Understanding Your Team Members

Most businesses have tools, equipment, materials, and processing that serve to move the business forward toward success. A lot of these businesses also claim that their greatest resource is their employees, but that claim doesn't always show through. The people in the organization are often replaced with someone new when their performance falters. Just like a piece of equipment, business leaders simply throw out a person that isn't performing up to snuff and believe that replacing them with another, newer model, might solve the issue.

If You Don't Work, You Don't Eat
I am not trying to say that you should hold onto an employee who isn't performing after every effort has been made to train them and find out why their knowledge, skills, and talents are not serving them in their current position. By all means, send them down the road if they are not doing their job. Florida is an at-will state meaning you can fire an employee based on hair color, (please don't do that though--always document an employee's lack of performance and keep an accurate record before you terminate their employment), and stand firm in the stance that if your employees don't work, they don't eat. That means that if they don't work out, do them and yourself a favor and fire them.

But if you've conducted due diligence and vetted your employees, you should already know that you want to try to salvage them whenever possible. If an employee isn't performing up to snuff, take the time to assess why performance may be dwindling. Stay in constant communication with your team members and find out all you can about them--why they are working at your business, what their dreams are, what their family is like, what really gets their creative juices flowing at work--all important factors to understand so you can provide the kind of training and counseling they may need to improve performance.

It's Cheaper to Keep Them
Since business leaders look at the bottom line, understand the costs involved with replacing an employee. The current stats show that it will cost you on average six to nine months salary to replace an employee. So if you have an employee making $40,000 per year, it will cost you $20,000 to $30,000 in recruiting and training expenses. That's pretty expensive! If you're curious, it's not that difficult to figure it out. Based on your attracting, interviewing, screening, hiring, training, and orientation costs, you can rack up a pretty hefty sum. If you want to play with the numbers, use this calculator to determine your costs for replacing an employee.

Begin Today
Beginning this week, make an effort to spend extra time with each employee and find out what makes them tick. You can do this without violating any employment laws simply by taking them for coffee and talking with them. And by the way, this little exercise of being human and paying attention to your team members has an added benefit: the employees begin to notice you are paying closer attention to them and you will gradually notice employee engagement increase.

10 Simple Employee Experience Upgrades You Can Implement Today

Every business wants their employees engaged, but employee engagement becomes elusive if certain barriers are not eradicated and specific practices are not implemented. Eliminating things such as walls impeding communication and removing obstacles that stifle creativity are helpful in opening paths for engagement. In addition, adding best practices such as taking specific steps to enhance the employee experience are just as, and maybe more, crucial. But what exactly is involved with creating a great employee experience and how can it be accomplished? 

Simply put, a good employee experience is basically what employees expect when they come to work: engaging, productive, fulfilling and an overall enjoyable work experience. Many business and HR leaders today are baffled by what creating a good employee experience entails. A recent Deloitte Insights report discovered that almost 80% of executives rated employee experience very important (42%) or important (38%), but only 22% reported that their companies were excellent at creating a differentiated employee experience. This is partly due to confusion about what constitutes a good employee experience.

The employee experience begins at the recruitment stage including screening, any assessments, interviews, and job offering, and continues through the entire employee life cycle. It involves making the work environment conducive to the role of the employee. But developing steps to improve the employee experience is more than upgrading the employee’s physical surroundings, though those are beneficial. It is taking measures to ensure that the employee has a good emotional experience as well.

In today’s ever evolving high-tech world, ideas for creating a good employee experience can be almost limitless. It involves having your finger on the pulse of employee’s desires and customizing the work environment to provide the most productive setting. 

As George Dickson points out in Why Employee Experience Matters to Your Customers, “Your investment in providing an amazing employee experience is a clear and visible indication that you're committed to providing the kind of environment that inspires engagement.” For help with increasing your investment, try these10 simple steps to provide a great employee experience and increase employee engagement:

All Aboard

The development of a program for a great employee experience should be considered from before the employee is hired. One of the most important phases in the lifecycle of an employee is the onboarding phase. A Society of Human Resources article found that on average, companies lose 17% of their new hires during the first three months of employment. 

This is a critical time and should be used wisely to teach the employee about the culture and values of the company. According to a Harvard Business Review piece, Google uses an electronic checklist to remind managers to discuss the roles and responsibilities with new hires. Create a similar list or assign a new hire with a peer buddy to show them the ropes and start off the journey with a good experience.

