There is no way to employee engagement,

employee engagement is the way.

The above statement is a rewrite of Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hahn’s, dictum: There is no way to peace, peace is the way.

The opening statement about employee engagement is a central theme of this website. Three times a week you will encounter an eclectic collection of articles on employee engagement. You will read a plethora of perspectives on engagement, from strength based leadership to ZENgagement.

There are many possible forks in the road on the multiple pathways to engagement - I am not trying to confound or confuse you. I want to acknowledge the complexity of employee engagement and honor the many paths to employee engagement.

Last week the Gallup Management Journal published an article with this exact title by Jennifer Robison, Many Paths to Engagement. I have utmost respect for Gallup’s extensive work on employee engagement and I was very pleased to see the parallel nature of our perspectives.

Jennifer began her article with a reference to Buddhist philosophy:

Some Buddhists believe that there are many paths to enlightenment, as many paths as there are seekers. Business philosophy, however, considers that idea problematic. Business leaders don’t want many paths to enlightenment, or in their case, to business results like employee engagement and the benefits it brings. They want one simple, straight, predictable path. When it comes to employee engagement, though, Buddhist thought is probably closer to the truth. There isn’t a perfect path to engagement, a single route that passes from manager to employee to performance to productivity to profit. There are as many effective ways to manage people to attain high performance as there are great managers…

Click here to read the article on how very different management and leadership styles can achieve high levels of employee engagement at Mars, Inc.

Here is part of the conclusion of the article:

So after all that number crunching, behavioral analysis, systematic examination, and simple questioning, Schulte (from Mars Inc.) found the key to great management — great managers. The path to enlightenment, or rather, engagement, ends where it begins.

What does this mean for employee engagement leaders. 

• We need to understand the complexity of employee engagement.

• We need to understand our own strengths and styles. 

• We need to fully understand the people we lead.

• We must give up the pursuit of a simple one-size-fits-all answer to employee engagement.

• We must get on the path and be prepared to change paths.

• We must know in our hearts: there is no way to employee engagement, employee engagement is the way.

Photo Credit: Cliché by http://flickr.com/photos/mayr/372933549/

David Zinger writes about the plethora of pathways to employee engagement.

David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Chronicle is your primary source for current news, views, reviews, and research on employee engagement. Each entry includes a link to an article or post with a short verbatim tidbit from the article. If you are intrigued, click on the author or source name at the start of each summary to study the full article.

The Chronicle begins with a key point from each of the sources listed:

Get The Point:

• Servant leadership is a powerful stance to care for both employees and their engagement.
• The pathway to passionate engaged customers is through fully engaged employees.
• Let’s really talk about employee engagement instead or pretending not to hear the fighting.

Performance - Managers must take care of their employees by Philip Mydlach pairs employee engagement with servant leadership:

Servant leaders tend to be very effective in today’s work world because they place a high importance on making sure the needs of their team members are being met. This is not to imply that the servant leader is not entirely focused on meeting the performance goals of the organization. The servant-leader simply understands that a happy team leads to employee engagement, retention and sustainable high performance over time. Simple concept isn’t it? Servant leadership is…More than anything, servant leadership is an attitude that says I am here to serve you, and to assist you in your personal growth and development in support of achieving the organization’s growth goals.

Capturing Hearts and Minds at Human Resources Executive Online outlines some of Gallup’s Human Sigma work.

The answer is employee engagement or the ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of your employees to instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence. Engaged employees want their organization to succeed because they feel connected emotionally, socially, and even spiritually to its mission, vision, and purpose… More importantly, it’s hard to create passionate, engaged customers without passionate, engaged employees.

Three BC Christmas Wishes by Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson. Yvonne, writing in the Jamaica Observer, wrote about the importance of planned and powerful organizational communications. I loved her statements about communication and employee engagement:

In doing any analysis of ROI, executives should recognise that employees are their company’s chief ambassadors. They spread the word about you, your products or services no matter what your colourful and costly advertisements shout to the public. Furthermore, are your employees engaged? Are they plugged into what it is they are being paid to do or are they just going through the days, longing for Friday to come?, Worse yet, are they waiting for their ‘redundancy money’ so that they can invest it you know where? Have you formed effective alliances with you human resources department to find out where the problem areas in employee communications in your company are? Are your managers trained to communicate effectively with their staff or do you just throw everybody together, pretend not to hear the fighting and hope to God no one gets killed in any ensuing battle? And, sorry the e-mail alone won’t cut it for 2008. Think again.

