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There’s Something Contagious About Engaged Employees

8 Jul

At the 2010 SHRM conference just held in San Diego I had the opportunity to experience a seemingly small but fundamentally profound impact of having a group of highly engaged employees– loyal customers. Here’s the story:

In the course of presenting on employee engagement at the conference I mentioned the efforts of Rackspace, a web hosting company located in San Antonio, Texas. Rackspace is one of seven companies featured in Re-Engage that have been identified as one of the great American workplaces by our research partners Quantum Workplace. In my remarks I mentioned the “fanatical support” provided by employees, who are affectionately called “rackers”. Rackers are encouraged and supported to provide service above and beyond anyone in their industry, an asset company leadership believes is the most important asset in helping them become the largest player in their field.

After the speech a woman introduced herself and shared the following:

“Mark, I enjoyed your speech, and was delighted that you shared a story about Rackspace. We have been a customer of theirs for some time now. Our IT manager loves the service they offer and tells me he would never consider moving the business to a competitor. The other important thing you need to know is the Rackspace approach to fanatical service has rubbed off on our IT staff. It’s kind of like paying it forward.”

Remarkable!

The outstanding service provided by engaged employees at Rackspace has, like a contagious virus, made its way into the workplace of this customer. In the spirit of the movie the IT manager is “paying it forward” by spreading the enthusiasm, care and support to those whom he serves.

One of the great joys in writing Re-Engage was the opportunity to study companies across the United States that have proven themselves to be great places to work. We talk about the “link” between employee and engagement and key business outcomes– such as more loyal customers– but those studies can often seem impersonal and sterile. But when you hear a first-person story like this, you know there’s an immutable truth about the impact of an engaged workforce that cannot be denied.

Want more loyal customers who sing your praises and are grateful for the service you provide? Engage, and re-engage, your employees.

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Mutiny At Work

25 May

A former colleague of mine was consulting with a small business owner, Jerry, who was having problems engaging and retaining staff. Because of his missteps, the business was suffering. Although his intentions were good and his desire to become a more effective leader was sincere, Jerry had difficulty turning those intentions into results.

Our survey and interviews of the staff were quite clear-they we’re not happy with how they were being managed by Jerry and were about ready to launch into their rendition of The Caine Mutiny. As my colleague was reviewing the results with Jerry he stopped, took a deep breath, and said: “Jerry, it looks to me like your staff has fired you as their manager”.

Jerry considered the remark calmly and replied: “Chuck, I hate to say this, but I think you’re right. What should I do?”

“Jerry, you reapply!”

Jerry laughed, taking Chuck’s comment in the spirit in which it had been intended, which was giving him the medicine in a pill he could swallow.

Indeed, Jerry did reapply to be the manager of his employees, and with a new attitude and hard work he is a much better leader, which has resulted in more success with a more engaged, productive staff.

In our consulting work and research for Re-Engage, we’ve run across a gaggle of managers who, often unbeknownst to them, have been fired by their employees as their leader and desperately need to reapply for the job. They’ve turned their staff into a group:

  • who is thinking more about punching a clock than being productive,
  • who feel indifference instead of a genuine desire to offer great customer service, and
  • choose mutiny versus loyalty to the firm.

Want to hear how an employee sounds when they’ve fired their manager? Let’s listen in to one exceptionally disengaged employee, here quoted word-for-word from Best-Place-to-Work survey comments:

“I haven’t been here quite a year yet, but after a few months in my department, it became very clear to me that most people in my position or a similar position were very unhappy with how they felt they were being treated. Most employees feel unappreciated and overworked. New management has exacerbated this issue, and now people are so unhappy that they just do not care. So now no one feels the need to help anyone else with anything–go that extra mile. There’s no team, because there’s no team leadership. There have been several situations that were extremely mishandled due to bad management. Our manager has actually told people that she would rather turn a blind eye and ‘hope things get better’ on their own so that she wouldn’t ‘have to deal with it.’ Too bad, I thought that was her job. I have gone to her on a particular issue more than twice, and every time she assures me that she will take care of it and nothing is done. It’s very sad here.”

Whether she realizes it or not, her employees have given this poor manager the proverbial pink slip.  Contrast that comment with these comments from employees who feel very different about the person they call manager:

“My manager trusts me as an employee to do the right thing, which gives me more time to focus on my goals at work.   I have a very flexible schedule that helps me assist customers on a daily basis. I have control over the hours that I work to be more productive at work.”

