12 Keys to employee engagement – 5

Take a quick poll of your employees. Make it in writing, and ask just this one question:

“Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?”

Let them mark one box: yes or no; and return it anonymously. Then take a close look at the results.

Gallup’s highly successful organizations all have one thing in common: engaged employees. And engaged employees – not those just doing their jobs adequately, but those individuals who “work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company,” spell success.

One key indicator of the level of employee engagement is how they answer this one question. It gives us as managers pause to think about how we influence the answer to this question.

Do we know each member of our team individually: their family, pets, living situations?

Do we celebrate when something significant happens to them – and not just in monthly batched birthday “parties?”

Do we include their spouses/significant others and children on occasion in work-related gatherings?

Can we tell when they’re struggling or when they’re particularly excited? Do we do something concrete to acknowledge it?

When I first started working as a manager I was taught that work and friendship should never overlap. We were to have strictly professional relationships with the people who reported to us. Talking about personal goals, families or problems was never appropriate. Encouraging friendships at work was also viewed as negative – disciplining one person could result in all of her friends’ work suffering, too.

Today we know that work and personal life are much more closely connected. We meet our best friends – and sometimes our life partners – at work. We share births, illnesses and deaths. We often spend more waking time, after all, with our work mates than our family.

My goal as a manager has always been to hear each one of my team members say, “I love my job!” and mean it.

Obviously, taking a personal interest in their lives is one way I can help them achieve this level of engagement. I’ll be a better manager – and my organization will benefit, too.

Sounds like a win all the way around!

12 Keys to employee engagement – 4

“Wow – you’re really great with our clients’ families!”

“Thanks for finishing that report so quickly – it was well done, too.”

“Kudos to the kitchen team for the great dinner last Monday night!”

It’s nice to hear something good about your work, isn’t it? As a manager, though, we’re trained to be on the lookout for work that isn’t up to standard, and to watch for things that slip through the crack. We often don’t stop to think about the need to positively reward or recognize our team – on a consistent, regular basis.

Gallup’s index of items that create an engaged team includes this important question: “In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?”

The answer to this question may well determine just how engaged your team is in their work, and how successful your organization will be.

Clearly, if a highly engaged employee will answer “YES!” to this question, then the highly engaging manager needs to do these things: Provide recognition and praise on a regular, consistent (weekly, at a minimum) basis.

We know from behavior modification theory that we can change people’s behavior by positive reinforcements. As a manager, this is a very valuable tool. This doesn’t mean setting up charts and giving out tangible rewards. What it does mean, as indicated in the Gallup question, is giving frequent, unprompted verbal recognition for work well done. It means giving verbal praise – as simple as saying, “Excellent!” with a smile, when an employee reports on a completed project.

It means, in short, recognizing the efforts of the team members explicitly. It means changing management behavior from watching for errors, to watching for work well done. It means, when you catch an error, discussing it in a positive way with the individual: “I noticed you missed signing one day on the med sheet. You’re always so great about signing – can you go back and fix it so you can keep your perfect record?”

I’ve learned to add the words, “Thanks - great job!” when someone reports a task complete. I try, as well, to casually remark in the hearing of others how much I appreciate the work well done and prompt.

Learning to be the manager of highly engaged people takes focus and effort. Focusing on recognition and praise is one positive step we all can take to build the best team possible.

12 Keys to employee engagement – 3

Naomi can get any resident to take a shower. Even the most stubborn, confused, difficult resident seems to become a marshmallow in her hands. She will sing, laugh, hug and make miracles happen.

Naomi has a gift. We all know exactly what she does best, and we give her the opportunity to do it almost every single day.

The third question on the Gallup organization’s index of employee engagement asks, “At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?”

As a measurement for managers, one key element of employee engagement is being able to answer that question in the affirmative: “YES!”

Do you know what each of your employees does best? Have you discovered the person who organizes and straightens the linen closet in her free time, and glows when you notice it and thank her?

Juan makes the floors in the dining room absolutely glow. He will clean, buff and polish those floors, and you can see his pride in his work. Juan knows that his floors are the most beautiful floors in the entire company – management and visitors see it, too.

