Engage and Grow-Chapter Two: Engage Your Workforce

In Chapter One we discussed the schools of thought surrounding employee engagement. In Chapter Two, we are digging into the reasons why employees become disengaged in the workplace.

There are a few key elements that have to be at work within a business for employees to feel engaged: leadership, equality, respect, and development. These things create a quality environment which then creates unity and trust.

This, of course, applies to employees who are actually interested in being engaged in the workplace. There are those who could care less, and sometimes, those who are there to sabotage every undertaking. To those people, the best practice for any business owner is to bid that employee farewell. Buy them out if you have to. It’s not beyond the realm of reality for a company like Zappo’s to pay “bad” employees to leave. You can do the same.

Business owners should be concerned about retaining the good people within their organization. So why do dedicated people leave? Bad management.

To achieve long term change within the ranks of management, it’s important for owners to stay keyed into employee morale through regular measurement from the horse’s mouth. Leaders are only as effective as their employees believe they are, and gaining access to this kind of feedback can make or break a management team. When employees feel heard and connected to their direct manager engagement improves.

Surveys are wonderful tools when attempting to learn about employee morale and engagement, but only when the results are used to create real and tangible change within the organization.

According to Marshall Goldsmith, modern workers are what is known as “knowledge workers”—someone who knows more about their specialty than the boss or the CEO. And, that’s the way it should be. You want your employees to be the expert in their fields. But that also means that you, the business owner, will live and die by their engagement. Act accordingly. You can access the full episode here: http://bit.ly/2EqJwfc.