Skip to main content

Treat employees the way you’d like to be treated.

Engagement is the intellectual and emotional inspiration that an employee feels in an organization, which propels them to always do their best at their job. It is also a state of mind that encourages employees to want not only to remain in the same workplace but also recommend it to their friends and family as a great place to work.

When your employees are engaged, they are more productive and your business is made stronger and more profitable, as a result. Your employees also become your most important ambassadors of your company’s brand. Engage them and keep them engaged and it will be tough for you to fail.

Engagement is not a one-time deal. “If you aren’t always moving it forward, you’ll end up slipping back,” says Peter Mayne, Director of Culture and Engagement from Farm Credit Canada. Farm Credit Canada scores more than 80% every year on their engagement survey, as established by Hewitt’s Engagement model.

Treat employees the way you’d like to be treated.
The beginning of employee engagement is in how well you treat them. 
Most employees want to be treated fairly, with respect and with understanding. 
This statement doesn’t necessarily mean giving pay raises; pay is often lower on the scale of priorities for employees than other areas such as career development, benefits, management behaviour and good communications.

Instead, employees want to be thanked, included, encouraged and to be afforded flexibility in times of difficulty. If an employee is going through a difficult time at home with a sick child or a troubling financial situation, a small amount of flexibility can go a long way towards keeping that employee engaged. 

Organizations may struggle with making sure employees are treated well for a number of reasons: 
  • Not having policies, procedures and programs in place.
  • Not making sure all managers are on board.
  • The leadership team not leading by example.
  • Focusing too hard on the immediate/short-term bottom-line.
  • Not being flexible and open to avoid the impression of favouritism.
Still, reaching out to your employee, saying good morning and making eye contact with them, asking about their family are all small ways to engage and connect with employees that demonstrates respect and humanity. We can't expect policy to take care of that for us.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What did I say yesterday?

Look at what messages have gone out before communicating new ones. A huge mistake managers often make is to communicate new messages without reviewing what they've already said on the subject in the past, hoping no one will notice. Imagine how far a politician would get using that approach. Unfortunately, we can imagine it all too well. The mistake is not in forgetting what you've said before; with all the messages coming from the CEO, the website, from various marketing and customer service campaigns, it's no wonder we cannot remember what we said yesterday. However, it is our job to either know or find out exactly how we characterize our messages and what we share, even long after we've shared it. For example, if you tell your team to focus on continuous improvement and then a week later, in a weak moment, yell at someone for taking too much time to reevaluate a process, you'll lose trust and credibility--probably two of the most important badges
Post a Comment
Read more

Ah, yes... The "C" Word

In the Communications field, the "C" word can mean numerous things. In Internal or Employee Communications, we often refer to big "C" and little "c" communications. Big "C" Communications tends to include official communications tactics and products that get everyone's attention in an organization: posters, banners, advertising, website splash pages, e-newsletters, town halls and major 'memos', to name a few. Little "c" communications tends to be the internal, day-to-day business communications in a workplace about doing the work itself such messages about new procedures, processes, policies and plans, also internal emails, operational and tactical messages. The "C" word that is missing from this discussion is Culture. These are the ideas and messages that Culture communicates: How people behave in their workplace.  What the culture tolerates as appropriate or inappropriate behaviour. For example, what goes
Post a Comment
Read more

Be interested in your employees.

Walk around the office and chat one-on-one with people, ask them about themselves, their day-to-day work, their kids, how their weekend was. If you make time to also walk around your corporate office and talk to people individually, they remember that and will cut you a little slack when you’ve got to rush out the door the next time. It also allows you to get to know your people well, what makes them tick and what makes them successful or what makes them do their best. Knowing your people and having a relationship or personal connection with them, however small, allows your organization to want to perform better. Those employees become a lot more willing to go above and beyond the call of duty for you. Just make sure you are consistent. You don't want to be that manager who tries something once or twice and then gets too busy to keep it up.
Post a Comment
Read more