CareerCurve™

One of the top priorities of Human Resource Departments everywhere is creating and maintaining an engaged workforce.  This means employees are excited (or dare I say inspired) to be there, they are happy and they are productive.

There are numerous articles, resources, and studies out there explaining different ways to achieve this utopian state.  I’ve written many of them myself on how important trust is, being transparent, empowering your employees, and managing with values instead of rules.  But how can you tell if you’re there yet?  Rather than focusing on the negative – behaviors that show a lack of engagement – what are some signs that your workforce IS engaged?

Do you have employees who come in early or leave late?  A good sign of engagement is that your people don’t clock watch.  It’s more about getting the job done than getting off on time.

Do your employees look happy?  I spent 3 1/2 hours last week at a company with highly engaged employees.  How did I know this?  Well, when you take a step back and really look around, if it’s there, you can’t miss it.

Are your employees proactive with solutions?  Research shows that engaged workers think creatively and will approach their managers with solutions.  They feel comfortable enough not only to think outside the box, but to proactively discuss their solutions with their colleagues.

Do your employees take ownership of their projects?  If you have a workforce who has a high level of accountability, chances are they are highly engaged as well.

Do your employees continually ask for more responsibility and embrace challenges?  Research indicates that the most highly engaged employees want the chance to learn and are not shy about asking for it.

When you hear work-related conversations between employees do they use the words we and us?  If your employees are engaged with your organization they tend to speak as if they are a member of a team.  You will not hear references to they or them when referring to the company.

What other signs can you share in the comments that show your workforce is engaged?

I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation recently given by a CEO about the strategic role HR has played in the success of his organization.  And he has a very successful company.  Although his HR department has always gotten his full support, I realized while he spoke that there must be things HR can do to earn that support, even if you don’t necessarily have it now. 

One of the things that struck me most was the value he placed on the trends he was informed of by HR regarding his employees.  He counts on HR to be aware of who is doing a poor job of managing, what the employees are frustrated about in the resources they are provided, how the employees feel about where the company is going, how the employees perceive their individual career development – really everything that the employees had to say.  Is it possible that you have this information but never thought to put it together in a cohesive way, present it to the owners or executives, and recommend solutions? 

Another area where he values HR’s is their creativity in coming up with ideas that make employees happy.  These things range from a diner within the building because traffic is hellatious and there is nowhere within walking distance to eat, to the implementation of a “quiet room” for those on break who just need a few moments to decompress in solitude, to an employee recognition program where employees can publicly give kudos to each other via the intranet.  These are just a small number of the programs this company has in place that he credits directly to HR.  Is it possible that you know the different things that would make your employees happier but haven’t made these recommendations under the assumption that nothing would come of it?  Can you show in dollars and cents the impact small changes may make in terms of production?  Or maybe how production is impacted when morale is down?

A third example he mentioned involves HR recommending a different hiring process that aligns with the company values.  HR realized that their most productive employees shared the mindset that fit into the culture of the organization.  The technical skills matter of course, but they suggested that the core qualities that align with the mission statement ultimately end up being more important.  HR recommended 16 personality traits that must be present regardless of skill set because they accumulated examples where the top talent had a derogatory effect on the team and ultimately the company.  Because of the data HR had, they were able to change the hiring process to focus more on these traits than on skills and show why this would ultimately mean more production in the long run.  And it has.  Do you have this information regarding who ends up being a good employee and who doesn’t?  Have you considered recommending a new hiring process based on what you see?

Many seem to think that without the CEO supporting the value of HR, Human Resources can never be a strategic partner in an organization.  But have you ever tried to earn that support?  This particular CEO explained that he has no time for whiners and what he values most is not only a description of a problem but a recommendation on how to fix it.  If you take the approach that you have information that is helpful to the company, support it with data, and then suggest a solution, will you then find yourself with a “seat at the table”?

Maybe it’s time to stop focusing on the lack of support for HR and instead take the initiative to make HR invaluable.  I would love to hear examples of anyone who has tried and what response you received.

Seeing as I’ve written so much on the topics of trust, inspiration, transparency, and engagement etc. the natural progression seems to be empowerment.

My definition of empowerment in this context is you helping your employees grow and become more confident in their abilities.

As I look at the outline in my mind of how to achieve talent optimization, high levels of engagement and retention, and the effective recruitment of top talent, it seems to me that empowerment needs to be addressed.  (After establishing trust, of course.)

Employee empowerment has a significant effect on creativity and creativity has a strong effect on innovation.  Successful companies are innovative.

So how can you empower your employees and encourage creativity and innovation?

Many of the things you can do will be the same exact things that you do to instill trust and increase engagement.  Once you have a decent level of trust established, try some of these suggestions and you will not only bolster that trust but also encourage creativity.  They all go hand in hand.

