Throwing Employee Engagement into Overdrive

Anyone that knows me knows that I truly believe Employee Engagement is truly one of the key assets that a company can leverage to achieve a true competitive advantage. Now, I think it would be good to discuss some of the underpinnings that I believe can lead to the creation and sustainability of high employee engagement. Over my career I have coached a large number of teams and leaders on the concepts of high performance and high engagement, and in most of those cases I found situations that closely reflected many of the ideas that business author Daniel Pink wrote about in his book Drive. The thrust of Pink’s book is really that what most businesses think motivates employees isn’t necessarily correct and that there are other prime motivators that need to be considered in order to achieve high employee engagement in the workplace. Over the years my experiences tend to validate Pink’s belief that what drives employees to be fully committed to the “cause” is very different than the traditional conventional wisdom on the topic.

Motivators Matter!! Identify them correctly — A large number of companies continue to believe that employees are motivated by traditional workplace “sticks and carrots” such as money (compensation) and titles (promos). I’ll be the first to admit that making sure that you can pay the mortgage/rent and care for your family is a core foundational tenant that is important to every single employee (look no further than Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to confirm), but once you get past that point other motivators kick in. Yes, things like compensation do certainly matter, but as Daniel Pink’s research points out, it’s not what creates an environment of highly engaged employees. He suggests that individuals are primarily motivated by three things: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. So let’s quickly define each:

• Autonomy is the ability for an employee to influence and control how they manage their time, tasks, and interactions with other employees.
• Mastery is the opportunity for an employee to become a true expert in the area in which they work.
• Purpose is the connection that an employee can form with a larger objective that is bigger than their day-to-day work.

Creating high levels of employee engagement can be much easier when remembering that autonomy, mastery, and purpose are prime motivators.

Create structured programs, defined objectives, and clear goals that drive engagement — So, I’ve already stated my agreement with the idea that employees see Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose as prime motivators that can lead them to being highly engaged. I would then contend that the next step involves turning those motivators into tangible objectives and goals that employees can work towards. Creating a means by which employees can act autonomously, acquire expertise, and connect with larger objectives is critical to this effort of getting to a highly engaged workforce, as is rewarding successful endeavors to accomplish each of these things in our business environment. After all, everyone appreciate having their achievements recognized in meaningful ways. Make sure that these programs and the rewards associated with them are tangible and well-defined.

Make employee feedback a cultural norm — While most employees crave feedback of all kinds, many managers often struggle with giving it. Feedback comes in many shapes and sizes. We all know the annual performance reviews or quarterly performance check-ups which typically have a formal tone and structure to them. There is also the ad hoc feedback that might be given on a weekly or daily basis. This feedback tends to be less formal in nature, but is arguably more valuable as these are the mile markers and check points that enable for mid-course corrections should they be necessary. Regardless of the format used to provide employees with feedback, there are a few best practices which can be employed to greatly improve employee engagement.

• Provide feedback on a regular basis. Don’t wait until the end of the quarter or end of the year as this is just setting employees up for frustration and possibly failure.
• Always provide objective, candid feedback that an employee can understand and act on. There is nothing worse than getting obtuse feedback shrouded in metaphors and having no idea what it really means or how to practically act on it.
• Remember to ask for the employee’s perspective on the feedback given and to genuinely listen to that feedback. (I’ll write about my take on the act and importance of active listening in a future post.)

Remove roadblocks that impede achievement — I can’t ever remember an employee coming up to me and saying, “You know what Keith? I wanna fail!! Can you help make sure that there is no conceivable way for me to be able to accomplish the job I’ve been given?” Alright, just typing that line makes me feel like it’s overly absurd, but hopefully you get my point. I think it’s safe to say that nearly all (if not all) employees want to accomplish the objectives in front of them. However, what I hear over and over is the fact that employees in workplaces across the country feel that they never stop running into what they perceive to be a never-ending series of roadblocks. What are a few that I’ve heard over and over again? Here is a small sample:

• Lack of access to knowledge and information: Many employees believe that a lack of knowledge or access to information prevents them from accomplishing what they want/need to accomplish. I have seen examples of individuals in workplaces that view information as power and wield it as such. These types of roadblocks must be addressed in order to ever achieve a highly engaged workforce.
• Poor Internal communication: Many employees cite poor communication as the number one hindrance to accomplishing a specific task. If there is a lack of clarity or if there is a feeling that you’re flying blind due to a lack of communication, then good luck trying to get your workforce to a place of high engagement. They’re going to be too worried about the next unforeseen “thing” and how they’re going to get it done.
• Feeling like they’re in a silo or on an island: Employees need to feel empowered to be able to reach out and engage others with similar goals. Smart employees know that while goals can be created & worked independently, achieving them almost always requires help and support from others. Collaboration also builds community and cohesion in a way that will assist with getting the buy-in needed for higher levels of engagement.
• Not feeling setup for success: Employees want to feel like they can move forward in their work armed with appropriate resources, minimal obstacles, the ability to work across boundaries, and with leaders that have done a solid job of aligning processes, structure, and systems. With each impediment to progress that was preventable but not proactively addressed and taken care of, you are risking damage to engagement levels.

Turn the engagement into action — Engagement for the sake of engagement is just that and really does nothing for our business. Happy employees are great, but happy, highly engaged employees that contribute to the business by performing in exceptional ways are the ultimate goal. To ensure this, it is imperative to emphasize that engagement is a two way street — the company will do great things for employees and employees will do great things for the company. So many companies fail to get this one right, but those that do create a virtuous (as opposed to vicious) cycle of employee engagement where the company does more for its people and the people do more for the company which in turn causes the company to do even more for its people. It is a beautiful thing to behold when implemented well and nurtured/sustained in a healthy manner through the use of meaningful structure and consistent process.

In the end it is very important to understand that employee engagement is a journey, a way of running our business, a re-sequencing of our cultural DNA, not an end-result. We have an amazing opportunity to make our workforce a shining example of what a massively successful company with highly engaged employees looks like and what they are able to create/produce. I’m absolutely excited to see where our journey takes us!!

As always, these thoughts are based on my personal experiences and I would love to hear from anyone that has additional perspectives in the comments. It is our collective experiences and unique perspectives that combine together to make us who we are and I for one am eager to seize that learning experience and capitalize on all that it has to offer.

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