elements of how to create a culture next generation that...
TRANSCRIPT
7 Elements of
Next Generation
LEARNING STRATEGIES BROUGHT TO YOU BY: CHRIS OSBORN, VP OF MARKETING, BIZLIBRARY
and JESSICA BATZ, MARKETING SPECIALIST, BIZLIBRARY
How to Create a Culture
That Fosters Employee
Engagement.
Brought to you by:
BIZLIBRARY.COM
When leaders in the United States of America — or any country for
that matter — wake up one morning and say collectively, “Let’s get
rid of managers from hell, double the number of great managers
and engaged employees, and have those managers lead based on
what actually matters,” everything will change. The country’s
employees will be twice as effective, they’ll create far more
customers, companies will grow, spiraling healthcare costs will
decrease, and desperately needed GDP will boom like never before.
Jim Clifton
CEO Gallup
Forward to, State of the American Work Place, Gallup, 2013.
In this eBook, we are going to provide some data that will not be a surprise to most HR and learning and development
professionals. Employee engagement is important and disengaged employees cost their employers money. We’ve known this for
quite a while. So why haven’t organizations gotten better at engaging their employees?
The reasons appear to range from a foundational misunderstanding of the concept of engagement, to a lack of actionable
advice about exactly what organizations can do. In the pages that follow, we plan to clarify some of the misconceptions and
myths about employee engagement, and provide some actionable tips your organization can begin using right away to improve
the engagement level of your employees.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Employee engagement seems to be on everyone’s mind lately and for good reason.
Disengaged employees are like the walking dead in our workplaces. The actively
disengaged – the zombie-like employees – spread a malaise that is contagious and
poses a risk to everyone around them. Lastly, these disengaged employees cost
employers a lot of money.
In one of the most comprehensive reports ever published on the subject, Gallup
estimates that active employee disengagement costs the U.S. economy $450 billion to
$550 billion per year. State of the American Workplace, Gallup, 2013. Gallup’s data-
driven report identified three different levels of engagement:
ENGAGED employees exhibit a “profound connection” to their employer. Some commentators view engagement as
the level of discretionary effort these employees exert.
Gallup goes on the note that these employees “drive
innovation and move the organization forward.”
NOT ENGAGED are those employees who are
emotionally “checked out.” These are the “zombies”
who sleepwalk through their day and simply go through
the motions.
ACTIVELY DISENGAGED are those employees who aren’t
just unhappy at work. These are employees who are
actually undermining the efforts of those around them.
These are the “zombies” whose attitudes are contagious
and pose real risks to organizations.
“Engaged workers stand
apart from their not
engaged and actively
disengaged counterparts
because of the
discretionary effort they
consistently bring to their
roles day after day.”
To read more about how
Gallup defines these
categories, see, State of
the American Workplace,
Gallup, 2013, p. 21
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WHAT EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IS NOT…
Some of the confusion stems from the use of “employee satisfaction” and “employee engagement” interchangeably. The terms
are not synonymous. Employee satisfaction is the degree to which employees have their basic needs met by their employer.
They are “satisfied” with their jobs and exert an appropriate amount of effort to perform at an adequate level .
ENGAGING MANAGERS IN TRAINING
A side note on engaging managers…
Most HR professionals understand the business
benefit of training, but many managers don't. This
video will help you engage your managers in your
training program.
• Understand what motivates
• Explain the business benefits from the
employee’s perspective
• Manage expectations
Engagement is not driven by extrinsic things like monetary rewards. In fact,
there is some interesting writing about how monetary rewards can have a
negative effect on engagement. See, Drive, The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink, Chapter 2.
