Aligning teams and getting everyone engaged and pulling in the same direction is key to your business’ success. Engaged employees are 50% more productive than under or dis-engaged employees according to Gallup.
To pick up a few action items on how to re-engage your team, follow along with Natalie Baumgartner, RoundPegg’s Chief Psychologist as she outlines the most important things you can do.
Yesterday, RoundPegg hosted a 15-minute webinar on improving your hiring process in order to increase your odds of making a great hire.
RoundPegg’s Chief Psychologist, Dr. Natalie Baumgartner runs through the hiring landscape, the pitfalls most fall into, how to improve the process and finally, how RoundPegg can help.
Please check it out. And if you’d like to learn more or have specific problems you’re struggling with please email us at: Natalie.Baumgartner@roundpegg.com.
photo by photomish dan
A sobering article from the Economist illustrates how unhappy people currently are with their jobs. When the economy turns expect to see a massive surge in voluntary turnover. The article included some alarming numbers from the US-based Center for Work-Life Policy:
Between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%.
Employers have the upper hand these days, but what good is that if nobody is willing to bring their best? Quality work doesn’t flow from mistrust.
The employment process is a two-way street. Employers need to get quality ideas and execution. The employees, however, are trickier. They all need something different. Each is motivated differently, has different goals and needs to be communicated with in a certain manner.
There is no magic bullet to engaging people except by taking the time to know what makes them tick. Clearly, these economic times are tough. And companies are taking the opportunity to pare back and let loose the dead wood.
This requires doubling down on the efforts to learn about the others in order to make sure they don’t all check out as well.
Better yet, build this into your process. Don’t wait for dire economic times to trim the workforce. Frankly, people who aren’t engaged and aren’t fitting in with the culture are a drag on your time and bring others down with them.
Start with who you hire and remember it.
Times are dire. Not just for the unemployed, but for the employers as well.
The job market is far more fluid these days and once companies start hiring again we’re guaranteed to see that fluidity in action. Protect your most valuable assets and get the most out of them as you can.
We all want to hire people who are going to make a difference. Who will drive our businesses forward.
We want people who will remain engaged long after the honeymoon period.
The circle of engagement is pretty clear. An employee likes her job so she works hard and does well which in turn produces rewards that matter to her so she tries harder still.
But where is the on-ramp? What fuels this virtuous cycle?
photo by robotography
It’s easy to put the onus on the employee by saying you’re paying well, you have free yoga classes and M&Ms. But none of those spin the wheel. Despite what you may think those are only ‘nice to haves’ for most people. People who are intrinsically motivated to do something amazing.
You’ve spent a lot of time and money to bring the new employee on-board. So why not suck up your pride and take that first step? Do everything in your power to ensure the people you hire succeed?
Engagement is a two-way street. There is give and take on both sides, but we far too often neglect the new employee and trust them to ‘quickly get up to speed.’
Take the lead in engaging your employees and that lead will be followed.
We’re all in the same business.
We may produce different things, but that doesn’t change anything. With off-shoring and 100-years to optimize the process, production is a commodity. Everyone can tap into efficient, quality production (lead-laden toys notwithstanding).
In fact, we’ve been in this business for a half-century and we aren’t getting any better at it.
We are all in the people business, of course.
Your job is to turn brain waves into cash (hat tip). If you thought you’d misplaced your competitive advantage, you’ll find it there.
photo by gilles chiroleu
In 1957 the U.S. hit the inflection point whereby we started thinking more than producing. White-collar workers outnumbered blue-collar workers for the first time. Since then the spread has only increased, but we haven’t changed our mindset about how we work.
We are still trying to get more from less by using the same approaches we used 100-years ago. Basically, work longer then work smarter then finally give up and off-shore everything.
But we’re left with an economy and business scenario that is entirely different. The job today is to optimize people’s thoughts.
Optimizing people is far different than optimizing people operating machines.
A couple starting points to keep in mind to make the transition from acting like a production line manager to a brain wave herder.
I could go on, but then I’d have nothing left to write about. Please add your own or challenge me on any of these. My thinking is always a work in process and it’s hard to do alone.
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