Tag: employee engagement

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Engagement

Employee Engagement: Interview with David Zinger

I’m delighted to introduce employee engagement specialist David Zinger, who is also the founder and host of the Employee Engagement Network. 

Employee engagement continues to be a hot topic these days. I posed a number of critical questions about it to David that he graciously answered.

Question: In talking about employee engagement as something that “enriches everyone in the workplace,” you emphasize that “It is not sucking out more discretionary effort from everyone.” How do you define employee engagement?

David: There are a plethora of definitions of employee engagement. Sometimes I think the multiple definitions are perpetuated by the larger consulting companies trying to sell their own measurement and interventions. I believe employee engagement is connection. The stronger the connection, the higher the level of engagement. It is our connections to our work, meaning, others, leaders, managers, customers, financial returns, etc., that creates and maintains engagement. We all must benefit from engagement or it will not be sustained over time. We don’t engage people to “suck out discretionary effort,” we engage them to enrich their life and work experiences.

Question: Why do you think there are so many managers who don’t get the importance of effectively engaging employees?

To some managers it is another buzzword. The workplace is shifting and it is a challenge for many leaders, managers, and supervisors to respond to the shift. I see the parallel phenomenon with social media and web 2.0 tools. Managers might not understand it and might not feel comfortable or competent in working at engagement. In addition many managers are taxed to the max, and if we don’t help them energize themselves they will not have the energy to initiate or sustain engagement efforts.

Question: Is there a point at which engagement levels are unsustainable? How realistic is it to sustain high levels of employee engagement?

David: On a macro level engagement can be sustained for a long time, perhaps even a lifetime. On a micro level we need to balance engagement with work with disengagement from work and engagement at home with disengagement from home. There are a lot of things individuals, managers, leaders, and organizations must do to sustain engagement. It must be of benefit to all. It must also be a very human endeavor.

Question: In her recent post, Maybe the Traditional Approach to Engagement is All Wrong, Judy MacLeish started a wonderful discussion on a top-down vs. bottom-up approach to engagement. What do you think is the most effective approach?

David: I think the hierarchical notion of engagement is part of the problem. When you have a top or a bottom, actual or perceived, you have a lot of division. I think engagement radiates out from a circle or a core. I think each individual is responsible for their own engagement yet everyone is accountable for everyone else’s engagement. I embrace John Wooden’s line: Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can. To me the most effective approach is when everyone is involved, benefiting, and ENGAGED!

Thanks for sharing, David.

I encourage you to visit David Zinger’s website where you’ll find great articles and additional resources … and while you’re there you can join the employee engagement network.

 

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Engagement Marketing

Employee-Customer Care Podcast Now Available

My podcast interview from my recent virtual book tour with Phil Gerbyshak is finally up following some audio glitches.

To my readers – thanks for your patience.

To Phil – thanks for your diligence in fixing and posting the audio file!

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

“Punching In” Delivers Knock-Out Insight

For a fascinating look at life as a front-line employee in some well-known retail and service companies, read Punching In by Alex Frankel. Frankel spent two years working undercover as a frontline employee for UPS, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Gap, Starbucks, and Apple Store.

 

His adventure was prompted by his interest in discovering how these well known companies selected and trained employees and melded them into the corporate culture to deliver on the brand promise. Frankel’s experience provides insight into the hiring process (ranging from online psychological tests to The Container Store’s in-store group interviews) and the impact of formal as well as informal training and sharing of corporate values & norms.

Note to all who oversee their organizations’ orientation programs and/or are involved in trying to codify the employee and customer experience, including helping employees evolve into brand ambassadors – read this book and consider how your organization would have fared if Frankel wrote about you. (Better yet, ask your own employees … )

Punching In explores the human role in retail and service operations. Given my bias for positive employee-customer care, I loved one of the critical lessons Frankel learned from his frontline adventure:

” … I found that many of the best companies have not only realized that humans matter but have also moved ahead of competitors by finding, hiring, and training great people to work for them. People have become as much of a competitive weapon for many companies as the actual products they sell.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Engagement Can Be Tricky in Association Management

A colleague recently wrote about not taking employee engagement for granted based on his experience working for nonprofit associations.

Here’s another reason to be concerned with staff engagement – loyal members who have strong ties to their professional associations, particularly those who are strongly committed to and passionate about their participation. These members tend to work closely with the association’s professional staff and develop strong collegial relationships with them. As a result, they become concerned with – even protective of – how staff are treated in the organization.

For association management, the staff-volunteer relationship can be tricky, especially in instances where volunteers overstep their bounds to interfere with personnel issues. The relationship works both way, however, as many professional staff enjoy working with the members and volunteer leaders; it’s one of the perks that compensates for working in a professional association at nonprofit wages.

For association management, the bottom line is that internal issues regarding staff engagement can also impact (and be impacted by) member engagement.

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Engagement Marketing

Who’s on First: Customers or Employees? (continued)

In contrast to the clueless company mentioned in my last post, I’m going to again cite Marriott.

Check out what Mike Jannini, Marriott International Executive VP, had to say about his company’s employee-centric approach in a recent address at the Creating Value through Service Symposium.

Companies that are employee-focused are inherently customer-focused. Being customer-focused alone is not enough (and a poor strategy) when employee value is only lip-service.

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Engagement Marketing

Who’s on First: Customers or Employees?