Figuring out the special talents of your employees is actually pretty simple: watch what they love to do. Ask what they do during those few unstructured moments during the day, or ask what their favorite part of their job is. We often love to do what we actually do best.

Naomi and Juan are employees who, every day, get to do what they do best in their work. It’s no wonder that they are happy people who stay on the job, year after year, contributing to the overall quality of care delivered to clients.

12 Keys to employee engagement – 2

Have you ever heard members of your team say, “We’ve been out of that stuff for weeks now?”

It doesn’t matter what the “stuff” is; it can be frustrating to hear that something your team needs to do their job well isn’t available to them – and you didn’t know about it.

One of the key questions the Gallup poll asked employees in their survey was “Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right?”

Guess what answer the highly engaged team members gave? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if the company isn’t committed enough to supply the materials and equipment, the frustrated employee will not likely become one of the rare highly engaged team members.

The same thing is true for training. I have been astounded to hear employees who attended every single orientation and inservice tell someone from the outside (like an Ombudsman or licensing surveyor) that “no one ever trained me on that” when they were observed doing something incorrectly.

What I’ve come to realize is that the answer to the key question about materials, equipment and training is an individual answer. Some people need to be trained in a certain area slowly, repeatedly, and in greater depth than others, especially if their life experience hasn’t prepared them for this environment.

Some people won’t be comfortable asking as many questions, and may not realize that the supplies and equipment they need are, indeed, available – in a different location, perhaps, or upon request.

Take a few minutes this week to ask a random sampling of your team members if they have the supplies, materials and equipment they need to do their job right (however they define that). Take a few extra minutes to really listen, too.

Ask about training: “Could you use more training in any area of your job? Have you been provided with enough training?” Listen to their answers.

As a key indicator of employee engagement, this is a question that needs a resounding “YES!” before you can start seeing the bottom line results of a highly engaged team.

12 Keys to employee engagement – 1

It’s a good practice to keep an eye out for management ideas outside of our own profession. If we don’t, we risk becoming insulated and archaic. What we really risk is someone coming in from the outside, implementing creative ideas that we’ve never even considered, and zooming past us in the competitive marketplace.

In light of that, I frequently refer to the Gallup organization, whose most recent database includes information obtained from surveys throughout 163 countries, covering over 6 million employees. Their goal is to discover what creates an environment of employee engagement, and what are key indicators of engagement.

One of my favorite survey results is a summary of 12 keys expectations that, when met, result in a high level of employee engagement. These keys are in the form of simple statements, easy to understand, but often not to easy to implement.

Over the next few weeks I want to look at these keys, and consider ways we can make them work within the context of health care, senior care and caregiving.

The first statement, Key Number 1, is simply this:

“I know what is expected of me at work.”

Sounds pretty basic. But really, if this statement is agreed to only in companies with the very best management style, it means that many, many employees – nearly 71% of the workforce, in the Gallup organization’s survey, would NOT agree with this statement.

Maybe their boss says to them, “That’s not what I wanted you to do,” when you did exactly what you thought you were being asked to do.

Maybe they lack a job description that is clear and specific.

Maybe the bonus structure is dependent on what someone else does, even if the individual employee is doing exactly what his or her job description says.

Likely the person who can say this hears affirmation from his direct supervisor on a regular basis. He probably has regular conversations with his supervisor, clarifying priorities and tasks, and giving him feedback on how well he’s meeting his work goals.

Did you know that, in health care, one major contributor to the high rate of turnover is the negative relationship caregivers have with their immediate supervisors? In your organization, this may not be you, but a team leader or other middle level manager. Perhaps you have these expectation conversations with your team members, but then a middle level manager seems to expect something completely different.

Good leadership, the kind that makes a bottom line, sustained difference in an organization, doesn’t stop at the top. It filters through all levels of leadership, making sure that expectations and perceptions are the same throughout.

Ask a random sample of your team members how they would answer this question: “Do you know what is expected of you at work?”

