Author: sybil

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Engagement Featured Post

Can You Achieve 100% Employee Engagement?

One of the best descriptions between employees who are engaged and those who are not comes from Blessing White:

” … engaged employees stay for what they give (they like their work) [whereas] disengaged employees stay for what they get (favorable job conditions, growth opportunities, job security).”

Given the choice, most companies would prefer their workforce be comprised of fully engaged employees. But is total engagement attainable or even realistic? According to employee engagement author and consultant Leigh Branham, not all employees choose to be engaged:

“Most employees want to be engaged [while] other employees simply don’t view being engaged as a desirable, or even possible, personal goal. They see work as a necessary activity, but not as a source of fulfillment. Many have a strong work ethic, but are uninspired by their managers or their daily work environment, so they withhold much of their energy and effort.” 

Just because every employee isn’t interested in being engaged doesn’t mean management should give up on it or work harder to force it on employees. Neither scenario creates a positive work environment.

While 100% employee engagement may not be realistic, smart companies focus on what they can do to maximize engagement in their organizations – including hiring right from the outset, recognizing and reinforcing a positive work culture that values people (employees, customers, business partners, etc. ) as well as profit, and keeping it simple.

[Image courtesy of http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/]

 

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Featured Post Musings

There’s No “I” in Engagement … or is There?

I’m not talking about “I” as in “individual” – people are responsible for their own engagement. I’m talking about “I” as in “inertia.” You can’t have an engaged workplace in the presence of management inertia.

Engagement is a two-way proposition that involves both the employee and the organization’s management. However, people can show up at work fully engaged and yet their initial enthusiasm and energy are chipped away over time for a variety of reasons. In other words, once engaged doesn’t mean always engaged. [While personal issues at home can also negatively impact employee engagement, my focus here is on organizational rather than personal factors.]

Management’s role is to foster a climate of engagement in which people know that their work and the results of their efforts matter. This includes managers’ own engagement – if they’re not committed to the organization, how can they expect their employees to be committed to it? Or to the managers themselves?

Clearly, engagement cannot co-exist with inertia. But when management practices “intentional” engagement, it’s an entirely different situation.

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Engagement

Nonprofit Engagement Dilemma: A Caring, Yet Complacent Board

A  friend of mine works as a marketing director for a nonprofit with a stagnant board of directors. The by-laws stipulate board membership be drawn from the regional service-based organization that founded the nonprofit more than fifty years ago. As a result, the governance structure has evolved into an insular board with life-time terms. The good news is board members take pride in their involvement with the nonprofit based on its mission, and they have a strong passion for the founding organization. The board is also fortunate in that the nonprofit is well run by a dedicated professional staff.

The bad news is staff members have to work around a board that has become complacent. As long as the nonprofit is thriving, the board is comfortable with its oversight. Board leadership is not interested in how it can improve its governance and support. So the executive team leads the organization by focusing on the mission as it tolerates a board that has “a golden operation in their hands and do not understand what to do with it.”

As mentioned earlier, this nonprofit is doing well except for the executive team’s frustration. Passion for and commitment to the mission sustains these staff members … for now.

Effective board member engagement is more than just showing up at board meetings and talking up the nonprofit. It also involves a commitment to improving its governance and collaborative relationship with staff. As well run as my friend’s nonprofit is, it could be so much more with a fully engaged and mutually respectful staff-board partnership.

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Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Internal Marketing Tools of Engagement For Marketers (Part 2)

Last week I shared examples of how Marketing can start to build better relationships within the firm. In addition to this general outreach, it’s important to get employee buy-in and cooperation for each marketing program you implement. Here are several tools of engagement you can use.

Before launching any marketing initiative or program …

  • Share the rationale and goals behind this initiative with employees – clearly explain what you’re trying to do and why.
  • Communicate how Marketing’s efforts in relation to the program help support the firm’s overall mission and strategic plan – reinforce the message “we’re all in this together” instead of contributing to the perception that Marketing creates extra work for people.
  • Get employee input, and be sensitive and responsive to how their work will be affected by this program.
  • Provide the necessary training (and any incentives, if appropriate) so staff can effectively support the initiative.

Once the initiative is up-and-running …

You can’t just let it run its course and forget about it. As part of your monitoring efforts:

  • Stay in touch with what employees need to keep the program’s momentum going.
  • Share interim results and any fine-tuning that needs to be done and why.
  • Recognize and reinforce employees’ support of the initiative.

And when the program is over …

  • Share final results and “lessons learned” – for example, what worked & why (to replicate success in the future ) and what didn’t work & why (what to avoid and what to improve the next time)
  • Acknowledge employees’ individual and collective efforts in supporting marketing and organizational goals
  • Solicit employee feedback on how to improve future initiatives.