Way to get them thinking Yvonne.

* * * * *

Contact David Zinger to learn about how you can

leverage employee engagement to produce results that matter

for everyone in your workplace.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca ~ Phone 204 254 2103 ~ Website: www.davidzinger.com.

They are my favorite articles out of a possible 84 articles I wrote since July. I chose them based on how helpful they can be to the reader and how they also express my specific perspectives on employee engagement.

As an extra, I included a bonus article on engagement and retirement.

9. The Employee Engagement Six Pack. This article uses the six pack of aircraft instruments to look at six ways to assess employee engagement.

10.  Zengagement. This was a series of over 35 very short posts/articles with an image and a quotation to foster your thinking or inspiration on employee engagement.

***

Bonus Article: Blogging break…Retire Now. This article examines retirement less of a state and more as a way of approaching our work and our lives.

Photo Credit: Number 10 by http://flickr.com/photos/spilt-milk/164145237/

David Zinger is devoted to working with employee engagement

to foster results that matter for all.

David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Chronicle is your primary source for current news, views, reviews, and research on employee engagement. Each entry includes a link to an article or post with a short verbatim tidbit from the article. If you are intrigued, click on the author or source name at the start of each summary to study the full article.

The Chronicle begins with a key point for each of the sources listed:

Get The Point:

• Even Einstein said, “make things as simple as possible but no simpler.” Does this apply to engagement?
• I can see clearly now…clarity as a key in employee engagement.
• Training in emotional connection facilitates talent retention and employee engagement.
• Be strategic in your employee engagement efforts.

Is the corporate world cutting its own throat? It can be helpful to make things simple but when it comes to work, flexibility, social interaction and performance feedback wins out over job simplification. Carmine Coyote summarizes some research from the University of Florida: The results of this research clearly show that organizations which focus on providing job flexibility, opportunities for social interaction and performance feedback can produce highly performing, highly satisfied workers who have low levels of stress, anxiety and burnout, and who are uninterested in searching for greener pastures. However, organizations that move toward the simplification and independent completion of work will find that workers will be dissatisfied with their work and will perform at a lower level over time, with higher levels of stress.

Clarity - A Key to Employee Engagement. Be Excellent is a blog devoted to helping the best small businesses get even better. Summarizing Watson Wyatt’s research we are reminded: Managers who can clearly communicate where their company is going and why everyone is doing what they are doing are generally much more successful when it comes to engaging their staff.

Managers to be trained on the art of talent retention. This article outlines a program to help in talent retention. Of course, employee engagement is key and here is a snippet from one of the learning modules: Emotional connect between the manager and the employee is critical for employee engagement. iCare focuses on helping the participants explore and enhance their emotional competence and leverage the same at the workplace, effectively. This module will provide opportunity to the participants to be better equipped to relate with their team members at a personal level leading to the employees feeling cared for.

Succesful Employee Engagement Strategies. I highly recommend reading this post if you are in search of some varied and powerful strategies to empower employees. Here is the conclusion after the strategies are outlined in the post: High engagement really means helping your managers engage their staff. The HR department can’t engage every single worker but they have the greatest influence over facilitating processes and systems which will. 

—–

Contact David Zinger to learn about how you can leverage employee engagement to produce results that matter for everyone in your workplace.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca ~ Phone 204 254 2103 ~ Website: www.davidzinger.com.

Crucial Conversations can improve employee engagement. When employees feel safe because of mutual respect and mutual purpose they are more likely to engage in work.

I have been fortunate over the past year to teach numerous Crucial Conversations courses.

Crucial Conversations is a great approach to getting results and building relationships when the stakes are high, there are differing opinions, and there are strong emotions.

The method is not designed specifically for employee engagement but I have seen what a strong tool it can be to reach out to disengaged workers and to work with conflicts that may begin to sow the seeds of disengagement if they are not dealt with candidly and respectfully.

There are many tools to work with employee engagement and I believe Crucial Conversations is an exquisite tool in the tool-belt of managers and leaders who foster high levels of employee engagement while getting results and building relationships.

