Christian Whamond. Key Leadership. Executive coach
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Boost Engagement via Employee Empowerment

18/2/2014

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People like to say they make rational decisions, but in reality, people are driven by emotions. Personal relationships greatly influence employees to become engaged, work effectively, stay with their company, and act as ambassadors for their organisation. Managers need to recognise that engagement is more than just feeling happy at work.

Engaged and empowered employees are fully involved and enthusiastic about their work and will act in a way that furthers their organisation‘s success. Employee engagement is a measurable degree of an employee’s positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, manager, colleagues, and the organisation that profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work.

Emotions toward the employee’s company and his or her direct manager are leading indicators of engagement in the workplace. Engagement often begins with employee empowerment.

Build positive emotions and create a productive work environment that leads to employee engagement.

Make the employee feel “valued.” Feeling valued promotes other positive emotions. Immediate supervisors are the key producers of positive emotions that can cause a stronger sense of satisfaction in an employee. Positive emotions increase a person’s energy and performance and make him or her more likely to help others (coworkers) complete tasks.

Increase employee confidence. Feeling valued and confident simultaneously empowers people to make good work decisions and generates enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm is the key. When employees feel enthusiastic about their jobs, they try harder, go the extra mile, and even begin to think outside the box to perform a job or task.

Enthusiastic employees are excited to go to work and be at the workplace. Employees who are enthusiastic about their jobs become excited to be at work, not only because of the pay-check or the next promotion, but because they care about the organisation and want to work to help further its goals. 
Engagement can be measured by an employee’s willingness to recommend their organisation as a place to work and a place to do business.

Employee empowerment is important. Employees need to feel they belong to an organisation and are proud to be part of it. Those who connect emotionally with an organisation feel a sense of ownership and are more likely to stay with the company, enabling them to deliver superior work in less time and reducing turnover cost.
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Employees feeling valued is at the top of the list when it comes to employee retention

22/8/2013

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Hopefully it isn’t a surprise to you that employees feeling valued is at the top of the list when it comes to employee retention. And it probably isn’t a surprise that employee recognition is key to helping employees feel valued.

What may or may not surprise you though is that not all employees like to be recognised the same way. But often times that’s what we do. We apply the “Golden Rule” of recognising them the same way we would want to be recognised.

It is important though that leaders apply the “Platinum Rule” of employee recognition in helping them feel valued. Applying the Platinum Rule means you recognise employees the way they want to be recognised, not the way you want to be.

Through the years I have questioned and surveyed staff I have led. The questioning is specifically asking how each member of my team likes to be recognised. The following are the questions I ask in my employee recognition/feeling valued survey.

1. What types of personal hobbies or interests do you like to talk about the most?
2. At work, what increases your happiness or creates positive emotion the most?
3. Who do you like to receive recognition or praise at work from the most? (e.g. peers, manager, senior leaders, customers)
4. How do you like be recognized? (e.g. public, privately)
5. What types of recognition motivates you the most? Do you like gifts, a heartfelt email or card, call, trophy/certificate or something else?
6. Tell me about the greatest recognition you ever received? Why was it so great?

I have personally had a lot of success in administering this questioning tool to many on my teams through the years. Employee recognition needs to be personal. The more personal it is, the more employees will feel valued.

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Treating employees well can make a leaders job more difficult..

22/8/2013

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What!!! I hear you all saying.

But if you consider people pounding your doors down wanting to work for you a problem then maybe it makes sense.

That is exactly what happened to Henry Ford in 1914 when he announced a minimum $5.00 a day pay (which was more than double the day wage for most of his workers) for all eligible employees. Additionally he dropped the work day from nine hours a day to eight. Talk about improving the quality of your employee’s lives!

Many, including “The Wall Street Journal” and stockholders saw it as a reckless and irresponsible move. But Ford stuck with his “reckless ideas.”

