How do you keep your employees engaged?
Engaged or disengaged?
This is the question on the lips of many senior execs today. They know that when employees are disengaged with their work mistakes are made and productivity falls. They also know that the contribution of highly engaged employees is consistently high.
What about the implications of engagement and change? When employees dig in their heels and resist change initiatives you can bet that engagement is low. Highly engaged employees are more likely to be ready for change, and to embrace it when it inevitably arrives at their doorstep.
Keeping employees engaged is quite easy, but it gets trickier as your company grows in size. The more people the trickier it gets. Some managers may not understand the dynamics of engagement, or consider the consequences. But it can be achieved.
The consequences of disengagement are very apparent. Check this for yourself. When you are not fully engaged in the work you are doing you:
- Get distracted easily and more often
- Feel low in energy and motivation
- Make more mistakes especially with the details
- Find your own distractions that keep you from completing the task in hand – making coffee, tidying your desk, emailing, chatting etc.
- Leave things until the last minute so you find you have not prepared as thoroughly as you might have done – and now it’s too late.
When you extrapolate these consequences across teams you get an idea of the degree of lost potential for productivity gains, accuracy of details, and of course drop in creativity and willingness to go the extra mile when needed.
What causes you to become disengaged?
No interest in the topic or activity
Forcing employees to do jobs that do not play to their strengths is a quick way to disengage.
Strong beliefs to the contrary of what you are hearing
Insufficient opportunities to involve employees in decision-making keep an ‘us and them’ culture alive and suspicion arises when new changes are instigated.
You are pre-occupied in thought with something else
If you do not provide enough direction, and goals are not clearly stated, minds will wander. When the road ahead is fuzzy the mind will find something more concrete to fix upon.
You have tried to engage but feel you are not being listened to or taken seriously
Employee engagement schemes and surveys need to be conducted with absolute sincerity and integrity. If a cry for help or a voice for difference is not listened to and responded to positively, then minds will decide that there is little truth in what is communicated and suspicion will arise.
The method of conveying a topic is dull
If you have ever sat through a dull presentation, as the presenter spurts information at you, you will have learned how to switch off but make it look like you’re paying attention. The general standard of presentation skills among senior execs is quite low – mainly because of the anxiety it creates, yet this is one significant opportunity to really engage both hearts and minds.
You do not feel valued
If you are feeling undervalued you are likely to be looking around for another job, or something that will give you the feeling that your contribution is valued. When there is a lack of sufficient feedback and dialogue in general between managers, individuals and teams, a person can feel isolated.
The way to engage begins by understanding the process of communication and some key motivational traits. You also need an awareness of how you are perceived by others. Are your attempts to engage received positively, and followed by appropriate action?
In the realm of leadership there is probably no other skill that will serve you and your business as much as the ability to engage employees, peers, partners, prospects and clients. This skill can be learned and mastered, if you are prepared to invest the time and effort to understand more about yourself, and how you can flex your communication to increase engagement. In our experience at Quadrant 1 International we are very aware that not all senior execs value this skill enough, and instead of developing their own communication skills find it easier to blame the other person for not being engaged.
There is a smarter option. You could join the CEO’s, directors, senior execs and entrepreneurs who have acquired advanced communication skills and are now able to engage people in many more ways. It delights us every time one of our clients conveys a success in this area.
For a free telephone consultation to find out how we can help your organisation implement positive change to raise levels of engagement, call us on 0870 762 1300.
