Please join me and my colleague Mark Izzo of Converge Solutions, Inc. for this hands-on webinar event. We’ll look at the critical timing, in advance of the economic upturn, for you to increase your organization’s levels of employee engagement and customer engagement and how these translate into greater market share and increased revenues.
Prior to the event, each individual participant will complete our assessment exploring critical activities for CEOs and HR executives to master in order to prepare their organization IN ADVANCE of the upturn. You’ll learn how to most effectively target your time and energy towards what is needed most, right now, within your own team and organization.
Has the recession impacted levels of employee engagement? Current research reveals that recession-related trends, such as layoffs, pay cuts, and increased workloads, have resulted in a general decline in employee engagement and productivity. This trend was predicted by many experts. In May, 2009, BusinessWeek magazine published an article on this topic. The article offered two differing opinions to the question: Is the recession a time to be focusing on employee engagement? Below are a few excerpts from the expert who responded, “YES.”
“Employee engagement will hit historic lows in the coming years and cost employers billions in lost productivity—and cost consumers in the form of a more frustrating I-don’t-really-care-about-you customer experience. Employee engagement is directly related to the experience customers desire.
This “Great Recession” will widen the gap between the few companies that deliver a consistently good experience and the great majority whose employees are more disengaged than ever and deliver poor service. A Quantum Market Research study revealed that between fall 2007 and fall 2008, nearly one-half of companies surveyed had a decrease in employee engagement scores, measured by an employee’s willingness to put in extra discretionary effort for the good of the business, speak positively about the business to others, and stay loyal to the job.
What if all employees in your company were engaged and willing to give the company 15 minutes of discretionary effort each week? The ROI would astound you and the improved customer experience just might make the difference between surviving the Great Recession and thriving in it.”
Important questions for your consideration:
How has the recession impacted employee engagement at your organization?
Would you or your leaders benefit from expansion of your current approaches to employee engagement?
So, who is an engaged employee? Here is a short checklist of characteristics. An engaged employee:
is loyal, productive, perhaps even passionate and applies discretionary effort to his/her work
understands the organization’s priorities, goals and desired results
knows how the work he/she performs contributes to the success of the organization
feels that his/her personal values align with the values of the organization
receives appropriate and timely rewards, recognition, and reinforcement
is directly involved in discussions and decisions impacting his/her work
feels positive about the leadership of the organization and has a good connection/relationship with his/her immediate supervisor
Think about the employees of your organization or members of your team. How would you rate them compared with the checklist above? How might they rate themselves? And again consider these questions:
How has the recession impacted employee engagement at your organization?
Would you or your leaders benefit from expansion of your current approaches to employee engagement?
Now IS the time to take action and ensure your organization’s future.
Now is the time. Let’s explore ideas for assessing and increasing engagement levels within your organization. Send me an email or give me a call:
One of the most common scenarios I am asked about by team leaders is how to help geographically dispersed team members become more cohesive and operate with a strong sense of team unity. Sound familiar to you too?
As they say, there is no substitute for face time; and I would agree. I am big fan of face time. For most organizations with virtual teams however, face time is not a frequently occurring situation (especially in a down economy). And building a cohesive team requires frequent, intentional interactions. It is important to regularly look for and talk about the things the team does well and to engage in retrospective dialogue around setbacks and “failures” to learn as much as you can and keep the team moving forward. Below are three suggestions to get you started.
The foundational step in creating a cohesive team is building trust. Towards trust building, it is useful for people to spend time getting to know each other and exploring their similarities and uniqueness. Prepare 2 or 3 “self-disclosure” questions prior to each meeting and have every team member take a turn responding, round robin fashion. Questions can progress from fun trivia type questions to more meaningful or work-related questions as the trust builds. For example, “What is your favorite vacation spot?” is a risk-free question, while, “Who in your life has most influenced your career? What did he/she do?” may feel more risky to some. The purpose is to allow for discovery of the things people have in common and to gain greater insight into what makes each other tick. Team members might rotate the job of coming up with the questions and facilitating the discussion.
Another important step towards trust building is providing the space for team members to discuss individual expectations and the values that are important to them as a member of the group. Ask team members to think about what they value most in relationships and come prepared to each share their top 3 values. After each team member shares his/her list, explore commonalities and themes. Build this into the team’s Guiding Principles or Operating Agreement and have each team member verbally agree to uphold. This leads nicely into an opportunity to proactively talk about the area where most teams have trouble: accountability. Explore questions like: “How will we know that we’re doing/upholding ‘abc value’? What will be different or enhanced?” “What will we do when someone violates a guiding principle?” “How will we handle accountability?” This could all be done in one long meeting or divided into segments to be facilitated over a few team meetings.
As trust builds and the Team Guiding Principles take shape, plan 10-15min at the beginning of each team meeting for a “team process check-in.” This is the time, before the team begins discussing the tasks at hand, to focus on the process of being a cohesive team. At each meeting, pose a question for the team to explore together. Examples include:
What’s good about the way we’ve been making decisions together? What’s working well for us?
What would you (each team member) like to see more of regarding our communication about “abc”?
Let’s reflect on Project X (just concluded). Name 1 or 2 things we did really well and how it contributed to the project’s success.
What wins or successes are we celebrating today (remember to include the small everyday ones)?
Consider what might be possible when your team engages in this level of Everyday Teambuilding throughout the year. What results could you expect to see that you are not seeing today?