Think Like A Millennial

According to a Pew Research Center report, Millennials now surpass Generation Xers as the largest generation in the US labor force. This means that workers in the 18-34 age range, or those most digitally savvy, account for the most people working today, (about 76 million). To create a great employee experience, we have to provide the tools and resources that most appeal to this audience. 

A way to create a great employee experience is to offer opportunities to see what career possibilities exist. A Gallup Workplace Panel study found that 51% of employees were looking for a new job. The cause for this is thought to be that many Millennials are searching for ways to improve their careers. To curb the trend of job hopping, one new initiative, The Future Workplace Forecast, found that employers can improve the employee experience by allowing employees to use career mobility platforms digitally to test drive new positions and experience new roles and skills. The study discovered that 15% of those surveyed use mobile apps for delivering career mobility. 

Show A Purpose

Employees don’t want to just show and up and perform a task without knowing why they are there in the first place. They want to know how the dots connect. That is why the simple step of sharing the business purpose is so profound.

The Future Workplace Forecast also found that, “Aligning employees around a common purpose at work surpasses even workplace flexibility and mentoring and coaching as the most important attribute for creating a compelling workplace experience.”  Keep your employees informed and in tune with the direction of the organization.

Invest in Overall Employee Wellness

Many organizations are instituting wellness programs, providing Fitbits to keep track of number of steps walked and offering incentives for engagement in health initiatives. These programs help to keep employees healthy as well as lower healthcare costs for the company.

But the financial health of the employee should also be a concern. An article in Forbes magazine discusses a recent survey conducted by SunTrust Bank that found that 70% of working adults felt a moderate to high level of financial stress in their lives. To counter this trend, SunTrust started an online financial fitness program to help employees save $2,000 in an emergency fund and to also take one paid day off to set up a will, construct a family budget, or going through the online Financial Fitness program offered free to all SunTrust employees.

Solicit Employee Feedback

If we don’t know how to create a great employee experience it is likely due to the fact that we are not assessing the very people who can help us develop a useful and successful program. 

A recent Deloitte Insights study found that 22% of companies survey employees quarterly or more often, 79% survey employees annually or less, and 14% never survey employees at all. Thankfully, there are several apps in the market today that can assist with soliciting and organizing employee feedback. 

Applications such as 15five that allows employees to take 15 minutes to answer a survey from their managers, and managers only need five minutes to review, and Cultureamp that provides tools to run performance reviews and pulse and culture surveys, and managers can review data based on the lifecycle stage of their employees, are just a couple of the many apps available that wise business leaders can use today.

Listen to Employees

Although artificial intelligence, apps, and digital devices are helpful in creating a great employee experience, it is always important to actually listen to your employees and process the feedback. Not only will you receive great ideas for improving the business, but by listening, you enhance the employee experience. 

In a Society for Human Resources article titled Attention to Retention: Keeping Your Best Employees, Sarah J. Meusburger suggests, “Seek input from employees on ways to drive efficiency while maintaining or boosting the quality of the product or service that the company sells… If employees feel that they are being listened to, they are more likely to share ideas and may suggest something that improves a significant aspect of your business.”

Improving the employee experience requires that leaders not only put tools in place for acquiring feedback and ideas from employees, but also showing employees that they are heard and appreciated.

Make Collaboration Easier

Most employees are not fond of working in a silo. They want the interaction with their peers and to be a part of something larger than themselves. Taking steps to make collaboration part of the organization’s culture can improve both company loyalty and the outcome of projects.

Providing access to tools such as company social media sites and cloud-based collaboration tools makes team work easier. Face-to-face teamwork is ideal, but the use of tools such as Flowdock, a group and private chat platform and Slack, a platform offering instant messaging, file transfers and powerful message search, are just two useful collaboration tools available for use.

Provide Opportunities for Growth

Providing opportunities for growth for employees isn’t just about pointing them to the next promotion opening. It is also about providing avenues for them to stretch their mental capabilities. According to Neuroscience News, employees get excited about learning.

Give employees resources that will help them to learn and grow. Partner with a local university that offers classes, provide team training sessions, start a company library, and pay for online classes are just a few ideas you can begin implementing today to improve the employee experience.

