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.
Picture Credit: Desert Leaders by http://flickr.com/photos/hamed/327939900/
Dave, I think that the challenge of the past in many organizations was to “get organized” and execute what the group needed to do. The challenge of the future will be to remain open to “continous self-organization” so that groups can be flexible and execute ‘on the fly’, so to speak. Employee engagement allows for continuous self-organization. Everyone on the team is on the same page and all are empowered to make the changes necessary to keep the organization moving forward. What do you think?
Herman
I appreciate your comment and I think your site on Epic Flow is very strong. Employee engagement is not a static noun but a dynamic verb and if I can make changes I will be more engaged!
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I encourage reader to read your post today on 5 keys for an epic life. I liked the “extended family” key.
David