But there’s a missing link in most of this and the missing link is us. Do we as leaders model employee engagement? Do our actions follow our words? Here’s what I’m talking about:

• Do we make a deliberate effort to show our employees that we care about them?
• Are we taking the time to spontaneously acknowledge our employees—outside of a structured activity or program?
• Are we listening in a focused way, free of distractions, when an employee is speaking to us?
• Are we responding in a meaningful, actionable way when an employee expresses a career goal or reports an obstacle to advancing or even just getting today’s job done?

Some of these suggestions sound like small matters, but when you check yourself against them, you might be surprised at what you learn. And what we learn is not a small matter because if we fail to model engagement we risk undermining the investment we’ve already made in our employee engagement programs.

In addition, the employee engagement bar has been raised outside of the workplace. As consumers our employees’ expectations have been raised by outstanding customer service from retailers that seek engagement with them. Look at Nordstrom:  Despite its higher prices, Nordstrom is succeeding in this tough retail climate because of outstanding customer service and engagement. Nordstrom shows its customers that it cares about them. It listens to their concerns, and it responds in a meaningful way. In short, Nordstrom models engagement. As a result, Nordstrom customers are loyal, and they certainly are engaged.

Employees are, in a broad sense, a business’s customers. How we treat our internal “customers” and how we model engagement has a direct impact on their engagement with our business. Leadership enables engagement, because a key factor for employee engagement is how they are treated by their manager.

Here’s an example of a relatively simple, yet extremely effective way for leadership to model engagement that is being carried out by a manager at the nation’s largest home and business security company. Twice each week, this manager carves out an hour to review all the approved recognition awards, both formal and informal recognition. He then emails or calls a dozen of the award recipients to personally acknowledge their activities and thank them for their efforts. This links management to what is going on and supports the workforce with the fact that management “cares” about what they are doing. Simple yet powerful. And worth the extra effort:

• Organizations with high levels of employee engagement post shareholder returns that are 9.3 percent higher than the S&P 500 from 2002 to 2006 (Turbocharging Employee Engagement: The Power of Recognition from Managers, Towers Watson, April 2009)
• Recognition is a top driver of engagement (Trends in Global Employee Engagement, 2011, AON Hewitt)
• More than 80 percent of employees who have a high level of engagement are determined to accomplish work goals (2011 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey, SHRM)

Learning about your employees, from how they communicate to what their interests are both at work and at home, can be just as important as understanding these aspects in your customers. Your employees are the key stakeholders in the office and are integral to the success of your company. Improved employee engagement means better customer care, work effort, and generally lower healthcare costs.

A recent study from the Tempkin Group shows more compelling research on the value of employee engagement:

• Engaged employees are more than twice as likely to stay late at work if something needs to be done, help someone at work even if they’re not asked, and do something that is good for the company even if it is not expected of them
• Engaged employees are almost three times as likely to make recommendations about an improvement and more than six times as likely to recommend that a friend or relative apply for a job
• Nearly twice as many employees at companies with subpar customer experience are looking for a job compared with employees at companies with good customer care experience

Underestimating the impact of your employees’ level of engagement can influence not just the productivity of your staff, but your employee turnover rate and your level of customer care as well.

Enhance your engagement programs with our three tactics:

• Recognition – Employee Recognition and Rewards programs are powerful tools for motivation and improving employee engagement, which also reinforces that you see and hear their efforts and suggestions. Creating a positive work environment starts with recognition. Social recognition is an easy way to promote extra efforts from your staff and encourage ideation and innovation
• Loyalty – Building company loyalty among your employees can be just as important as brand loyalty among your customers. Creating and maintaining an engaged, creative work environment can improve workplace attitudes and increase loyalty among your staff. Take the time to learn about your employees and promote engagement on an individual level.
• Reward – Whether you can provide a monthly lunch, an after work event, or a social recognition post, rewards do not have to mean cash. Giftcards or egiftcards are a convenient reward and are a cost-effective method to connect with your top performers.

Engagement, whether focused on employees or customers, has an impact on your entire business. Engaged employees can lead to better interactions and service for customers, which in turn leads to a better work experience for your staff. To learn more about employee and customer engagement, contact one of our professionals at www.marketinginnovators.com/contact-us/ or call us directly at 1-800-543-7373.