Think Customer Experience

To be successful, businesses look at providing the best customer experience possible. Research has shown that in order to provide the best customer experience, employees need to experience what it is like to be a customer. Last year the Tempkin Group reported that companies who deliver outstanding customer experiences have one-and-a-half times more engaged employees than those ranking at the lower end of the scale.

In other words, learning who your employees are. This starts with empathizing with and understanding all employee’s needs, desires and expectations. This is possible through the use of touchpoints throughout the employee’s lifecycle using smartphones, apps, like those offered by Salesforce, and other digital devices. 

Give Specific Rewards

I was brought into a company as a consultant to get rid of what the owner described as a “union mentality.” As I interviewed various top executives I discovered that one of their main concerns was the shilly-shally way in which the owner rewarded the company’s workers. The owner believed that a yearly cruise was enough to satisfy his employees.

Unfortunately, the employees didn’t see it that way. Though they enjoyed the cruise, there was no individual recognition given to employees. There was no announcement made, no pat on the back, no high-five for the many successes each employee played a role in.  

To create a great employee experience, give due recognition and call out the person by name. Make them a star for a day or more. Show respect and appreciation for a job well done.

The Need for a Great Employee Experience 

From recruitment to termination of employment, job candidates today are assessing future employers and making quick judgments about what life will be like for them in the organization, and how employment with a specific organization will impact their daily lives financially, professionally, and emotionally. 

Creating a great employee experience isn’t just about the layout of the work environment, health care benefits, and the employer’s contribution to a 401K, though those are important. But it is more about discovering what is needed to provide the most fulfilling experience emotionally for the employee. It is caring as much about the employee as we do about the customer, even more.

In a Harvard Business Review article, Denise Lee Yohn states, “If a company attends to its employee experience with the same level of discipline and intention that it does to its customer experience, the results can be seen across the board.” In other words, the most vital contribution as a business leader is to design, build, and maintain the right employee experience so that it encourages and produces the very best in your team throughout the organization.

5 Ways Management Styles Impact Employee Engagement

It’s been said that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. In fact, according to a Gallup study found in Gallup’s 2017 “State of the American Workplace” report, 51% of currently employed adults in the US say they are searching for new jobs or watching for new job opportunities. Some of the ship-jumping is due to a particular management style. That doesn’t mean that a particular management style will be detrimental to your workforce, but that some management styles may not be conducive to a specific workforce. The ultimate goal we should all strive for is to adopt a management style that improves and increases employee engagement. 

Another Gallop study found that 70% of employees in America are disengaged costing the US over $550 billion a year in lost productivity. To keep employees engaged requires looking at the workforce and work processes from various angles to determine what could be improved, changed, or simply eliminated to increase engagement. Many areas such as empowerment, work environment, reward processes, and others should be analyzed regularly. But one area of concern that can be dealt with immediately and that will provide instant results is that of management style.

The Styles

There is a time and place for all management styles. No style is good or bad, but it is how and when leaders use them that determines success or failure. Understanding your style of management and how it impacts employee engagement is crucial to the success of your company. What follows are five management styles typically associated with almost every type of business. Depending on where you research, most of these styles can be found to some degree in every organization—and some have different headings, but most styles fall under these categories.

1. Autocratic Management Style

The Autocratic Management style is a traditional style that has been around for a very long time. This is the style that allows the manager to have a “Because I told you so” mentality. In some situations, (think military or firefighting situations), that demand error-free outcomes, this style may be applicable, but is not the best style to be used on a full-time basis. The Autocratic manager doesn’t solicit input from others, believes rules are extremely important, and dictates all methods and processes. 

An example of an Autocratic style is Sam Walton when he was building his Walmart empire or Football legend, Vince Lombardi when he coached the Green Bay Packers. This style was needed to for streamlining processes and growing a customer base. The Autocratic style has proven useful in factory settings or jobs requiring few skills, but is being phased out as managers realize that to create future leaders within the organization, a new approach should be adopted. When the Autocratic style is used in small does as in heavy industry or emergency room situations, it is useful, but it should only be added as cumin is added to dishes when cooking—too much will ruin the outcome. A full-time Autocratic style is not conducive to increasing employee engagement. Use it only as needed.

