Eric Jacobson

Posts Tagged ‘Employee Engagement’

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The Enemy of Engagement — Frustration In The Workplace

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Management, Motivating Employees on October 7, 2011 at 6:01 pm

“Frustration in the workplace is a silent killer,” claim authors Mark Royal and Tom Agnew in their terrific new book, The Enemy of Engagement, coming out this month from Amacom.

Further, “in an organizational context, frustration is not as simple as failing to get something you want.  Rather, it involves the inability to succeed in your role due to organizational barriers or the inability to bring the bulk of your individual talents, skills, and abilities to your job.”

Royal and Agnew further explain that a staggering number of highly motivated, engaged, and loyal employees quit trying–or quit, period–because they feel frustrated.

And what’s causing all that frustration?  It’s lack of enablement.

According to Royal and Agnew, as employees grow in experience in their roles, they begin to focus less on learning the ropes and more on achieving desired results.  In the process, they are increasingly confronted with enablement constraints that limit their ability to get their jobs done effectively.

  • And, the employees who are frustrated are not the demotivated and disengaged employees who simply don’t care enough about organizational success to become deeply frustrated.

In the book, you’ll learn how to enable employees, including these techniques:

  • Put them in optimized roles that leverage their skills and abilities
  • Give them the tools, technology, information, and a supportive environment
  • Get out of their way
  • Don’t introduce procedural barriers
  • Don’t dilute their focus
  • Don’t consume their energy with tasks that don’t add value

Much of the book discusses how engagement and why it’s imperative employees can be engaged so they feel they are contributing in a positive way to something larger them themselves.   And Royal and Agnew build the case for why both enablement AND engagement are critical.

That’s because, according to the authors’ research:

  • Companies that both engage and enable employees demonstrate total reduction in voluntary turnover by 54 percent.
  • Engaged employees are 10 percent more likely to exceed performance expectations, but highly engaged and enabled employees are 50 percent more likely to outperform expectations.

Finally, you’ll find a solid list of to-do’s for positioning motivated employees to succeed and for enhancing employee enablement as the authors provide expert guidance related to:

  • Performance management
  • Authority and empowerment
  • Resources
  • Training
  • Collaboration
  • Work, structure and process

If you are leading an organization where your employees are not engaged and not enabled, The Enemy of Engagement is a must-read book for you.  Don’t let your employees be part of these findings by various Hay Group surveys (cited by the authors) where they found that:

  • 30 percent of employees indicate that they do not have enough authority to carry out their jobs effectively.
  • Nearly one-third of employees do not feel that their managers encourage them to come up with new and better ways of doing things.
  • One-third of employees report that they do not have the resources and information they need to do their jobs well.
  • Nearly half of employees do not feel that their teams receive high-quality support from other teams within their organizations.
  • Nearly 45 percent of employees report that their organizations are insufficiently innovative in using new technologies or creative approaches to improve internal effectiveness.

Note:  Thank you to Amacom for sending me an advance copy of this book.


10 Tips For Engaging Your Employees

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Listening Skills, Management, Motivating Employees on July 26, 2011 at 9:01 pm

Here are 10 tips for how to maximize employee involvement:

  1. Have active ways to listen to your employees.
  2. Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want.
  3. Share information about customer satisfaction with employees.
  4. Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability.
  5. Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues.
  6. Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small.
  7. Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea.
  8. Train!
  9. For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges.
  10. Conduct meetings around specific issues and brainstorm solutions.

“Involving people in the business is the most effective way to produce an organization in which people know more, care more, and do the right things,” said Edward Lawler III, Professor, University of Southern
California, as quoted in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees, by author Bob Nelson.


How To Maximize Employee Involvement

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Listening Skills, Management, Motivating Employees, Team Building on June 9, 2011 at 7:52 pm

Here are 10 tips for how to maximize employee involvement:
  1. Have active ways to listen to your employees.
  2. Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want.
  3. Share information about customer satisfaction with employees.
  4. Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability.
  5. Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues.
  6. Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small.
  7. Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea.
  8. Train!
  9. For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges.
  10. Conduct meetings around specific issues and brainstorm solutions.

