Tips to keep your best people engaged
We sometimes think of employee engagement as a one-way street. What do we have to do as leaders to make sure that our people are productive in their roles? Yes, engaged employees are typically very productive, but they see engagement as a two-way street and more of a relationship. How engaging are you with your people?
You don’t have to be a leader at the top level to champion engagement with your team. In fact, you can build a very strong and engaged team right where you are by focusing on a few key areas.
Safety & Security
Safety and security will always be the foundational need that every employee wants whether they readily admit it or not. People want to know that they are secure in their role on your team and in the larger organization. Know, that doesn’t mean you have to say, “Scott, I wanted to just affirm you and say that your job is secure.” While that might be appropriate during a merger or acquisition if you said that every week, it would cause all kinds of stress for the person.
Focus on communicating clearly and often about change so that your team knows that there is a plan in place. Be honest and transparent during these communications, otherwise, people will fill in the gaps with their own interpretations which can cause unneeded drama in the workplace.
Social Connections
The last 18 months have been taxing and challenging to just about everyone in the labor force. One of the immediate opportunities that we saw as large work populations suddenly found themselves in a remote world, was a lost sense of connectedness to others.
- Support and build a network of peers: Connect your team to other peers that may be separated by geographical location or business unit. Think outside of the box when it comes to networking. Look at professional organizations with like-minded interests to help further your employees’ connections to others.
- Put your social efforts on the calendar: Be formal even in the informal to ensure that you are meeting people’s social needs. Whether it’s scheduling an outdoor meet-up, an online hangout, or larger events, be sure not to leave the social aspect up for chance.
Trusting Relationships
Trust is a little more complex than the self-reflection question that asks, “Do I trust you?” There are four types of trust: Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy, and Self-Orientation. An employee that would rate you and your relationship as high in these four areas will be all-in when it comes to your leadership.
- Time is truly an investment: As uncertainty, change, and crisis grows around you, invest more time in your people to build upon the trust that you have. Being visible and available to your team makes a world of difference for people.
- Build a trusting culture: Culture starts with you. Create an inclusive and safe space for your team by modeling the behavior that you want others to follow. Lift people up, encourage individuality, and support people as they take risks in their role.
While breaking trust is a quick ticket to a drop off in engagement, it can be earned back to a degree if handled correctly (PTB 174: Turning around a bad reputation)
Purpose
We all long for a sense of purpose in work and in life. Without a personal purpose to a larger impact on our work, we become unengaged, unproductive, and will eventually leave the team. With a strong sense of purpose, employees can navigate complex change and uncertainty while tieing their work to the larger goal of the group.
- Share purpose stories: Share stories that showcase examples of how people are living their purpose through tough and uncertain scenarios.
- Make it part of your daily dialog: Link the “why” to the “how” for those on your team. Remember that a great leader will consider the journey as being just as important as arriving at the destination. Look for consistent ways to communicate purpose to your team through emails, meetings, and calls.
Remember that everyone is different in their needs in order to be fully engaged in the workplace. Take time to identify those individual nuances and dial in a great strategy to keep your people engaged and satisfied so that they can have a long career under your leadership.
Make a better tomorrow.
-ZH