2.) Coaching Management Style

With the Coaching Management style, the manager helps team members develop their strengths to improve performance. It is a style that motivates employees by providing tools and resources for growth. This is a favored management style for improving employee engagement. The Coaching manager says, “Let me show you how it’s done.” Examples include Tony Hsieh’s style of guiding his customer service team at Zappos or as how philanthropist Andrew Carnegie  coached Charles Schwab who would become the first president of US Steel.

To build Coaching Management style muscles, you must first build a relationship with your team members. According to a Harvard Business Review article, you must, “Understand that before you start coaching, you need to develop a culture of trust and a solid relationship with the people you will be coaching. In spite of your good intentions, all the techniques in the world will make little difference if those you are trying to coach don’t feel connected to you in some way.” 

3.) Affiliative Management Style

First coined by Daniel Goleman in 2002 as one of his six leadership styles, the Affiliative style manager strives to create harmony, not just between employees and manager, but between employees. This style of management puts people first and tasks second. It is very useful in creating a more harmonious work environment and therefore opens pathways to a more engaged workforce. 

Obviously less stressful than the Autocratic Management style, the Affiliative style has its downside when performance falters or a project deadline isn’t met. It’s hard to keep the friendly, people-first attitude without accountability when profits are down. This style is good to adopt and one way to increase it’s effectiveness is to strive to know your team members to build a relationship that caters to their needs while still getting the work done. Former manager Joe Torre of the New York Yankees displayed a Affiliative style recognizing the various contributions of individual players, and then expressing his gratitude for the talent regardless of the score in the game.

4.) Participative Management Style

The Participative Management style encourages the involvement of employees in analyzing problems and strategizing for solutions. Because it creates a sense of ownership in the company, instills a sense of pride and motivates employees to increase productivity in order to achieve their goals, employees become more engaged in their work. Employees feel like they are a part of a team with a common goal, and this builds their self-esteem and generates pride and loyalty.

If you want to create an atomic reaction in your employee engagement, embrace the Participative Management style. To do this, you must be secure in your position and be willing to relinquish some control to your employees. This is not as easy as it sounds, especially if you’ve held most responsibilities close to your chest for a long time, but with an open mind and trust in your team members, it is worth letting go.

When Steve Jobs was fired from his job as leader of Apple, he was using an Autocratic style of leadership. When Jobs was brought back in the mid-1990s, he had adopted a more Participative style, hiring experienced leaders and giving them room to shine. With this style, Apple soared to even greater heights than before as employees were empowered to make decisions. 

5.) Pacesetting Management Style

The last style, as listed in Daniel Goleman’s book, Primal Leadership, is Pacesetting Management style. This is when the manager sets the pace for others to follow. Employees get motivated to keep up with the manager increasing performance and output to please the manager. As Goleman writes, “The [pacesetting] leader holds and exemplifies the highest standard of performance. He is obsessive about doing things better and faster and asks the same of everyone. He quickly pinpoints poor performers, demands more from them, and if they don’t rise to the occasion, rescues the situation himself.”

This style serves as a great motivator, except for the ones who fall behind and is short-lived in serving as a style to increase employee engagement. The long term effect leaves employees exhausted and feeling as if they’ve been pushed too hard. It is useful in spurts and is dependent on the culture of the organization and the products or service they provide. Use cautiously and when conditions are right for an all-out sprint. 

With the Pacesetting style, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric comes to mind. Welch vowed to lead by example and encouraged his executives to do the same. Welch, nicknamed “Neutron Jack,” managed by what he coined the four E's of leadership: energy, energize, edge, and execution. Employees followed his pace and GE excelled to greater heights under his leadership. 

Hone Your Style

Obviously, the manager relationship is highly correlated with employee engagement. A good marker for the strength of the relationship is how comfortable an employee is approaching their manager with any type of question. One example of this is the subject of goal setting. A Gallup survey uncovered that when employees were asked to rate their feelings on the statement, “My manager helps me set performance goals,” 69% of employees who replied “strongly agree” were considered engaged in their work, compared to 8% who responded “disagree” or “strongly disagree.”

The best managers seem to adopt a few attributes of almost every style listed above to use in various situations. But management styles don’t just happen. Managers are made, not born so consistent quality training is required to hone a great management style. According to a Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) article, “Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement,” middle managers need to be trained for their roles, empowered by being given larger responsibilities, and more involved in strategic decisions. The article states that if an organization's executives and HR professionals want to hold managers accountable for the engagement levels, they should:

• Make sure that managers and employees have the tools to do their jobs correctly.
• Periodically assign managers larger, more exciting roles.
• Give managers appropriate authority.
• Accelerate leadership development efforts.
• Ask managers to convey the corporate mission and vision and to help transform the organization.