Sources:

Enterprise Engagement Alliance: The Economics of Engagement; The Center for Talent Solutions; Gallup Consulting: Employee Engagement, What’s Your Engagement Ratio?; Towers Perrin: 2007-2008 Global Workforce Study; Corporate Executive Board survey, 2004.

As leaders and HR professionals, where do we come out on this? We know the value of employee engagement and some of us might be wondering if Yahoo and Best Buy employees will become less loyal and less engaged as a result of their companies’ decisions. Consider this: work/life balance, something made more achievable with telecommuting and flexible work schedules, ranks right after “respect” in terms of what secures employee engagement according to a recent study by global consultancy Mercer.

Recent history and demographics don’t favor Yahoo’s and Best Buy’s change in direction. Over the past decade, the push has been in the direction of flexibility, whereby employees are better able to manage childcare and other family responsibilities, undertake volunteering and other community work, pursue study and recreational interests and avoid long and costly commutes.  This helped employees achieve work/life balance, while helping organizations with their own “balance” sheet savings on office space and equipment.

Moreover, we are challenged to engage younger employees coming into the workplace. Millennials especially tend to be more loyal to themselves than to their organization. They are their own brand and tend to pursue what is in their own best interests, whether opportunities to advance their careers or raise their salaries.

Whether real or perceived, reversal of employee privileges— and the subsequent change in culture— raises the risk of employee disengagement. And it could be costly. Using its 12 Elements of Engagement as a framework, Gallup conducted a meta-analysis of data from more than 150 organizations and the findings were dramatic. Comparing highly engaged workgroups to those in the bottom quartile, the analysis found that engaged employees contributed:

• 18 percent more productivity
• 16 percent more profitability
• 60 percent fewer quality defects

Moreover, companies in the top 10 percent had a 3.9 percent earnings per share growth rate.

As a leader, what can you do to maintain employee engagement and create loyalty? Here are some thoughts:

• Create and support workplace flexibility wherever possible. It may be as limited as shorter hours on Fridays during the summer or as broad as full-time telecommuting, depending on the nature of your organization’s work, it’s geographic spread, and culture.

• Be respectful in all of your dealings. Keep in mind the Mercer study, where “respect” ranked highest in terms of creating employee engagement. Could the changes announced by Yahoo and Best Buy be perceived as a lack of respect by their employees? That’s something to think about and it leads us to my next thought:

• Look for opportunities to create trust. One of those opportunities lies in being predictable. We live in a volatile world and as leaders we need to mitigate that within the workplace. When we approach decision making in a deliberate and predictable manner we keep external volatility at bay and create an atmosphere of trust in our organizations.

• Bond an environment by encouraging personal connections. One example is a workplace social media platform where employees can acknowledge each other’s accomplishments, or share common interests. Connections create links and those links create loyalty.

• Help employees to be successful. Be sure there are clear paths for advancement and support continuing education and professional development. Their success will be your success.

Here are five simple ways to demonstrate that you appreciate and value your employees:

• Provide opportunities for them to grow—professionally and personally, within the organization and outside of it. Do all of your employees have a clear career path within your organization? Is there clarity around goals and expectations? Is achieving those goals promptly rewarded?
• Recognize every employee’s individuality. Consider an enterprise-wide social media platform that does more than recognize and reward. Use it to create a space where employees can share personal interests, hobbies, and achievements outside the company.
• Show that you are interested in knowing your employees. Yes, it’s important to maintain a business atmosphere, but balance it with a genuine interest in your employees.
• Simple courtesies go a long way. “Please” and “thank you” show respect, a key aspect of appreciation.
• Whatever you do, tailor it to your multigenerational workforce. For example, boomers want to know that what they do makes a difference, while Millennials want to work to connect to their personal goals. Whatever you do to demonstrate appreciation, it should take a cue from generational differences.

Appreciation is linked to recognition and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. At Marketing Innovators we tend to view appreciation as ongoing, daily gestures that can be spontaneous, while employee recognition is a formal program linked to goals and rewards.

What have you found to be the most effective way to show your employees that you appreciate them? Let us know.