Recognizing and Engaging Employees For Dummies. Nelson Bob

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      ✔ Take questions in advance of a meeting or allow them to be written on index cards, anonymously.

      ✔ Record meetings and distribute the proceedings to those who are unable to attend.

      ✔ Set up a blog site for your CEO, especially if you have satellite offices and/or your employees travel regularly. Doing so enables even distant employees to receive immediate feedback around key issues and updates.

       Communicating bad news and dealing with rumors

      One of the most common errors many organizations and managers make is not sharing adequate information with employees. In some instances, top management doesn’t share information because they’re uncertain themselves about something. In other instances, managers feel that sharing information with employees may undermine their own power and job status. So management tries to “protect” employees from fears regarding the potential of job loss or frustration related to the ability of senior management to effectively handle a pending crisis.

      Employees aren’t looking for a sugar-coated delivery of information. The best way to explain the state of an organization is in a clear, concise, and honest manner. If sales are declining at a rapid or steady pace, every member of the staff has to know. Sharing this information inspires in all employees the collective ownership of the organization’s performance. From frontline staff to mid- and upper-level management, everyone shares a portion of the responsibility for an organization’s revenue, performance, and future.

      

By including each employee in an honest, behind-the-scenes look at the fiscal landscape of an organization and the approach or plan to resolve the crisis, you send the underlying message that every single person is a critical part of the whole. That, in turn, creates a greater sense of accountability. Feeling as though they’re part of the solution rather than being left in the dark gives employees the confidence they need to buckle down and do their part to pull the organization through a time of crisis.

      

Open lines of communication across the company can end one of the most detrimental viruses spread throughout an organization: rumors. It’s human nature to believe negative statements of supposed fact rather than positive ones. Because most rumors breed negativity, it’s crucial to stop them at the source, even openly asking employees about rumors they have heard. Merely talking to employees can ease uncertainty and let them know that you’re there to provide information, not keep it from them.

      When you arm employees with more frequent and relevant information, they’re more likely to act on that information in ways that can best help the organization. Honest and open communication shows that you as a manager have both trust and respect for your employees. You can build on that foundation by explicitly requesting and encouraging your employees to get involved in helping the company. This alone can lead to profound results, from improved daily operations to a better bottom line.

      According to a survey I conducted of employees in a variety of industries, 92 percent of employees want their managers to ask for their opinions and ideas at work, and more than 89 percent want their managers to involve them in decisions that are made at work. This section explores ways for you to become a more engaged manager with engaged employees who share their ideas and opinions and have some input in decision-making.

       Guiding employee focus

      Today’s managers are discovering that they have to create an environment that encourages employees to contribute their best ideas and work, to help seek out new opportunities, such as new sources of revenue, and to overcome obstacles facing the company, such as cutting costs, wherever possible. Workers are discovering that, if they expect to survive the constant waves of change sweeping across the global business marketplace as well as hold onto their current jobs, they have to join with other employees to contribute to their organizations in ways that they’ve never before been called upon to do.

      Managers need to discuss the following topics with their employees:

       Asking employees for their input and ideas

      I have yet to see an organization that doesn’t have an open door policy, in which employees are encouraged to speak to their managers about any concerns, ideas, or suggestions they have. In practice, however, this policy doesn’t always work very well if, at the point of interaction, one’s manager is not receptive to the input.

      Soliciting ideas needs to be a constant, ongoing strategy. Conducting employee surveys and asking staff questions in a meeting is a start, but to maximize buy-in and motivation, you need to challenge your employees to identify ways to improve on an ongoing basis. Employee engagement should be both a philosophy and a practice. Employees need to understand that you need their efforts now more than ever before, and then you need to create new mechanisms that inspire their ongoing involvement to improve.

      

Would you like more ideas from your employees? I’m convinced that every employee has at least one $50,000 idea – if you can only find a way to get it out! Yet most companies do little, if anything, to get ideas from their employees. Or if they do decide to take action, it’s in the form of a suggestion box that’s placed in the lunchroom with (for some reason) a lock on it. The first dozen or so employees who submit suggestions, if they hear back at all, often receive a form letter months later that more or less states, “Here’s why we’re not using your silly idea … .” The result? The suggestion program grinds to a halt. In fact, I recently heard of one company that ended its dead suggestion program because, the company announced, the company had gotten all the ideas. How convenient.

      

They don’t feel that’s the case at AT&T Universal Card Services in Jacksonville, Florida, where the company gets some 1,200 ideas per month from employees. They don’t feel that way at Valeo, either. In a recent year, the French automaker received 250,000 ideas for improvement from employees.

Taking initiative at Boardroom, Inc