Here are 4 actions you can take right now to improve your results and relationships:

1. Read the book: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High.
2. Visit the Vitalsmarts website to learn more about Crucial Conversations and the newest book, The Influencer.
3. Subscribe to the Crucial Skills newsletter. This is one of my top 5 newsletters - I always look forward to it appearing in my inbox.
4. Enroll in a Crucial Conversations workshop to really develop your skills.

Photo Credit: Lattice by http://flickr.com/photos/oddwick/1039909856/

* * * * *

Contact David Zinger to learn about how you can leverage employee engagement to produce results that matter for everyone in your workplace.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca ~ Phone 204 254 2103 ~ Website: www.davidzinger.com.

David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Chronicle is your primary source for current news, views, reviews, and research on employee engagement. Each entry includes a link to an article or post with a short verbatim tidbit from the article. If you are intrigued, click on the author or source name at the start of each summary to study the full article.

The Chronicle beings with a key point for each of the sources listed:

Get The Point:

• What is the bonus to having employee engagement part of management’s bonus factors?
• Recognize and leverage the power of story to achieve higher levels of engagement.
• Employee engagement is not a management fad, it is worth the time and effort.
• Let employees know how they are doing and how they fit in.

Non-financial measures have growing influence on executive pay was a recent article at Management Issues. Tom Gosling offers some encouragement and warning in the article. This will put employee engagement into focus yet, incorporating non-financial targets into bonus plans isn’t necessarily guaranteed to deliver the type of benefits that might be imagined. If a target is set, managers will often find a way of meeting it in a way that was not envisaged and with unintended – and often negative - consequences.. Once these measures start being linked to pay, there is always the risk that they are met in ways that are detrimental to the business as a whole.

Work-Life Balance and Full Engagementoutline a free profile on energy and engagement. Jim Loehr has done fantastic work on sports psychology then moving to full engagement. He has now fully developed the power of story on engagement: We get energy for sustained performance when we manage our energy resources effectively,” says Dr. Jim Loehr, CEO of the Human Performance Institute and coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement. “It’s a process that’s not always intuitive, but it can be done when we take control of the stories we tell ourselves through our private, inner voices.” Dr. Loehr’s new book, The Power of Story, shows the essential relationship between full engagement and the stories we tell ourselves. “Put simply, energy follows our stories,” says Loehr. “We give life to something with every story we tell.” He adds, “The first step for many individuals is to face the truth about their current stories and how those stories affect their energy management habits.”

Mike Hager in Green Bay wrote that engaging employees proves beneficial.  A lot has been written about creating an “employee engagement” culture in the workplace. Is this just another management fad or is there something here of real value to an organization? The answer is yes. It’s worth the time and effort to create a fully engaged organization! The results of at least two recent studies are absolutely dramatic; companies with a highly engaged work force have a significantly stronger bottom-line than those who don’t engage workers.

Ken Cook wrote that effective leaders engage employees in Hartford Business.com. Summarizing some of the work of Dick Adams Ken provided these type of suggestions: Share operational and performance data with employees. If they do not know how they are doing in meeting goals or how the company compares to the competition, how can they help — and improve their own view of themselves as contributing parts of company success? In working towards whatever goals you are trying to accomplish, tell the employees how they fit in. This is critical. The employees are the ones who have to implement any solution, and they will know what works or doesn’t work. Effective leaders encourage and spur commitment on the part of employees.

—–

Contact David Zinger to learn about how you can leverage employee engagement to produce results that matter for everyone in your workplace.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca ~ Phone 204 254 2103 ~ Website: www.davidzinger.com.

The Chronicle beings with the key point for each of the sources listed:

Get The Point:

• Emotional engagement and human bonding energize employees and catalyze productive energies.
• Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work
• Employee engagement is money in the bank
• Have you heard the communication “secrets?”

Engage your employees to reduce attritionis from the Deccan Hearld. this article outlines a number of presentations related to HR and employee engagement. The following section outlining the points of Jyothi Menon really caught me eye: In a scathing indictment of the indifferent ways corporates function today in pursuit of their toplines and bottomlines growth and address the “deadly disease of attrition”, Standard Chartered Bank Vice President — HR Jyothi Menon, in her impassioned presentation on Emotional Engagement at the Workplace maintained that HR is no longer human resource but human relations. Pointing out that corporates, in their efforts to tackle attrition have not been able to connect with their employees, Ms Menon said, it was high time corporates did a reality check and emotionally engaged and bonded with their staff. “Only through emotional engagement and human bonding can organisations energise employees and catalyse their productive energies towards human excellence.”Well said Jyothi.