The Goal is Engagement

Learning what styles are most effective for engaging your workforce is crucial to your organization’s success. In a recent Forbes article, former Navy SEAL, Brent Gleeson writes that great managers ensure they acquire and develop great talent by getting the right people on the bus and making sure they are in the right seats. They actively prioritize engagement. Their team’s activities align perfectly behind the mission narrative of the organization.

The management style you use is dependent on the circumstances you and your team may be encountering at that precise moment. Is there a need to be more autocratic because a crisis is at hand? Is it time to set the pace or is this a situation where coaching is more appropriate? Often managers must take on the role of a chameleon and change colors as the environment changes. But the ultimate goal of any style is to aim for 100% employee engagement.

Read more of my management articles at Bonus.ly

Eliminating Cultural Contradiction

"I have a foundational belief that business results start with culture and your people." --- Douglas Conant

The culture of a company plays more of a role toward the success of a business than most people know. The stale, dictionary definition of culture is,"The totality of socially transmitted behavior, patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and other products of human work and thought." All true, which is why cultural issues is the number one reason people leave a company--not compensation and not job fulfillment.

Creating a culture that embraces the company's vision and mission as well as satisfies employee's desires for belonging ensures the success of the business. Just how to do that eludes business leaders as they attempt to apply the latest gimmick to get employees to buy into their ideas and increase job engagement.

Thankfully there is a solution: Use this simple three-step process to jump start your desired business culture. Applying these steps will help you set the foundation for creating a culture that supports your business ideas and provides an inviting and encouraging work environment. 

I. Know and communicate your Mission, Vision and Values statement.

If you haven't already formulated these, do so today. One of the best ways to do this is to form a Mission, Vision, and Values committee to gather input from your team members and brainstorm until completed. Make this a priority and try to knock it out in a couple of weeks. 

Three things to remember when designing these statements:

1. Make sure it fits your business
2. Keep it short and easy to remember. (Edit it and cut out unnecessary words, then edit again and make more cuts).
3. Have majority, if not unanimous buy-in. If not, go back and start again.

II. Once your statements are complete, reinforce that culture.

The reason many businesses fail in establishing the desired culture is because they typically post their Mission Statement on the wall and then forget about it. They expect everyone to know it and follow it's principles and it is simply not that easy. 

Make it a priority to reinforce your Mission, Vision, and Values throughout the week. In your weekly meetings, show examples of how an employee's or team's work reflected the company's values. Illustrate through customer surveys how the company's vision is coming through. Encourage feedback from team members on just how the culture of the company is viewed in the eyes of the community or vendors or even the competition. 

III. Give your culture the freedom to evolve.

Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos, experimented with his company culture for many years before realizing that if you hire great people, share your values, and then let them run, a lasting culture eventually evolves. All you have to do is steer the company in the right direction. Try to remember that although the company has your values as the foundation, implementing your message may take many courses. For example, you may prefer separate offices with doors that will close, while your team may agree that an open environment without walls allows them to produce a better product or service. Or you may prefer white walls with doctor office paintings but your team members bring in a stuffed zebra, balloons, music, and even their pets. The bottom line is to develop a culture that works and not necessarily get wrapped up in the journey it takes to get there.

Try this three-step process today to begin creating a company culture that breeds success. It takes time, but is well worth it in the long run.

TOTAL IMMERSION

"Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." --  Mark Twain 

I couldn't swim.  I mean, I could survive in water for a short time, but I couldn't swim with any kind of form, and definitely not competitively. 

I was a runner at the time, competing in everything from 5Ks to ultra-marathons. Triathlons were the rage and my new girlfriend had completed a full Ironman so I wanted to learn how to swim so I too could compete.  I joined the YMCA and spent countless hours in the pool.  My girlfriend showed me how to swim.  The lifeguards showed me how to swim.  Even other swimmers I didn't know tried to teach me the ropes, but none of the tips, tricks, or demonstrations helped.  

Then, I discovered the book, Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin and John Delves. From cover to cover the authors spoke to me explaining the fundamentals of swimming that I could grasp and apply.  I begin using the techniques from the book and within a short time I was swimming!  I didn't make the Olympic team or set any records, but I did feel comfortable and glided through the water like never before.

