Employee engagement, is it a two way street?
Stephen R. Covey once said, “Always treat your employees exactly how you
would treat your best customers”. Whilst we always aspire to be respectful,
engaging and forthright with our colleagues working with us, how do we let our
employees and ourselves down with leadership behaviour that feeds into employee
unhappiness driving an employee decision to leave a company and/or career?
To answer this why not run down
the “Do I..?” roster to ensure we are not materially contributing to the misery
of our colleagues with whom we share one third of our working lives with.
Do I allow my colleagues of all levels approach me in two-way dialogue
on a daily basis?
Do I share my vision of the company’s strategy and our local ‘team’
strategy laying out the way forward in real term steps/milestones, not just reiterating
a strategy publication written by managers the team may not even know??
Do I believe in my people, understanding their journey in developing
their job skills, gaining experience and fulfilment whilst working in our team?
Do I love what I do, relaying my passion for being a manager or leader
of the company onto my colleagues in a manner they resonate with emotionally?
Do I want better each and every day, delivering new energy into a teams
work through accepting only better from each team colleague, not because I have
high standards, but because we are on
a journey together and must always deliver together or risk failing separately?
Do I focus on what matters right now, whilst not loosing sight of what
will matter tomorrow knowing strategy creates moving stress points over the
timeline of its execution?
Do I trust that in my people, my success will shine? This will define my
character as much as my reputation when my peers eventually see that in working
for my people, their success becomes the tenants of my success especially if
they retain the credit.
If this resonates with you as a
leader, then you are doing well by your people, which generally rules out the
“Bad Manager” reason for a team colleague leaving a job or upon occasion a
career.
So why would an employee who may
have being happy at one point become so unhappy that they would leave a job or
possibly a career. Leaving aside the obvious, the following are kernels of
disengagement that one should consider when looking at the issue:
Bad Leader/Manager: The
No. 1 case, which explored above tells us that leading collaboratively and
putting the “human” into human resource allows the humanity of employees to
breadth in an organisational setting without fear of being trampled on by bad
managers or leaders. It’s a very common issue for very understandable reasons.
Disillusionment:
Employees can become disillusioned with companies, industries and professions
over time. Sometimes, this change raises incompatible and on occasion un-reconcilable
differences in employee disposition that drives them to despair and then out
the door of the company, industry and/or profession.
Fulfilment: Employees
whom are comfortable and productive will by definition over time have changing
wants and needs that create new personal goals and objectives for fulfilment.
IF the company, industry and/or profession cannot offer solutions, then the
employee will gravitate towards change that allows them to become fully
fulfilled in their working life.
Changing Industry/Professional Standards: A company or profession maybe going through
great change where the “dark side” of the company comes out and overwhelms good
employees driving down morale. The employee’s profession and/or industry may
also going through some radical changes upping or lowering standards. Some
external disruptor like public scandal, radical regulatory change or increased
industry disruptor threats. The effect is same, the environment that made the
employee happy for so long is changing and the new environment will make the
same employee unhappy creating a change requirement the employee will pursue to
once again become happy in the workplace.
Changing Personal Circumstances: An employee who liked to travel as a twenty something may want to
stay at home with his or her young family a decade later. Is the career path of
the employee compatible with these changing needs?
There is no doubt that employee
engagement is a tricky subject and even when companies are cash rich, the issue
seems to underlie so many employee issues. The will to address employee
engagement may give rise to wider discussions and changes that can upturn the
status quo of an organisation and how it works. To some, it’s welcome change!
To others, it’s a threat! However, until an organisation digs deep in facing
the issue with meaningful and persistent purpose, the outcomes will be ruled by
perception of what may, rather then
what will come with change. Daring to
engage your employees starting with a vision for change can often end in a
happier, brighter way of doing business, so why not start today? Tomorrow is
only a day away!
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Thanks for another well thought out blog post!
ReplyDeleteHappy employees make better employees. True, but that's just part of the story. Good employees are also well trained for their jobs, well motivated, appreciated and rewarded for good work, given mentoring and growth opportunities, given open consideration for their input and have appropriate supervision geared to performance excellence. These are all factors contributing to employee satisfaction, many of which you have mentioned.
However, there are always employees that are not a good fit because of lacking skills, poor work ethics, personality issues, mismatch to the company culture and a variety of other reasons. These are less likely to become good employees regardless of the forward HR thinking or skills of management. They must be identified, given an opportunity to improve and (lacking improvement) let go.
I do agree completely that treating your employees well and fairly is the hallmark of a great company.
Thanks for the feedback and great thoughts Ed, I fully agree.. The ability to identify employees whom are not a good fit for the role and organisation starts pre interview and should never stop which is why it should feature as part of the annual appraisals, which is about evaluating an employees alignment with the companys expectations on core "skills". If thought out correctly, it will shine a light on an employees cultural compatibility, which as the article points out can change over time. Its no use finding out an employee is actually a self serving, duplicitious taker who created hell in a heavenly manner and ran the actual performers out of the company in a quest to take their credit for their acheivments and build themselves a little fifetom where they become harder to spot, call out and remediate. The cost to the company is massive and often impacts in ways not foreseen.
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