Engagement vs. Hierarchy – Well-Being in Chinese Workplaces  is in Positive Psychology New Daily. The article discuccses Gallup’s 4 elements of employee engagement - (1) Clarity of expectations and basic materials supported (2) Encourage employee contribution & fulfilment (3) Sense of belonging (4) Intellectual resources. Timothy So concludes the article: As Aristotle said, “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” I wish my friend, as well as every employee, could leave his office with the biggest smile everyday after engaging in his work

Anne Moore Odell  wrote about Engaged Employees Equal Increased Earnings in Social Funds.This is yet another article looking at Towers Perrin engagement work. The difference between what companies need employees to do and what employees want to do has been named by Towers Perrin the “engagement gap.” Only one fifth (21%) of workers in the study are engaged in their work while 38% of polled workers are partly to fully disengaged. In one three year study of 40 global organizations, for example, we found that ‘high employee engagement’ companies enjoyed significantly better financial results on measures such as operating margin, net profit margin, revenue growth and earnings per share growth than ‘low employee engagement’ companies,” said Max Caldwell, Managing Principal of Towers Perrin.

Watson Wyatt Study Reveals Six Communication ‘Secrets’ of Top-Performing Employers. This article outlines the six communication secrets:

1. Focusing managers and other employees on customer needs
2. Engaging employees in running the business
3. Helping managers communicate effectively
4. Leveraging the talents of internal communicators to manage change effectively
5. Measuring the impact of employee communication
6. Branding the employee experience

The Chronicle beings with the key point for each of the sources listed:

Get The Point:

• Target your most valuable employee with your engagement efforts.
• High levels of employee engagement means higher levels of financial results
• Are you sick or sick from disengagement?
• The moment of truth has arrived in employee engagement.

Employee engagement strongly linked to business success is an article from the Manila Times. Engaged employees are those who have internalized the organization’s business goals, the steps required to achieve those goals and further understand how their contributions drive results, according to James Matti, Managing Consultant of Watson Wyatt Philippines. “They have a strong desire to participate in the company’s success… The Work-Asia study tells us that forward-looking organizations are replacing one-size-fits-all offerings with programs that target their most valuable employees. These efforts enable them to create a more productive and stable workforce.

Engaged Employees Boost Financial Performance is a post from Growing Wealth: Companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more likely to retain their most valued employees  Only 10 percent of employees report that senior management treats them as if they are the most important part of the organization. More than half feel that senior management “treats us as just another part of the organization to be managed” or “as if we don’t matter.”

Bill Catlette wrote about Calling in Sick, Sort Of…part 2. Here is his conclusion to an interesting article on the link between calling in sick and employee engagement: If it’s your job that you’re sick of, for your own sake, do the right thing by finding another job, and leaving. Don’t just “kinda leave.” Got it?

Carolyn Hirschman at Human Resource Executive Online wrote moments of truth. This is a well-written and extensive article to assist you with employee engagement if your focus is customer-service workers: Business minds have long studied “what works” in employee engagement, but it can be an elusive concept to put into practice. In high-turnover customer-service industries, the challenge is even greater to hire, train and recognize the best employees. For HR executives who get it right, the results — from outstanding service to higher sales to better retention — can be substantial.

Get The Point:

• Trust is a must or employee engagement is a bust.
• Find the people who make a difference and integrate their story into your engagement culture.
• When it comes to employee engagement know your score.
• An employee engagement gulf.

The Canadian Managment Centre focused on Human Resources Management Tip - A Trusting Relationship Retains Key Employees. The article looks at the importance of trust in keeping employees. The article includes a top 10 list of how managers can build trust including: (1) Spot an employee’s unique talent or skill and coach him/her to get the very best out of that. (2) Do not micro-manage; give employees space to find their own solutions. (3) Provide important information rather than holding on to it for political reasons.

Michael McKinney wrote about turning the difference makers into cultural stories based on Quint Studer’s book on Results that Last: make a conscious effort to look for and collect the stories of those people that go above and beyond and know when to break the rules in order to make a difference. Then retell them over and over to make them a part of the organization’s culture. The stories should have a behavior-oriented point and help people to connect their situation to that of the heroes in the story. “Finding your heroes and recognizing their behavior is key because recognized and rewarded behavior is repeated.”

