{"id":5043,"date":"2019-05-23T06:59:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T11:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=5043"},"modified":"2019-05-21T16:32:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T21:32:48","slug":"boost-employee-engagement-solutions-that-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/boost-employee-engagement-solutions-that-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Boost Employee Engagement &#8211; Solutions That Work!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: The author, Dwight\u00a0Mihalicz, is a subject expert matter on effective management and hosting a free <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/webinar\/empowerment-4-0\">webinar for Flevy&#8217;s audience on Empowerment 4.0<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0The focus of Empowerment 4.0 is to help managers of managers understand the elements that need to be in place for effective teams.\u00a0 Most management training focuses on the &#8220;soft skills,&#8221; whereas the teachings of Empowerment 4.0 are more fundamental and can help managers deal with root-cause issues of why they are not getting the team performance they desire and should be able to expect.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/webinar\/empowerment-4-0\">You can sign up for the free webinar here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * * *<\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-5044\" src=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/pexels-photo-1056552-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/pexels-photo-1056552-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/pexels-photo-1056552.jpeg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Engaged employees make a difference \u2013 but driving engagement can be elusive.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As executives and managers in organizations, we don\u2019t need research to tell us that engaged employees are better performers. We all know how important it is to have engaged employees. The research evidence is overwhelming. Consider these facts from Gallup when comparing top quartile engaged companies vs bottom quartile:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Engaged employees have 48% FEWER safety incidents<\/li>\n<li>There are 41% LESS quality incidents<\/li>\n<li>Absenteeism is 43% LOWER<\/li>\n<li>Customer ratings are 10% HIGHER<\/li>\n<li>Productivity is 21% HIGHER<\/li>\n<li>Profitability is 22% HIGHER<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span id=\"more-6026\"><\/span>And yet many are skeptical about employee engagement surveys. If you are one of these people, there is a reason. Traditional engagement surveys measure the outcomes of engagement.<\/p>\n<p>Think of your body\u2019s health. There are lots of things a health practitioner can measure to determine good health. Body temperature, blood pressure, pain. These are indicators of the state of health.<\/p>\n<p>Engagement surveys measure the indicators of employee engagement. It\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/effectivemanagers.com\/dwight-mihalicz\/what-you-need-to-know-about-creating-employee-engagement-in-your-organization\/\">isn\u2019t possible to directly treat the indicator<\/a>\u00a0to solve the root cause. If I have a fever or a headache, I might take Tylenol to relieve the symptom. I\u2019ll feel better for a while, but the underlying cause had not be treated. In the same way, if I try to improve an indicator of poor employee engagement, I may get temporary results, but the root cause will not have been dealt with. Employee engagement scores may go up a bit, but they will not improve for the longer term.<\/p>\n<h2>Poor Communication?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Most Engagement Surveys have \u201cPoor Communication\u201d as a result that \u201cneeds improvement\u201d. But will improving communication improve engagement, or is poor communication an indicator of poor engagement?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When an employee expresses concern about a lack of communication in the office, they\u2019re often reflecting water cooler conversation that goes something like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>Senior Management made this decision last week and I only found out about it to-day \u2013 I wasted a whole week of my time. We sure have poor communication here!<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>I have my performance management review tomorrow and I have no idea what my boss is going to say; he never gives me any feedback. We sure have poor communication here!<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>These are real issues. They are flagged as poor communication because that is the best language the employees have to describe the situation. When the executive management team sees \u201cpoor communication\u201d in the results of an employee engagement survey, the correct course of action is not to publish more newsletters or send more memos, or hold town halls.<\/p>\n<p>Poor communication is a symptom of a deeper root cause problem: the absence of a formal accountability and authority framework. The employees may express a lack of communication, but the real issue lies in the managers who have failed to establish and maintain open and working channels with their employees.<\/p>\n<p>The information must be provided by setting proper context in the right size and at the right time to be meaningful to an employee. Only a manager can do this \u2013 it cannot possibly be done centrally.