Believe in them – and let them know it.  Show them that you have all the faith that they will do their job well and also that they will continue to improve in their role, even if they make mistakes.

Give them freedom – freedom to make decisions quickly without a bunch of hoops to jump through.  Freedom from a ton of rules and regulations that stifle creative thought and make it not worth their time or energy to institute creative problem solving.

Align values – sorry, I’m saying it again.  Let your employees understand the values and goals of the company and how each of them fits into this overall corporate picture.

Have them participate in important decisions.  I’ve said this before too but it is such a factor in engagement, inspiration, empowerment and innovation.  How can an employee feel connected to the ultimate goal if he/she is not part of the process?  Ask for their advice or suggestions and listen to what they have to say.  You might even learn something.

Empowering your employees is going to do wonderful things for your organization.  Remember, business today is no longer about commanding and controlling with a top-down hierarchy.  Organizations require a connect and collaborate mindset and empowering your employees will not only make them more creative but will reinforce the connection and the fact that everyone is in this together.

Your employees are struggling to have faith in anything anymore. Most people are experiencing a loss of trust with government, the banking system, the housing market, big business – I could go on and on.

As an organization, what can you do to restore trust and faith? Trust is the guiding force behind motivation, engagement, retention and ultimately, productivity. Trust is earned through communication.

Communicate effectively and earn trust. Earn trust and in return you will get motivated (or even inspired) employees. Motivated employees are engaged and stick around. The result for your company? Productivity.

Thinking about it in this format (an outline, of course – you know how I love outlines) means you need to master step one. If you focus on effective communication, everything else follows.

So, how do you achieve effective communication?

Transparency.

But how can a company be transparent. Well it can’t be.   But the culture can. And as I’ve said before, character is to an individual what culture is to an organization.

How do you create a transparent culture?

1. Be honest.
   You don’t have to tell everybody everything but what you do tell should be the truth.
2. Be forthcoming.
   Share as much information, unprompted, as possible. Your employees will feel like they are part of something bigger and not only will this encourage trust but they will feel valued. For most, this is one of the top three things employees want from their company.
3. Don’t pretend to know what you don’t.
   Admitting your own limitations gives you credibility. People more easily trust those that don’t act as if they know everything. A little humility goes along way.
4. Define corporate values.
   Figure out what the corporate values are and share them with the employees. Making these values a priority helps get everyone on the same page. At the very least, make them understood. Gray area creates trust issues.
5. Follow through.
   If you don’t know something, get the answer. Or at least get the employee in touch with a person or resource who can get the answer.
6. Be consistent.
   Regarding corporate values, once they are defined, demonstrate them every day. Values should not be a list that are a lofty goal, they should be action that is visible in the way you work at all times.
7. Have opinions.
   Don’t be afraid to take a stand. Your opinions should align with the corporate values and you should be definitive in stating them. Stand firm.
8. Be open to other opinions.
   Here is another area where a little humility goes a long way. Be firm in your opinions but, be open-minded to changing them if a persuasive and logical reason is presented. Taking a definitive stand on something just because it’s always been that way stifles innovation and reduces the amount of trust your employees have in their superiors.
9. Be responsive and genuine.
   If you haven’t reached a solution, seek them out and tell them that. If you have, let them know as soon as possible what the results are. Don’t make them come back to you.

Transparency is an essential part of communication and effective communication will create an aligned,  happy and productive workforce.

If you can look at your smartest employees and see that they are not performing as expected, it is time to ask some questions – of yourself and your organization.

Most smart employees who don’t perform do so because they don’t want to.  So why don’t they want to and what can you do about it?

Does your organization value their employees’ suggestions? 

Are new ideas or processes encouraged, supported and ultimately executed?  Is the company culture inspiring?  For smart employees this is very important.  If they don’t feel they work in an environment that genuinely values their input or if they don’t have the ability to demonstrate what they can bring to the table, why bother going above and beyond?  Maybe it’s time reassess the corporate values and reward employees accordingly.

Do your employees have good managers? 

I posted recently about how people quit managers, not companies.  Do the managers share the vision and values of the organization or are they worried about their own agenda (such as a fear of being overshadowed by their team?)  Do the managers take accountability for the performance of their teams?  Are the managers full of negative feedback, provide lower than expected performance reviews, and exclude their teams in decisions or processes?  All of these will play a role in how a smart employee performs.  Maybe it’s time to take a close look at your management team.

Do you count on the smart ones too much? 

Sometimes it is difficult to get away from but when you have a lot of faith in one employee, don’t you tend to go to them for everything?  How does this affect their ability to perform?  When does he/she just have too much work to do?  A huge workload can be very de-motivating if it becomes too difficult to manage.  Combine that with little feedback and no stated upward mobility path and you’ve got a deadly combination.  Be aware that there is a line between feeling valued and feeling taken advantage of.

