Know Thy Employees

Employee Engagement Know Thy Employees.

For years, employers have focused on the tired old habit of handing out perks such as pay raises, performance bonuses, extra vacation time, and even preferential treatment such as the coveted corner office or weekend at the company condo in Lake Tahoe.

Two decades of research shows that while these motivators aren’t necessarily bad ideas – dangling carrots like these hasn’t created a sustained shift in employee engagement and productivity.

When Towers Perrin conducted a survey of 90,000 employees worldwide in 2007, it found that a company's financial productivity depends on its employee engagement levels.

#1 element driving engagement on a global level was an employee’s belief that senior management was sincerely interested in his or her well being…

… yet, only 28% believe that senior management is truly interested in their well-being.

The number one determinant of an employee’s success on the job was to feel cared for.

Other than the decisions individuals make on their own about liking their work, senior management and supervisors are the most powerful factor in employee motivation and morale.

What can you do to get to know your employees?

Identify what’s meaningful to employees.

Get to know your employees, especially their goals, their stressors, what excites them and how they each define success.

Get to know them as individuals.

“ Effective leadership requires that you understand people's perspectives, their hopes and dreams and that you present them with a challenge that leads them in the direction where they want to be moving anyway.” Daniel Goleman

Leaders have to know more than the names of spouses and ages of kids; they need to understand the employees who are entrusted to their care - their dreams, disappointments, goals, motivations, fears and the activities that build (and drain) their energy.

Be accessible.

Just 44 percent of employees agreed that senior management tried to be visible and accessible.

Treat employees like they are valuable assets.

Only 10% agreed that senior management treats them as if they’re the most important part of the organization.

More than half felt that senior management “treats us as just another part of the organization to be managed or as if we don’t matter.”

Walk-the-walk.

“ Only 41% of employees say the day-to-day actions of management are consistent with their words.”

Get out of your office.

80% of employees prefer receiving company information from their direct managers.

“ Far too many senior executives at large companies become isolated in the corner office. Their professional lives involve a series of handlers - people who take their calls, screen their email, drive them places, run errands for them, etc. They live in gated communities, travel in first class, and stay at five-star hotels. They have worked hard for these privileges; few would suggest that they don't deserve them. However, executives often find themselves living and working in a bubble. They lose touch with their front-line employees, customers, and suppliers.” HBR, 2008

The informal workplace walk-around is one of most effective methods to get to know and engage employees.

Listen more than you talk.

“ Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life...When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other...and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. ...Well, it is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.”

Servant-leadership recognizes the best way to encourage people to give their utmost in organizations is to appear to care for them, and the best way to do that is to actually care.

Practice servant-leadership.

Put yourself in your employee's shoes. Go work on the line - you learn a great deal about the business in this manner and the day-to-day experiences of your employees.

Understand the needs and concerns of people who work for you.