Employees who deliver on the brand promise can make or break Marketing. That’s why we need to consider employees “upfront” when planning and implementing any marketing initiative – so they’ll work with us, not against us.

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Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Internal Marketing Tools of Engagement For Marketers (Part 1)

My recent post on How Marketers Sabotage Themselves raised the issue that marketers need to engage all employees who deliver on the brand, including those outside the Marketing Department.

To get employee buy-in, we need to break out of our silos and strengthen marketing’s relationship with employees; i.e., we need to do a better job of marketing “Marketing” within the firm. Here are a few ways we can accomplish this.

  • Participate in new employee orientation to explain how every employee has an important role in delivering the brand promise. If someone from Marketing is unable to attend, educate whoever is in charge of orientation to share this message.
  • Host a real or virtual “Open House” so non-marketing co-workers can get acquainted with Marketing and its resources. Invite key people from other departments to your staff meetings to learn what Marketing is doing and vice-versa.
  • Share general marketing information info to let others know what’s happening in the marketplace, such as consumer/customer trends, competitive analysis, customer satisfaction results, etc.
  • Find ways to effectively recognize employees who positively deliver on the brand promise; e.g., “Brand Champions” or “Marketing Heroes.”

I’ll have more on this topic in my next post, so stay tuned …

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Musings

My Father’s Day Tribute

In honor of Father’s Day this Sunday, I wanted to share a little bit about my beloved father and what he taught me about marketing – without realizing it at the time.

My father was a tailor who operated a small alterations and dry cleaning business. When I was little, I loved visiting him at the store to watch him work on a treadle sewing machine that was surrounded by rainbows of thread neatly stacked on shelves. Sometimes I would accompany him while he picked up and delivered his customers’ dry cleaning.(Home delivery of services was the norm when I grew up, including doctors making house calls.)

Reflecting on my childhood, I learned a lot from my father amid the colored spools of thread and smells of dry cleaning solvent. I especially loved how customers loved my father. My father was not only a craftsman when it came to sewing, he was a master of relationship marketing. Whenever customers came into the store, my father would warmly greet them, inquire about their family, and then get into the specifics of their clothing alteration needs. He took as much care with the customers as he did with their clothes. And they kept coming back, while referring new customers to him.

The term “relationship marketing” didn’t exist back in the 1950’s-70’s when my father ran his tailor shop. It was just an intuitive way of how he did business. I was blessed to be his daughter and learn from him.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Thanks for a wonderful legacy.

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Engagement Featured Post

Coping with the Clueless in Charge

Does your organization’s management suffer from a credibility gap? They bring out program after program – jumping on the latest management bandwagon – then fail to follow through. Meanwhile, you and your fellow employees invest countless hours in these short-lived special initiatives on employee engagement, recognition, talent management or other fill-in-the-blank trendy topic.

With an uncooperative economy offering little job movement, it’s easy to become frustrated (the “enemy of engagement”) and cynical. Try not to dwell on the precious resources wasted in these “flavor-of-the-month” programs.

So what can you do to preserve whatever sanity you have left? Here are several suggestions:

  • Find humor in the situation – amuse yourself and your colleagues with what management is going to do next. Play games like Business Word Bingo or the Buzz Word Generator.
  • Consider management’s ineffectiveness as a learning tool that can make you more marketable … seriously, so you know what NOT to do in your next job.
  • Maintain perspective – keep in mind this is a temporary situation (although it may not seem that way). Eventually you can change jobs or retire.
  • Make an anonymous suggestion to get your organization featured on Undercover Boss or take up a collection to get a management coach. [Just kidding!]
  • Besides maintaining perspective and a sense of humor, find ways to de-stress; e.g., go for a walk in the fresh air or engage in whatever healthy activity brings you endorphins.

These are just a sample of attitude adjustment coping mechanisms. I welcome your ideas!

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Engagement Marketing

How Marketers Sabotage Themselves

I recently spoke to a group of marketers about our need to internally market the marketing function. Before we can begin to develop brand ambassadors or marketing champions, we need to engage ALL employees in what marketing does since each employee impacts delivery of the brand promise.

To better engage employees with our marketing programs, it’s important to understand how we inadvertently sabotage our own marketing efforts.

  • We fail to recognize that marketing is perceived as creating extra work for employees. I learned this lesson earlier in my career as a bank marketer. Whenever the Marketing Department would launch a new deposit promotion – offering gifts to customers for opening new accounts – most branch people were less than receptive. On top of their regular duties of meeting daily operational standards for efficient transaction processing, business development & sales goals, customer service standards and customer retention goals, we expected the tellers, customer service reps and branch managers to display, process, distribute and control inventory of whatever premiums that marketing had sent their way (stadium blankets, golf umbrellas, toaster ovens, VCRs, etc.). No wonder they wanted to bar the doors whenever they saw Marketing coming!
  • Just because the Marketing Department is part of the organizational chart doesn’t mean that employees know who we are and what we do. We forget that we need to continually educate others within the organization as to what Marketing really does … other than sitting around having a good time creating work for everyone else.

