In my first blog, I reflected on how engagement and happiness are so interrelated as to be essentially the same thing. This blog explores practically how a manager or a company may best engage their people. I wrote the first draft as a response to the question that a manager asked on Linked-in. I was a little surprised by some of the mechanistic and monetary responses already in the conversation, so I decided to write about what I have found about engaging people that works. It is not about schemes, or programmes, or incentives. It is about people.
People want to be engaged, to achieve something, to make their mark, to show that they are woerth something and that their life has some meaning. They arrive at work on their first day motivated, wanting to do their best in return for a fair reward. Sadly, managers in many organizations do so many unfortunate things that disconnect, demotivate and disengage their people that within weeks many any firms seek other artificial stimuli to keep them going. Even then, in response, employees often think mostly in transactional, reciprocal terms, doing just this and no more in order to get that, whatever that is.
There are better ways, centred in the humanity that is at the heart and mind of all people.
- Ask your people what engages them.
- Show that you are listening and genuinely interested in what they say.
- Do what they ask you to do when you asked them what engages them.
- Ask them what they feel about the purpose of your company and how they would like to best help the company to achieve its aims.
- Use your skills to help them build a bigger picture for themselves of the common vision and their part in achieving it.
- Show them by your own actions every day and every minute how important the aims of the company are and how important they are to you and the company.
- Keep noticing good things they are doing and recognising them verbally and actively (but you don’t need to bribe them), just pay them fairly for the value they are adding.
- Don’t pay your highest paid person too much more than your lowest paid. Agree with them what factor that might be.
- Keep finding and encouraging them to try and develop new skills to meet the new challenges.
- When things don’t go as well as you hope, share that with the people and ask for their feelings and views about how to move forward.
- Do everything you can to retain people in difficult economic times. It will pay back thousandsfold when times get better.
- Enthuse and encourage people by your own beliefs and how you integrate your beliefs with your actions.
- Respect your people and believe in them and what they can achieve even more than they believe in themselves.
- Make sure that you eat with them often and that they eat together ; real sit together meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Encourage them to leave their desk, stop reading emails and join with others for real conversation with food and drink.
- Get to know them and love them without getting sentimental about it.
- Keep it personal. Don’t try to write procedures or manuals or institutionalise it.
- Say “Please” and “Thank you” a lot.
- Keep at it.
Our Second Engagement Unconference will be in London on 27 June. See here for details