Why even share this story?  Because training does not always provide blanketed coverage.  Not all training sessions work for all attendees. Sometimes you have to provide customized training for various trainee needs. This book, from 1996, not only helped make me a swimmer (and end the embarrassment of having my girlfriend teach me), but unveiled three key points that should be applied to all employee training:

1.) Start from the ground- When training team members, it is important to remember that training requires beginning from the ground up.  Too often organizations will try to build upon skills, knowledge, talents, and abilities that aren't there.  A great deal of assumption is applied to the performance levels of employees.  

In Total Immersion, the authors state, "The body struggles to learn complicated motions-- like a fluid and powerful swim stroke.  But it easily masters the simple ones into which every complicated motion can be broken. Start from the ground up, gradually and easily assembling all the parts of an improved stroke using unique, bite-size skill drills."  We need to do the same for our employees.  Taking the necessary baby steps in order to reach the more advanced degrees of training ultimately produces greater performance levels.

2.) Eliminate drag-  One of the best illustrations in the Total Immersion book is a drawing of a barge beside a yacht.  The barge was me, swimming on my stomach and plowing through the water, exhausted when I got to the end of the pool.  The yacht is how I was supposed to look, swimming on my side, knifelike up front, easy for the water to go around.  I was creating drag instead of eliminating it.

I would imagine that some of your team members are doing the same thing right now.  They are a drag on the company, its resources, and its production level.  It is not intentional (I hope not!  If so, read this article), but if the employees don't understand the "why" it is difficult to appreciate the "how," or the lessons given them during training.  Give them the reasons why they are training first and how it affects the overall picture of the company.  Do this and you will eliminate, or at least reduce the drag.

3.) If it feels good, do it some more - In Chapter 7 of Total Immersion, the authors explain the difference between sensory skill practice and drill-and-swim.  "Drill-and-swim is training-wheel swimming in that if you start to fall, you can fall back on the drills for support.  Sensory skill practice takes the wheels off for as long as you can leave them off.  It challenges you to pedal straight and true, as far as you can go, before starting to wobble again."

The point here is that the drills, or baby steps, teach team members what the sensation should feel like.  Sensory skill practice brings it all together.  When an employee gets it, they and you will know it.  When I got the swimming down, I jumped out of the water with excitement.  The drills worked, and when it all came together, I just knew it.  I felt it.  When employees get it, it simply feels right.

Whether it is technical training, customer service training, sales training, or manual skills training, it pays to formulate a training plan that speaks to every employee.  A gloss-over training session does very little to improve performance. But total immersing employees in bite-size nuggets of training goes a long way toward developing a more professional and productive workforce.

4 REASONS WHY OVERWORK IS OVERRATED

by Stephen Duncan

Hard work pays off. Everyone knows this to be true. There is, however, a difference between working hard and simply overworking. In the workplace, the ability to work long hours and being on-call 24/7 are generally traits that are applauded, but studies have shown that overwork is not always beneficial to the employees themselves or the company at large, and can in fact be harmful in the long run. Here’s why: 

1. Overworking can lead to a number of health problems

Impaired sleep and memory, diabetes, headaches, stomach tenseness, and depression have all been linked to overworking. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health also discovered a link between overworking and alcoholism, noting that employees who work long hours are 12% more likely to partake in “risky alcohol use.” Related studies have shown that humans possess finite capacities for extended, uninterrupted concentration, and have concluded that short breaks are essential for long hour work sessions.

2. Overworking can make employees worse at their jobs

In addition to the health risks, overworking can also diminish one’s energy and senses, which can in turn lead to increased difficulty in essential job traits such as judgment and communication. These fatigue-induced problems could surface in a number of different forms: employees who are overworked could be more likely to lash out when they are upset, they could struggle more with making important decisions, they could have more trouble identifying and handling problems, or they could simply have a more negative outlook in the workplace altogether. It has also been statistically proven that a mere 1-3% of the population can get away with sleeping only five or six hours a night without suffering from any performance-related consequences.

3. Overworking can make employees lose sight of their goals

Along with possessing a dulled-down skill set, studies have shown that overworking can cause employees to become more distracted, and as a result, lose sight of what they are ultimately working toward in the first place. Interestingly, these studies have been linked to Facebook usage patterns. A study conducted by the social media management company Vitrue indicated that the highest Facebook usage occurs in the day during the middle of the afternoon (around 3:00 PM), in the peak hours of fatigue for most people.

