That big bunch of employees who don’t really care about our companies is killing us as agency owners. But the good news is that there’s a one-word solution that will begin to deliver improved engagement quickly: communication. Taking things a step further, we’ve found at The Abbi Agency that a structured program to improve peer-to-peer communication and recognition is a major step toward stronger engagement.
To understand all this, back up and look at the problem with disengagement: Some new research from Gallup indicates that about two-thirds of the employees of a typical company are either not engaged or consider themselves as “actively disengaged” from their work. The very best front we can put on this disengagement is that it’s creating major headwinds for our companies. At worst, it may be taking a 20 percent bite out of profits. In a wide-ranging study that involved some 1.4 million workers and 192 organizations, Gallup found that highly engaged groups of workers outperform their least-engaged peers by 10 percent on customer ratings, 21 percent in productivity and, most importantly, 22 percent on profitability.
Defining Engagement
Before you rush off to hire a consulting firm or to declare that 2016 will be the "year of engagement,” it’s probably best to get a clear idea what folks mean when they talk about “employee engagement.” I like this definition from Kevin Kruse, a smart guy who has put a lot of thought into the link between engagement and profits: “Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.”
Notice that Kruse doesn’t say that engaged employees are always smiling, cheery souls who bubble with enthusiasm every day. We don’t confuse employee satisfaction with employee engagement. Fully engaged employees -- smiling or not -- are the builders of our company. They are the passionate ones who perform at consistently high levels and always try to exceed the goals that we have set for them.
But to perform at high levels, engaged employees need to understand what I expect from them. What are the goals? And how does their work fit into the company’s direction?
These are questions that can be answered only with consistent, clear and honest communication about the company’s strategy and its tactical goals. Employees who are involved in company decisions, or at least understand how the decisions were made, are more likely to be emotionally invested in its success. Nothing kills engagement faster than an employee’s belief that she’s doing a task only because her boss told her it needed to get done.
Recognizing Engagement
Fully engaged employees want to know how they are doing. A guaranteed way to lower an employee’s level of engagement is by failing to provide enough feedback. Every single member of our team yearns for me and for their peers to let them know how they are doing and in which areas they can improve.
Our recognition efforts have gained consistency through the use of YouEarnedIt, a platform that encourages team members to publicly recognize co-workers. While a number of similar platforms are available, I especially like the way that YouEarnedIt demonstrates how good work advances the strategic goals of The Abbi Agency. Our team members, meanwhile, appreciate the rewards ranging from merchandise to additional time off that they earn as their peers recognize them.
Communicating Effectively
At the same time, I’ve made a personal commitment to say "thanks" as often as I can. Sincere words of gratitude are a powerful tool to build engagement. Consistency of feedback is important, and it needs to happen far more often than most of us think. Gallup’s research suggests that employees need feedback at least once a week.
I’ve redoubled my efforts to stay available to my team, often leaving my office to work at a table in the middle of our office. I’m willing to sacrifice productivity on my own projects for better communication with my team. I’ve learned I can’t rely on e-mail, texts and social media posts alone to stay in touch. If my leadership team isn’t there — physically there — to communicate and build relationships with staff members, we can expect to see a decline in employee engagement.
I was speaking from both my heart and my head when I wrote at this start of this article that communication is the biggest single driver of improved employee engagement -- notice, however, that I didn’t say that improved communication comes without effort. I know from my own experience that it’s easy to bury myself in any number of other things rather spending time listening to employees and explaining how I see their role in the company. It’s hard at the end of a long day to get up and walk across the office to extend thanks to an employee who exceeded my expectations. It’s easy to convince myself, wrongly, that I should just leave our highly engaged employees alone so they can get on with their work.
The simple truth is that my success requires a highly engaged group of employees, and a highly engaged workforce won’t happen without my daily commitment to finding methods of more meaningful communication.
