The 1st half of this Post will re-cap the topics in previous posts.   The 2nd half will suggest a means of “Finding Out What You Don’t Know” about the state of employee engagement at your organization.

Summary of Previous posts on

“EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT”

(please go to these posts for full details)

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT  must be management priority #1

• Fact 1 – Multiple studies point to a significant relationship between employee engagement and the financial performance of a company.

THE LEVEL OF COMMITMENT YOU OBSERVE IS A KEY FACTOR IN DETERMINING THE QUALITY OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT.

• Commitment reveals itself in the investment of time and energy (emotional, mental and sometimes physical) that an employee gives to the company.
• Pro-active work behaviors – self initiated “extra” contributions,

THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR HIGH LEVELS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND ENTHUSIASM

• The operational, cultural characteristics that promote employee engagement, also promote success ——-Even if you’ve never heard the term engagement

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES THAT KILL ENGAGEMENT

• These practices are nothing less than management deficiencies that are not consistent with successful business operations.
• Model of a Culture of High Employee Engagement

FIND OUT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

Are fixable cultural and operational factors driving declining quality and productivity and creating high turnover?

Hopefully, this information will provide direction where it is already accepted that cultural and operational change is needed, and encouragement to others to take the hard look at their organizations.

I have had very good results in implementing change initiatives using the information in this and previous posts both in development efforts with individual managers and in corporate culture change initiatives.

EMPLOYEE PERCEPTION SURVEYS (EPS)

I encourage the use of an Employee Perception Surveys (EPS), done every other year with results communicated to all.   This is not the same as an Employee Satisfaction Survey.   An EPS is the best way to gather information and gain wide support for improvement strategies to “fix” the areas that are sub-optimal and score poorly.

WHAT CAN AN EPS TELL YOU?

From a previous post, these are some of the areas where an EPS would provide insights into the efficiency of operations and the effectiveness of management practices.

• Perceptions of jobs and the work
• Work environment
• Attitudes toward quality and quality efforts
• Commitment to the customer and customer relationships
• Management support
• Career advancement/opportunities
• Opportunities for training and development
• Ability to improve work/Feedback
• Level  of overall understanding of the organization’s goals/priorities

THE EPS IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP 

Doing an EPS is like taking a temperature.   It can tell you something is wrong and provide some direction.  Follow-up initiatives to dig deeper are the appropriate first steps following analysis of survey results, let’s call them fact-finding initiatives.  They should involve people at all levels and from all functions.  This group will help refine the specific areas for improvement and the best method to achieve results. I am always amazed at how much dysfunction and inefficiency people will work with.  They become used to things being done a certain way or don’t have the time or the support to create improvement (this is an engagement killer).    These fact-finding initiatives seem to provide that time, and with the crafting of improvement strategies, these efforts are themselves engagement builders – they directly link employee efforts with outcomes that produce value for the organization.

I have used the Employee Perceptions Survey to alert management that issues existed that were holding the company back and then used the follow-up initiatives to identify specifics and create and implement improvement strategies, For Example:  Identifying operational deficiencies, mis-communications, lack of communications and cooperation between department resulting in late product releases, production issues and errors, poor handling of customer account issues and on and on.

IMPLEMENTING IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE CHANCES OF SUCCESS

In my experience, I have found that it is key to assign accountability and responsibility for specific outcomes.    Milestones should be identified  and be put into time lines with progress updates provided by those responsible.   If and when appropriate, specific accountabilities for implementing approved changes in procedures or processes should be pushed down through the organization’s workforce by departmental management.

PROGRAMS FOR IMPROVEMENT THAT INCLUDE EMPLOYEE INPUT HAVE A GREATER CHANCE OF SUCCESS

Most of the information that has been presented in the posts to date have also been part of management training and awareness programs that followed EPS and the follow-up initiatives.  Because these programs were based on the organization’s realities rather than generic issues, the program’s content always hit home with managers and seemed to provide almost a welcome relief, a clear direction forward with achievable change objectives that could be implemented to improve everything from the way employees are hired, trained, and managed, to objectives setting to communications with employees about performance.

SMALLER ORGANIZATIONS HAVE AN ADVANTAGE OVER LARGE IN SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTING CHANGE. 

They enjoy limited to no bureaucracy that can completely impede the process, delay implementation, or slow down the pace of a change initiative.   A change process that moves slowly drifts into inertia and will not survive to completion.

If an organization has engagement & retention issues……..in this recovering Economy  the time is now to push for change.  Once the job market turns the corner to showing consistent job growth, turnover will grow from a concern to a critical issue that can impede the ability to maintain productivity and compete successfully.   I would suggest management consider these three factors to determine risk.

• Are your training and onboarding programs effective across the organization?
• Are you dealing with too many errors, quality issues, declining productivity, and high absenteeism?
• Has high turnover in general or turnover in critical areas been an issue in the past – before the economic downturn?
• Do you have difficulty filling jobs requiring specialized or high level skills?
• Do you suspect low engagement but you have not been seeing high turnover in the past 2 – 3 years during this recession.

Next Post:    “TRUST”  The underlying support for sustained high levels of employee engagement and retention.

 TRUST = COMMITMENT = ENGAGEMENT (Pro Active work behaviors, Creativity, Innovation) = RETENTION = IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY 

 =  A SUCCESS STRATEGY

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