How to Stop Getting Employee Engagement Wrong.

Or, "How I Learned to Relate to My Employees Better."

One of the biggest issues of 2021 is how to drive employee engagement in the era of hybrid, if not remote, work. Like many other issues that have emerged as dealbreakers in the COVID-19 era, this is a problem that predates the pandemic, and has only been laid bare by the ensuing circumstances.

It's an ugly, uncomfortable truth: many businesses have no idea how to drive genuine employee engagement. It's also an unavoidable problem, and like many other such problems, it's only going to get better once you acknowledge it.

Accepted that you have a problem? Alright, now we can start to solve it.

Why This Matters

Have you heard the term "Great Resignation of 2021"? Have you lost staff this year at a higher clip than normal? Or worse, did you lose people that had been with you for a good bit of time? And did it seem to come out of nowhere?

No, it's not them. The problem is you.

Yes, you can argue that there were pull factors elsewhere that you couldn't control--for instance, another company with deeper pockets making a better offer than you can afford isn't in any way your fault. But what you can control are the "push" factors on your end, the things that push employees to jobhunt or consider other opportunities to begin with.

What I want to talk to you about here are how can alleviate some of those push factors.

And I'll start with the overall message of what follows: rarely have I seen new employees come to the table lacking engagement and motivation. Instead, the fault lies with managers who de-motivate employees and drive disengagement.

No, Good Intentions Don't Count

Stop shaking your head and saying "but...but...good intentions!" Good intentions don't matter, because a lot of times, you don't go about them the right way. So here's my first pro tip: if you have good intentions, don't just wake up one day and say to yourself, "I think today I'm going to carry out good intentions like this," and then just do what you came up with yourself. This is what a lot of managers do--and that's why so many companies are losing people this year. You're going about it all wrong. In fact, you're doing exactly the opposite of what you should be doing--implementing a top-down, one-size-fits-all "solution" that was formulated in a vacuum, without asking your employees what you should be doing.

So I'll offer my first pro tip right now: if you want to drive employee engagement, the first thing you need to do is stop talking and listen. A good start would be to solicit feedback from your employees. Here's how easy it is: the next time you have all your direct reports in one place, make a simple statement: "I have these good intentions, but I want to know how I can act on those good intentions in a way you'll find meaningful. I know not everyone is comfortable speaking up in public, but if you want to shoot me and e-mail or talk one-on-one, I'd love to hear from you."

This does two things: it encourages people to tell you what they need and want, and it prevents peer pressure (or worse) groupthink.

I can hear the chorus of objections already: "but Brandon I don't have time to do one-on-ones with everyone on my team," or "I'm not comfortable trying to work with others on that level." Or my favorite, which an abusive supervisor once said to me word-for-word when I tried to talk to him about his problematic communication style: "It's the supervisor's sole discretion how to do things," and later, "your perspective is irrelevant." (No points for guessing how many times after that I talked to him about anything; this guy was a terrible manager in every way...but I digress.)

My response to all of the above: if you can't (or won't) do this, then you don't deserve to be in a leadership or management position. Yes, your employees may well not respond--and you need to be okay with that. If they don't, this is what you do: go back to them maybe a week or so later, and ask them "I didn't hear anything from you, just wanted to make sure all was well?"

The answer you're likely to get is "Oh sure everything's good"--even if it's not really the case, because your employee may not be ready to raise an issue and risk rocking the boat. That's fine--all you have to do is say "If that ever changes I hope you'll let me know, I'm here to help if I can."

And it's just that easy.

Yes, it really is you.

I'll start with an anecdote from my past. Years ago, I worked in an office where I did creative work, and where my boss was a finance guy. To say that there was a bit of a mismatch would be an understatement. To make matters worse, it came across that my boss wasn't really used to managing others, because in the name of "employee engagement," this is what he did:

At least once a week, and sometimes more, he'd pull us out of what we were doing and into a conference room, where he'd fill the better part of an hour by rattling off facts about the company's financial situation. (Pro tip: outside of a financial emergency, do not do this; financials are dry and boring, and the only people that will understand them, much less care, are your finance people.)

And then, often without asking how anyone else was doing or how our projects were progressing, he'd send us back to our desk, beaming about how he was "keeping us engaged."

No points for guessing how many of us agreed with that assessment.

This is what he was actually doing: by pulling us out of our work a second time (did I mention each week we also had a staff meeting, which tended to involve endless rabbit holes--most of them for irrelevant trivia that didn't need to be broadcast to the whole team--and tended to take more than 90 minutes?), for things that weren't in our lane and on a given day didn't affect us, he was taking time away from actual work, and was simultaneously destroying his own credibility in our eyes. Why, we mused, would we make his meetings a priority when they were so poorly-run and didn't add any real value? (And let's not forget the hidden cost of meetings--the fact that people won't engage in "deep thought" work in the half-hour or so before and after the meeting happens. Your "brief" 30-minute meeting is actually costing people double that in productivity.)

Show of hands: who's had an experience like this? You, in the back--don't be a company man. Let's see your hand in the air.

In this example, I'm willing to give my hapless boss the benefit of the doubt, that they likely had good intentions (which isn't always the case). But good intentions alone don't win the day, and if poorly executed, can wind up having the opposite effect.

So if that's how you get it wrong, how do you get it right?

