Engagement Vital but Managers Not Trained

Is the gap between management salaries and the rank and file growing wider? Are there big bonuses for the bosses while everyone else endures pay freezes, furloughs and doing more with less?

This could be disastrous to your future and certainly profitability of any company. There is irrefutable evidence that employee engagement is correlated with productivity, so plummeting engagement is a real threat to the standard of corporate excellence and the need to get more from less.

Many managers, with little sense of ownership, will throw their hands in the air, bemoan their circumstance and blame the company for not providing resources. Others will strive to make the best of the situation by taking internal action. What will you do?

Engaging your workforce for success requires some basic action that every company can and should take.

First, building trust is vital. One course of action is initiating reviews of the organization’s values and soliciting employee opinions. This is highly recommended. It creates a sense of ownership and responsibility as long as employees believe their voices are being heard and will be acted upon.

Second, managers should understand that engagement is fundamentally an emotional response, not a rational one. Perceived unfairness in pay of the executive compared to the staff can be a potent cause of disengagement. The need to feel fairly treated is an innate human given. Others are:

• the need to feel valued

• appreciated

• listened to

• involved in decision making

• be trusted and given the opportunity to increase in knowledge and skills

Company practice too often ignores these needs.

Third, we suggest that many employers are underestimating the huge influence on engagement levels made by line managers. It's not that other things are unimportant it's just that they are trumped by a far more important factor – the atmosphere in the workplace. The evidence suggests that around 76% of decisions to engage or disengage are made on the basis of the relationship with an immediate manager. People join organizations, they leave managers.

Yet, fewer than 20% of managers have received any training in engagement skills, how to bring out the best in their people. The old command and control management paradigm is still all too common but is no longer effective in the knowledge economy. It creates disengagement.

The bottom line? There's an underlying principle for engagement, whether it's employee engagement, customer engagement or even two people entering a personal relationship – and it is this: engagement correlates with how the relationship makes us feel about ourselves.

Employers whose policies make people feel good about themselves are engaging employees. Managers whose behaviors and attitudes in the workplace make their people feel good about themselves create engaged employees. That's the long and short of it.

(Funny Video) The Office: Engagement Audit

(To the Point) 30 Second Motivation Training

Engagement Linked to Financial Performance

Senior leaders should take the lead on employee engagement - for the sake of the organization. Hewitt Associates in a recently released 2010 study shows a clear link between highly engaged workforces and highly performing companies. “Organizations with high levels of engagement (where 65 percent or more of employees are engaged) outperformed the total stock market index even in volatile economic conditions…companies with low engagement (where less than 40 percent of employees are engaged) had a total shareholder return that was 44 percent lower than the average.” If that does not illustrate the connection clearly, please read the entire article for more info: Hewitt Analysis
 
Hewitt's research shows that 46 percent of organizations experienced a decline in engagement levels in the quarter ending June 2010, while just 30 percent saw an improvement. Obviously, there is a growing gap that will be problematic as the economy recovers. Employers are struggling with financial issues and employees are stressed beyond limits. Many are thinking about leaving when the opportunity arises. This will lead to shortages in talent for many companies. It is the prudent thing to put systems in place that will mitigate these issues and support financial performance.

There are some critical steps to improving engagement levels and boost morale. Companies must think well into the future and be proactive now to see successes 2 to 3 or 5 years out. Some steps you can take now are:
 
· Communicate a clear vision for the organization now and into the future
· Engage leadership to be visible and to walk the talk to lessen employee anxiety
· Create systems that will energize employees and managers alike…provide feedback on how well the company is doing and the impact employees are having
· Actively involve all stakeholders in the process. A sense of ownership for the future will create an environment that helps retain top talent
· Use all the tools available to your organization to increase morale. One program or approach may not be enough
· Adjust your strategies as needed to keep the edge
 
Understand what drives positive employee behavior and make sure your employees know that you appreciate all the sacrifices they have made on behalf of the company. Acknowledge people's contributions and reward people for their effort. Recognition can have an immense effect on a person. These actions help to create a workplace where people feel secure and valued.
 
Motivate
Remind people of what the organization, the department and the team are trying to achieve and where they fit into this. Create a line of sight from individuals' roles to the future achievements of the organization and highlight the benefits for the public in meeting these goals. Make the effort to know what values your people hold and align these with what the organization is trying to achieve and how the organization is planning to do this. This can create a sense of purpose and pride in what people are doing.
 
This is about people, connecting with people, valuing people, supporting people and developing people. Employee engagement is related to many positive outcomes; financial performance, productivity, employee well-being, and job satisfaction, just to name a few, and leaders cannot let this be undervalued in the current climate.