“I feel extremely valued at my workplace; my manager goes over the profit and loss statement with us so we can all see how we can contribute to the success of the branch.  My manager answers and explains everything in detail no matter what question is being asked.  I feel my manager values each and every team member and shows everyone respect for the jobs that we do.  He always has time for us and helps out with anything no matter what it is.  He cares about the development of each crewmember and wants each of us to succeed.”

In Re-Engage we describe seven key bad practices that leaders do that disengage employees, and offer better practices that can help leaders be more effective in engaging, and re-engaging, their teams. It’s abundantly clear that not all employers we’ve studied are putting them into practice.

Has one or more of your employees fired you or someone you know as their manager? Maybe it’s time to reapply.

Image originally uploaded to Flickr by Osvaldo_Zoom

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The Fanatical Culture At Rackspace

16 May

Here’s another video about Rackspace, one of the companies we feature in our book Engage. This video is bound to make you “hungry” for their culture!

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Generational Diversity and Employee Engagement

12 May

Joe Gerstandt, author of the blog Our Time To Act, commented today about the findings in our book on employee engagement and generational diversity. Joe is passionate about helping organizations appreciate “the value of difference”.

Our research shows that as an organization becomes more age diverse employee engagement suffers. It is an important example of how most organizations are struggling with diversity, in this case having four unique generations in the workplace.

In part, Joe reflects on these results:

Diversity is hard.

Most really important, really valuable stuff is hard.  Honesty is hard.  Change is hard.  Leadership is hard.  So is diversity.

Increasing the diversity (or difference) in a social group changes that social group. Always. Every time. Any time you bring more difference or pay more attention to existing difference in a social group you increase the potential for in-group/out-group dynamics, stereotyping, tension, conflict, etc.  We have a very real tendency to see difference as the cause of these dynamics, but this is not about the difference…these outcomes are about the container that the difference exists in.

Joe asked me to offer up more details on our research, which I’m delighted to present. These findings are based on a study of over 3,200 US employers. (By the way, we’ve had folks ask about how diversity in gender or ethnicity impacts employee engagement. Those demographics are not currently collected in survey from our friends at Quantum Workplace— good idea for future research!)

From Re-Engage, pages 36-38:

We conducted a novel analysis of the results from Best-Places-to-Work surveys to determine whether the more age-diverse employers had lower engagement levels. In other words, we asked: “Does having a broader and more balanced spectrum of ages represented in the workforce reduce an employer’s chances of creating a highly engaged workplace?”

The results of our analysis-after controlling for other company characteristics such as age, position type, company size, and tenure-showed us that greater variation in age within a company actually has a negative impact on engagement. The statistical results were quite eye-opening.  It turns out that, after controlling for the variables described above, the level of generational diversity accounts for more than 25 percent of the variance in employee engagement. Said another way, this single variable, what we call the Generational Diversity Indicator (GDI), is a significant factor in the ability of an organization to create a highly engaged workplace.

How much of an impact does this single factor have on employee engagement? The greater the age diversity (the higher the GDI), the less likely the employer will have high engagement scores.

For example, according to our study:

  • If an employer has a slightly age-diverse workforce (more than 1.5 on our scale), it is three times more likely to have a lower overall engagement score.
  • If the employer has a moderately age-diverse workforce (more than 2.0), it is five times more likely to have a lower overall engagement score.
  • If an employer has a highly age-diverse workforce (more than 3.0), it is six times more likely to have a low overall engagement score.

Even the best of Best-Places-to-Work employers find generational diversity challenging. The CEO of one winning company, who has primarily hired younger employers at his technology-based services company, has admitted to failures in assimilating older employers into the culture. He states: “Older employees often have perceptions of work which aren’t necessarily wrong, but are very different than our culture. We’ve had a few who didn’t make it because they were rejected by younger employees before they even had a chance to succeed.”

The correlation between greater age diversity and lower engagement applies to employers regardless of average workforce age-in other words, regardless of which generation is predominant in the organization. Thus a relatively homogenous company of mostly Boomers or mostly Generation X-ers is more likely to have a higher level of employee engagement than an employer with more generational diversity.

In summary, a company’s GDI is a revealing demographic, potentially indicating a significant challenge to its efforts to develop a highly engaged workforce. Most employers aren’t going to resist the demographic trend and economic necessity of generational diversity just because it makes employee engagement more challenging.  The tide cannot be turned. We all will need to accept this phenomenon while working to lessen any negative effects and turn increased diversity to our advantage where we can.

Our Blog Talk Radio Interview

25 Apr

Leigh and I had a wonderful conversation on Blog Talk Radio about Re-Engage. We talked about some of the challenges of creating a highly engaged workplace, what employees can do to take responsibility for their own engagement, and why we should care about creating an engaging workplace.

To listen to our interview, go to Blog Talk Radio.

