Will hiring great staff members solve all your personnel challenges?
Today we will continue to cover Personnel, the first of our organizational pillar. And we will cover the aspect of personnel engagement and motivation.
I would like to say YES but the answer is no. Having great team players is a must! No arguing about that.
My view on this is that once you have hired your dream team, THAT is when you work begins.
If your staff is the engine that moves your business, then engagement and motivation is the fuel that feeds that engine. It is THAT important.
Here is what I mean:
In a recent survey,
81% of the employees surveyed would consider leaving their job for the right offer, EVEN if they were not looking for a job at the moment!
57% of employees surveyed wouldn’t recommend their organization as a good place to work.
56% of those surveyed employees believed that they do not have any career advancement opportunity at their current place of work.
How do you think this is affecting employee retention?
That was the negative side of the equation. How about looking at the positive now.
By actual survey, an engaged and motivated staff:
1. Employee engagement increases productivity in the workplace. Engaged employees outperform their peers that are not engaged. Overall, companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable.
2. Employee engagement improves morale in the workplace.
3. Employee engagement reduces absenteeism. In fact, a Gallup study shows that highly engaged workplaces saw 41% lower absenteeism.
4. Engaged employees provide a better customer service.
Employee or personnel engagement does happen all by itself. This is something you AND your team have to work on consistently. The rewards for doing this right are incredible!
This starts with having an awareness of your staff’s level of engagement. These are things you OBSERVE. There is nothing subjective to this. For example:
- Is the employee arriving mostly early or on time?
- Does your employee bring up ideas on how to improve things?
- Does he or she tend to contain confusions, so they don’t hit your lines?
- Is your employee happy to assist you with a task when you ask?
- Is your employee interested in how the business going?
- Are you getting compliments for your customers regarding that employee?
I have written a checklist with 20 separate items that permits you to objectively determine the engagement/motivation level of each your employees.
Having this information, you or your HR Department can now open a discussion with your employees, individually, to find out how we can increase their motivation and interest in the company.
I have here 8 specific strategies you can use RIGHT NOW to drive up employee engagement and motivation:
1. Empower your staff: When you give your staff a job or a responsibility, they have the ball. Believe in them and let them get on with it. Obviously do not give a task to someone you know is not trained or capable to do the work. When that staff has been given a task, let them know you trust them and depend on them to get the expected results. LET GO! There is nothing more annoying for a staff to be hounded and micromanaged by their boss when they are fully capable to perform the required task. Once delegated, don’t meddle.
2. Talk about your staff behind their back: What??? Yes, but talk about positive aspects. Tell others how proud you are that Mary was able to do such and such. The word gets around and this has a big impact. However, refrain from spreading critical or negative comments. These also carry through your staff and the results are catastrophic to personnel engagement.
3. Work on improving, not correcting your staff: People will cooperate when they see that you want to improve them, to get them to better themselves. At the same time, when you correct someone, you put the accent on them being wrong. You do not get as much cooperation this way. You hear this sometimes: “The only person who never makes any mistakes is the person who does nothing (this is the biggest mistake one can do, in my book!)”. It is ok to make mistakes so long as you learn from it. Given the right viewpoint, your staff will work hard to do better next time. That is a sure route to personnel engagement.
4. Accept responsibility and expect that they do the same: This is a classic instance of leading by example. When something goes wrong, look at what you could have done to avert the situation. Accept your part in it and this will foster your staff taking their part of responsibility as well. Nothing shuts down personnel engagement faster than the executives blaming all the staff for a bad situation.
5. Care for your staff: By this I don’t mean to mother over them. But make it easy for them to come to you and discuss some issues they have. Show genuine care for your employees’ well-being. Spend some time talking with your staff and be interested in them as human beings and how they are doing. That goes a long way. You don’t have to be their best buddy, but you do have to take time to speak with them and listen to what they have to say. They will listen more to you as a result.
6. Recognize, reward, and reinforce them: There are 1001 ways to do something wrong. You can tell somebody they are wrong 1001 times. That is not going to make it right. But when you recognize and acknowledge someone when they have done something right, you establish a yardstick for that person. They now have a frame of reference; they can use to continue to do good work. From there, you get more right actions and successes.
7. Be the role model: You are the boss after all, and your staff are looking up to you. You have heard that before: “Monkey see, monkey do.” That is absolutely true! When you arrive late consistently for work and then tell your staff to be on time… that is a hard pill to swallow for some.
8. Consistently strive to improve yourself: By working at improving yourself, you not only become a better boss, but you show the staff that they should also do the same. Tell them what you are learning, how you plan to implement these new concepts. This will generate excitement and show them that you are working to create a future for the company and for them. A staff that continuously work on improving themselves, is indeed a very engaged staff! Also, have them share what they learn and how they can use this on their job. This is also a sure was to drive up engagement.
Increasing employee engagement is an integral part of an executive’s job. This is like the accelerator pedal on your car. The moment you stop pumping gas in the engine, it slows down. Those executives who have mastered that are a credit to their company and are remembered for a long time by the employees working under them.
Select a few of the above strategies and work on it until it become second nature. I wish you great success with these!
Here is a link to the Employee Engagement Checklist of you wish to download and use it: PERSONNEL ENGAGEMENT | rpmc
Feel free to schedule a meeting with me to discuss how to implement the above. I am more than happy to do so! Here is the link: https://rpmc.youcanbook.me