Scorecard Metrics for HR focused on Some Useful HR Metrics for Large Organizations. Here is a snippet on employee engagement: Another important aspect of HR to measure is what is known as employee engagement. This refers to the relationship between employees and the management. High employee engagement would mean that employees tend to value their employment, and hence stay with the company as productive members. The metrics in this category take the form of employee survey results that can gauge employee satisfaction. For instance, the percentage of employees who look forward to coming to work is a useful metric, as is the percentage that feels comfortable with current management practices.

Gulf companies fail to engage employees for the long-term. Here are a couple of statistics from a November 2007 study in the Gulf: Fewer than half of Gulf employees think their organisation manages to attract the best talent or engage them to perform once they are inside the corporation. Even fewer (just over one third of employees) think their companies are good at holding on to the best talent.

Peter Vajda has written a detailed and insightful post on employee engagement at Slow Leadership. The key sections include the causes of disengagement, the solutions, and how to “keep the thrill alive.” I encourage you to read the post to learn a lot more from Peter’s insight into employee engagement:

Want to keep employees engaged? Take a conscious and consistent interest in others and they’ll take an interest in you. Translation: they’ll become engaged. Show people they are valued, and have a sense of worth over and above the functions and tasks they perform. And above all, listen.

4 sample questions from the section on keeping the thrill alive are:

• What keeps the thrill alive for you? It is alive, isn’t it? If not, why not?
• Are you proactive in providing feedback and mentoring on a consistent basis, not just when HR says “it’s time” or just when it’s convenient for you?
• Does everyone hold everyone else accountable for their piece of the work as an open policy? If not, why not? Fear? Politics? Confusion?  
• Do you tend to hoard information? If so, why? What would others say? 

Get the Point

• Take a measured approach to employee engagement.
• Make friends with employee engagement.
• Communication is becoming an employee engagement conversation.
• Improve service through heightened levels of employee engagement.
• Connect emotionally, socially, and spiritually with the organization’s mission, vision and purpose plus ROI on employee engagement.
• Human Sigma is a fresh perspective on the employee/employer relationship and the impact this has on employee engagement.
• Bank on the new social media tools having a strong influence and impact on employee engagement.

Infohrm released a 2007 study of European HR Leaders on The New Frontier of Human Capital Measurement. If you are involved in HR management and measurement, I encourage you to read the study. Employee engagement is one of the three areas with much potential to improve measurement effectiveness: HR Leaders Seek to “Slice and Dice” Employee Engagement Scores to Create Leading Indicators of Workforce Turnover.

Mary Lynn Fayoumi wrote about having friends at work and the impact on employee engagement in the Business Ledger from Chicago. Recently, a new book on the topic reports that those with a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged on the job. And it is not just employees in a certain age group who feel that friends in the workplace boost their productivity…Experts on both sides of the aisle agree that feeling comfortable in the workplace is critical to job satisfaction and employee engagement. However, friendships tend to have ups and downs, both on and off the job. The prudent person would proceed with caution, at least initially.

Richard Denisson linked employee engagement and social media within an organization. Our internal communications consultants have had to accept that in some cases they will have to relinquish control of messages which become subject to community ownership and community editorial control. They are also increasingly having to conduct their business in channels they don’t own and cannot control, such as employee blogs. Communications is becoming a ‘conversation’ rather than a managed activity which requires a different type of engagement by those traditionally responsible for communications activity.

Zealise (Bay Jordan?) had an article - Do you offer “Killer’ Service”? He makes the connection between service and employee engagement: This lack of employee engagement is so pervasive that it is actually protecting business from its consequences. It was Warren Harding who said, “Service is the supreme commitment of life.” While he was most likely referring to public service, there is an underlying truth to the statement which gives it a wider application and makes it relevant to all service. This means it is impossible to expect service standards to improve unless a way can be found to secure employee engagement: to make people more involved and committed.

Skip Reardon wrote about the 4 dimensions of engagement on the Be Excellent blog. The answer is employee engagement or the ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of your employees to instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence. Engaged employees want their organization to succeed because they feel connected emotionally, socially, and even spiritually to its mission, vision, and purpose. (Bonus: read Skip’s short post on ROIin employee engagement. Engagement does not mean motivational posters and a simple pat on the back. Successful engagement programs must be embraced company-wide, supported by senior executives, and executed strategically.

