Getting rid of the dead wood?

Here is a question from a reader of a recent "Engaging People" newsletter about the new self-driven employee engagement philosophy.

Question: Doesn't giving employees more control of their work, life and finances mean they get greater personal awareness and perhaps identify they should leave the organisation, therefore increasing turnover?

In some cases yes, and in most cases this is a good thing. Those that leave the organisation were those that were going to leave anyway. As such, this process can be likened to shaking the tree of its dead wood as, in most cases these people are the already disengaged "complacent cows" and "corporate cancer" that can be extremely unmotivating to the engaged "eager beavers".

One recent legal client we ran a program for was going to retrench 15% of their workforce. Two weeks after one of our face-to-face programs four people resigned. These four were all going to be retrenched anyway, thus saving the company over $200,000 in pay outs. The program however gave the leaving employees more autonomy in the decisions they were making. This also applied to the remaining employees, giving them more control over areas that they could take more responsibility in for improving their own work, life, finances and balance.

With the self-driven employee engagement approach and by using scalable systems and tools it can only create a sustainable win-win culture were everyone was a winner.

Appreciate your people & they will appreciate you

Being appreciated is one of the most basic human desires. Recognition, praise and appreciation are some of the best employee engagement investments that you can make and are certainly the easiest and cheapest ways to cultivate higher engagement in your people. When people are criticised, productivity and performance improves 19 per cent. If employees are praised, performance and productivity increases, on average, 71 per cent, but can improve by as much as 87 per cent (Source: How full is my bucket? Rath & Clifton).

"Praise is the greatest tool in behaviour modification ... it goads us to better performance and encourages us." B.F Skinner, Behavioural psychologist

Receiving gratitude, feeling respected and being valued are some of the most under-utilised and best return-on-investment business tools available because they're free. Employees simply look for a "thank you" to feel appreciated for their work. If they don't get it they can begin to feel taken for granted. In most cases recognition is psychologically worth more to employees than a pay rise.

The smallest comments can make the biggest differences for people. Try to be as specific as possible when expressing appreciation. Instead of saying: "Nice job with the new client last week," try: "I liked the way you went to the client's office to deliver the product in person. That really positioned us as part of their success team."

Here are some starters for you:

"One of your achievements that I'm most proud of is ....."
"You really made a difference by ..."
"I'm impressed by your ..."
"I admire you for ..."

Possible actions

• Get rid of the old-school management focus on improving weaknesses and instead concentrate on expanding people's strengths
• Gossip about the good work and behaviours you hear about others
• Whenever possible, try to be at the scene to witness and applaud people's achievements as they occur
• Make "thank you" part of your common language
• Learn to accept praise and compliments graciously yourself, otherwise it may not spread as quickly
• Put praise into writing as documentation delivers longer lasting benefits
• Applaud people in public (but give constructive feedback in private)

Engagement through information

There are many factors that affect employee engagement, but almost all issues fall into seven key engagement drivers. The first driver is Leadership. This is where leadership keeps people informed and appreciated through trust and integrity.

An essential part of what employees become is how we communicate with them.
Communication is vital to keep employees informed and feeling like they are an ‘insider'. One of the key engagement drivers that managers can control is sharing the key business issues and the aims of the business as much as possible.

In 90 per cent of cases people in Best Employer companies are clear about the purpose and direction of the business and the common benefits. In other companies, only 75 per cent of the people in the company have a clear vision that they can support. The reason is that best practice businesses communicate with employees almost twice as regularly as other companies. They use meetings, one-on-ones, lunch sessions, email and other forms of internal communication around 31 times a year.

Virtually everyone wants to be part of a winning team. So engagement can be further increased with authentic success stories about business wins, what the organisation is doing and how it is having an impact on the greater community.

The Internal Communications & Engagement Link
Internal communication has a direct link to employee engagement. In today's businesses, in order to keep employees engaged and motivated, there cannot be a lack of effective, consistent and employee-relevant communication in the workplace.

Here are some thought starters to get you going:

• The CEO or a senior manager launching an employee engagement initiative such as work life balance or a flexibility policy
• Present updates at meetings and events
• Newsletter or email
• Lunchtime seminars or breakfast information sessions
• Ten-minute CEO/manager meetings
• Welcome letter from CEO on joining
• Induction flyer on employee benefits from CEO/management
• Monthly emails and updates
• Prizes for best internal communication idea

How to give your people a 10% pay rise without the money

Stressed employees are not productive employees. Responsible, forward thinking organisations want their people to not only be in control of their life and work, but also their finances.

Think about it, it makes sense, the less stressed and more in control of their life employees are, the better they will perform at work. Companies that have people with low financial anxiety benefit from greater performance and morale. But unfortunately most employees spend as much as 25 hours a month worrying about their financial situation. For a company of 100 employees, that can mean close to 30,000 unproductive working hours or 750 lost working weeks per year.

Almost 97% of employees say they experience financial stress, yet only around 3% take responsibility (self-leadership) to create something as simple as a cashflow for their own life. So "How do you give your employees a 10% pay rise without giving them anymore money"? Answer: Help them take more control of their cashflow with tools and training. Research shows that more awareness of your cashflow can increase your financial situation by around 10% per year.

So there can be huge benefits in providing your people with tools and resources to be able to take better control of their financial situation. Recently one of our clients paid all their people an extra one hour to allow them to go and do their personal cashflow program on employee engagement system meCentral.com

The philosophy for helping employees take more control of their cashflow and other financial issues is exactly the same approach when applied to other key areas such as career development, work life balance and life goals.

Where have we gone wrong with Employee Engagement?

True employee engagement is achieved when employees know what is important to them, a new innovative approach which somewhat turns current thinking on its head through a self-leadership philosophy now known as "self-driven employee engagement".

In search of this elusive ‘engagement', many companies have mistakenly indulged in a range of employee benefits that act merely as a ‘band-aid' to the symptoms of disengagement rather than address the core drivers behind what really engages individuals. Many employee engagement solutions have offered an ineffective mixture of employee benefits and commonly creating an ‘entitlement' or ‘whinge' culture.

The ‘Inside Out Approach'
Psychologically most people know what they don't want. However, few really know what they do want. If employees don't know what truly engages them in work and life, it is virtually impossible to sustainably engage them. The key is helping employees take responsibility for driving their own engagement (self-driven employee engagement) by getting clarity around what they want both inside and outside of work.

Almost everyone wants more control over their lives. Self-leadership is the philosophy of putting individuals back in control by giving them the thinking, tools and personal responsibility to get clear on what they want in work, life and personal finances.

By providing the tools, environment and solutions by which employees can get greater clarity around what they want, what motivates them and what is important to them, both inside and outside of work, organisations can create a sustainable win-win culture, thereby building a workforce that is engaged, productive and performing to its highest potential.