Engagement is a complex topic, and there is no simple answer. In a quote
from The Manager’s Guide to Employee Engagement by Scott Carbonara, a
VP of HR said:
“I am concerned the popularity of employee engagement may result in
reducing a complex topic to slogans and easy-to-implement lists without
ensuring managers, leaders, and human resource professionals have the
necessary context for understanding them. If employee engagement were
simple to understand, define measure, implement, change, and sustain,
everyone would have achieved high engagement and we would all be
challenged with how to distribute the significant profits it generated. My goal
is to continue to learn more about (and continue to question) employee
engagement — what creates it, what sustains it, what destroys it, and how
can I impact those elements. “ Nikki Baker, VP Human Resources
BACK TO ZOMBIES…
Let’s go back to our zombies for a moment, because in
spite of everything negative about the impact of
disengaged employees, there is still reason to hope.
There was a fun zombie romantic comedy released in
early 2013 called, “Warm Bodies.” I know, fun zombie
romantic comedy seems like an oxymoron, but trust me
on this one. In the film, some zombies, including the
protagonist retained just a glimmer of a human heart
beat – not much to be sure. But the hero is brought back
to life – reengaged, so to speak – by his interest in a
young woman.
SOURCE: Google images
Our zombie employees are a lot like the protagonist in this
movie. Many of them can be brought back. They just need a
spark, and we have to provide it. The question is, “How?”
How can we overcome the walking dead and create a culture
that fosters engagement? The cure? Your managers. The
answer is right in front of us, but executing and delivering is a
different matter.
Scott Carbonara summarizes it perfectly:
Why do employees quit? What disengages them? While
employees may learn more about the company’s
operations—including details they dislike—these factors
don’t usually send them fleeing. Brick-and-mortar
companies can’t love or hate people; so at the core,
employees rarely have feelings of love or hate for
corporate entities. No, employees reserve that level of
emotion for individuals—like their supervisors or
managers. Disengaged employees act like they’ve been
hurt—as if something has been done to them personally.
In fact, the leading cause of attrition and disengagement
is poor leadership.
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1. Work with data.
2. Focus on engagement at multiple levels – senior leadership
and grass roots.
3. Select the right managers.
4. Train and coach managers on key skills and strategies that
lead to employee engagement.
5. Define engagement in realistic and everyday terms.
6. Find ways to connect to every employee.
WHAT CAN ORGANIZATIONS DO TO IMPROVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?
WORK WITH DATA
Organizations need to use good engagement survey tools so they
are measuring the right indicators of engagement. This is crucial so
organizations can work with information that allows for corrective
action when engagement levels are low and need improvement.
The problem organizations face is the sheer volume of employee
engagement survey tools that are available. Gallup uses its Q12 tool
and SHRM has an engagement survey service, too. The tool you
select is less important than the fact that you must develop data
that illustrates at what level your employees are willing to exert
discretionary effort to perform their jobs. Once you have data, you
can develop plans to make improvements.
One of the most fascinating aspects of improving
employee engagement is the way senior leadership
involvement tends to start cultural shifts, however in
the end employee involvement is where the action is.
You must make employee engagement a part of the
routine job expectations of all of your managers, and
that requires senior leadership support, involvement,
and buy-in. Once that occurs, you’ll start to see the
grassroots transformation you seek.
FOCUS ON ENGAGEMENT AT MULTIPLE LEVELS
SELECT THE RIGHT MANAGERS
Employee engagement centers on managers,
manager performance, manager skill, and manager
capability, so it is entirely logical that getting the right
managers in place to begin with is important. In many
cases top performers get rewarded with promotions
but very few top performers are adequately prepared
to be managers. You must promote people to
manager roles based upon the skills, competencies,
and traits necessary for success as managers, and the
success profile for a manager is different than the
success profile of individual contributors.
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DEFINE ENGAGEMENT IN REALISTIC AND EVERYDAY TERMS
A side note on how to balance the need for speed with the need
for competence…
BALANCING THE NEED FOR SPEED WITH COMPETENCIES
• Have employees own their
learning and development
• Provide information that
employees can use in their
own way
• Hold them accountable
Employees must work towards realistic goals on a
day-to-day basis led by managers using effective
managerial skills. Gallup’s report describes four
stages of employee engagement, and the stages
are not too dissimilar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Essentially, once we have some basic workplace
needs met, we move to more complex needs, and
eventually we rise to the level of looking for
improvements and opportunities for professional
growth and fulfillment. Managers must express these
needs in easy to understand ways for employees.