Helene Blowers wrote about Gallup’s book on Human Sigma. So how do we manage people for success and high levels of productivity in the new economy? Too many organizations build management models on the assumption that managers and leaders have the power in the company/employee relationship, but that’s no longer always the case. The answer is employee engagement or the ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of your employees to instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence.

James Gardner wrote a powerful post on the new divide and the connection between the new media and employee engagement. The tools we have are changing the way we engage and our engaged by our workplaces: My inability to communicate the concepts inherent in social media are symptomatic of the fact that there are those who are simply not ready to embrace these new ways of working. These are people who cling to the old command-and-control centric style of organisations. And they just can’t see, today, how these new baby steps into social media have the potential to change their workplace in the future.

Here are some of the findings as summarized in The State:

• Engagement is not satisfaction or happiness but the degree to which workers connect to the company emotionally, are aware of what they need to do to add value and are willing to take that action.
• Only 21 percent of workers worldwide are “engaged” while 38 percent are either disenchanted or disengaged, according to a new survey.
• The survey found 21 percent of workers worldwide are engaged, and another 41 percent are “enrolled,” which means they’re on the road to engagement
• More than 80 percent of the engaged employees say they contribute to the quality of the company’s products, services and customer satisfaction, while only 40 percent of disengaged workers agree.
• Engagement helps retention, too: About 50 percent of engaged employees say they have no plans to leave their company, versus 15 percent of the disengaged.
• Companies with highly motivated workers enjoyed a 3.7 percent increase in operating margins and a 2 percent rise in net profits, while companies with a lower level of worker commitment saw both measures decrease slightly.
• What employees are looking for is open communication, communication that reflects the fact that senior management really understands how the work gets done and recognizes and appreciates that.

Employee Engagement Drivers

The top 10 drivers of employee engagement across 19 countries were:

1. Senior management sincerely interested in employee well-being  
2. Improved my skills and capabilities over the last year
3. Organization’s reputation for social responsibility
4. Input into decision-making in my department
5. Organization quickly resolves customer concerns
6. Set high personal standards
7. Have excellent career advancement opportunities
8. Enjoy challenging work assignments that broaden skills
9. Good relationship with supervisor
10. Organization encourages innovative thinking

Get the Point

• Engaged employees can answer the the questions of getting, giving, belonging and growing.
• Leadership key: unlock engagement with strong connections.
• Leadership: Stop standing out and start fitting in.
• Empower to engage

Jim Aspuland and John H. Flemming wrote about where employee engagement happens in the most recent Gallup Management Journal. The workplace manager of today needs to offer compelling answers to the following 4 questions of employees: (1) What do I get? (2) What do I give?  (3) Do I belong? (4) How can I grow? Here is a short snippet from this insightful article: Whatever their motivation for joining the company, their local work environment either energizes and nourishes them and fosters their learning and growth or starves them and frustrates their development. When this happens, they will leave the company — or even worse — hang around doing the minimum needed until it’s time for retirement. Engaged employees, in contrast, are involved and enthusiastic about what is happening in their local work environment.

Richard Gorham states that a leader’s ultimate goal is connect to engage: If an employee is engaged, it means that he feels he has a personal stake in the outcome - an honest desire to contribute to something greater than himself, something even more important than monetary gain. The engaged employee has emotion tied to her work. Perhaps that emotion comes out of a sense of loyalty and connection to her leader or other team members. Top leaders understand that in order to connect with their workforce, they need to leverage the power of emotion. Only by connecting with the individual, can a leader create a powerful team consisting of employees who are personally committed, and emotionally/physically engaged.

Shirley Poertner write about “Standing Out? Or Fitting In? She states: Leadership is now …the ability to help shape –not dictate — what people already want –not have– to do…helping people reach consensus on what matters to them…bonding with followers in a sense of shared identity that provides a blueprint for action…about representing a common “us”

Jim Kissane focuses on workforce development and encouraged leaders to focus on employee engagement: Employee engagement is more important today than ever.  Business leaders need to encourage activities that make employees feel more participative in the business.   You also need to reward people who learn more about their jobs, new trends, solve problems, and are willing to make changes.  Employees who feel empowered are far less likely to become chronically absent or quit.

Each entry includes a link to an article or post with a short verbatim tidbit from the actual article. If you are intrigued I encourage you to click on the author or souce name at the start of each summary to study the entire article.

