Your Role in Engaging Employees
We’ve spent this month investigating exceptional customer service. It turns out that this requires engaged employees.
What do you need to do to engage your employees?
Many people who supervise others give away their control of–and responsibility for–employee engagement. They think that keeping good employees is all about money, benefits and “perks” and they know they have no influence over these things.
Everything we teach points to the fact that you can influence employee engagement in a very big way. We’re not the only ones who think so.
According to Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans in their book, Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, “In addition to fair pay, people want
- challenging, meaningful work,
- a chance to grow and learn,
- great co-workers,
- recognition and respect, and
- a good boss.”
Of course, senior leadership and organizational policies matter; employees, too, have to take responsibility for their own satisfaction. However, your role is crucial.
So what can you do?
Here are five things you can get started on right away:
- Know your people and provide them with opportunities to play to their strengths.
- Define the desired performance for your employee with the particulars of how well and how often the task needs to be done. Be clear with him or her about how you will assess the performance.
- Give clear instructions so your employee knows exactly what to do and what procedures to follow.
- Tell your employee that she or he has done a good job and what they did that made it a good job.
- Reward your employee for doing a good job.
Next month…it’s all about relationships!
