Five Essentials to Creating Employee Engagement
In creating a culture of service, performance, and operational excellence, employee engagement is the key that unlocks the door to customer loyalty. Unfortunately, the leadership skills needed to create an environment that fosters employee engagement, motivation, and trust are often elusive in many organizations. During my travels and interactions with thousands of line employees (in varied industries), I kept hearing five common things that they want, need, and expect from leaders to be more productive, valuable, and promotable within the organization.
#1 – Communication
When polled (across all industries) few employees feel that they get enough communication or information on company updates from their boss. Open communication is key to creating and sustaining a culture of excellence, as well as, increasing employee engagement and trust, customer loyalty, and ultimately improving bottom-line results.
Open communication can be in the form of: one-on-one updates with staff members; daily briefings with the entire team; company newsletters and intranet updates; or through regularly scheduled team or departmental meetings. Open communication does not mean sharing confidential company information, but it should include keeping your staff abreast of inter-company changes, financial results, customer feedback (good or bad), and aware of new products and services that will soon be launched.
Remember, from the employee's perspective, there is always something new to share, and when you open up the lines of communication, you lessen the likelihood of negative gossip.
#2 – Involvement
Creating fully engaged employees, who have passion for driving excellence, also includes involvement. Most employees want to be involved in the planning of work that affects them. When employees are not involved it often contributes to misalignment, negativity, and low morale.
Involving employees doesn't mean getting their say on confidential business issues, but it does include soliciting their feedback on workplace issues, processes or procedural changes that will impact their work — before they are implemented. When employees understand the “why” and are involved to some extent in the improvement process and implementation, you have a greater chance at creating sustainable change, a high level of trust, buy-in, and support.
#3 – Tools & Resources
When employees are provided with the proper equipment, tools and resources to do a quality job, it creates a great environment for holding everyone accountable for driving excellence. It also demonstrates that the organization is serious about creating a work environment where employees can thrive, be successful, and contribute to improving operational and financial results.
Basic tools and resources should include appropriate supplies and equipment, along with learning and development opportunities to enhance and grow employee competence, confidence, skill, and ability.
When was the last time you assessed where you stand (as a leader) in providing the basic tools and resources to ensure a job well done from your staff? If funding and budget cuts are barriers, I suggest you use the wisdom of your team to surface resourceful ways to ensure they have what they need, while not causing a financial burden to the organization.
#4 – Recognition
Even in organizations who profess that they do a good job in rewarding and recognizing staff members, there are still many employees starving for it. That's often because the level of recognition initiated often varies based on the departmental leader. I believe that there should be multiple channels of reward and recognition flowing throughout an organization; not only top-down recognition – which is manager-to-employees, but also lateral recognition – which is peer-to-peer.
When employees feel they are adequately recognized for a job well done, they become self-motivated to do more with less. And for the most part, a sincere “thank you” with a pat on the back from a manager or senior leader to a line employee can go a long way in creating and sustaining a culture of excellence.
#5 – Trust
When leaders work diligently to keep the lines of communication open, involve employees in the planning of work that impacts them, provide employees with proper tools and resources, and consistently recognize exemplary job performance – all of these elements contribute to creating a high level of trust on both sides of the fence.
Bottom-Line
Of course, there are other elements that contribute to employee engagement, and each organization's work environment is different. However, it all starts with leaders knowing what their employees want and expect, and being firmly committed to creating an environment where workers are engaged and committed to driving excellence.
Theo Gilbert-Jamison is CEO of Performance Solutions by Design, a global performance consulting firm that caters to luxury and premium brands with an emphasis on transforming organizational culture. She is also the author of two books, The Six Principles of Service Excellence (2005), and The Leadership Book of Numbers, Volume I (2008). As the creative force behind Performance Solutions by Design, Theo is a highly sought after speaker and consultant to CEOs and senior executives in high profile organizations. Please visit Theo's website at http://www.psbydesign.com
