The document discusses the importance of employee engagement and its connection to operational excellence, emphasizing how effective onboarding and continuous improvement practices can enhance this engagement. Key strategies include improving onboarding processes, empowering middle managers, and fostering a culture of problem-solving through kaizen events. The overall message is that engaged employees lead to better organizational outcomes, highlighting the need for systemic improvements rather than attributing issues to individual employees.

1. Employee Engagement &
Operational Excellence:
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Karen Martin
SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition
June 26, 2012

2. “I’ve become a better person, a better husband,
a better friend, from working at Gore.”
— Terry, a W.L. Gore Associate
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3. Energy Crisis: Widespread Disengagement
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4. • World-class organizations – ratio of
engaged to actively disengaged
employees is 9.57:1.
• Average organizations – ratio of
engaged to actively disengaged
employees is 1.83:1.
― Gallup
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5. We Know It’s Important...
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6. What is
Engagement?
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7. “To be fully engaged, we must be
physically energized, emotionally
connected, mentally focused and
spiritually aligned with a purpose
beyond our self-interest.”
— Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz,
The Power of Full Engagement
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8. How do we “get”
our employees to
engage?
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9. How do we
engage
our employees?
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10. Enabling Engagement:
The Three C’s
Connection
Creativity Control
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11. Under-Developed Areas
• Onboarding
• Problem-Solving & Continuous
Improvement
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12. You had them at
“You’re hired.”
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13. Enabling Engagement:
The Three C’s
Connection
Creativity Control
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14. To what degree do new hires receive all of the
tools and information they need to function
effectively on day one?
70.0% 63%
60.0%
50.0% 44%
Before initial round
40.0% of improvement
30.0% 23% After initial round of
improvement
14%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
Always, Sometimes Rarely, Never
© 2012 Karen Martin & Associates, LLC

15. Onboarding – Missing Pieces
• Tools
– Physical (e.g. desk, etc.)
– Technology (e.g. phones, computers, physical access,
access to applications needed, logins, etc.)
– Identifiers (e.g. signage, business cards, etc.)
• General information
– Company (e.g., customers, values, business goals, etc.)
– Org charts
– Phone directories
• Job-specific orientation
– Documented procedures (standard work)
– Apprenticeship approach: Observe, do with supervision, do
– Clear understanding about what constitutes “success.”
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16. Metrics-Based Process Mapping
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17. Problem: A gap between where you
are and where you need to be.
Opportunity: A gap between where
you are and where you’d like to be.
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18. Kaizen
Kai = Change
Zen = Good
Continuous Improvement 18

19. Develop
hypothesis
Refine
Conduct
Standardize
experiment
Stabilize
Measure
results
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© 2012 Karen Martin & Associates, LLC

20. Enabling Engagement: A3 Management
A3
Report
The vital role of
the coach/mentor
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21. Kaizen Event – Definition
A two- to five-day focused improvement
activity during which a sequestered,
cross-functional team designs and
implements improvements to a defined
process or work area, generating rapid
results and learned behavior.
Karen Martin & Mike Osterling
The Kaizen Event Planner
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22. Kaizen Events Offer Myriad Benefits

23. Enabling Engagement:
The Three C’s
Connection
Creativity Control
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© 2012 Karen Martin & Associates, LLC

24. “I went home yesterday and told my
family that it was one of the best
working days I’ve ever had.
I was able to fully use my
capabilities for three days.”
— Fred Valenzano, Professional Engineer
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25. Problem solving is a high.
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26. The Next Frontier…
The Middle Manager 26

27. Progressive Learning
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© 2012 Karen Martin & Associates, LLC

28. Enabling Engagement:
The Three C’s
Connection
Creativity Control
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© 2012 Karen Martin & Associates, LLC

29. Where to Start?
• Improve your onboarding process.
• Train a core group of middle managers and/or above
in problem solving and improvement coaching.
• Transition your dedicated improvement
professionals from “do-ers” to “teachers.”
• Hold a few kaizen events each year to instill new
behaviors & shift culture.
• Make improvement part of everyone’s job.
• Never, ever make process improvement without
deep involvement of the people who actually do the
work.
• Advocate the truth that people aren’t the problem –
systems are.
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30. Additional Resources
Signing in the Also available in the
SHRMStore SHRMStore
immediately after
today’s session!
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31. For Further Questions
Karen Martin, Principal
7770 Regents Road #635
San Diego, CA 92122
858.677.6799
ksm@ksmartin.com
Twitter: @karenmartinopex
Monthly newsletter: www.ksmartin.com/subscribe
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