Thanksgiving: the Secret Shortcut to Employee Engagement?

http://marthagiffen.com/

Thanksgiving: the Secret Shortcut to Employee Engagement?

Why Gratitude Can Help Us Be More Engaged with Our Work

What about your job are you thankful for? By finding a few tangible answers to this question, you’re already on the road to greater employee engagement.

In the U.S., our Thanksgiving holiday season is a time to acknowledge and appreciate blessings. Recent happiness research at institutions like the University of California at Berkeley shows that gratitude as a regular practice can have social, physical and psychological benefits.

Looking under the hood, so to speak, it can be deduced that the benefits of gratitude can lead to greater employee engagement within an individual as well, following my definition of employee engagement as an attitude towards one’s work in one’s organization comprising vigor, dedication, absorption, psychological empowerment and motivation. Specifically, research shows a practice of gratitude can lead to increased enthusiasm and motivates helpful action, two components of employee engagement. It can also reduce stress and anxiety, which can be barriers to employee engagement. It improves relationships, the critical driver of engagement in the workplace. Click here to read more from U.C. Berkeley on gratitude.

The practice of gratitude, it turns out, is a practice. Like bowling, it may come easier to some people than others, but anyone can improve through focused effort and repetition. I suggest an achievable goal for those new to daily thanksgiving, since small changes are more likely to stick than big ones. Set a calendar reminder for the start of each workday to acknowledge one thing you are grateful for about your work. Keep that appointment every day, and try not to list the same thing twice. It can be really basic, “I am grateful there is indoor plumbing in my office” to very specific, “I am grateful Susan knew how to run that report and was willing to help.”

If that suggestion doesn’t appeal to you, or you already keep a gratitude journal, consider adapting another gratitude practice to the workplace.

And here’s the trick: stick with the practice for weeks: long after you have decided it isn’t doing you any good. Like many healthy habits (e.g., light exercise or meditation) the benefits may or may not appear directly linked to the practice, but if you pay attention, the correlation is undeniable.

As for me, I am thankful for you, my readers, both known and unknown, who help motivate me to keep learning and sharing about employee engagement. Thank you, and I wish you all a great start to the holiday season!

The Road to Disengagement Is Paved with Good Intensions

The Road to Disengagement Is Paved with Good Intentions

4 Well-Intended Mistakes Managers Make that Lead to Disengagement – and How to Fix Them

Most of what I share in this blog is BEST practice learnings from a career and a doctoral dissertation in employee engagement. Today, I’m going to share some WORST practices.

http://fearless-selling.ca/good-intentions/

Normally, I’m a proponent of an organizational development concept some term “amplifying positive deviance.” The idea is that by placing a positive spotlight on what’s going right in a change effort, you’ll inspire and encourage others to adopt that behavior. Combine that with a reliable measurement practice and a solid demonstration of results, and you can create sustainable change. Conversely, focusing on negating undesirable behavior proves less effective.

However, I have heard stories of senior managers who, for apparently logical reasons, have participated in disengaging behaviors. I thought it important to mention in some of these cases how a seemingly-good intention went wrong, and how to recover.  

Names have been changed to protect the innocent and clueless…

Situation	Management rationale	Why it’s disengaging	Fix
Employees in different departments compare notes and discover they received different reward or recognition for similar character and quality work on a project. A manager denies or retracts recognition for a staff member given by another party, and the employee is made aware.	“We don’t have enough money in the budget to give an award, and if I talk say something, they’ll expect a bonus.” “In our team, we don’t give special recognition for staff completing regular job assignments.” “We can’t set a precedent for this type of recognition.”	Recognition leads to psychological empowerment, motivation and other good-things associated with engagement. Becoming aware of an absence of recognition has the opposite effect: we feel under-valued, insecure or even undermined. Fundamentally, what we perceive to be unfair treatment leads to distrust.	Leaders should proactively seek to restore trust. Be generous in public and private acknowledgement of work well done, particularly if an inconsistency between departments has been exposed. Be transparent about what’s required locally to achieve reward and recognition, and be consistent in how they are allocated. Have conversations with the affected team members and listen. Don’t “blame” others for the inconsistency, but acknowledge limitations.
An employee is given management responsibility for a project, but his manager requests to approve all project-related activities. An employee is given accountability for a project requiring resource spend but is not given a budget to manage.	“We’re all one team working together towards common goals, and we can operate seamlessly.” “When I put XXX into the management role, I didn't realize how high visibility this project is, and he isn't ready.”	Micromanagement by any other name still stinks. Going back to engagement basics, micromanagement leads to psychological dis-empowerment, which leads to disengagement. Worse, it’s possible that an employee who is given accountability but not authority to manage a project could perceive they are being set up as a scapegoat (which indicates or increases distrust).	Focus on establishing management practices that promote both empowerment and accountability. Set clear and consistent goals, and regularly checking in on these. If a new manager needs additional coaching, help him find it from someone who isn't you. If performance is an issue, address that head-on. No one and no organization benefits when difficult conversations are avoided.

No manager is perfect, and the good news is, disengaging behavior can be counteracted and trust restored with dialogue, respect and consideration.

How have you repaired a situation where disengagement was the unintended consequence of a management decision?