4Cs Blog: Happy Employees = Happy Customers

You Are Not Going That Way!

When it comes to the pursuit of Employee Engagement what does the direction you are looking have to do with it? 

From an employee survey perspective looking back and looking forward have a lot to do with employee engagement. We find that a lot of employee survey companies only want to look back to find out how you got where you are. It is true that if you suffering from turnover, low productivity, low morale and there is an air of discontent in your workplace, looking back gives you some historical perspective to better understand what may have gone wrong and what might not be working. We find employees have a very good sense of where they stand and how they feel and when asked they will share these thoughts and opinions with you. Most often we find they appreciate being asked and are happy and motivated to tell you (as long as they are confident their anonymity is completely protected). And you may shudder to discover you have what we politely refer to as 'areas of concern'.

We strongly recomment that you commit to knowing the level of employee engagement in your organization to ensure you are healthy because as we explain here,  ignoring any 'areas of concern' will cause greater problems over time.

But we also find there is a lot of evidence that shows there is great value in asking employees about the future too.

Millennials are quickly becoming the world’s leaders, which means it really is time to figure out what you want to be when you grow up. But in a time when there are so many more career possibilities than becoming a doctor, teacher, policeman or astronaut, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by what path to choose. So how about venturing outside the proverbial box? Below are four ideas perfect for the millennials in search of a not-so-ordinary career path.

In most organizations one out of 10 employees has their foot out the door.

We call this group Satisfied Opportunists because they appear satisfied when actually they are just waiting for a better opportunity to come along. In other words they could care less about you and are hard-wired to jump ship at any moment. You might even wish that they would quit already instead of wasting valuable resources.

Using our loyalty matrix you can actually classify all your employees into one of four groups of employees and when you do this, you get a very clear picture of your workforce and where they stand in terms of being loyal to you and, more importantly, how long they plan to stay. Not only does this information help you to predict and manage turnover it also allows you to see areas of opportunity where you can make changes that will increase employee engagement, loyalty and retention simultaneously.

To classify all your employees into one of four groups we ask two key questions- how satisfied employees are, and how long they expect to stay at the organization. Years of surveying employees has revealed to us that most people know exactly how long they plan to stay if nothing changes.

What gets you up and out of bed and off to work every day?

For some of us the work we do is challenging, engaging, stimulating, meaningful and it might even be important. Many employees would say they love their jobs so much that what they get paid is secondary. But work for the majority of people has none of these characteristics. Just think about the people whose work is monotonous, meaningless and soul-deadening. These are workers who get up and head off to factories, call centers and warehouses where the only reason they do what they do is for pay. As many would say, what other reason is there?

In a recent TED Talk Barry Schwartz suggested Adam Smith, the father of the industrial Revolution for creating this situation saying Smith, “was convinced that human beings were by their very natures lazy, and wouldn't do anything unless you made it worth their while, and the way you made it worth their while was by incentivizing, by giving them rewards. That was the only reason anyone ever did anything”. Smith, the guy who gave us this incredible invention of mass production said of people who worked in assembly lines “He generally becomes as stupid as it is possible for a human being to become”.

 An effective offices runs on interdependence, positivity, trust and communication, and a great way to nurture these traits is through team building activities. Some of these activities can also carry over valuable lessons into real life. A successful round of team building requires careful planning. Keep in mind that team exercises should be within the capabilities of all employees, so give careful consideration to any limitations individuals might have. If an exercise involves strenuous activity, some participants may be physically incapable of such exertion, therefore forced to watch others participate, and feeling left out. Here are two low-impact team building exercises with real-life applications that can bring any office team's efficiency and morale.

Having a work addiction might not be good for your health but the same could be said of people suffering from work withdrawal.

What is work withdrawal? In many ways, it is the coming to terms with the fact that your work just didn’t turn out to be as great as you had once hoped. We all start our careers full of hope, confident that with the right attitude and effort will we achieve our goals but for most of us, we get let down, our bubbles are burst and we withdraw. The addiction we hoped we would have with our jobs, that deep connection that would make work worthwhile, is lost.

Meanwhile, as an employer, you are seeing sales declining, profits shrinking, people quitting, customers complaining and going elsewhere. Morale is low and it feels like nobody cares. As an employee research company we see it too. Our Employee Engagement Index is only 67 on a 0-100 scale so there is a lot of room for improvement.

These are all signs that your employees are suffering withdrawal and the clues are probably staring you in the face.

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