‘Keeping employees engaged is one of the biggest challenges for Managers. Happy people are productive people, and research suggests relationships are the biggest single determinant of productivity within a group. It’s incredibly important for Managers to motivate and provide direction. We believe that ethical, active and effective Managers are engaging Managers.’
– F.Orsborn, City Bank
She says it’s important to pursue a level of emotional and intellectual commitment from employees “we do this by listening to our employees and giving them a voice, valuing and respecting their feedback and following through on our promises and responsibilities to each other, our customers and community.
Communication is at the core of everything—from top down, internally and externally, and is the core to employee engagement. Karen Schmidt identifies 5 different kinds of organizational cultures that contribute to employee disengagement including the don’t question culture, where people leave their brains at the door, and don’t question anything for fear of rocking the boat. This breeds a reactive organisation where staff don’t use their initiative.
“The Gallop 2006 Australian Engagement Study suggests 21% of employees are truly engaged, 61% are not engaged and 18% are actively disengaged.”
– The Weekend Australian, March 22-23 2008
With these results, it’s critical that our Leaders get to know their people to identify their untapped needs, values and talents. There’s an old saying ’understanding people’s needs is half the job of meeting them.’ Sometimes when we’re juggling task, team maintenance and individual needs, it’s the individual needs we drop first!