In his June 24, 2008 article “If the customer comes first, where does that leave employees?”, Steve Crescenzo shares a story about a company whose approach is “Customers First, Employees Last.” [Updated note: access to Steve’s article is for Ragan.com Select Members. Ragan offers both free and select membership options on Ragan.com. It also offers My Ragan, a free social network for corporate communicators.]

This ‘customers first-employees last’ approach may not be what management intended, but it became the reality of the corporate culture as experienced by employees.

What’s especially disturbing is that an internal communications professional within the company tried to bring the situation about employee frustration to management’s attention – specifically in a proposed article entitled “Does ‘Customers First’ Mean Employees Last?” for an online employee publication. But management nixed the idea; they didn’t want to hear it and/or didn’t want to deal with it.

Unfortunately, the company described here isn’t unique. There are too many firms with customer problems – evident through constant complaints and customer churn – where the solution is to come down hard and put pressure on employees without actually engaging them to assist with solutions. (Why bother asking the employees who have daily interaction with the customers? If they were so smart, they’d be in management instead of on the front-lines!)

Hint to managers who think this way: customer dissatisfaction doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Besides worrying about customer retention, take a look at your employee retention.

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Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Spotlight: Mustang Engineering (Part 2)

This post will continue my spotlight on Mustang Engineering, a company truly committed to all its stakeholders.

It’s also one of the few companies I know that has a dedicated internal marketing department.

I asked Liz Stevens, Mustang Marketing Communications Specialist, about the purpose and scope of their internal marketing function. Here’s what she shared with me:

“The purpose of internal marketing is to promote Mustang’s unique, people oriented culture and to keep Mustangers happy. We strive to provide a place people actually look forward to coming to every day and where they can enjoy who they are with and what they are doing. Fun, fun, fun! The scope is ALL Mustangers, worldwide. No matter where they are located in the world, we want all Mustangers to feel connected to the Mustang family.”

This reflects and reinforces the company’s vision: Our quest is to embody a culture that inspires super-motivated people to make heroes of Clients, Partners, Vendors and Mustangers.

In my internal marketing workshops, I suggest companies ask their employees the question, “Would you refer a friend to work here?” as a way to gauge the quality of the corporate culture. I can only imagine a positive response to that question at Mustang Engineering.

Categories
Engagement

What’s Behind Employee Turnover

To understand the real reasons employees leave, check out The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave by Leigh Branham.

He provides insight across the continuum of what prompts employees to start thinking about leaving to their disengagement and ultimate departure. Branham’s book is based on the results of extensive employee exit interviews.

The seven reasons why employees leave include:

  • The job or workplace was not as expected
  • A mismatch between the job and the person
  • Not enough coaching and feedback
  • Too few growth and advancement opportunities
  • Employees feel devalued and unrecognized
  • Stress from overwork and work-life imbalance
  • A loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders.

Branham further breaks down each reason into specific underlying causes and provides “employer-of-choice engagement practices” and accompanying checklists to help managers more effectively minimize turnover. As a special bonus, he also offers guidelines for exit interviews and turnover analysis.

Branham’s book contains fascinating insight into why employees leave. Here’s one of my favorite takeaways: when doing an exit interview, ask “Why are you not staying?” instead of “Why are you leaving?”

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Engagement Marketing

Bad Bosses – Good Teachers

This isn’t an April Fool’s joke – bad bosses have a lot to teach us (especially by example). And you don’t have to go very far to learn from them.

Bad bosses are a hot topic these days. Witness the best selling book, The No Asshole Rule, Zane Safrit’s “Worst bosses of the Year … so many choices” and Management-Issues’s “The Search for World’s Worst Boss.”

I’ve had my share of bad bosses. Fortunately, none would have been contenders for the World’s Worst list. In retrospect, I learned some valuable lessons from them – mostly about how not to treat employees.

Here are my top three lessons learned:

  1. Do not treat employees as minions whose sole function is to bolster your ego.
  2. Do not give employees assignments without all the proper information they need (either because you’re into power trips or because you really don’t know what you want, but you’ll figure it out as soon as they finish the assignment – at which point you’ll change your mind and direct them to do it differently.
  3. Do not assume your employees have no life outside the office and are available to help you 24/7. (I had one boss in particular whose mantra could have been: lack of planning on my part will constitute a constant emergency on your part.)

If you’ve worked for a bad boss, please share what you learned as a result.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Would You Work Here?

I came across this “vision statement” that was meant to rally employees in an organization and industry undergoing change.

 

(Note: I’ve done some minor editing only to disguise the name and type of company,)

 

“We are ONE TEAM determined to build a thriving organization.

We understand that consumers will always have more choices; therefore our actions must by driven by what they need.

We will inform and empower our community through new products and yet-to-be imagined ways while we adapt and sustain our organization well into the future. We will drive urgent change.

By doing this, we will build a thriving organization, admired by employees and customers for making our community an even better place in which to live well, do business and prosper in a free society.”

I admit that I don’t know the circumstances of who created this vision statement (presumably a management team), how it was positioned, and how it was introduced. But its tone really put me off.

While the ultimate intent — to “build a thriving organization … for making our community an even better place” — is lofty, to me the language used throughout the vision statement sounds heavy handed: “We are ONE TEAM … our actions must be driven … we will drive urgent change … “

And then there’s the corporate ego that refers to “a thriving organization admired by employees and customers …”

So I ask you: is this a place you would want to work?

If you read this vision statement differently, I would love to know your reaction.