Are they really underperforming? 

According to who?  Could it be that your expectations were too high because you recognize how smart they are and you subconsciously expect bigger things from them?  If so, you can focus on inspiring them and they will surpass even your expectations.

As always, the best thing to do is communicate.  Think these things through and before deciding you know what the problem is, make a point to sit down and ask.  It could be that none of the above is true and the employee is going through a rough time personally.  Maybe you can offer solutions that will help, like temporarily letting he/she work from home.  Investing time into the thought process and creating time to talk one on one will go a long way toward a better performance.  Maybe you can’t offer the solution, but exhibiting a concern toward trying can often be just as good.

I once spent a year (well, I really only made it 8 months) in a cubicle with a Judy-from-Time-Life headset on.  As I’ve mentioned before, I HATED this job.  I worked for a credit card company and my job was to provide exceptional customer service.  Now, I LOVE exceptional customer service.  I really like getting it, but what excites me even more, is giving it.  I’m a problem-solver by nature and I absolutely love a challenge – the harder the better – bring it on!  So why did I hate this job so much? 

It’s called Cognitive Dissonance.  This is a term used to describe that horrible, uncomfortable feeling you get when you are asked to accommodate ideas that conflict with your beliefs.  When I began this job, I was trained and lectured about how customer service was the foundation of our business model.  We were on a mission to provide the best service imaginable thereby gaining loyalty from customers and improved market share by branding ourselves as an organization that cared.  Perfect.  I know what good service is. 

But once we were placed in our cubes, those of us responsible for providing these fantastic customer experiences were paid garbage as a base salary and earned extra incentives (read, a lot of our salary) for how many calls we could take in an 8 hour day. 

Uh…okay.  What??? 

I’m supposed to be committed to solving our customer’s problems but I get paid more if I’m only on the phone for 70 seconds???  Needless to say, the transfer button became my best friend.  It only took me 10 seconds to move them along to another department thus improving my paycheck considerably, unless they took too long to state their question and oh, we had zero patience for that.  Do you think we felt good about the service we were providing?  Did we enjoy being placed in the us (paycheck) or them (customers) conundrum? 

And the effect of this in terms of productivity?  Do you think the customer’s experience was satisfying?  Do you think the customers loved my “How can I help you?” attitude? (Read sarcasm)  Did we successfully brand ourselves as a company that cared? 

Internally, I was one of the best Customer Service Reps in history (or at least one of the highest paid) but externally, I doubt my service was really much of a service to the customer.  

Beware!

Cognitive dissonance is prevalent in many organizations and the negative effects are huge.  Studies show that when confronted with these situations, the reasoning parts of the brain in charge of sound decision making actually turn off.  Emotions take over and the ability to think clearly and act with reason is impeded.   To cope, employees complain, procrastinate, and find ways to get paid back for the burdens they see as being unjustly placed on them.  In addition, dissonant messages snap any connection between the sender and the receiver.  The employees getting these messages become suspicious, lack passion, and don’t trust.   Cognitive dissonance will ultimately create cynical employees and a company full of cynics equals destruction in a company.  How can you possibly have an engaged workforce under these conditions?

Think about how you tell your employees you trust them but make them get three signatures from higher ups to make a purchase.  Think about working to convince them the company cares but when there’s a layoff, the company doesn’t provide any outplacement services.  Think about the message you send when you commend an employee for taking calls on a sick day but require 2 weeks notice and manager approval for a vacation day.

Is it time to focus on company values and use these to dictate the messages? 

What are some of your dissonant messages?  How can you align your organization’s values with the messages you send to your employees?

Listening is definitely a skill and it is one that pays off.  The better a manager can listen, the more likely an employee will be productive. 

People want to be heard.  This is true in all relationships, whether they are personal or professional.  Think about arguments you’ve had with people who are important in your life.  If you’ve ever experienced a “successful” argument, you know what I’m talking about.  This is a situation where you may be angry and upset but it is discussed and resolved.  I’d bet one of the factors that made this happen was that you felt you were heard.  Being heard provides validity to your feelings as well as creating respect and appreciation for the person you are arguing with, no matter how angry you are at that moment.  Professional situations are no different. 