SELF-ESTEEM
SENSE OF BELONGING
SAFETY
PSYCHOLOGICAL
SELF ACTUALIZATION
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
FIND WAYS TO CONNECT TO EVERY EMPLOYEE
This is a critical piece of the puzzle to employee engagement, and
it’s one of the reasons manager performance is so closely linked to
engagement. Each person must feel valued, and that sense of value
must come from his or her manager. We have to rely upon our
managers to make these connections.
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MANAGERIAL COMPENTECIES AND CHALLENGES
Every organization will need to evaluate the unique
requirements for their managers and supervisors. For instance,
managers in certain industries may require a unique set of
competencies such as regulatory requirements in healthcare,
financial services or transportation organizations. Regardless
of the industry, organizations will likely have some unique
requirements based upon culture and specific organizational
goals or objectives.
However, there are some foundational managerial
competencies and behaviors that appear to directly affect
employee engagement. We recommend that you develop
these core competencies in your managers:
Each of these competencies and the skills needed to execute
can impact the areas and factors that the data and research
indicates affects employee engagement.
Emotional Intelligence
Coaching
Communication
Delegation
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive,
control and evaluate emotions. It’s not intelligence per se, EI
is a complex competency that involves our ability to
understand and monitor not only our own feelings and
emotions, but also the feelings and emotions of those around
us. Then EI allows us to use this information to guide our
actions and thinking. For a much more complete explanation
of the concept, refer to a scholarly article by Peter Salovey
and John D. called "Emotional Intelligence” written in 1990.
Another leading authority on the subject, Daniel Goleman
wrote in his book, Working with Emotional Intelligence,
“Emotional Intelligence is the largest single predictor of
success in the workplace.” Goleman describes Emotional
Intelligence as “managing feelings so that they are expressed
appropriately and effectively enabling people to work
together smoothly towards their common goals.”
The value of EI for our managers can best be illustrated by
referring to the immense changes we are witnessing to the
demographics in our workplaces, and the challenges in
working with employees with widely varying motivations,
needs, and perspectives.
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This is a critical competency for managers that few
organizations take the time to adequately develop.
Coaching is crucial to developing the skills and abilities of
each manager’s team, so this begs the question. Why isn’t
coaching a core competency for managers in every
organization?
Coaching doesn’t have to be a complex process for any
manager. In fact, it’s not complicated at all. At its core,
coaching is primarily about a perspective where the
manager focuses on the actual needs of his or her employees
and puts those needs first.
A study conducted by Bersin by Deloitte showed that
organizations with senior leaders who coach effectively and
frequently, improve their business results by 21 percent as
compared to those who never coach.
Some specific examples of coaching behaviors are:
Taking an “Ask vs. Tell” approach. Coaches ask their
employees questions and help employees solve problems.
They don’t tell employees what to do.
There is a focus on the employee and not on tasks. So the
focus is on the development of employees.
There is a structure for accountability, action, and
outcomes. The manager and employee stay tightly
focused on achieving goals using this structure.
Coaching is an everyday, consistent part of every
manager/employee relationship. The best way for employees
to learn is for a trained manager to coach and teach the
employee as things occur. Additionally, this type of day-in-
day-out interaction and adjustment helps the employee,
manager, and team, and by extension, the organization
actually attain goals.
To put the idea of coaching into an equation it would read:
Coaching = Effective Conversations. Effective conversations
are a dialogue where the manager asks open-ended
questions and stays focused on positive and useful results.
