simple — ENGAGE with David Zinger

Get Small and Simple for Employee Engagement

August 25, 2015 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

In employee engagement — SMALL IS THE NEW SIGNIFICANT!

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How has that big employee engagement program been doing? Is your large employee engagement initiative making a difference? I have no doubt that employee engagement can make a big difference but that does not mean employee engagement approaches have to be big to matter. Small is the new significant.

Pyramid of Employee Engagement and Engaged Well-Being

We need to determine and act on small and simple behavioral practices that can be practiced daily by leaders, managers, and employees themselves. I am currently at work on taking the 10 block pyramid of employee engagement – making it action-oriented – articulating the actions as simple rules – and helping leaders, managers, and employees reduce the 10-block pyramid to a personalized 3-block pyramid embracing simple rules to govern their engagement work.

Here is a perspective from the School of Life that inspires me to keep on this path:

Rikyū reminds us that there is a latent sympathy between big ideas about life and the little everyday things, such as certain drinks, cups, implements and smells. These are not cut off from the big themes; they can make those themes more alive for us. It is the task of philosophy not just to formulate ideas, but also to work out mechanisms by which they may stick more firmly and viscerally in our minds.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert from Winnipeg, Canada

Employee Engagement: Nobody Wants an F

August 11, 2015 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

HRE Daily recently published an article entitled: Companies Surveyed Flunk Employee Engagement.

Here was the conclusion in the article:

“HR should be leading the charge to raise the firm’s employee engagement maturity level,” says Bruce Temkin, customer experience transformist and managing partner at the Temkin Group. “Employee engagement is one of the most strategic opportunities for HR professionals.” Meanwhile, survey participants point to three common obstacles that prevent them from turning this situation around: the lack of a clear employee engagement strategy, inconsistent buy-in from middle managers, and limited funding along with inconsistent buy-in across the leadership team.

I think the article points to some serious challenges in engagement. I personally, don’t care for the term “buy-in” for engagement as I am not sure that fits with what it means to be engaged. I wonder if the “buy-in” challenge for managers stems from being overloaded with so many things and perceiving employee engagement as something extra they need to do. I don’t want to be sold on engagement or sell it. Having said that I realize what a challenge it is to invite, converse, question, and co-create engagement. Yet this approach costs very little and alleviates the limited funding obstacle.

My focus is on small, simple, strategic, structural, and sustainable actions that can move the dial on engagement. If you want to seize the strategic opportunity of employee engagement I encourage you to focus on the big impact while using small actions.

In the second half of 2015 I am creating 11 simple rules that all employees can follow to increase their own engagement and supplementing the simple rules with how managers and leaders can foster that in the people they lead and manage.

Pyramid of Employee Engagement Model

This is based on my pyramid of employee engagement and enhances: results, performance, progress, relationships, recognition, moments, strengths, meaning, well-being, and energy.

David Zinger uses the pyramid of employee engagement as a speaker and consultant to show an inexpensive and behavioral pathway to improving employee engagement for the benefit of all.

No Time for Employee Engagement? Really?

August 4, 2015 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

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Here is a headline from an engagement article from last week.

Who’s Got Time to Manage Employee Engagement?

I liked the post and the argument. I appreciated Johnathan Bright’s conclusion:

It is, as ever, a question of trust. The other question is of time. So, managers, get the results of your survey, find out the needs, set your KPIs, and then get the help of someone with the time and know how to implement the right strategy. After all, you’ve got other stuff to be getting on with.

To me, we need to weave engage into “the other stuff.” I fully concur with the lack of time available so rather than an extra lets ensure engagement is woven into the fabric of work with small, simple, strategic, structural, and sustainable actions.

I am currently working on 11 simple rules of employee engagement based on the 5 S’s stated above and derived from the 10-block pyramid of employee engagement.

Pyramid of Employee Engagement and Engaged Well-Being

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who uses the pyramid of employee engagement to derive simple rules for leaders, managers, and employees to improve engagement for the benefit of all.

Zinger’s 8 Word Behavioral Definition of Employee Engagement

October 14, 2014 by David Zinger 7 Comments

A shorter more simple definition of employee engagement

It has taken me about 8 years and 10,000 hours to get to a definition of employee engagement that is both simple and elegant. I am discouraged with emotional and attitudinal surveys as I have become increasingly behavioral in my views of work and engagement. My definition puts engagement in the hands of each employee — I can choose to do this everyday while also being enabled and encouraged by my leaders, managers, and organization.

We are each responsible for our own engagement as we are accountable to each other for the impact we have on making engagement easy or difficult for others.

I define employee engagement in 8 words as:

Good work done well with others every day.

Good work means consistent quality and good is also a pathway to great while great is a by product of good. Good can be good enough. Good is sustainable while also being fused with gumption and grit rather than the hype and hyperbole of the continual and debilitating pursuit of great. Putting work in the definition means the focus of engagement is less about liking an organization or having a good attitude and more about our tasks, project, and specific work. Without work in the definition employee engagement is practically meaningless. Of course, sometimes our work extends beyond task and requires us to work on building robust relationships focused on achieving results.

Done well means we perform well and that good work can make us well.

With others acknowledges our connections and even a solo performer has inputs and interactions with other. We need to stop thinking that we work for someone or an organization, rather we work with someone or with an organization. We are joined and not subservient. We are all “social workers” these days.

Every day refers to enduring and sustainable work. Engagement is not a biannual survey it is something we focus on every day, and we can change engagement for the better any and every day.

So let’s keep it simple and ensure employee engagement is good work done well with others every day.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and global expert who does his best to engage fully with work every day while helping others ensure employee engagement is not so much mumbo jumbo but an enriching experience of the time we spend working.

3. Employee Engagement Creates Iatrogenic Disengagement – Adding More

May 22, 2014 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

Stop with discretionary effort and making engagement something extra or more.

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This is the third post in a series on iatrogenic disengagement. Iatrogenic disengagement occurs when our efforts at employee engagement fail and cause disengagement. Read the first post here and read the second post here.

We may be causing disengagement when we keep asking or telling employees to do more or do extra. We may also be causing disengagement when we view employee engagement as something added or extra to what we are already doing at work.

Cure: The cure is to begin engagement by seeing what we can end or stop doing. To look at what we may be able to subtract rather than add. To ensure that engagement is not another program, rather it is integrated into all the facets of how we work, manage and lead. We must create space and room for engagement by eliminating, ending, subtracting, and reducing.

David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who continues to focus intently on the small, simple, and significant things we can do to enhance employee engagement.