Let’s say an employee feels that there are unrealistic expectations as far as their work is concerned.  If you truly listen, you can then ascertain whether this is genuinely a problem that needs to be addressed or if it is simply a situation where your employee is feeling overwhelmed and needs some reasssurance.  Either way,  it won’t matter as much if the actual solution is effective right away.   They will feel better because you listened well enough to understand what it was they were trying to say.  It is easy to sit there with someone and hear the words they are saying but then miss the meaning.  Many times we are too busy forming our response and we don’t even hear a lot of the words.  Sometimes you may have too many other deadlines and concerns on your mind to pay attention or you may truly be pressed for time.  Other times you may not really respect the person enough to believe there is anything you could learn from the conversation.  These are dangerous mistakes to make because it is very difficult to fake listening.  Can’t you tell when someone isn’t really listening to you?  My kids can and they are barely school age. 

How can someone respect a person who won’t take a few minutes to really care ?  (Because that is what it feels like to not be listened to - they don’t care.)  Then that same uncaring person demands certain things from you.  How motivated will you really be to meet those goals?  Now you can see how productivity is affected.

Here are some suggestions that I find helpful.  I’m certainly no expert but I’ve seen these things make a difference for me in numerous relationships, both personally and professionally.

Care enough to make the effort. 

Nothing feels worse than talking to someone and having them be off in la la land.  Or worse yet, I interact with someone who will turn and join a different conversation while I am answering a question that he asked me!  Why did you ask?  Now I just stop talking in the middle of a sentence and most of the time it goes unnoticed.   I get that some people aren’t good listeners, but for crying out loud, at least pretend you care for 5 minutes or don’t converse with me at all.

Reiterate or summarize what they said to be sure you really understand what was meant. 

One of my favorite lines (annoying to a lot of people who know, me I’m sure) is “If I heard you correctly, you think…”  Then again, I think I overcommunicate, so maybe you should disregard this one.  It is very helpful though to find out as early as possible that you are not on the same page, especially if you are trying to work through an issue or solve a problem.

Be honest. 

If it is not a good time, just say so.  If you have too many things on your mind, admit it.  No one has ever offended me or made me feel they don’t care what I have to say if they are too busy at that moment.  Delivered properly, this can be a great message that proves exactly the opposite.  Something like, “I’d really like to dedicate my brain and my time to this conversation, but I have to get on a call in 5 minutes.  Do you want to try to talk now or can we sit down at 3 o’clock?”

Be humble. 

A little humility goes a long way.  When I was a bartender I was constantly amazed at the way I was viewed versus the person I am.  Shock and surprise often followed someone finding out I went to college.  Or after having an in depth conversation about anything.   To be fair, the same was true in reverse at times.  I loved surprising people who began a conversation thinking one thing and walked away thinking another.  And I loved being surprised.  If you really listen, you learn quickly that almost everyone has something of value to offer – you just have to be paying attention.  Do not assume because you know three things about someone that you know that person.  And do not assume that you have nothing to learn from the person you are interacting with.  We can all learn from others, all the time. 

Practicing some of these things will help them become second nature.  Once it is second nature to listen well, your employees will respect, appreciate, and produce for you.

Engagement and trust have been the subject of numerous posts now and it feels like everywhere I turn, this is being discussed.  I think that is because of the job evolution that is taking place – as the economy begins to turn around (we hope), those still employed are being challenged to fill different roles.  Managers are being challenged to retain their top talent and improve morale within the organization.   These circumstances make “engaging employees effectively” a very hot topic.  There are many differing opinions on how to go about achieving this goal of engagement (some of which I will mention below), but there is a definite consensus that it is mandatory for a company’s survival.  Engaged employees equal productive employees, and productive employees equal more money.

One of my favorite articles on this topic is 5 Ways to Ensure Mediocrity in Your Organization (and not just because # 1 on the list supports a couple of my previous posts).   I personally have a huge appreciation for witty and satirical writing (sarcasm is my friend), but great points are also made in this article.  Trust will make your company profitable. 

While researching for my previous post on trust and a lack thereof equaling disengaged employees, I read an article called No Trust and a quote at the end made quite an impression:  “People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  (This is often attributed to motivational speaker John C. Maxwell.)

Does the act of caring create engagement?

I then recalled an online discussion which began with the article What is Engagement All About.  As I read and made comments on what engagement is all about, a comment made by Kim Morgan, PHR, who is currently looking for work, really struck me.  She said “As a current HR professional in the job market, I had been floundering a bit with my purpose/strength; this discussion cleared my eyes to the fact that “engagement” is my strength. Perhaps because it is intrinsically interesting and obvious to me, i do not always recognize the importance of this skillset.”

Can engagement be a marketable skill?

Engagement is being thrown around all over the place as a state you would like to achieve with your employees.  But isn’t it true that engagement could also be a skill?  In today’s economy with employees’ morale low, their level of trust low, and their level of responsibility high, wouldn’t possessing the ability to engage be a very valuable and necessary skill?

I know that if I were looking for a good manager right now, at the top of my wish list would be the ability to connect, engage and build trust.