Culture to Engage

5 Ways Managers Create More Engaged Employees

"It's not up to the manager!" (???)

At the tail end of yesterday's teleseminar (Employee Engagement: Increasing Satisfaction and Motivation during Tough Times), a participant asked me, "What can I say to a manager who feels it's up to the employee to be engaged, it's part of the job expectation that the employee be engaged, and that it's not up to the manager!?"

I was tempted to answer, "Reposition or just replace that manager!"

Instead I considered that maybe, just maybe, that manager just wants some ideas about how to increase engagement among his/her employees.

So whether you have that type manager or not, here are 5 ways you and your manager can boost your employees' eagerness to engage in their work:

Communication: the more (and the more often) managers talk with their employee, the more the employee feels appreciated, cared for, and valuable. Those feelings create the motivation to engage.

Behavior Model. Every employee, from the new-hire to the most seasoned veteran, keeps an eye on his manager for cues and clues to behavior. It's logically better when he sees the manager's full engagement as the behavior to emulate.

Mentoring/coaching. Professional improvement is everyone's desire. Fear of the unknown and fear of failure sometimes block that desire. The manager who takes on a little mentoring or coaching (and who creates a program involving others as mentors and coaches!) helps wipe out that barrier.

Respect. Anyone works more willingly (aka, engages) when she knows her work, her effort, her person are respected. The simple signs of respect knowledge of an employee's background, education, experience.

Personal Appreciation. This takes the above Respect to a slightly more personal level. It never hurts to say, "Happy Birthday!" for example. On the correct date, of course.

5 Engagement Keys for Managers and Supervisors

Today we'll move from Keys for Executives to Keys for Managers. More specifically, the 5 Top Keys to What Managers Should Know about Their Employees.

And why should they know these things?

The answers point to specific strategy and steps the business can take to enhance their total employee engagement.

5 Keys...

1. In terms of rewards, what means most to employees? Consider the full gamut: compensation, benefits, recognition, appreciation, networking opportunities, special projects, work-life balance? Something else?
2. What were employees reasons for joining the company initially? What is keeping them here now?
3. Outside of work, what is most important to your individual employees at this point in their lives? Consider family and children, hobbies, friends, education, socializing, exercise? Something else? (Why is it important for you to know this?)
4. What are your employees' feelings for senior management? What actions by leadership would improve the relationship between them and employees?
5. How clearly do employees appreciate their contributions to business success? What more do they need or want to know?

For more info: Check yesterday's posting: Engagement Keys for Executives and Senior Leaders.

5 questions about your manager engagement

Questions about manager engagement

Ask yourself. Ask your managers. Ask anyone whose answer will help you increase your levels of manager engagement.

• How often do your managers meet specifically to discuss their employee engagement efforts?

• How often do they get together to discuss their employee engagement problems?

• Do they ever get together to discuss their own engagement? Or what is making it hard for them to feel/be engaged?

• Does your business have its own, specific definition of what 'employee engagement' means? How it looks? What it does? How it is measured? Why it matters?

• What does your business leadership do to support your managers' employee engagement efforts? your manager engagement efforts?

Derailing managers' engagement

Doing last week's research on employee engagement, I discovered Profiles International  offers a self-promotion report, Five Critical Management Derailers.

They list these five:

• Poor interpersonal and communication skills
• Inadequate leadership skills
• Resistance to change
• Inability to deliver expected results
• Inability to see beyond their functional silo

I'm betting there are more than 5 'critical derailers. I do, however, see a distinct connection  between PI's 5 and employee engagement...or, in this case, management engagement.

So, I'm hoping PI doesn't mind if I cop their 5 and offer you my own suggestions for upping the manager's engagement to get him back on track.

Interpersonal and communication skills. Certainly training, coaching, mentoring, and education will improve a manager's communication skills. But the key is the transfer of those skills to on-the-job application. The starting and finishing point for improving those interpersonal and communication skills, then, is expecting (requiring) a regular and frequent communications between managers and employees. These can/should be all types of communications: one-on-one, formal, informal, full-blown presentations, facilitating meetings and discussions.

Inadequate leadership skills. Engaging your managers in leadership situations (aka, trial by fire?) is a sure, fast way to determine leadership potential and ability. Get past the assumption that leading and managing are the same thing. Every leader must have management skills. Every manager must have leadership skills. But those skill sets are not the same thing.

First, be sure you and your organization have a clear and consistent definition of what leadership means and does. Then form-fit those skills to projects which will enhance specific managers' abilities within your leadership definition.

Resistance to change. Conversation can determine the cause and degree of the manager's resistance. Two-way communication around changes anticipated, pending, and/or in place can determine the manager's acceptance of these specific changes and willingness to work supportively. The best "engagement" action here may be to remove the highly change-resistant manager(s) from the highly change-frequent assignments. And what if your entire organization is change-frequent?

NOTE: Too much time and attention in this area may require more psychological skills than you have at hand.

Inability to deliver expected results. The key word in this phrase may not be "inability." It may be "expected." The manager, especially if new to management or the functional area, may not clearly understand expectations of her. This a primary cause of an employee's failure to engage fully. Who says it can't happen to a manager also?

Frequent, varied discussion of expectations is required. Be sure the discussion is two-way. It's risky to talk, talk, talk the expectations and just assume they are heard and understood. Engage the manager in restating, asking, setting scenarios, and other conversational tactics that demonstrate clear awareness of expectations.

Inability to see beyond their functional silo. Sounds like a call for engagement beyond the team or department level. Engagement across disciplines or functions. Engagement with managers from other departments. This is where networking--as an engagement opportunity--serves you well. Provide opportunities for managers from a variety of departments, units, teams to share insights, ideas, issues, challenges, concerns. The more they hear about what goes on in other areas of the business, they less silo-bound their perceptions. The less-silo bound their perceptions, the stronger their (and their employees?) engagement at the company level.

Thanks, Profiles International, for stimulating thoughts about how engaging managers can keep them on track!

Generating Respect Generates Engagement

Generate respect.

Just two quick reminders:

First, your Employee Engagement Strategy can stimulate any of dozens of success results you and your company desire. The power of a fully engaged employee base motors your way to that success.

Second, five simple, yet dynamic tactics allow you to implement the strategy successfully. The previous four postings have given you Tactics 1-4 respectively.

Here's Tactic #5: Generate respect.

Personal harmony among employees and between each employee and the manager/supervisor are instrumental to engagement. The more harmonious those relationships, the more willing the employees are to engage in their functions.

The great thing about respect is that it's a two-way street. Walking one way guarantees a return journey. IOW, the more you display respect for your employees, the more respect they will return.

And that can become a continually reinforcing cycle.

So here are 3 suggestions, proven to generate respect:

• Stick by the truth. Especially when it comes to bad news, be up front and authentic. No matter how well you can get away with padding the truth the moment, the naked truth will always (and all ways) come back to get you.

• Celebrate employees' success with recognition and appreciation. Show respect for specific engagement, for jobs well done, for extra efforts exerted. The celebrations need not be grand or glorious. Recognition, more than celebration, generates respect.

• Remove poor performers, whether managers or employees. When employees provide valid, unfavorable feedback about their manager's performance, keeping the manager on the job shows the employees their opinions are not respected. That works against your desire.