The Power of Following Up

16 Apr

My colleagues Merle Riepe, Danielle Seymour and I recently wrote an article about the importance of following up on employee engagement survey results. We know that when you conduct a survey you are setting an expectation that something is going to happen, and leaders who have engagement surveys conducted where they work should be aware of what is at stake if you don’t follow up. The research we conducted on this topic is compelling.

Follow-Up: The Power of Positive Feedback Woody Allen is famously quoted as saying “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” We’re pretty sure there’s more to it than that, but when it comes to developing a more engaged workforce, Mr. Allen is actually on to something. Read the full SilverLink article from SilverStone Group’s website.

12 Myths About Employee Engagement

5 Apr

My partner Leigh Branham recently wrote a wonderful piece about some of the most common misconceptions about employee engagement. In the course of writing Re-Engage we began to realize how much “myth” there was about employee engagement. For a terrific discussion of the myths and reality of employee engagement check out Leigh’s article here.

Why Some Managers Don’t Believe in Employee Engagement

1 Apr

by Leigh Branham

I was following a thread of posts on LinkedIn recently on the topic of employee engagement, and was a little taken aback by the following statement from one contributor to the lively conversation:

“Some managers don’t believe in employee engagement.”

Yep, I knew it was true.  Yet, my rational/advocate self asked, “how could they NOT believe in employee engagement?!  Engaged employees are both more satisfied and more productive.  Don’t we all know this by now?!  Engaged employees get better results and please more customers and clients.  An overwhelming body of research shows the strong linkage between employee engagement and business success (for more go to Keeping The People). And besides, engaged employees make their managers look better!  Not to mention the fact that there simply not enough of them—most surveys show the average percentage of engaged employees in U.S. workplaces ranging between only about 25% and 40%.  So, wouldn’t you think all managers would be straining at the bit to raise the engagement levels of their direct reports?!

Nope…and for some reasons that are at least understandable, if not defensible.  Here are the ones I’ve identified or heard managers express before:

Reason No. 1:  “It’s not my job to keep employees engaged!…They should already BE engaged!”

This one’s hard to disagree with.  There’s no denying that all employees should know it’s in their best interest to give their best effort on the job each day.  I believe that most employees start out engaged on day one and stay that way until some triggering event sends them down the road to disengagement…until and unless something is done to re-engage them.  Of course, some of those we hire will never fall into the fully-engaged category.  But then, as hiring managers, we have to accept responsibility of hiring those people and for, all-too-often, hiring warm bodies rather than having the patience and persistence to seek and find the right person.

Employees must know that engagement is a shared responsibility and own their part of the equation.  But ultimately, all managers need to accept that it IS the job of managers to maximize employee performance, which means doing everything possible to keep employees engaged.

Managers have control over five of the six Universal Engagement Drivers that Mark Hirschfeld and I write about in our new book, Re-Engage.  The driver they don’t control?  It’s Senior Leaders—leaders who care enough to hold managers accountable for keeping employees engaged!  So, as we have seen in so many workplaces, the commitment and the mindsets that distinguish winning workplace cultures have to start at the top and cascade down.

Reason No. 2:  “Employees are too entitled already…they should feel lucky to have a job!”

Chances are you’ve heard this one lately.  Usually, it’s said by a Boomer or X’er manager about a Millennial (GenY) employee.  Entitlement isn’t necessarily age-related, but the rap on Millennials—born from 1981 to 1995 (or thereabouts), is that they were over-praised and over-parented by their mostly Boomer parents.  Ironic isn’t it?  Remember the Fortune magazine cover of a couple of years ago—“You Raised ‘Em, Now You Manage ‘Em”?

There’s just enough truth there to make this one stick. Many Millennials expect far more coaching, feedback, instant gratification, and recognition than their parents did, which inspires the following reaction from many Boomer managers: “Who do they think they are?!” or  “They need to get real!” or “Nobody ever had to keep me engaged!”  As one Boomer CEO told me about three years ago, “What these youngsters need is a good recession!”  Well, he certainly got his wish.  No doubt many Millennials are indeed getting a wake-up call and learning to feel fortunate to have jobs in the current economy.

Younger employees will always need to adjust their unrealistic expectations.  Still, there’s another side to the coin—because of the way they grew up, with new technologies that conditioned them to expect more immediate responses, Millennials will continue to expect more of the same from the workplace as they age.  They want to be engaged, but their managers will need to let go of the “My way good…your way bad” mentality and meet them halfway.