COACHING
DEVELOPMENT OF MENTORS
A side note on developing the skills of mentors…
Target three areas:
Coaching
Emotional Intelligence
Communication
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This key competency flows very naturally from coaching.
However, communication in today’s complex workplace also
requires the application of EI (emotional intelligence) so the
communication message AND method are appropriate to
the situation and desired results.
Another critical aspect of communication skills and
competencies many organizations tend to overlook in their
managerial employees is virtual communication skills. Many
organizations now have remote employees or multiple
locations. We are more reliant than ever before on
technology tools to effectively communicate and in many
instances we are forced to rely upon these tools to supervise
and manage these remote employees and locations.
Even if organizations do not have remote employees, how
well prepared are managers to communicate using current
technology tools? The communication challenges for
managers with remote employees are radically different. For
instance, how do managers provide:
Feedback
Coaching
Keep employees connected
Maintain relationships
All of these things are possible, but these require a new and
emerging set of communications skills that require a high
degree of comfort with technology.
COMMUNICATION
RECOMMENDED BIZLIBRARY RESOURCES
Telecommuting Basics: Communication Strategies for the
Remote Employee (60 minute, eLearning Course)
Business Etiquette: Written Communications (7 minute,
Video Course)
Global Scenarios Series: Building the Virtual Team (18
minute, Video Course)
For a free 30-day trial of these courses and more, click here.
According to the 2013 Regus Global Economic Indicator –
research that includes over 26,000 business managers across 90 countries:
48% work remotely for at least half of their work week.
55% say that seamless remote management is an
achievable goal, but only if managers undergo special
training.
54% consider trust an important issue.
43% use video communication between managers and
employees.
39% believe remote management helps maintain a more
professional relationship.
BIZLIBRARY.COM
DELEGATION RECOMMENDED BIZLIBRARY RESOURCES
Delegating - Strengthen your leadership capabilities
through delegation (2 minute, Video Course and
Competency Toolkit)
Developing Employees through Delegation (15 minute,
Scenario-Based eLearning Course)
Q&A: Delegating and Empowering (13 minute, Video
Course)
A Leader’s Guide to Delegating (23 minute, Video Course)
For a free 30-day trial of these courses and more, click here.
One of the hardest transitions for new mangers to make is to
learn to delegate tasks as opposed to simply doing them. For
many managers, there is a feeling that they are “dumping
work” on their employees when they ask employees to do
things. This mind set must be shifted, and managers must
master the competency of delegating to their teams.
Employees actually NEED to feel connected to their work,
and they NEED their managers to demonstrate confidence in
them. So rather than “dumping” on employees, delegating to
them is not only appropriate, it’s necessary. The trick is in
delegating the right tasks to the right people.
Gallup has found that managers who focus on their
employees’ strengths can practically eliminate active
disengagement and double the average of U.S. workers who
are engaged nationwide.
Managers have unique opportunities in their daily
interactions with employees to empower them to
discover and develop their strengths, and they have the
ability to position employees in roles where they can do
what they do best every day. When managers succeed
in these endeavors, their teams become more engaged.
And Gallup has found that employees who feel
engaged at work and who are able to use their strengths
in their jobs are more productive and profitable and
have higher quality work.
SOURCE: Gallup Study, 2013 State of the American Workplace
BIZLIBRARY.COM
DIFFFERENT TYPES OF EMPLOYEES NEED DIFFERENT ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
One size does not fit all. That’s why the four foundational manager competencies we identified are so vital. Each competency
revolves around building managers’ ability to deal with employees as individuals on different levels. This is crucial when we begin
to look at the data about the levels of engagement among different employee demographics.
Employee Engagement Video Series. In this series
we answer the questions, 'How important is this
and what do we do about it?' Is this one of those
teddy bear and fluffy bunny topics that
organizations get hooked on? Is this a ridiculous
subject? NO! Watch this series to learn more about
employee engagement!
Ridiculous or Strategic?