<\/p>\n<p>This is a manager effectiveness issue \u2013 certainly it is about communication \u2013 but it cannot be improved by tackling communication at the organization-wide level. It requires different behaviour by managers. When people have a clearly defined purpose they know what to do and what not to do. Accountability is an outcome of a clearly defined purpose with the right actions.<\/p>\n<h2>Silos?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Poor Workplace Collaboration usually ranks high in engagement surveys. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When employees experience problems with how work flows across the organization, it is often labelled as \u201cpoor collaboration\u201d. Someone in another department missed a deadline so the employee couldn\u2019t do his or her work. Unreasonable sounding demands are made by peers in other departments, handoffs are missed, work is duplicated. One often hears comments like these:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>I worked on a project for two weeks before I found out it was also assigned to someone else.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<div><em>I am so upset \u2013 my boss is angry and I can\u2019t finish the work until Finance gives me that report \u2013 they are already 2 weeks late.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, the root cause is not poor collaboration. There isn\u2019t a lack of willingness for colleagues to support eac other; there is no innate desire to sabotage co-workers.<\/p>\n<p>Each employee in each department is receiving direction from her or his boss on what is important.\u00a0 Cross functional work is almost always treated as a \u201cnice to do\u201d or a favour, instead of real work.<\/p>\n<p>When the executive team sees \u201cpoor collaboration\u201d appearing on employee engagement surveys, the root cause lies in the systems for doing work \u2013 not necessarily in the employees themselves. The intuitive reaction to these findings is to create team-building exercises for management. But this isn\u2019t about team building across functions\u2026 it is about the absence of an accountability and authority framework for delegating the flow of work across the organization.<\/p>\n<p>An effective manager supports others in the organization, monitors workflow, and ensures that the day-to-day work of his or her staff is improved by working together, rather than by working in silos. This can only happen within a framework that is set by the CEO and within common context throughout the organization.<\/p>\n<h2>After Nearly Two Decades of Engagement Measurement \u2013 Are We Making a Difference?<\/h2>\n<p>Look at this graph derived from data published in Gallup\u2019s State of the American Workplace. Since the Year 2000 employee engagement has hovered around 30%. I don\u2019t have access to the original data to be certain, but as a researcher my eye tells me this is a remarkably flat trend line.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/effectivemanagers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/gallup.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5884 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/effectivemanagers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/gallup.png\" sizes=\"(max-width: 498px) 100vw, 498px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/effectivemanagers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/gallup.png 498w, https:\/\/effectivemanagers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/gallup-300x196.png 300w\" alt=\"\" width=\"498\" height=\"326\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Only about 30% of the American workforce have been engaged throughout this entire period of time. That means that 5 out of every 10 workers is coasting and 2 out of 10 are actually working against the organization that employs them.\u00a0<strong><em>And it has not changed significantly since the turn of the century!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We know engagement is good. Organizations with higher levels of engagement are higher performing. We have the ability to measure engagement factors. Surely those thousands of organizations doing the measuring are taking action to change things? And yet there is no significant overall improvement \u2013 no significant increase in engagement; no significant decrease in active disengagement. No wonder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/effectivemanagers.com\/dwight-mihalicz\/disillusioned-with-employee-engagement-surveys-you-are-not-alone\/\">there is disillusionment<\/a>\u00a0in the executive offices!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor&#8217;s Note: The author, Dwight\u00a0Mihalicz, is a subject expert matter on effective management and hosting a free webinar for Flevy&#8217;s audience on Empowerment 4.0.\u00a0 \u00a0The focus of Empowerment 4.0 is to help managers of managers understand the elements that need to be in place for effective teams.\u00a0 Most management training focuses on the &#8220;soft skills,&#8221;&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/boost-employee-engagement-solutions-that-work\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Boost Employee Engagement &#8211; Solutions That Work!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":5044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408,85],"tags":[636,1000,1636],"class_list":["post-5043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","category-organization","tag-communication","tag-employee-engagement","tag-silos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5043"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5047,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043\/revisions\/5047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}