Disclaimer

Employee Engagement

• I am NOT an employee engagement expert

• Please don’t view this as me trying to be an expert

• I truly believe employee engagement is the way. If employee engagement isn’t at least one of your top priorities, it should be if you want to scale.

• This is simply my story and my beliefs

• My intent is to share my experiences with you and receive your recommendations

What is it?

Employee Engagement

Interesting but no

No

Perhaps

No

What it is Not

Employee Engagement

• Being a happy employee

• Being a satisfied employee

• A dictated state

• A permanent state

• A check box

Fire BreathersConfident. Autonomous. Skilled. Respected. Proud.

Employee Engagement

East Ways to Kill Engagement

Employee Engagement

• Micro manage: “I want you to do this task this way.” Task and method focused rather than solution or challenge based.

• Demotivate: Stop feedback. Stop communications. Emotionally detach.

• Stop acting like a human: Respect, trust, personal interest, social interaction and emotional support are all needed for

engagement.

• It’s easier than you think!

Schlechty’s Levels of Classroom Engagement [INFOGRAPHIC]

Employee Engagement

Not only High Attention (the appearance of working) but also High Commitment.

High Commitment is the goal. This is where you see individuals taking ownership and contributing because they have pride in their work, their team and the goal.This is where we have scalability and optimal efficiency in a team.

Reaching a State of Engagement

Employee Engagement

• My volunteer work for Coquitlam SAR – “switched on” state occurs when you are in the moment. You are engaged.

• Fireman quote: “You get out of the fire hall what you put into the fire hall.”

• Leadership is often developing Subject Matter Experts and Appreciating Effort.

• Branded identity. People want identity

• Celebration. Recognize the right behaviors.

• Reinforcement. Lots of it!

Monthly Ninja TrophyMy attempt to protect the culture

My Approach

Employee Engagement

• Put my money where my mouth is. On my BG&Os: “best employee engagement score.” Measure items of importance otherwise it is forgotten.

• Bigger than me. I stopped being the bottleneck. Create a Committee. Autonomous stream. It is now unstoppable.

• It is a challenge we need a solution for. Not a management task but instead needs management support.

• I invited staff to spend time as part of an engagement committee that meets every second Friday to brain storm changes we want to make.

• Topics: car charging, seating environment, working from home, BYOD, desktop equipment, mobile devices, training, health spending, company benefits (flexibility), team building events, branding, daycare, employee discounts, FitBit, food trucks, volunteer opportunities

Leaders Intent

Employee Engagement

• By far, my most successful leadership technique.

• Stop telling people what to do and instead tell staff why something needs to change.

• What is your intent? Do they know?

• Step back and paint the picture. Tell the story. All people want to at least be invited to participate in the design of their destiny. Very few people respond well to, “do this,” “do that” now “do that again.”

• Smart people can likely design a better solution that the one your telling them to build. Have faith and stop feeling insecure about giving away your authority. Keep the responsibility and accountability but give your team the ability to explore and be creative.

Next Steps

Employee Engagement

• The DevOps philosophy that we are hearing so much about now has many of the same cultural traits.

• You are Dev. I am Ops. Want to hang out?

Questions to think About

Employee Engagement

• What makes you jump out of bed in the morning? Is it the same things that your reports value?

• How do we increase trust, pride, autonomy, loyalty, respect and sense of identity?

• How do we bake these attributes into our culture and environment?

• How do we protect our culture from the politics, egos, bureaucracy, silos and the destruction the disengaged can cause?

• What are signs of engagement? How do you know you are on the right track?