Let’s begin with a joke, shall we? – “A CEO was asked how many people work in his company: ‘About half of them,’ he responded.” After the session, several participants put a more serious face on the problem when, while chatting, they bemoaned the fact that, in their organization, a significant number of people had mentally “checked out.”
It is possible that many of you can actually understand the real picture behind this joke. Employee engagement has become one of the major issues for organizations nowadays. While an engaged employee is fully involved in, committed to and enthusiastic about, his or her work, a mentally checked out employee is not motivated or enthusiastic about his or her work or workplace.
And therein is the problem. How does the company management expect to do great thing when most of its employees are fully involved and enthusiastic about their work or about the bigger picture?
The Gallup Management Journal publishes a semi-annual Employment Engagement Index. In the most recent U.S. results it is showing that:
- Only 13% of employees worldwide are actively engaged in their jobs. They are passionate about their company. These actively engaged people help move the organization forward.
- 63% employees are not engaged. These employees put no passion into their work. They are active but are not accomplishing anything to benefit the company.
- 24% employees are actively disengaged and busy acting out their unhappiness, which in turn, undermines what their engaged co-workers are trying to accomplish.
A Towers Perrin 2005 Global Workforce Survey that involved about 85,000 people working full-time for large and midsize firms yielded similar disturbing results.
Engaged employees put their heart, head and hands in work and accomplish more than their non engaged colleagues. And that means more success to the company and its people.
So, how to keep the employees engaged? We bring you the Ten C’s of employee engagement.
THE TEN C’S OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
1. Communicate – Not communicating with your employees in a positive way means your organization is doomed to fail. A two-way communication flow is essential for both employee engagement and the success of your organization.
2. Connect: Leaders must show that they value employees with employee-focused initiatives such as profit sharing and implementing work–life balance initiatives. But most importantly, they should cultivate a great relationship with their employees and walk the talk when they say, “Our employees are our most valuable asset.”
3. Career: Leaders should provide challenging and meaningful work to their employees along with opportunities for career advancement. Most people want to do new things in their job. Therefore, to bring out the best in your employees you should challenge them and at the same time give them the knowledge and tool for achieving their goal.
This instills a new confidence in them. On the other hand not giving one the aid they need to meet the challenges is plainly unethical and demotivating, which leads to stress, frustration, and, lack of engagement.
4. Clarity: Leaders must communicate a clear vision. Success in life as well as in organizations is determined by how clear one sees their goals. So, employees need to understand what the organization’s goals are, their importance, and how the goals can be attained. Having a clear vision about the goal, and how one can contribute to it, always keeps the employees engaged.
5. Convey: Good leaders set up processes and procedures to help people master important tasks and thus, facilitate goal achievement. Giving regular positive and constructive feedbacks to employees often bring out the best in them and these small achievements collectively help the company win big.
6. Congratulate: In most cases, employees feel that they receive immediate feedback when their performance is poor, or below expectations. But giving recognition, coaching and congratulating employees on their improvement is a good way to use feedbacks as a constructive tool.
7. Contribute: Employees want to know that their input matters. They also want to know that they are giving meaningful contribution to the organization’s success and future. When they understand this, their work-related behavior improves enormously.
8. Control: Giving employees the opportunity to voice their ideas and needs, take part in decision-making and setting milestones or targets and showing that their opinions and contributions are valued by the leaders can keep them passionate about the job they are doing. Giving some control to drive an initiative to the employees can make them feel empowered and ultimately highly in sync with the organization.
9. Collaborate: It is often seen that, when team members have the trust and cooperation of each other, they outperform individuals and teams which lack good relationships. Great leaders create an environment that fosters trust and collaboration. Being cared about by colleagues often leads one to strong employee engagement.
So, the leaders must rally individuals to collaborate on a common goal, however small or big it is, and at the same time, must exclude individuals pursuing their self-interest. At Fusion CX, we always foster a healthy relationship among our employees and drive them towards a better tomorrow.
10. Credibility: You should try hard to maintain a company’s reputation and maintain high ethical standards. Employees of an organization want to be proud of their jobs, performance, and their organization.
10. Confidence: You create confidence in a company by setting an example of high ethical and performance standards. This make the employees look up to you.
As a leader, you should actively try to identify the level of engagement in your organization, find the reasons behind the lack of engagement, and strive to eliminate those reasons. You should also implement behavioral strategies to facilitate full engagement.
At Fusion CX, we believe that employee engagement is not a one-time gig. It’s an ongoing process.
