To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, “Employee engagement is not a sometime thing, it’s an all time thing. You don’t engage employees once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Engagement is habit. Unfortunately, so is manipulation.”
I thought a lot about employee engagement after I read Shaun’s article on Tutto Persona titled, “Family Life: Caring…It’s Not What I Say, It’s What I Do.” He’s introspective about his interactions with his teenage daughter, and completes an inventory of questions about his interactions with her. It’s brave to ask yourself the hard questions. He did it.
If you’re doing employee engagement, you should too.
150 Ways to Show Kids You Care by Search Institute is something I think everyone in employee engagement should read. And since we’re all in that business if we’re working with people….well, it’s a must read.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Acknowledge them.
Remember their birthday.
Trust them.
Create a tradition with them and keep it.
Daydream with them.
Praise more; criticize less.
Give them your undivided attention.
Marvel at what they can do.
Introduce them to people of excellence.
Keep the promises you make.
That list is worth a long, hard look. I’m afraid too many employee engagement programs are designed to manipulate around a few words. This is about behaviors. And lots of them. If you took the test about people who work for you, where would you come out?
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Frank,
Thanks for the shout-out. Interesting twist on the list. At your suggestion, I took another look from an employee engagement perspective. Here is my top ten:
47. Use your ears more than your mouth.
57. Thank them.
62. Encourage win-win solutions.
66. Be curious with them.
97. Let them make mistakes.
102. Respect them.
112. Inspire their creativity.
113. Accept them as they are.
133. Encourage them to think big.
148. Expect their best; don’t expect perfection.
Hey, Shaun, those are very good. I like the totality of the list, too. It’s a reminder that there’s a lot to it…”tutto persona” you might say. And that we can all do better.
Frank…I love it…TP bandwagon…Is there a designated cocktail for tomorrow? I live vicariously through IFractal….
Reality show would be interesting…I’ll look for the photos…
Great post as usual…and I love both of your lists. This is a much better approach than just playing lip service to the latest HR trend. Employers need to ask themselves…what does engagement really mean? Is it something they want employees to do? Or is it something that needs to start with their own actions as managers? Genuine interest can’t be faked or orchestrated.
Thanks, Elizabeth. I like what you say about genuine interest. I’m afraid too much of it comes from canned management training..and that doesn’t work.
Employee engagement requires management that is transformational in nature as opposed to transactional. Everyone is aware of the importance of productivity and the bottomline, however; buy-in is more readily achieved when leaders show that they understand their employees to be their greatest asset, and take interest in them, apart from only their job performance.Empathetic listening, showing interest in their perspectives and their opinions, acknowledging superior performance, and being about more than “what you can do for me to make me look good” is vital for employee engagement.
Hi Donna…showing interest…it seems so easy in concept, and done so poorly by too many managers. Well said.
Excellent post (it was sent to me by a Sr. VP HR friend of mine this morning). If more managers/organizations followed this list, more employees would feel invited to become more engaged. Whether they (and the ones who still don’t feel invited) actually do or not, I think depends on whether they feel invited to do the same. As an example, what if you asked employees to consider the list in terms of how they engage with their managers/teams/organization? Afterall, while children can’t be expected to express all those things to their parents, employees are not children. And each employee themselves – their personal level of engagement – is the controlling factor in whether they are engaged in the work they do. What if we could build capability in every person to consider that list and fully participate in creating and maintaining engaging work and an engaging workplace?
Hi Julie, good point about shared responsibility> i spend a lot of time talking about managers’ and HR’s responsibility…and you’re right about asking employees how they function in a place, too. They’re not children…but they get treated like one if they act that way.
Thanks much for stopping by…and thanks for the very good perspective.
Great post. Let’s focus on positive languages and behavior. Exploring and nurturing the bright spots will enable us to become great performers.
This article does a great job of laying out the facts about employee engagement… it often seems to be regarded as some sort of voodoo magic but alas, it’s all a bit more straight forward than that!!
In times such as those in which we find ourselves, humanity and good communication are all the more important. I blogged on that very point myself, check it out: http://jaw-london.blogspot.com/2011/01/you-wouldnt-cut-someones-hair-like-that.html
If we are able to choose right kind of employees through proper screening, then we will be able to engage the employees. Its not always the outstanding candidate will be the most suitable employee…
Hey Shaun, it is tutto persona…so true, brother.
Tomorrow was planned to be Colorful Drinks Friday — but because of this ton of snow, we might go with hot butter rum and hot toddies. Then again, colorful snow cones could be fun. We’ll take pictures. Jessica says we should have a reality show…Fridays would be fun.
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