Employee engagement - are you making these 10 mistakes?
Employee engagement doesn’t happen overnight, it takes effort, investment, focus and hard work. There’s no magic formula - if there were I’d be writing to you from my home in the Bahamas. The truth is, I’ve seen many organisations try really hard with an employee engagement initiative that often fails - thanks to some really basic mistakes.
From my experience people go to work wanting to be engaged and motivated, so where does it all go wrong?
I’m going to walk you through these top ten mistakes - so you don’t have to make them.
There are two broad and underlining principles that any organisation needs to get right - trusting people to do the right thing and creating a feeling of belonging. Many of the mistakes happen because these things tend to get overlooked.
Want good employee engagement? Don’t do these things…
1. Think your line managers are naturally good at managing. The biggest disengagement factor is often the way we are managed. Many line managers are not skilled to be great people managers and companies offer little or no support. So, investing in line manager training is a good move. Remember... “People join an organisation – but leave a manager”…
2. Be vague about your purpose. If you aren’t clear about your purpose – how can you expect your people to be? Communicate clearly what you are about as an organisation. It helps to build a sense of purpose. Lack of clarity breeds disengagement.
3. Refer to the Employee Handbook. How many of you have an Employee Handbook full of rules that really aren’t that necessary? What message does that send? Trust your people to do the right thing.
4. Have an Employee Engagement initiative and announce it with a fanfare. I often hear the words “Let’s have an initiative on improving employee engagement this year. There’s a big fanfare with lots of activity in the first two months and then that’s done! It should be business as usual - the ‘way we do things around here.’
5. Have an Annual Engagement Survey. Closely following on from the fanfare I often hear the cry “let’s have an engagement survey!” Make feedback a continual process. How would you feel if you were only asked for your thoughts once a year? And why not ask people rather than asking them to fill in an online survey.
6. Put in a pool table - but the reality doesn’t match the gesture. Soon after the engagement survey, in goes the pool table. This is the pool table that no one plays on because they are worried what management will think if they do. If everything else is not right then this will have a negative impact and be seen as a token gesture. You can’t create fun if it’s not fun to work there.
7. Have a rising stars programme. I have seen many, none really work. The real issues are around who and how people get selected, what learning they have and then what happens to them after the programme finishes. And what about the people who are not considered rising stars because they did not make it onto the programme? How does that make them feel? Treat people individually and develop them accordingly.
8. Have an Employee of the Month. But isn’t recognition a good thing Rich? It is. But peer to peer recognition works much better. It comes from within where everyone has a say. That’s a lot more engaging than one person being singled out - and on what basis anyway?
9. Have an annual appraisal scheme. It’s a bit like the survey. Why wait all year? Why fill in countless number of pages? Have informal regular one to ones.
10. Pay bonuses based on performance. From my experience it can only lead to a demotivated team. Assessing your performance grade is often subjective and will probably be subject to a regrade once HR get hold of it.
In summary
Actually, it’s all very simple. Employee engagement doesn’t require a degree in rocket science. Some of the above are really obvious mistakes when you stand back and think about them. Of course I recognise that some of these practices are embedded in organisations over time. So, be bold and change them!
Author: Richard Roberts
Posted on: Friday 31st May 2019