Employee engagement starts with the manager

With all the thousands of books and articles published on the subject “employee engagement” over the last decade, you’d think some of it would be having a positive impact by now. Not so.

In 2013, Jim Clifton, Chairman of the Gallup Organization, wrote:

“The single biggest decision your company makes every day is who you name manager. This is the conclusion Gallup draws from decades of data and interviews with 25 million employees….but companies keep getting this decision wrong, over and over again.

In fact, the people picked to be managers account for the majority of variance in almost all performance-related outcomes. Yet leaders will spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on everything but hiring the right managers. They'll buy miserable employees latte machines for their offices, give them free lunch and sodas, or even worse -- just let them all work at home, hailing an "enlightened" policy of telecommuting. Hell, some of these practices might even earn your company a business magazine's Great Place to Work award.

The problem is, employee engagement in America isn't budging. Of the country's roughly 100 million full-time employees, an alarming 70 million (70%) are either not engaged at work or are actively disengaged. That number has remained stagnant since Gallup began tracking the U.S. working population's engagement levels in 2000. Talk about a lost decade.”

OK, so in summary, 7 out of 10 of workers are turning up to work, fixing a grin on their face, and putting in the hours, but they are not giving you much more than the bare minimum to keep their jobs.

The person most able to remedy this sad state of affairs are their direct supervisor. They are also the person most likely to mess it up. According to Gallup, the #1 reason people quit their jobs is their direct supervisor. I have written previously that middle managers are the key to success.

What follows is a selection of nuggets I gleaned from my friend Zane Safrit in his books Recognize Them and First Engage Yourself - about employee engagement and how managers can positively influence outcomes:

On who your #1 customer really is.

Who is more important? Customers or employees. This is not a trick question. Here are some questions to consider before you answer:

• Who invests the majority of their waking hours building your brand?
• Who organizes their personal life, sacrificing family and vacation and sometimes their health, in order to deliver your brand promise?
• Who has to buy your company's core purpose and their role in delivering it, before a customer can be persuaded to purchase?

Before you create customer evangelists, managers need to create employee evangelists.

On paying attention.

If your manager ignores you, there is a 40% chance that you will be actively disengaged or filled with hostility about your job. If your manager is at least paying attention to you - even if they are focusing on your weaknesses - the chance of you being actively disengaged drops to 22%. But if your manager is primarily focusing on your strengths, the chance of you being actively disengaged drops to just 1%.

On recognizing people.

Surveys, even “anonymous” ones, don’t count as engagement. Engagement starts with caring. Walk away from your desk and walk over to that person and say, “Hi.” Every day, find an excuse, a topic to discuss, or question to ask and stop by their desk to discuss it. Show that you care about that person, not as an employee for their cog-like production, but as a human being. Start small and see where it goes. You may shock those around you.

On discretionary investment.

Your employees already invest the majority of their waking hours working for your brand. That's a big investment of time. They also bring their brainpower and talents, but how much they invest of those is up to you. Their investment is a contingency-based investment. It is contingent on them being genuinely recognized and appreciated.

On accountability.

Sure, it’s uncomfortable. Who likes confrontations? Managers lose credibility when they refuse to hold themselves and others accountable. When you hold people accountable it recognizes everyone’s time and contributions as being too important to allow non-performers to remain. It communicates that you will not allow a non-producer and their non-results to interfere with the successes of those around them. If you haven’t held them accountable or been accountable yourself, start now.

On “being-ness”.

Employee engagement is an inside job. If you manage a team of people, and you want them to be fully engaged, it starts with you taking a good hard look in the mirror. Once leaders begin to intentionally choose who they want to “be” and the impact they want to have, their effectiveness rises, both in their leadership and their lives.

Who do you need to “be” in order to better engage your team members?

Stephen Lynch

Author "Business Execution For RESULTS", Winner 2014 Small Business Book Awards - Management Category