Lupfer\u2019s Pinterest board<\/a> on engagement and then consider these two hypothetical companies: Worldwide Widgets Inc. and Global Gadgets Inc. Which company do you relate to more? Which company do you want to relate to more? Visualize a fully engaged workforce in which you value your employees as people, not job descriptions.<\/p>\nEmpty Memos vs. Subtle Empowerment<\/strong><\/p>\nWW:<\/strong> At Worldwide Widgets, management believes that everything it sends to its employees is read and understood. When the value of employee engagement finally hit home, a memo arrived in everyone\u2019s inboxes indicating that the company cares about how happy, satisfied and engaged its workers are on the job. The memo included a line about vowing to fix its employee engagement issues \u2026 and then nothing happened. Memos are popular at Worldwide Widgets. In fact, when any organizational change happens there, a memo is drafted, sent and promptly ignored by disengaged employees.<\/p>\nGG:<\/strong> At Global Gadgets, management understands the value of employee engagement and is doing things about it at every level. Helping employees feel empowered is critical to engagement, so when Global Gadgets launched an organization-wide change, the company\u2019s CEO got in front of a camera. She announced the change through an enterprise social media channel and asked for feedback. Through the social media tool, employees posted feedback, asked questions and saw from their coworkers\u2019 comments that they are not alone in their concerns. When a lot of employees questioned one particular aspect of the change, management revised its plans. That kind of empowerment really strengthens engagement. At Global Gadgets, employee engagement strategies take a holistic approach and subtle steps. There\u2019s no memo announcing a commitment to employee engagement. They just do it.<\/p>\nWhat a Consultant Says vs. What Your Employees Say<\/strong><\/p>\nWW:<\/strong> A consultant hired by Worldwide Widgets to improve its employee engagement sold the corporate communicators on a Twitter-style tool to anchor their enterprise social media strategy. \u201cIt\u2019s new! It\u2019s exciting! It will allow your employees to engage in real time and share things just like they do on Twitter,\u201d she said. \u201cSounds great! Where do I sign?\u201d the CEO said. The tool launched \u2014 via a memo announcement, of course \u2014 and activity started to grow. And then it dipped. And then it died. The Worldwide Widgets corporate communications team chose a tool without considering how the company\u2019s intended users engage with social media in their own lives. They came to find out too late that their employees aren\u2019t big Twitter users. There was no emotional response to this Twitter-style enterprise social media tool, and so it failed.<\/p>\nGG:<\/strong> With the help of a consultant, Global Gadgets found out what kinds of technologies and tools engage its employees outside of work. It turned out that YouTube and blogs are incredibly popular among its workforce. Instead of trying to force a drastically new tool on its team, the Global Gadgets corporate communications team met them where they are already engaged and comfortable. They developed an internal blog platform that makes creating and sharing videos easy. They launched the blog using a video introduction and tour, showing users how to post and what the blog is all about. Participation steadily grew and has continued to climb. Tapping into that emotional connection to what the employees already had an emotional response to was vital to its success.<\/p>\nRewarding Numbers vs. Rewarding People<\/strong><\/p>\nWW: At<\/strong> Worldwide Widgets, the dollar is the most valued sign of an employee\u2019s contribution to the bottom line. The company is focused on numbers when it assesses performance. \u201cIf he\u2019s bringing in new business or saving us money somehow, then he deserves a reward,\u201d is the general opinion. What management fails to account for are the contributions of other employees to the \u201cmoneymaker\u2019s\u201d overall team. If they didn\u2019t silo knowledge, they would have a clearer understanding of who is contributing to the success of the company.<\/p>\nGG:<\/strong> Through its commitment to engaging employees and the use of enterprise social media tools, Global Gadgets has broken down the barriers of knowledge sharing. By making information, conversations and project updates open and transparent, a team\u2019s overall contribution is visible. Management is able to account for things like the quality of work, the depth of relationships with customers and brand loyalty that a team or department has. This empowers Global Gadgets to recognize and reward entire teams, strengthening their own working relationships to continue on the upswing.<\/p>\nWhere Do You Fall?<\/strong><\/p>\nAre you a Worldwide Widgets or a Global Gadgets? Do you engage with job descriptions or do you engage with humans? If you are serious about realizing the value of employee engagement, remember to treat your employees like people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Something that you need to optimize from your employees is Time and attendance. Without your employee’s engagement then work just won’t be done and your business will suffer. If you doubt the value of employee engagement, it\u2019s not hard to become a believer. On Elizabeth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[344,405,404,350,403,351,406,353,348],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employee-engagement","tag-andy-jankowski","tag-collaboration","tag-communication","tag-employee-adoption","tag-employee-engagement","tag-enterprise-social","tag-enterprise-social-networks","tag-executive-mentoring","tag-knowledge-management"],"yoast_head":"\n
3 Employee Engagement Scenarios for Management Talks<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n