“Involving people in the business is the most effective way to produce an organization in which people know more, care more, and do the right things,” said Edward Lawler III, Professor, University of Southern  California, as quoted in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees, by author Bob Nelson.


Are C-Suite Executives Confronting Employee Engagement?

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Management, Motivating Employees on March 15, 2011 at 7:42 pm

Overland Park, KS employee engagement expert and author Leigh Branham is the founder of Keeping The People, Inc. and he recently identified disappointing findings in a report released by The Economist, titled “Re-engaging with engagement: Views from the boardroom on employee engagement.”

Those disappointing findings called out by Branham were:

  • 84% of survey respondents say that “disengaged employees” are one of the three biggest threats facing their business. Yet, only 12% report that their companies “regularly and often” confront staff with “continually low engagement.” C-suite executives themselves admit that employee engagement is discussed “occasionally”, “rarely,” or “never” at board level in 43% of companies.
  • More than one in five in the C-suite believe that employees are “much more engaged” than those in rival firms, compared with only 7% of respondents outside the C-suite.
  • 47% of C-suite executives believe that they themselves “have determined the levels of employee engagement” in their companies, a view shared by only 16% of senior directors outside the C-suite. Only 13% of C-suite executives believe that line managers and middle managers are “chiefly responsible” for staff engagement.

The report is based on a survey of 331 C-suite executives (CEO, CFO, CIO, etc.) or senior directors from 19 industries in Europe and the Middle East. 

“I was not surprised by the first two findings,” says Branham. “My experience has led me to agree with the report’s conclusion that “a sizeable discrepancy exists between what companies say about the perils of disengagement and how far they will actually go to confront the problem.”

Branham is asking if the findings also apply to senior executives in the U.S. You can share your thoughts by contacting Branham on his website. He asks:

  • Who truly influences levels of employee engagement more in your company–senior leaders or direct managers?
  • What actions should HR leaders take to help C-suite leaders sort out which employee engagement initiatives to take?

The first book Branham wrote was, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave. His most recent book is, Re-Engage: How America’s Best Places To Work Inspire Extra Effort Through Extraordinary Engagements.


10 Ways To Involve Your Employees

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, Employee Satisfaction, Leadership, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Management, Motivating Employees on January 26, 2011 at 10:22 pm

Here are 10 tips for how to maximize employee involvement:

  1. Have active ways to listen to your employees.
  2. Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want.
  3. Share information about customer satisfaction with employees.
  4. Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability.
  5. Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues.
  6. Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small.
  7. Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea.
  8. Train!
  9. For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges.
  10. Conduct meetings around specific issues and brainstorm solutions.

“Involving people in the business is the most effective way to produce an organization in which people know more, care more, and do the right things,” said Edward Lawler III, Professor, University of Southern California, as quoted in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees, by author Bob Nelson.


Maximize Employee Engagement

In Company Culture, Leadership, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Management, Motivating Employees on April 12, 2010 at 6:52 pm

Overland Park, KS-based author Leigh Branham will host a free webinar from 11 a.m. to Noon on Wednesday, April 14 on the topic of employee engagement.

The webinar will address the topic of how leaders can engage and re-engage employees during these continuing difficult economic times.

Registrations are required to “attend” the webinar via your computer.

Branham has 30 years of experience in business, education and management consulting.  He is the author of three best-selling books, including the widely popular, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave.  He is the co-author of the book Re-Engage.

In a recent interview, when asked what are the most important skills a leader should have to effectively lead, Branham said:

  • Vision
  • Integrity
  • Courage
  • Authenticity

Plus, the leader should have:

  • the ability to face and address unpleasant realities
  • the willingness to welcome disagreement and open discussion
  • the ability to open up and field tough questions
  • the balance to be both tough and tender minded
  • the ability to adapt oneself to the needs of those being led

But, according to Branham, most important a leader should have authenticity and courage.

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