Want higher employee engagement?
Forward: So, yeah, walking around isn’t really an option at the moment, but you can still increase your team’s engagement by being present and flexible with what you cover in your 1:1s. If you’re interested in developing your leadership style in these uncertain times, you might be interested in talking to us about some of our remote offerings.
Of course you do.
It has been hard to ignore the countless headlines stating that employee engagement is down. This coupled with my clients who keep experiencing the same challenges I definitely feel like it is on track to be one of 2019's business buzzwords.
Why is engagement such a point of discussion? Well, Gallup tells us that companies with higher engagement outperform their competitors by as much as 202%! This is not something to be ignored.
If your team engagement has started out on the low-side this year, I want to caution that before you jump into a massive and expensive 'engagement campaign', to just start with the basics.
Start by saying 'hello'
The quickest and most effective way to connect with your team is to walk around and talk to them. Often we get trapped in our own hamster wheel which looks like:
Getting into the office with just enough time to make it into our first meeting
Lurking around the lunch offerings, quickly grabbing food onto your plate before you rush into another meeting
Waving 'goodbye' from the inside of a glass meeting room as you start your North American calls.
Sound familiar?
If you laughed while reading this, then it's likely your version of normal. Your team is disengaged because you have abandoned them.
You. Cannot. Lead. A. Team. From. A. Meeting. Room.
We spend a lot of effort on building rapport upwards and externally and we seem to forget the importance of building that trust and relationships with those in our team. As your team grows and becomes more hierarchical, the most junior person will not be able to engage with you the same way a direct report will. This may have been a 'how things have always been done' but it's not going to work going forward.
It is shortsighted and outdated to think all of the best and brightest ideas will somehow float to the top. Your team posses untapped potential that will only come to the surface if you create the environment for it to flourish.
So how do you get your schedule back? Well it depends on how much employee engagement means to you.
Are you ready to really change your behaviours? Your 'default' behaviour (the one that is keeping you in meetings) has been adapted to your work environment, if you are in management, it's actually likely that you have been rewarded by doing exactly what you've been doing. In order to change the statistic something fundamentally has to change. Often company engagement campaigns are focused on band-aiding the problem and does not tackle this issue at its core. I mean they're cute and distracting but don't often move the long term needle.
Start with being present.
Build in walk around time or if you find yourself with a free 15 minutes, instead of jumping into a task, walk around and talk to people. This is not rocket science or new thinking - HP designed a whole practice around it in the 1970s. Yes, it will be uncomfortable and awkward at first but over time, it will become more natural and people will start to warm to it. This is where you start to build your team cred.
Take stock of where you sit, are you approachable? Is your office door open or closed? Do you sit mostly with headphones on? A small change in how you chose to show up can make a real difference in the perception you carry.
Have better one-to-ones - lead by example.
If managers are not adequately set up to to know how to have an engaging conversation with their team members, no amount of campaign money or effort will make a change. Often one-to-ones, if done, are repetitive, unfocused, project based, or cancelled at the last minute.
Managers - you don't need permission or budget to have more engaging one-to-ones!
So for those of you that think they could do it better, here's what makes a more engaging one-to-one:
1) Be present: you should be focused on the team member, be on time and not on your laptop or phone.
2) Clear on THEIR motivations: If you don't know what motivates your team members on an individual basis, how are you able to really help them with their professional development?
3) Open for feedback: I get that in a world of constant demands and change it can be hard to process a new approach or idea BUT when a team member shares a new idea, be mindful not to shut it down just because YOU don't have capacity to deal with it. Encourage them to flush the idea into a light touch proposal and see where it goes. You'd be amazed at how many great ideas don't get past 'go' just because an overworked manager casually drops 'I don't think that will work here'. This is what kills innovation people!
These practices should become your new normal.
Of course there are countless methods and approaches to employee engagement that work, at scale! I don't believe that we will start to see the figures change if managers don't recognise the impact their day to day interactions they have with their teams - at all levels - have on the overall score. Also, everything suggested in this article is free, doesn't require permission, or THAT hard to implement. The only thing that will get in the way is operating in the way we have always done.
Insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein
You got this.
If you’re interested in developing your leadership style in these uncertain times, you might be interested in talking to us about some of our remote offerings.
At OverTime Leader we provide executive leadership and management advisory for technology-enabled businesses and teams. If you are looking to spark a people-powered change in your business our team has a toolbox full of ways to help you get started.
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