cited the three ingredients for emotional engagement as positive relationships with individuals at work, positive group dynamics on their team, and a boss that they trusted.

The connection between emotional engagement and having the right energy and resources is that people are only going to keep using their energy and resources if they believe that effort will actually lead to something useful. If their efforts consistently lead to no change, or incomplete projects, or bad outcomes, they will expand less energy and fewer resources in the future.

And that is how the value of employee engagement was born.

I know I have not answered the question yet of whether or not employee engagement is valuable, so we will continue on this journey in the next blog. However, I can already see Khan’s logic, but more importantly, I believe I have lived Khan’s logic.