4. Overworking doesn’t actually result in more output

New research done by John Pencavel of Stanford University has shown that employees who put in 70+ hours of work a week do not actually produce more output than those who work 50 hours a week. Additionally, Erin Reid of Boston University’s Questrom School of Business found that managers could not even differentiate employees who worked 80 hours a week from employees who simply said they did but actually worked less. 

The evidence is clear—overworking is overrated, and is not helpful in the workplace. Sure, working overtime once in a while can be beneficial, but when it becomes a habit, it produces disadvantageous effects. So how does one combat overwork when there’s so much work to be done? Every bit of research has suggested the same treatment:  small breaks throughout the day. A simple 15-minute break during work hours has been proven to reactivate one’s mind and energy, increasing one’s decision-making and communication skills, and putting their goals into perspective once again. 

Applying Cookie-Cutter Business Practices to Improve Employee Engagement Doesn’t Work —- Just Being There Does

With all the talk, hype, suggestions, practices, and training that goes into employee engagement, I believe it is important that we first understand what is meant by employee engagement and from that starting point we can identify how our organization can improve this business concept.  In a nutshell, an engaged employee is one who is enthusiastic about his work and strives to do what is best for the organization.  We all want employees who are engaged and who work to serve the interest of our business, but what does it take to get employees not just engaged, but on fire at work?   There are three things your organization can do now to begin stoking a fire in your employees.

These three steps are simple, but often overlooked.  That is because many business leaders are looking to identify a problem with their employees when the first step should be to look inwardly.  Taking ownership of the responsibility for employee engagement is the basis for motivating employees to be engaged and setting your team members on fire.  

1.) Let your light shine.  A recent Gallup survey revealed that 70% of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” and are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive.  Currently, 52% of workers are not engaged, and worse, another 18% are actively disengaged in their work costing the US between $450 billion to $550 billion each year in lost productivity.

How about you?  Are you engaged?  Does your work energy exude a sense of engagement?  Leaders that walk the walk doing what they say their values are and working in line with what they say the company’s mission is, are more likely to have engaged employees that follow in their path.  

Look inward and see if there are areas of your work where you are not fully engaged.  Find out why.  It could be a lack of belief in one area of the direction of the business or a faulty understanding of the organization’s mission and vision.  Take the necessary steps to get back in the game.  Your team members are watching you.

2.) Talk about it.  Leaders that assume that their actions alone should be enough to inspire employees end up frustrated.  The smart players will talk it up with the troops taking every opportunity to discuss the direction of the company, various successes, and interesting challenges.  

In order to fan the flame of enthusiasm in your employees, it is necessary to communicate on a regular basis your vision for the future.  Weekly meetings, company parties, one-on-one meetings, and company-wide correspondence are just a few examples of tools you can use to help get your employees more engaged.

3.) Brag a little.  Don’t be ashamed to use peer-pressure to your advantage.  When you become aware of an employee’s success in a project or a customer service situation, broadcast it to the troops.  Share with everyone what that individual or team did to propel the organization forward.

The psychology behind this boasting session provides results that are twofold:  First, when others see what can be accomplished, and the positive reactions and consequences surrounding the outcome, they too want to strive for the same; and second, the team members being doted on now have internal flames that are burning all the more.  Acknowledging people is another way to ensure that your employees become more engaged in their work everyday.

These three steps are all controlled by you.  They are not a “formula of the day” to get employees  on fire and engaged in their work.  It is a foundational application that comes from within and one you can use to build upon.  Application of these three key points, that come from both the gut and the heart, will work in any workplace setting.

Employee Engagement

One of the most challenging aspects of people management is keeping all team members engaged. A workforce with employee engagement is obviously more productive than one that is not engaged. Business leaders who make it a priority to make sure they have an engaged workforce reap the rewards of improved morale, increased productivity, a better bottom line, and a more loyal team.

Good softward management systems are available for businesses to use to increase the engagement of employees. Often times, employee engagement is a symptom of other things not being addressed in the workplace such as management and leadership practices, communication breakdowns, poorly conducted performance reviews, monetary and other motivational practices, and more. Smart business leaders keep their team members engaged in their work. The first step to improving employee engagement is understand what employee engagement is and then to begin the process of improving communication between the owners and/or management of the company and the employees. Click Here to learn about how your business can better achieve employee engagement among team members.