The Do's of Employee Engagement

Consistently through the years, what I see happening is that companies equate "I'm talking to employees in a meeting" as "employees are engaged." That's a logical fallacy: if your employees are sitting in a meeting you called, they aren't there because they want to be, and if they appear to be engaged, there's a better-than-even chance they're essentially telling the boss what they want to hear. That's Office Politics 101.

Here's where I shock you: more communication isn't necessarily better communication. And unidirectional speech isn't communication at all

If you want to drive employee engagement, here are some tips on what to do (and there's another section to follow on what NOT to do):

• DO show your employees that you care about their well-being; this can be as simple as a spontaneous e-mail or phone call (or if you work on site with them, drop by their desk), just ask informally how they're doing
• DO show your employees how they fit into the big picture and where they add value; again, this doesn't need to be over-complicated, just let them know how their work helps the business
• DO offer meaningful praise; it's a great way to show appreciation, as long as you do it without blindly saying "I appreciate you" or "you're doing a great job" (the very first thing they'll want to know is "How?" even if they don't say it out loud; if they think you're just throwing out blind comments the effort will be worse than useless)
• DO respect their time, and I can't stress this enough--don't keep dragging them into unnecessary meetings; unless something fits a very narrow set of parameters (one of which is that it's what I call "a 'now' problem"), it doesn't need to be a meeting, and can probably be handled just as easily via e-mail
• DO ask if there's anything they need or anything that they think could be done better
• DO be consistent; and finally,
• DO listen more than you talk.

Taken together, all of the items on this list do one thing: they make your employee feel respected, valued, and heard; helps build trust; and invites them to take part in conversations about things that matter. You make your interactions more valuable for all involved. And you make yourself available if anyone needs anything.

In other words, it shows through actions what many organizations try to show with insincere (at best) words.

Now for the other side of the coin: what NOT to do.

The Dont's of Employee Engagement

I've only run into a couple of places that got the "do's" (or any significant subset thereof) right. Unfortunately, I've run into many places that get the "don'ts" wrong...and not just wrong, but VERY wrong. (So if you're doing any of these things, stop doing them, immediately if not sooner.)

Without further ado:

• DON'T just go through the motions because someone higher up the chain tells you to; the result is likely to be worse than doing nothing at all, and most employees I've spoken to over the years would rather just be left alone than deal with someone who doesn't "get it."
• DON'T try to apply one-size-fits-all solutions; needlessly heavy-handed approaches to things are tantamount to using Tomahawk missiles to swat mosquitoes (well then again, these ARE mosquitoes we're talking about...); it'll come across as excessive and more about being a show of force than an attempt to actually resolve the issue
• DON'T say one thing and do another; if you commit to doing something (i.e. if someone says they're hot, and you promise to change the thermostat from 74 to 72, don't then change it to 76 instead--and yes, I've seen this happen; it was someone very manipulative trying to gaslight people and make them even unhappier so they'd be happy with the original setting of 74, to which I went, "...seriously?")
• DON'T throw out "company policy" or "we've always done it this way" as red herrings when someone suggests change; that shows people you're going through the motions but aren't actually interested in resolving issues. (Nobody really buys those excuses anyway.)
• DON'T criticize if you can't offer praise. It makes you look bad as a leader, and can come across in any number of bad ways. (I could list them but just take my word for it, doing this is just as likely to get you tuned out as anything else.) I assure you, nobody wants to be constantly belittled by people who don't recognize the effort they put into things, or even understand what they do.
• DON'T assume that "I'm the boss" automatically makes everything you say fascinating or even relevant. Just because people appear to be paying rapt attention doesn't mean anything--it's just as likely they're actively trying to avoid showing disinterest to the boss.
• DON'T assume that just because someone did something a different way than you would've, that it's automatically wrong. Before you criticize someone for coming up with their own approaches or solutions, sit with them and ask them to walk you through their creative process, try to understand where they're coming from. I have yet to have a conversation like that where I didn't learn that the employee had a perfectly valid reason for doing what they did. And just about every time, I'd walk away with more respect for the employee as a professional than I did walking in.
• DON'T ignore employee issues when they get raised. If you want your people to talk to you, you have to show you're actively listening. Nobody wants to waste time talking to someone who doesn't listen.
• DON'T try to act like you know more than you do (seriously, don't do this)--a trend I've noticed over the years is that if I use an industry-specific term ("bug" for instance, referring to a logo or symbol in one corner of the screen for a video), I'll start hearing bosses use the same term, despite never having heard it from them before...only, they'll use the term incorrectly. (I give benefit of the doubt to those that are trying to have a literate conversation, but most of the time this is to avoid having to ask an employee "what's that mean?"--contrary to popular belief, asking that question does NOT rob anyone of their authority or undermine their position; quite the contrary, it shows someone willing to learn and more importantly, to listen). Remember, you can't always figure out what a term means from context clues. And this sets us up rather nicely for my biggest point, which is:
• DON'T lie. Don't. Lie. Do not do it. Ever. (I don't really need to explain why this is a bad idea, do I?) Just trust me...you WILL be found out, and you'll have irrevocably damaged (if not outright destroyed) your credibility forever. And this applies to gaslighting too. People are smart--they WILL figure it out.

So, there you have it. Some simple ways to improve employee engagement, and stop making the common mistakes that are preventing you from getting there. What do you think--do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments.