Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Employee engagement Is a choice that is silently made. Each day, employees make decisions about whether to get involved with their work, how much discretionary effort to exert, and how committed they are to the company that provides them a paycheck. These choices drive business performance at all levels including customer service, innovation, problem solving and ultimately productivity.
For reasons known only to them, these employees have made decisions to back off or “quit” on the job. That leaves employers with only 26 percent of employees providing an acceptable return on their annual compensation.
At best, companies are achieving a 50 percent return on their total compensation investments (RoTC), which includes salary, vacation pay, benefits, incentives and bonuses, as well as profit sharing and 401(k) contributions. Because disengagement occurs at varying levels, there is some return even for those who are low to moderately disengaged. It’s not zero. That’s why the average is 50 percent return across the board. A $50,000 disengaged employee provides a paltry $25,000 RoTC.
Disengagement has a debilitating effect on business resulting in:
Engagement is critical to company performance and to reaching strategic and financial goals, according to PwC’s 2014 State of Human Resources Report.
The strength of a business, regardless of industry, depends on employees choosing to invest in their work intellectually, emotionally and with their actions and behaviors.
Knowing what to look for is critical in understanding their choices and reversing disengagement.
These areas include:
In each of these areas, employees make choices based on boulders or barriers—real and/or perceived—about whether to back off, slow down, unplug and become disenfranchised. This is the behavior of disengagement.
Key employees are those individuals you count on to lead or be the next leader, innovate, produce, and serve as role models for others. Select one to five key employees who are performing well; they may be your “stars.”
Since their performance impacts a minimum of 12 other employees, start with them in the first phase of your engagement strategy. They become chartered to work with those they influence in phase two. This approach filters engagement throughout the organization and dramatically impacts productivity and a profitable return on your compensation expenses. The path to higher levels of engagement is to:
To successfully navigate this path, the silence must be broken.
Every business has some degree of organizational silence—even businesses with open door cultures and sound communication strategies. The silence that impacts engagement is the silence that exists between employee and manager—in fact, where most organizational silence exists. It is in the space between employee and manager that engagement work must begin if it is to be effective.
There are four essential elements to this type of conversation:
To diagnose boulders and create the path forward, the layers need to be peeled back to unravel the essence of the boulder and the choices blocking engagement. Sometimes, the manager is able to have this important conversation with the employee, while in some situations it requires another individual to facilitate.
Essentially, the conversation identifies the boulder and its importance to the employee. Once a key employee’s boulders and choices are understood and common ground is reached, a game plan is created to resolve the boulder and re-engage the employee.
Let’s look at a specific situation.
Jennifer is a lending officer in a community bank. She is considered a key employee due to her relationships within the community and her consistently high production.
In January, her company rolled out an all-employee engagement initiative called “We Are A Team.” The fanfare was fun and the intentions well meaning. In April and May, Jennifer’s productivity dropped, which prompted the regional vice president to call Jennifer’s manager and ask, “Is Jennifer thinking about leaving?”
Jennifer’s manager did not know. He also did not know that she is receiving several recruiting calls weekly and is listening to them.
If Jennifer’s manager had the boulder conversation, he would learn that Jennifer’s recent involuntary relocation to new—but not totally completed—office space with a new, inexperienced assistant is the source of stress and is time consuming. The boulder could be remedied only through constructive conversation.
Settling for our current level of employee disengagement is settling for less than what is available and within reach.
One to five key employees in your company will have an impact on 12 to 16 other employees. Make sure the impact is one of high engagement resulting in increased productivity. Break through the silence first with your key employees and hear productivity roar.