The answer, in a well-engaged workforce, should be a clear, articulate, “Yes!”

Building your team from the inside

Right now applicants are plentiful for just about any job. It’s not hard to fill our vacancies. But I remember a year when we couldn’t find applicants, let alone new employees. We offered incentives to current staff; we threw away all of our long standing policies on not hiring close relatives. Basically, we hired just about anyone we could, without a criminal record, to fill our needs.

It was a brutal time for building a strong cohesive team. We had to dig deep to come up with ways to keep our good employees and build our new people into strong team members.

Funny how great ideas often come from moments of desperation. In this particular moment, we decided we needed to designate one month each year as “Employee Appreciation Month.” Since it happened to be summertime, we threw a dart on the calendar and selected October.

Over the next several years, Employee Appreciation Month grew to be something vital and relevant, no matter what the hiring situation. We found ways to include residents, families and the community in recognizing our employees’ dedication and hard work. Administrators created bulletin boards with a space for each employee to bring in photos of their kids, pets, or whatever was important to them. They would select an employee’s name out of a hat every day and do something special for that person – once, an Administrator spent the whole afternoon washing employees’ cars in the parking lot, with residents looking on and cheering.

Now that we’ve sold our own assisted living communities to focus full time on training, I do miss October. I miss the energy, creativity, and, most importantly, the opportunity to go the extra mile to say “thanks” to some very special people.

So if you would, just take a little time out of your busy day – or dedicate an entire month if you can – to saying “thanks” to the people who care for your residents. It’ll mean a lot to me – and to them.

Are you having fun yet? 4 tips for engaging training

Several months ago we posted a job for a new curriculum director. We asked people to submit a sample of work based on some content we made available to them. It was a way, we thought, to get a look at how a wide variety of people would develop a course from the same content material.

The results were very eye-opening. Some of the people with the strongest résumé’s submitted samples that could only be described as boring. They incorporated the content, yes. They were laid out in a simple, clear way. But they lacked the element that I have come to believe is as important for learning as good quality content: they didn’t capture either my imagination or my emotions. And they certainly wouldn’t be called “fun!”

When Learning Solutions magazine (elearningguild.com) printed an article titled “Edge and Emotion – What e-Learning Programs are Missing,” I thought, “YES - finally!”

The author notes that e-learning is more abundant than ever, and faster to develop, as well. But he asks, “Are we designing that content so that learners are pulled in and engaged in the first few seconds?”

As the article continues, I find myself agreeing, again and again. If we don’t get the attention of the individual, we’ll never really connect and teach. If we don’t feel passionate about a topic, we won’t transmit a feeling of passion to our audience.

Here’s what I gleaned from this article, combined with my own e-Learning experience. You can apply it to analyzing your own e-learning options or to developing powerful classroom-based training – the principles are the same:

1. Discover your passion. You might have a topic you need to cover in training – find an aspect of that topic that really lights your fire. Any subject can be boring – but I also believe that, with a little digging, any subject can be interesting too. Find the angle that interests you before you start – you’re more likely to develop an engaging, interesting training program as the result.
2. Use visuals that grab. Do you frequently train with powerpoints? Remove the words and bulleted text – you’re going to deliver that part anyway. Use the entire screen for an image that grabs the imagination and emotion of the viewer. Use images of real people, real places whenever you can. Look for something other than placid, smiling people –images can evoke powerful emotion.
3. Ask a question or pose a dilemma. Either approach can grab attention and get people invested in learning the answer.
4. If you’ve got a group, even a small group, get their participation in the topic. Ask real questions, and get participant’s answers. Try asking people which answer would be right – and make both options right in certain situations. A fun exercise we used to do in small group training was to pose a question and ask everyone who would answer one way to stand on one side of the room; everyone answering the other way stands on the other side of the room. Undecided can stand in the middle. That’s a great start to opening a discussion and dialogue on a topic.

To me, learning is the process of discovering answers to questions that make a difference in my life. It can be exciting, fun and rewarding – but only if it first grabs my attention and interest.