Get the points:

• Employee engagement is a key interest for HR executives.
• Be a leader of fresh surprise.
• 51% of actively disengaged employees want to fire their boss.

Employee Engagement Articles:

BEST PRACTICES, LLC  offered a press release - Retain Talent and Engage Employees in 2008. Here was the introduction to the release: Talent retention, employee engagement and retirement top the list of interests among 2007’s mix of human resources executives in the Best Practices, LLC’s Global Benchmarking Council. From executive-driven research studies and collaborative participation in surveys to networking events, roundtable discussions and information exchange teleconferences, proactive HR executives shared ideas and insights that helped them succeed this year.

Anna Farmery from the engaging brand blog composed a post on ‘Starck’ Advice on Employee Engagement. She asks a very interesting question of leaders at the end of her post:  So are you a producer…a manager….a bog standard plastic juicer… Or are you a spider juicer……a leader of surprise, a manager of surprise…..one who engages through keeping the work fresh….keeping the team on their toes…constantly redefining their  leadership brand.

Kim Proctor wrote about Employee engagement: the foundation for customer engagement.  Kim cites the Gallup poll about the percentage of employees who would fire their boss based on their level of disengagement. Only 6% of engaged employees would fire their boss; 23% of not engaged employees would fire their boss; and, 51% of actively disengaged employees would fire their boss.

Photo Credit: Chronicle by http://flickr.com/photos/37996586683@N01/110367294/

Compliled by David Zinger

NEW FEATURE: NEWS FEATURE

David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Chronicle provides you with links and short snippets from the most recent writings in the field of Employee Engagement.

This site will feature a regular overview and links to the latest news and writing. There will be a link to an article or post and and a short verbatim tidbit from that post. If you are intrigued I encourage you to click on the author or souces name to read the entire article.

David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Chronicle stives to be your primary source to stay up to date with the news, views, reviews, and research on employee engagement.

Marlene Post wrote about failure to inspire based on the recent Towers Perrin worldwide employee engagement survey: Most of the world’s workers are just not into their jobs. And it’s not pay or benefits they blame, it’s senior management’s failure to inspire them or show an interest in their well-being. Only 21 percent of 88,600 workers surveyed online in 18 countries are “engaged,” or emotionally invested, in their jobs, according to the 2007 Global Workforce Study just released by Towers Perrin, a New York-based global professional services firm.

Tracey E. Schelmetic wrote that for HR Success consider employee engagement: Survey results from a recent International Round-table on the topic of “employee engagement” reveal that organizations with formal employee engagement programs will distance themselves from the competition, particularly in the areas of recruiting, retention and bottom-line financial results. The round-table featured industry experts and co-participants Andy Parsley and David Zinger and was attended by 70 HR professionals and business leaders from Fortune 500 companies.

Rick at Flip Chart Fairy Tales asked: Is a bit of Marxism Good for Managers: If you start from the assumption that alienation is a prevailing force, driving employees towards ever greater disengagement, you realise that management is, in part, an exercise in damage limitation. If you did nothing, your workforce would become more and more disengaged. You need to work hard to counteract this force. 

CCH HR Management offered a summary of Watson Wyatt’s employee engagement work in Asia: The study findings demonstrate that engaged employees understand the organization s business goals, the steps required to achieve those goals and how their contributions drive results. They have a strong desire to participate in the company’s success. It is therefore crucial for companies seeking to develop strategies for building engagement, to first have insight into the top drivers of employee engagement within their own unique environment, as it affects productivity, retention and financial performance.

PR Newswire offered the following a story on - Leading Business Researcher Sees Value of Engagement, but Advises Firms to Leverage their Entire Organizational Culture: Research has shown that employees who feel engaged in their jobs tend to work harder and longer, take more pride in their work, and are less likely to quit vs. those who feel less engaged. “But, the research also shows that employee engagement and satisfaction may be more a result of good performance than a cause,” Denison says. “If you’re concerned about business outcomes, it makes a lot more sense to measure and manage the organization as a system,” he said. “Those factors give leaders far more leverage and are far more likely to be a cause of organizational performance than just employee engagement alone. An organization’s culture includes employee involvement and employee engagement, but also includes how the organization adapts to the business environment, focuses on its customers, implements a strategy, and builds global coordination.”

Compiled by David Zinger

Photo Credit: Chronicle by http://flickr.com/photos/37996586683@N01/110367294/