Empoyee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #29

I invite you to read and enjoy my free booklet: Employee Engagement for All – 18 Approaches to Transform Employee Engagement into Workplace Engagement. Click on the following link for this PDF booklet: transforming-employee-engagement-to-workplace-engagement.pdf

We must all contribute and benefit from employee engagement. This booklet outlines 18 approaches: 7 from the organization, 5 from leadership, and 6 from employees.

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Employee engagement is critical to business growth and development.

Here are a few paragraphs from The Sunday Times in Johannesburg on Money is not everything 

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David Zinger is pleased to bring you his employee engagement blog, strength based leadership blog, and his website in one place. Previous posts from the two blogs have been added to this site going back to November 2005. Click on the archives or categories in the two right hand columns to browse and read the wide range of articles now available at this one location.

Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #28

The last two articles in this series have outlined organizational and leadership inputs into employee engagement. Employees are sometimes targeted as the source and sole intervention to elevate employee engagement. When the organization and leadership also contribute to engagement initiatives it can facilitate even higher levels of engagement. That said, employees themselves are closest to the source of their own engagement. I believe the individual is ultimately responsible for their own engagement while the organization and leadership is accountable for employee engagement.

Here are 6 inputs employees can engage with to elevate their own engagement:

Focus on contribution. Determine how you can make a contribution. Know that what you give is often what you receive in return. To be disengaged at work can often lead to experiences of disengagement in other areas of your life. Engagement is not a limited resource and research would suggest that higher levels of employee engagement at work translate to higher levels of engagement at home and in the community. Focus on contribution and banish entitlement.

Be responsible while holding others accountable. Take responsibility for your own engagement while holding others accountable for their engagement. Encourage the leadership and the organization to keep making their contributions to elevate employee engagement. In the the movement from employee engagement to workplace engagement: if it is to be it is up to we!

Master your personal energy. Energy is your fundamental raw material for employee engagement. Learn to master your energy at work. Increase your levels of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual energy while also ensuring you take time for energy recovery. One paradox of employee engagement is that we must also find times to disengage from work to recharge and revitalize ourselves for the work ahead. Be strong. Know your strengths while also knowing what strengthens you. What are the gifts or qualities you bring to your work and what are the activities you engage in that strengthen you? People who know their strengths, use their strengths on a daily basis, and use their strengths in the service of others report higher levels of authentic happiness at work.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #27

The last Monday Morning Percolator outlined 7 organizational inputs to foster employee engagement. This post will outline the key inputs into employee engagement from leaders and managers within the organization.

Engage yourself. Before you can foster or enhance the engagement of employees, never lose sight that you are one of those employees. Keep a focus on your own levels of employee engagement as you also champion engagement for others.

Hold engaging conversations. Avoid making employee engagement an announcement or policy. Ensure your employee engagement has a grass roots conversational quality to it. Talk with your employees. Doc Searls talking about conversational marketing stated: conversations are about talking, not announcing. They’re about listening, not surveying. They’re about paying attention, not getting attention. In many ways, employee engagement is less about what you put in and more about what you draw out of employees.

Be strong and strengthen others. Employees who work from their strengths and have work designed around their strengths are more engaged. As leaders, we must also talk with people about their strengths. There are many pathways to strengths. Click here to read my strength based leadership articles if you would like to learn more.

Apply the simple and significant. I am passionate about employee engagement and believe it makes a huge difference for all in the workplace and I recognize how many things the average leader must attend to. It is not my intention to make employee engagement an imposition in an already overcrowded day. I encourage you to find the simplest yet most significant thing you can do to advance employee engagement.

Engage the clutch. My experience with the majority of leaders in organizations is that they respond to the full slate of demands with an excess of engagement and hours worked. We must regularly engage the clutch and go to neutral. Engaged leaders also find time for rest, recovery, and renewal. The path to full engagement also involves periods of disengagement — our walk to the desert for renewal.

Contact David Zinger if you would like more information.

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