Employees Engagement - I

Manager is the kEY to Employees Engagement

Boss factor is the most important or rather a pre-requisite for engaging employees. They can make or break a great team. They can influence their team positively or negatively. Managers or immediate supervisors play a big role in employees engagement.  I am going to write about some simple practicable interventions on Boss factor for engaging employees effectively.  

In this particular posting, I am writing about institutionalization of Feedback systems across the organisation on “Boss factor”.

Employees Engagement:

Engaged employees are “entrepreneurs” in their respective roles.  They are much more than “satisfied” employees.  They are asset to any organization.  They perform, outperform, bring in results, innovation, continuous improvement and growth.  They are highly motivated, dependable and have sense of belonging.  They are “outliers’ in their role, team and for the organisation.

 

To put it in a very simple way, according to me, Employees engagement is all about winning the hearts and minds of the employees so that they work with “entrepreneurial spirit”, not with mercenary attitude.  There is a lot of ownership and sense of belonging with the organization. 

An engaged

          # Taxi driver will keep his “Rental” car spic and span. He will show
           utmost customer care and work with customer focus. He will work
           without any supervision.

         

          # Bus conductor will interact with the passengers politely and move
           around to give passenger  tickets. 

                   

          # Worker will not just meet the production goal. He will innovate, 
          bring in continuous improvement.  Participate in company-wide 
          initiatives.  Will be very proud of what he contributes and the 
          organization he works for.  He knows what his organization’s vision is 
          and how he contributes to the bigger goals. He is an entrepreneur for 
          his Role.

Why to engage employees?

What happens when we work like an entrepreneur and not like a paid employee with just a “mercenary” attitude? With engaged employees, the results would be just enormous in terms of deliverables,  customers satisfaction, innovation, culture, continuous improvement etc..  They are the right people in the right place.  They can take the Organisation from “Good” to "Great”. 

Even in the absence of matured systems and processes, Engaged employees will deliver results.  They don’t need supervisors.  They can set goals for themselves and deliver much more than that.

It is not possible to expect any of these things from disengaged employees or from the most satisfied employees. The loss is unimaginable and unquantifiable;  Sometimes one would not even know what he is losing.

Employees engagement is one of the top focus area for any CEO or any Organization, be it a Business organization or even a Non-profit organization.  It’s an imperative ingredient for Business and it determines the business survival and growth.

How to engage:

Employees engagement is influenced by multiple factors and it’s one of the hot topics for research and study.  The key to engagement is already discovered by Gall-up.  As you all know, Gallup had surveyed thousands of executives working in various organisations across the world on what motivates employees at Workplace and came out with Q-12 factors long time ago and Gallup survey has become the industry standard for measuring engagement.

Manager is the Key:

According to Gallup, the immediate supervisors or Managers play a critical role in engagement.  That is the foremost important pre-requisite.  Gallup says, as you know, people join good companies and leave Bad Managers.  People see the company only through their immediate boss.  However good the Organisation is, people will quit if the reporting relationship is not good and healthy. They also say that the onus of motivation lies with the Boss.  A factual statement that is yet to fully believed and practiced.

This sums up how big the role of immediate supervisors is.  Managers have a huge role to play especially in the first 6 factors of Q-12.

I am sure, you would have heard of people joining big brands with hefty salary package but leaving very shortly because of “Boss factor”.  Authoritarian leadership, absolute task orientation without any people focus, being harsh on people etc are sure recipe to disengage people and make them leave. 

Boss Factor is the most important one and it assumes all the more importance in the context of more no. of Gen-Y population coming to Workplace nowadays.

All the 12 are important.   The Managers / immediate supervisors have a big role to play especially in the first 6 factors.

# Institutionalization of Feedback process for employees’ engagement:

A good organisation would have multiple on-going feedback systems and processes in place about various important aspects including its leadership talent. 

Feedback systems and processes should be designed in such a way that it serves as an effective diagnostic tool.  It’ll help you to check what cannot be seen through naked eyes.  It’s a like a microscope.  An effective system will help you to diagnose various organisational aspects including leadership style.

Various feedback systems:

i) Employees’ Survey:

The employee surveys done on an annual basis may cover leadership style of supervisory employees.  For instance, it may have few sample statements as given below:

          Q1: Whenever I do a good job I get a PAT or a word of compliment 
                 from my supervisor.

         

          Q2: My superiors give me regular and on-going feedback on my 
                 performance.

