8 tips for improving employee engagement (or customer engagement) _ matthew partovi _ linkedin

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25/04/2016 8 tips for improving employee engagement (or customer engagement) | Matthew Partovi | LinkedIn

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8 tips for improving employee engagement (or

customer engagement)

Is your success is dependent on trying to get other people to do things? Maybe

you’re a Manager trying to get your ‘employees’ to do something. Or a Business

Leader trying to get your customers to spend their time or money on something.

Or someone with an idea that you want others to believe in as much as you do.

1. You can’t make people engaged

Engagement is an outcome. People choose to become engaged if they have

sufficient opportunity and motivation. So rather than focusing on trying to make

people engaged with your product or offering, spend your time identifying several

things they want to do, and out of those identify which would also be valuable to

you. If that happens, they are likely to become engaged because they are doing

something they are motivated to do. The key is creating the conditions so that

people to do things because they choose to, rather than because they've been told

to. The following tips offer some ideas for how to create these conditions.

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2. Help people buy into your vision

Inspire people. Think about it, how many boring people are you inspired by? Be

interesting. Get people excited. If they buy into your vision, they are more likely

to become motivated and keen to participate. Engagement is more likely if people

have volunteered to get involved, rather than been made to volunteer by a

Manager.

3. Understand what people are motivated by

Do you know what people are motivated by? Put yourself in other people’s shoes

and consider what would be in it for them to participate. Would this be enough

for them to become motivated? Different people are motivated by different

things, such as: opportunities to work on things they’re interested in, recognition

from their peers and people they look up to and respect, a salary rise, bonus, and

so on. So consider financial and non-financial incentives (check out Dan Pink’s

talk on Drive if you’re interested in finding out more about this). Finding out

what people are motivated may involve listening online and offline. One-to-one

conversations might help uncover things beneath the surface.

4. Be open: provide the tools and opportunity

Encourage people to offer input to areas they think they could improve. Imagine

how frustrating it could be if you hire someone because you value theirexperience, skills and potential, and then confine their contribution to a defined

ob role. If someone in Sales could add value to Research & Development,

couldn’t the benefit of contributing outside their role be greater (to the

organisation and individual) than the drawbacks?

5. Give people autonomy

Help people understand the goal you’re working towards, and inspire them about

why that’s the goal. Then give them the trust and ownership to determine how

they can help you achieve it. You can offer support by removing barriers,

coaching, advice, and the opportunity for people to demonstrate their unique

talent and value.

6. Don’t push too much

If people don’t seem engaged, don’t just push harder by chasing them, as this

could aggravate them and push them further away. Rather than viewing them as

having bad time management or not caring, consider whether you’re offering

something that is attractive enough for them to want to participate in. If you think

people ‘must’ do something, challenge yourself on whether the benefits of your

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc


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Written by

request outweigh the cost of another request someone receives on top of

everything else they’re currently working on. Making something mandatory may

mean participation rises, but what will the effect on employee engagement be?

My approach is to design something I believe people will want to pull on, and

then let them know it’s available for them to get involved if they want to (rather

than me telling them to participate). If they don’t, then I look at refining what I’m

offering.

7. Be aware of subtleties of language

Consider the unintended effects of your language on people. For example, would

it be better to call people “people” rather than”employees” or “resources”? When

you say you “want people to feel involved”, do you actually mean you “want to be

involved”? Nuances like this could help people relate to you as a person, rather

than as a Manager or colleague.

8. Lead by example

How would you feel if someone asked you to do something, but then didn’t do it

themselves? If you understood why and are happy with that, then all is well. But if

that trust and understanding isn’t there, you may think “well if you’re not doing

it, why should I bother?”. So when you ask someone to do something, either lead

by example, or be sure they understand why you’re not doing it too.

What would your tip be?

My previous posts:

Why Managers need to stop saying "Are you volunteering?" when someone has an

idea

Why I don’t tell people to close their laptops in meetings

How to create a repeating #ResponsiveOrg meetup community

Over 80 events that might be of interest to the #ResponsiveOrg community

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PepperTap’s collapse shows everything that is

wrong with India’s young internet companies

Low margins and technical glitches mar online grocers' plans.

Like Comment

Ross Holman

Kudos on your 8 points to create or improve 'engagement'. I would add anover-riding point - "Give them reasons to Trust you." All of the eight points

above work faster and better in an environment of high trust because Trust

is like oil. It's the stuff that makes relationships work. It makes selling a

vision, motivating, inspiring and thus engagement possible.

Like(2) Reply(1) October 11, 2014

Vin Lee and Pankaj Kumar

Pankaj Kumar

Ross please help me in getting the answer of my question - I

am having a key resource but he is having an attitude issue.how to deal with this guy?

Like October 11, 2014

2nd

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8 tips for improving employee engagement (or customer engagement) _ matthew partovi _ linkedin

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