Employees considered him a friend. As a result he increased employee retention, was able to hire the best mechanics and dramatically raised productivity across the company. Profits sky rocketed, doubling from $30 million to $60 million between 1914 and 1916. In this case treating employees well really paid off!
Ford’s revolutionary “Five Dollar Day” did create some problems though including massive crowds flocking to the plant daily in search of jobs, police having to use force to disperse them and angry mobs who released their frustrations of not landing a job by throwing rocks through factory windows. However, those problems seemed minimal considering the good his ideas produced.

Unless you own a business, you most likely lack the power to increase wages and cut hours so dramatically. However, treating employees good doesn’t have to be expensive or that drastic. Great leaders know that!

A few ways leaders can treat employees better include:
•Caring enough to ask someone you lead how their family is doing and taking a personal interest.
•Using good manners in your interactions by using words such as, “please, thank you, and excuse me.”
•Genuinely and specifically pointing out things they are doing to provide value to the team and organisation.
•Taking the time to give constructive feedback and then caring enough to nurture and develop them.
•Respectfully and actively listening to concerns they bring to you.
•Promoting work-life balance by understanding and identifying their needs.

I could outline many more ways of how leaders can treat those they lead better, and I am sure you have a few as well. The reality is we will get much further and get what we want out of our teams and organisations by being respectful, service orientated, caring and genuine in our approach with those we lead than being dictatorial, puffed up with pride, egotistical and all about results.

Leadership is about relationships. The greater trust you create; the greater loyalty you will produce. Loyalty almost always leads to better results. Put people first, and the results will follow.

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Qualities of truly loyal employees. 

24/7/2013

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First things first: Where employees are concerned, loyalty has nothing to do with blind obedience, or unthinking devotion, or length of tenure.

Surprised? Think of it this way. Which employee displays greater loyalty?

1. The employee who has been with you for ten years and in that time has learned to do just enough to fly, unseen, under the performance issues radar, or

2. The employee who has been with you for 18 months and believes in where you’re going, how you want to get there – and proves it every day by her actions

Of course experience is important, but given the choice I'll take the employee behind door #2 every time.

Truly loyal employees are not just committed to helping their companies succeed; their loyalty is also displayed in other ways, some of them surprising.

They display loyalty through integrity.

Many people assume loyalty is proven through obedience: Often unthinking and unquestioning, even when a request or directive falls into a gray area or, worse, is unethical or illegal.

An employee who consistently seeks to do the right thing is not just following a personal credo – she’s also looking out for your long-term interests. You may see she as disloyal today… but in time you’ll realize that she displayed the highest form of loyalty by helping you avoid missing the “do the right thing” forest for the “do it right now” trees.

They generate discussions others will not.

Many employees hesitate to voice their opinions or feelings in a group setting. Some even hesitate to voice their opinions in private.

An employee once asked me a question about a new initiative. After the meeting I pulled him aside and said, “Why did you ask about our new pricing strategy? You know what we’re doing – you were part of the planning.” He said, “I do, but a lot of other people don't, and they’re hesitant to ask since they aren’t directly affected. I thought it would help if they could hear what you’re thinking and what we’re planning.”

Loyal employees have a great feel for the issues and concerns of the people around them, and they ask the questions or raise the important issues when others won’t. They know, for the company to succeed, that you need to know what employees are thinking… and that employees need to know what you are thinking.

They praise their peers.

Truly loyal employees care: About the company, about its customers, about its mission… they feel they’re working for something greater than just themselves. So they appreciate when another employee does something great because that means the company is fulfilling its mission.

Employees that praise and recognize others, especially when it’s not their job to do so, don’t just display great interpersonal skills. (When you do something well, praise from your boss feels great… but it’s also, at least generally speaking, expected. At least it should be. Praise from a peer feels awesome, especially when you respect that person.)

By praising others, they show they care.

Caring forms the basis of loyalty.

They dissent and disagree

Every great company fosters debate and disagreement. Every great leader wants employees to question, to deliberate, and to push back. Weighing the positives and negatives of a decision, sharing conflicting opinions, playing devil's advocate… disagreement is healthy. It’s stimulating. It leads to better decisions.