         

          Q3: When feedbacks are given by my superior it is given in an 
                 appropriate way and it motivates me to learn and perform better.

         

          Q4: My Superiors do not pressurise and have personalised contact 
                 while dealing with me and in getting things done.

         

          Q5: My superiors are approachable and open to employee views, 
                 suggestions and concerns.

         

          Q6: Supervisors don’t show favouritism. A fair and objective approach
                 is always maintained.

Employees feedback with respect to these questions can be compiled and shared with the respective managers with a target to improve their leadership style, wherever required, by 20%-30% in 6 months time. 

What gets evaluated gets done.  It becomes a focus area and people will start giving importance to how they do things.  Training interventions or any other interventions rolled in such scenarios will be much more effective since the need for change is “inside out”.  The message that is being conveyed very strongly is the means to the end as important as the end ie., while the deliverables are important, how it is delivered is also equally important. 

A Sample Feedback on Leadership style with improvement Areas (wherever
there is more "disagree" percentage)

The improvements in the leadership style or the effectiveness of mentoring program or any need-based leadership program rolled out based on the above feedback can be very effectively 

assessed in the subsequent survey results in terms of improvement made.   

ii) Exit Feedback Analysis

This is another effective way of taking employees’ feedback on various aspects including the leadership style of the respective supervisors. 

Unless there is an open Culture and employees are taken into confidence that their feedback would be valued and acted upon, this source would not help us to get the right feedback.  People would fill it up as part of exit formalities and would move away.  So the bottom line is, how open and assuring the culture is for employees to come forward and share their feedback.

Feedback collected at the time of exit can be compiled and shared with the respective supervisors.  This will help them to understand how they are perceived by their team members.  This will make them aware, kind of sensitisation, as to where they need to improve.

Cases wherein employees leave primarily because of Boss Factor need attention and should be taken up seriously.

Survey of ex-Employees and Feedback Analysis:

This source is the ultimate one since employees come forward very openly to share their feedback and suggestions.  This can be done on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.  The feedback may cover all the aspects that you think you need to take feedback for and it should include leadership style of managers/Supervisors too.  This also needs to be analysed and shared with clear goals for improvement of leadership style.

The above feedback mechanisms can also be used for identifying the Training Needs and for rolling out need based specific HR interventions.

Any feedback that is collected but not used is of no value or use to anyone. Feedback collected should be analysed, shared and clear Action Plan needs to be initiated.  Unless visible action plan is rolled out, employees will feel demotivated to share their feedback. It’s like taking a master health check-up to diagnose your health and taking no action at all though you come to know that you’ve some health issues.  A clear action plan in terms of medications, food changes, physical work-outs or change in lifestyle should follow the diagnosis.  Otherwise, it’s of no use.

All the above feedback methods are bottom-up.  It can throw very raw data which can be shocking.  It still provides very useful information on the effectiveness of leadership style across the organisation. 

360 Degree Feedback System:

360 degree feedback or multi-rater feedback is a sensitive tool that  it cannot be implemented in all the organisations.  It needs lot of professional maturity. 

A good 360 degree feedback will capture the leadership style through feedback from multiple sources and it can help one to gain awareness and maximize one’s open quadrant (Johari window). 

Even in the absence of 360 degree system, the other 3 feedback systems described above, if used in a systematic way, will still be very effective. 

Final Remarks:

The above feedback systems, if deployed properly, can indicate the pockets of engagement and disengagement. A diagnosis based on which any suitable precise interventions can be made.  Supervisors with bad or average feedback on their leadership style are more likely to create disengaging environment.

Every supervisor, based on their leadership style, bring in and build their own culture.  Sometimes, it can be quite contrary to what the organisation wants to build.  An effective feedback system with well-defined thought-out action plans will serve as a change agent.

It can bring in awareness and sensitise people about their people focus and the message can be very effectively conveyed that means to the end is as much important as the end.

Feedback system is the life blood of the Organisation.  If analysed and used properly, it can diagnose, foretell and predict various things to a large extent. 

And finally, feedback system is not an event. It has to be institutionalised as a continuous process and it has to take roots in the Culture of the organization. It is also a sensitive tool that needs to be certainly handled with care. 

diD yOU enJOY ReADinG ThIS ArTIcLE? 

                                  If yES, 

yOU maY sHAre it wiTH Your FriENds tOO.

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