Communication begins with making sure that all communication tools such as employee handbooks, job descriptions, and mission, vision, and purpose statements are implemented and communicated to all team members, but business leaders also need a good management system that can provide results. Mass Ingenuity is the answer. They are a consulting and product company that created the NOW Management System, perfect for improving operating effectiveness and efficiency.

Boredom at Work

Some maintain that boredom is a vehicle to creativity. Some, would argue that in work environments where creativity isn't fostered, boredom spreads like dandelions in a Spring lawn.

Whatever your own take on the issue is, the truth is that at one point or another boredom at work affects us all. Nobody is immune.

You know what I am talking about.

The days when time just doesn't pass fast enough to get away from work, the days when our neurons need Drano to let one squalid thought get through, when our eyes are like magnets to any time telling device, and our fingers are Velcro on your car keys.

Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination. Lin Yutang.

Psychologist Stephen Vodanovich of the University of West Florida says that, "The most common way to define boredom in Western culture is having nothing to do." No definition is ever without flaw, and this in my humble-non-psychologist-view is no exception. Boredom, as I have observed and experienced it, has more to do with things like frustration and blahness, than with lack of things to do. It is more closely related to a lack of willingness to overcome what has paralyzed us to begin with.
I am partial to a piece Fritz Redl wrote based on children's boredom and behavior:
"Boredom will always remain the greatest enemy of school disciplines. If we remember that children are bored, not only when they don't happen to be interested in the subject or when the teacher doesn't make it interesting, but also when certain working conditions are out of focus with their basic needs, then we can realize what a great contributor to discipline problems boredom really is. Research has shown that boredom is closely related to frustration and that the effect of too much frustration is invariably irritability, withdrawal, rebellious opposition or aggressive rejection of the whole show. "
Now change the word children to bored adults at work...shockingly it all makes sense, right?
So what's a mere mortal to do? What is a leader, motivator, manager, team associate to do to get out of the bore-funk?
It is always a good idea to try and figure out how we got there in the first place before setting out to change a behavior. Keep that in mind (as some strategies might not apply to you or your team members) as you read on.

You'll find boredom where there is the absence of a good idea. Earl Nightingale

Boredom has very few positives, and mostly will affect your work place by increased absenteeism, lack of engagement, low productivity, Internet abuse, errors, and verbal and physical aggression. So here are a few points to help you fight the boredom-blues:
Ask questions & listen- Too often boredom is not identified quick enough. It is like a loud radio playing in the background, we know something is bugging us but we can't quite put our finger on it. Most times we fail to recognize feelings of boredom until it evolves into something else (generally something worse), and engagement surveys don't usually address this topic. Remember that while under performing employees might share their frustrations, highly driven employees can appear engaged and be bored at the same time. Neither of you may notice the boredom as the work is still getting done well...you will only learn about it when you see your valued employee walk away into more exciting territory...elsewhere. So take time during your one on one meetings and point blank ask: "Do you feel bored with your activities?" or "Is there any part of your role here you think you are bored with?"...you get the idea. Be candid. Listen. Find solutions together.
Challenge yourself and your staff- And more importantly, teach them how to self-challenge, e.g., learn a new skill, teach others something one has mastered, etc. Put your ear down the railroad tracks of past mistakes and, instead of merely punishing, take the time to teach and retrain.
Energize yourself and others- This begins with your morning greeting, and no, not being a morning person is not an excuse for grumpiness or being short with one another. Surprise someone with a morning snack and five minutes of random conversation. Smile. Seriously. Smiles can do wonders, didn't you know? Oh, and a sense of humor never hurts...
As much as possible avoid repetitive tasks- Be as creative as the job allows. Allow team members to switch tasks, take a breather, give them a learning hour or day, encourage them to shadow other roles (this is a great investment to see how other departments can work better together...think old SouthWest Airlines business model).
Avoid the status quo & make lists- That's right, whenever something frustrates you (or your associates) write it down and later (when frustration wore off) think about ways in which you can avoid this in the future. Each moment of frustration experienced enhances your chances to contribute to the company's success and your own. But only if these moments are capitalized on. So go ahead, try it, write it down and watch perspectives change.