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I was on a customer service call with a company I have been with for 15 years. After this call, they almost lost me as a loyal customer. One call can kill it for your business – one disengaged, couldn’t-care-less-employee can make you lose the game. Employee engagement is a real deal business issue.
If your people are not engaged, if they don’t care, if they are just punching in and out, that attitude transfers to everyone, and most importantly to customers and clients. A disengaged (bad attitude – not just a bad day) comes across like this: If You don’t care, then whey should your customers care to do business with you?
Check it out:
ONLY 13% OF EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE ARE ENGAGED AT WORK.
What? Not 50%, not even 25%…13%. If you have a smaller business, that’ll kill it. This has a serious implications for any business. Gallup’s data estimates:
Disengagement creates toxic org culture, makes people less than stoked to come to work (office dread), and ends any possibility of discretionary effort (going beyond ‘this is my job.’ )
End disengagement, do this:
1) Train your people. | Invest time in building a culture where individuals see/feel you investing in their development as professionals (and not just talk-training, it must be active to sink in).
2) Internal Mentors. | Find those in the company who keep the spirit of the culture alive and have them pair up with one or a few others for monthly check-ins; relationship building keeps employee engagement alive and disengagement at bay.
3) Build your Culture. | Org culture is either consciously created, or it will default to the lowest common denominator behavior. Team building is not just about silly games and fun; a team building experience worth its salt is supposed to reinforce, develop, and energize the behaviors and attitudes that truly win.
4) Hire Right. | Never hire for skill alone. You are building a team – the habits, spirit, and behavior you put on your team will reinforce or undermine the org culture. From the very first interview, determine if the person has the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) to support your culture. And, be very up-front about the core values (behaviors!) your team upholds and lives – the prospective employee needs to know it’s part of the deal.
5) Remember it’s Personal. | Yes it is – someone’s commitment to their own excellence is personal. You can assit it, you can support it, you can create the context for it to emerge, all through training (see #1). When team members can consider and reflect on their own personal excellence (in everything they do – see #4), you win big. There will be bad days, there will be challenging times – and if you have team of people that sees these as opportunities to step to their own excellence, you have a team with an unstoppable motivating force. If you are the leader, be real and available – share your personal commitment, challenge, and habits for personal excellence.
This 5 tips will keep you (or get you) on the employee engagement track for real success.