Employees are not engaged, job satisfaction, productivity, innovation, and overall success is at an all time low in businesses. Why? As a business owner, employees look to you for leadership and direction. Yet, employees also want to know they are trusted by their leaders to carry out the mission. Gallup reports that companies with higher employee engagement saw an increase of 21% in productivity than those with lower employee engagement. Engaged employees are highly involved and enthusiastic about their work and workplace. As psychological “owners,” they drive high performance and innovation, and move the organization forward.
Leadership, Management and Passion
According to Gallup, 75% of employees who voluntarily quit their jobs left due to reasons with their bosses and not the position itself. If negative relationships exist between senior leaders and employees, the overall productivity of the team is negatively affected. To keep employees engaged, senior figures need to communicate closely with each member of the team. Gallup reports that managers influence 70% of the variance in engagement and are best situated to individualize information to the employee.
Sadly, most managers don’t know how to conduct frequent conversations that are meaningful. As a result, their actions can be interpreted as micromanaging, as tools or direction aren’t provided. Employees who receive daily feedback from their managers are 3 times more likely to be engaged than those who receive feedback once a year or less, according to recent Gallup data. This is the power of Expert. Direct. Personal communication.
Lack of Recognition
According to Hubspot’s employee engagement statistics, 69% of employees stated if their bosses appreciated their efforts more, they are ready to work harder. If success and hard work are not rewarded, employees may not feel encouraged to work as hard as they previously did. But despite popular belief, bigger paychecks do not directly produce fully committed employees.Yet, providing appreciation, excellent communication, employee concern, and also financial incentives, positively impacts long-term productivity. This is essentially teamwork.
Company Vision or Lack Thereof
The strategy behind corporate engagement is to have employees committed to one goal, which is the company’s culture goal. Yes, cultural goal. Culture trumps process, procedure and vision every day of the week. However, building employee commitment of the vision behind an organization is not a simple task. A clear brand vision is the foundation of a high-development culture, one that communicates a compelling purpose and mission. The responsibility of senior leadership is to illustrate to employees how their work contribution connects to that mission VantageCircle reports that 78% of employees whose companies encourage them to be innovative and creative are more loyal to their organization.
No Contraints Philsophy Combined with Fast, Effective Execution
Build a no constraints culture. Period. Don’t start with rules, policies, budgets or agendas. According to LinkedIn’s Inside the Mind of Today’s Candidate report, 51% of employees say having opportunities to freely express themselves makes them feel a sense of belonging at work. When employees are able to add to the discussion freely without underlying team or corporate pokes, they become more comfortable, and begin to engage with the company as a whole. Opportunities for employees to be heard and provide input are key elements of corporate engagement.
About Bob Myers:
Bob Myers, tech industry veteran with over 30 years of experience in entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, he is the current Chairman of SKY LLC and the previous CEO and founder of Pillar Technology, now Accenture (ACN). SKYL is a next-generation incubator that helps entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs scale startups by providing partners to enhance their vision. Myers is also the founder of the FORGE Innovation Centers. Myers has helped create technology such as OnStar and contributed to the development of autonomous vehicles.