Loyal employees share their opinions, even when they know you may not initially appreciate those opinions, because they want the company to be better tomorrow than it is today. And they’ll occasionally take stands against a point of view or decision.

They support in public.

After a decision is made, loyal employees get behind that decision even if they privately disagree. And they don’t just pay the decision lip service; they support the decision as if it were their own – because when you’re loyal, every decision is, ultimately, your own.

When they disagree, some employees (the not so loyal ones), whether passively or actively, try to show that a decision they disagreed with was in fact wrong.

A truly loyal employee puts aside his feelings and actively tries to make every decision the right decision – instead of willing it to fail so they can prove themselves right.

They tell you what you least want to hear.

The Inverse Rule of Candor states that the greater the difference in “rank,” the less likely an employee will be to openly take a different position: An entry-level employee is fairly likely to tell his direct supervisor that he disagrees with that supervisor’s decision, but he is almost totally unlikely to tell his boss’s boss’s boss that he disagrees with his decision.

If you’re the CEO, that means your direct reports may pull you aside for an open, forthright chat… but few other employees ever will.

Truly loyal employees know that what you least want to hear may be what you – and by extension your company – most need to hear: That an initiative won’t work, that a decision-making process is flawed, that a mistake has been made… truly loyal employees realize that while you may not like what you hear, ultimately you want to hear it because what matters most is doing what is best for your employees, your customers, and your company.

Well-intended silence can be a good sign of loyalty; speaking up, especially when it’s awkward or even painful to do so, can be the best sign.

They leave when they need to leave.

If you can’t tell by now, a truly loyal employee is almost always a sensational employee. Often, they’re your best employees – so the last thing you want is for them to leave.

Yet sometimes they do: For a different lifestyle, for a better opportunity, for a chance to move to a different industry, or simply to take what they’ve learned and start their own company.

When it’s time, they tell you it’s time to leave – and they help you prepare to fill the hole they create.

You? You’re disappointed but you wish them well. For a time, even if only for a few years, they put your company’s interests ahead of their own…

…and now it’s your turn to do the same for them. Of course, you can always make your most convincing arguments to encourage them to stay (hey, you’re loyal too!) – but if it doesn’t work out, the right thing to do is to return their loyalty, wish them well and help them continue to stay awesome.
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Employee engagement

18/6/2012

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Picture
A management consulting firm that I consult for specializing in leadership and organizational development, recently completed its 2011 employee engagement benchmark research. The findings show that 34% of employees indicate that they fail to speak up in the workplace for fear of some type of retribution.

Further analysis employee engagement survey data shows several factors leading to a culture where individuals are afraid to share their voice:

•Constant negative feedback from supervisors and leaders
•Leaders perceived as a dissenting voice (shooting-down new ideas out of hand, or ignoring feedback)
•Fear of demotion, loss of job, or loosing future promotional opportunities
•Raising issues draws undue attention to individuals or groups who make suggestions.
•Employees perceive that there is no procedural justice (fair use and application of employee feedback)

The finding where from large organizations who house 100 plus employees. This is scary.

What this is saying is that the front line staff are scared to speak up relating to the day to day issues arising and effecting both their long turn future and the directions of the organization.

Employees must be given the opportunity to communicate the issues that are at hand. They must be able to raise these issues without fear of retribution. A environment must be created where all staff have the option to voice issues in a safe environment.

Once the issue is raised they must be given one on one feedback as to the progress of the issues. Even if it's that nothing is going to change. That employee can then make a informed decision about their future.

These perceptions typically stem from a culture that stifles the free expression of ideas, and from leaders who contribute to or create that culture.

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Leverage technology to serve customers and keep employees productive

31/10/2011

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To best leverage technology to serve customers and keep employees productive, IT needs to be a business partner — not just a service provider. Make sure you work seamlessly with IT and build strong relationships. When problems arise, resist the temptation to place blame; work together to find a win-win solution. Give IT a seat at the table when making key decisions so they can advise you on how to best meet your goals. Most importantly, don't just do these things when you are working on a tech project; make sure IT is involved as a partner in all that you do. After all, what project doesn't involve technology these days?
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