Both sides need to give a little—managers, for example, need to challenge Millennials to keep themselves engaged while giving a little more frequent feedback, and understand that not all feedback needs to be criticism.  For their part, Millennials need to adjust their expectations to workplace realities while learning to ask for feedback when they need it instead of feeling quietly victimized, and to understand that not all feedback is praise.  (It needs to be said here that these are stereotypical generalizations that may not apply to many Boomers or Millennials, and, as we emphasize in Re-Engage, individual uniqueness trumps generational membership.)

Again, this reason is no excuse.  The job description of manager still includes keeping employees engaged, which today means confronting entitlement when it’s unreasonable while knowing that engagement requires meeting certain human needs in the workplace, regardless of what generation a person grew up in.  Mostly, managers need to focus on removing the impediments, irritations, and barriers that frustrate the otherwise self-engaged employee.

Reason No. 3: “I’ve got too much to do already!”

As we know, the recent spate of corporate downsizings has only increased the amount of work for many managers.  Brian Kropp, an analyst with the Corporate Executive Board, has reported that the average manager worked about 10 percent more hours a week in the first half of 2009 compared with the first half of 2008, but spent 20 percent less time with their team members.  A CEB survey found that 60 percent of employees said they had a change in manager in the past six months or expect one in the coming six months, thus reducing the long-term commitment to employee coaching and mentoring.  The degree of difficulty only gets worse with the increasing adoption of matrix reporting relationships that leave employees uncertain about who their real “manager” is.

What to do about it?  It seems we have three choices:  1) senior leaders can reconsider their decisions to downsize in response to business declines and consider other options, such as cutting back employee work hours, as many companies have done to avoid laying people off; 2) make it clearer than ever to managers that their real job is not “to do”, but to lead, manage, and delegate to the people who “do.”  This may mean streamlining business processes, off-loading some work to consultants, temps, or part-timers, and conducting people management skill-building training for managers who have not developed those critical interpersonal skills.  This alternative requires that senior leaders also find ways to hold managers accountable for demonstrating these skills.  Selecting and promoting managers who have these skills in the first place would also go a long way toward addressing this issue; and 3) equip all employees with the information, autonomy, training, resources, tools, feedback, challenge, and responsibility they need to be self-engaging, while reminding them that they need to focus on supporting their managers, taking as much as they can off the overworked manager’s desk, and demonstrating their value to the organization as the key to job security.

Engaged Employees “Go With The Flow”

22 Feb

I think engaged employees work in a much different way than those who aren’t engaged– they often achieve “flow”. Read more about this at our blog site for Re-Engage.

Here’s to hoping you achieve “flow” at work!

Employee Engagement Misconceptions

11 Jan

My co-author and friend Leigh Branham has written a wonderful piece talking about some of the myths and realities related to employee engagment. The full text of the article can be linked to at his web site Keeping The People. Here’s an excerpt of three of the eleven misconceptions he discusses, based in part on our upcoming book Re-Engage:

Misconception No. 8: Paying more increases engagement. This is a popular belief because, if it were entirely true, it would largely absolve managers from having to attend to the difficult “soft stuff” of people management.

The reality: Pay, like praise and other forms of recognition, is a motivator when it is linked to measured performance or a specific contribution. More often, employees experience pay as a de-motivator when there is no link, or pay inequity, or there’s excessive secrecy about pay decisions. The most effective drivers of employee engagement have to do with the trust, challenge, respect, recognition, understanding, and honest communication we nurture daily…or not.

Misconception No. 9: All employees are engaged equally by the same drivers. Believing that all employees have the same hot buttons is a simple and comforting notion. It’s also not uncommon for managers to assume that what motivates their direct reports are the same ones that motivate them.

The reality: The research findings we report in our new book, Re-Engage (McGraw-Hill, February, 2010), identifies six universal drivers of employee engagement that all employees need and seek. However, different employees need some of the six drivers more than others and it’s up to the manager to find out who needs what and to make sure they get what they need.

Misconception No. 10: All organizations need to focus equal efforts on the same drivers. Many studies, including our own, have identified a specific set of universal engagement drivers. It is understandable that a reader might assume they all apply equally in driving engagement at his or her business.

The reality: Though highly engaged workplaces focus on providing plenty of all six drivers, they tend to emphasize those that fit their cultures and will help achieve their business objectives. For example, one of the winning workplaces we interviewed, Joie De Vivre Hospitality, runs a chain of boutique hotels that depends on exceptional service to hotel guests. To differentiate themselves in the market, they have chosen recognition and valuing of hotel staff as their “signature” driver. This means company leaders go out of their way to notice and express appreciation for “above-and-beyond” service, and have remained committed to hosting the end-of-the-year annual employee appreciation banquet, even as other employers were cancelling such parties in December of last year.

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