The Business Case for Engagement
Measuring Employee Engagement
Managing for Engagement
Creating an Engaged Organization
For instance, generational differences matter. Research tells us that
employees at the beginning (Millennials) and near the end (Traditionals) of
their careers tend to be the most engaged. Women tend to be slightly more
engaged than men, and people with college degrees tend to be slightly less
engaged. Surprisingly, remote employees log more work hours AND tend to
be slightly more engaged.
Organizational size can impact engagement, too. Generally speaking,
engagement across larger organization mirrors the engagement figures for
the broad population. But there is an interesting exception uncovered in
Gallup’s research. Organizations with fewer than 10 employees see much
higher levels of engagement, and employees working on TEAMS of fewer
than 10 members likewise see much higher levels of engagement.
Engagement tends to be lower for teams of more than 10, suggesting
managers with larger teams have a bigger challenge when it comes to
engaging their employees.
RECOMMENDED BIZLIBRARY RESOURCES
For a free 30-day trial of these
courses and more, click here.
THE DIFFERENCE MAKER – PLAYING TO EMPLOYEE STRENGTHS
Gallup’s research revealed a stunning piece of data.
Managers who focused on their employees’ weakness cut active disengagement
roughly in half, to 22%, proving that even negative attention is better than no attention
at all in employees’ eyes. By contrast, for the 37% who agreed that their supervisor
focused on their strengths, active disengagement fell dramatically to 1%. What’s more,
nearly two-thirds (61%) of these employees were engaged, twice the average (30%) of
U.S. workers who are engaged nationwide. This suggests that if every organization in
America trained their managers to focus on employees’ strengths, the U.S. could easily
double the number of engaged employees in the workplace with this one simple shift in
approach.
This simple shift in focus by the manager – from weaknesses to strengths had the
remarkable effect of virtually eliminating disengagement. It’s so stunning and simple that
it’s a wonder every organization doesn’t do this already. And what’s even more stunning
is that the finding is even a surprise at all.
Everyone performs better when we play to our strengths. There are no exceptions. Think
of great athletes in this context. Would a great basketball star achieve the same level of
greatness if he or she attempted baseball? Do you remember Michael Jordan’s failed
attempt to play professional baseball? That’s because his strengths were on the
basketball court. Our employees are no different. They will excel when they play to
their strengths.
10 REASONS TO INVEST IN MANAGER TRAINING
Victor Lipman, wrote a great article for the Leadership section of Forbes Online Magazine in Sept 2012, titled 10 Reasons to Invest
in Manager Training. We’ll paraphrase his top 10 as follows:
1. The employee/manager relationship is the most important single factor in driving employee engagement.
2. Employee engagement leads directly to higher productivity and profitability, and disengaged employees are
disruptive.
3. Managers don’t become managers and automatically “know” how to manage. They have to learn.
4. Sound management practices are not complicated and can be taught.
5. It’s important to develop the next generation of leaders from within.
6. Investments in front-line manager training are likely to yield a better return on investment and be more needed than
any other type of leadership development and training.
7. Good management training can help develop a better level of consistent manager performance throughout your
organization.
8. Respected, high-performing managers boost engagement, productivity and retention – all of which improve the
bottom-line.
9. Well-trained managers help mitigate risk and avoid litigation – which is expensive and disruptive.
10. Repeat #1 – it’s just that important!
We know employee engagement is important and employee engagement has a direct impact on the bottom line. We also
know that our managers are the critical element in our organizations that can either engage OR disengage our employees.
The research proves that by employing some simple, common sense management best practices, we can radically shift the
playing field so that our employees are far more likely to be engaged. How do we do that? We train our managers, and we
teach them to play to the strengths of their employees. It really can be that simple.
So – what do you plan to do about it?
BIZLIBRARY.COM
Whatever training your employees need, you’ll find it with BizLibrary.
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fastest-growing collection of high-quality training videos and eLearning
courses covers every topic area imaginable.
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