Engaged or Disengaged?

In an article written in the Gallup Business Journal April ’14 talks about seven things great employers do.

Here is the link if you would like to read the article in its entirety https://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/168407/seven-things-great-employers-others-don.aspx

I have pulled a few highlights that I think are worth exploring:

1. Workers who are actively disengaged outnumber their engaged colleagues by an overwhelming factor of 2:1
   1. Wow – this is a huge number when you compared to the overall state of the state. That means that most of us are just going through motions every day! If my team is reading this – STOP IT!
2. Gallup studied 32 companies and here is what they found - the engaged workers outnumber actively disengaged workers by a 9:1 ratio.
   1. Another Wow moment – what is the differentiator? Maybe these are exciting industries like movie making? Nope – they looked at seven industries including financial services and manufacturing…..probably not the most exciting places that come to mind right?

Here is what they have found to be the top seven things that are driving that 9:1 ratio of engagement!

Have involved and curious leaders who want to improve. Leaders' own attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors have powerful trickle-down effects on their organizations' cultures

This is true – a Leader’s influence will be felt, much like the force, across and through the organization. This is not a bad thing. Properly “trickled down” it allows for individuality and creativity while keeping within the guidelines of what created the company in the first place.

Have cracking HR functions. The best HR people have a gift for influencing, teaching, and holding executives accountable.

Another truism – did you catch the statement about the executives? The article goes on to state that many of the managers have come up through the ranks “despite not being good managers” And we see this so often – great people are ruined by trying to make them something that they are not. Why do we as Leaders fall into this trap? Yes – we have had that happen here. Fortunately it has not been destructive – and we have saved these great people by finding their next seat on the Bus.

There needs to be a plan in place that mentors, coaches and sets the expectations of new leaders.

Ensure the basic engagement requirements are met before expecting an inspiring mission to matter. When employees know what is expected of them, have what they need to do their jobs

A resounding yes! – One thing that we work to do with each of our teams is to set the expectations – that is how we were able to quickly see that our Team leads that we were moving up were not in a good place for them. I believe if we had not done this the ending would have been less than happy. This is one of the main reason that we use OBM / GGOB – we are clearly setting the financial expectations and holding each other accountable for the results. (if you want to know more about this drop me a note)

Never use a downturn as an excuse. The excuse we hear the most to explain away a lousy workplace is the state of the economy

Yep, we have all used this straw man excuse – We have recently had to adjust our company because one of our largest customers was reducing their build by 25%+ we did not go into the woe is us routine, we got the teams together and reviewed the numbers, we took the emotion out of the problem and utilized the passion for success and now we are going to be okay as we secure additional business to fill the void.

Trust, hold accountable, and relentlessly support managers and teams

Mini Huddles – this is the format that we use every week to communicate the expectations and to fix the problems that are facing the individual departments, we also use this as a time to talk about potential improvements to any of the processes. We also hold the departments accountable for their production commitments. If they miss then we are at risk of disappointing a customer.

Have a straightforward and decisive approach to performance management. Companies in our study with the highest engagement levels know how to use recognition as a powerful incentive.

Mini Games and 100/Zero – these are tools that we use as a way to recognize achievers. Each has its place depending on what the goal is. Mini games are used to hit metric specific goals i.e. low reject rates, number of out bound calls etc.

100/Zero is used to recognize those individuals or teams that have went above and beyond the norm and we recognize them with a t-shirt and internal company bucks.

We have found that by using these tools we are better able to get our arms around issues quickly and effectively.

Do not pursue engagement for its own sake. Great employers keep their eyes on the outcomes they need greater engagement to achieve

I couldn’t agree more – to do something just to do something is like having a meeting to talk about how many meetings we are having. Because we use open book management (GGOB style) we see weekly the level of engagement. We utilize our entire team to talk about expenses, on time or late shipments, variances etc.

You may ask – doesn’t this take a lot of time? – no…as that would be a waste of a resource. We get our team together and go through everything from safety to projected NPBT in 1/2 hour.

I really appreciate the work that the folks at Gallup do, not just because they are an Omaha company, but they do put together some thought provoking articles.

If you ever have any questions please feel free to drop me a note via linkedIn