Our challenge is how do we engage employees who deliver on the brand when they have no clue as to what we really do and we have little/no authority over them?

As marketers we know how to develop and strengthen customer relationships; it’s not a stretch to apply this skill set to develop and strengthen employee relationships. But we’re so busy taking care of everyone else’s marketing needs that we neglect our own.

In what other ways does marketing sabotage itself? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experience on this topic.

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Marketing Training & Development

Starting a Marketing Department from Scratch

“Great news!” said the young woman who called me after attending one of my marketing workshops. With a background in graphic design, she was responsible for advertising, special events, and employee communications for a group of physicians in a multi-specialty medical practice. “My boss agreed to start a formal marketing function, and he wants me to head it up,” she explained. “Help!”

Where to begin

I shared her excitement, enthusiasm, and even a bit of panic. “First, take a deep breath,” I advised her. “Now, tell me about your company’s most pressing marketing needs.” We discussed these to start to prioritize them and get a realistic perspective of what could be achieved given her status as a one-person marketing department.

Beyond Marketing 101

Since there are plenty of books available on how-to-do marketing and how-to-write-a-marketing-plan, her concern was really how to be effective in developing a formal marketing function that would be accepted and respected within the group practice. My advice centered on four areas.

  • Focus. Prepare to discuss the practice’s critical marketing needs with key internal stakeholders – in this case, physicians and administrators. Then get their agreement on selecting no more than three priorities that will receive most of marketing’s attention.
  • Build Relationships. Cultivate and nurture relationships with marketing-related providers – printers, media reps, research suppliers, promotional sales reps, web designers, direct mail firms, etc. At the same time, develop and maintain relationships with marketing partners inside the practice. Educate and communicate with physicians, nursing staff, and administrators so they know and understand what marketing is doing and why (i.e., explain the rationale and goals of marketing’s strategy), including how individually and collectively they impact the brand based on their interactions with patients, families, hospitals, and the community-at-large.
  • Manage Expectations Carefully. Once people within the practice know about the marketing department, everyone will have a laundry list of things they want marketing to do for them. So it’s important to manage organizational expectations of marketing – its goals, capabilities, limited resources, deadlines, etc. – upward (among management) as well as laterally (between and within the practice specialties). Stay focused on marketing’s top priorities [see Focus above] to keep from being overwhelmed with marketing requests.
  • Make Time for Professional Development. It’s not easy to do it all as a one-person marketing department. Which is why it’s even more important to continue learning how to be a better marketer. Some of this knowledge can be gained by investing in formal development – taking classes, webinars, reading, etc. And some of it can be obtained via networking with other professionals in the field. Try to learn how they manage their marketing functions and how they handle marketing challenges, including being creative with limited resources. This networking can be invaluable for sharing ideas and coping strategies with other marketers and using them as sounding-boards. Whether over the phone, over a meal, over coffee or a more potent beverage, it’s also helpful to know that others have survived similar challenges.

Special Note: This advice is applicable to other organizations. Identify the internal and external stakeholders who are important to your organization and insert them to replace the physicians, administrators and other segments mentioned above.

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Engagement Marketing

Why Nonprofits Need Engagement-Part 2

Upon learning about my new book, Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits, my friend was puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said, “especially when nonprofits are so mission-driven. Aren’t the people who work there more engaged than those who work in the for-profit sector?”

My friend’s presumption about nonprofit engagement is a common one. Regardless of whether an organization is profit-driven or mission-driven, the quality of workplace engagement depends on the organizational culture and how its people are treated. Nonprofits can’t claim any advantage based on employees’ and volunteers’ passion for the mission.

As nonprofit employee and consultant Jinna Halperin wrote in Voices from the Field: Nonprofit Workplace Culture – Why it Matters so Much to Us:

“All nonprofits are dysfunctional in some way or another and figuring out where to hang your hat requires one to assess whether the level and type of dysfunction is personally tolerable …

“I am no longer driven only by the mission of the organization. Having so many issues about which I feel passionate and on which I have worked, I have come to believe that employment happiness at nonprofits is more about how one is treated and whether one’s contribution is respected …”

An inspiring mission may attract talent employees and volunteers to an organization, but it takes much more to get them to stay. People need to feel they matter as much as their work.

Note: To get a look inside my new book on nonprofit engagement, stay tuned for next week’s post.