Employee Engagement Archives - CHCI

Energizing Excellence: A Dive into Employee Engagement and Inspiration

admin — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 04:54:14 +0000

In any organization, employee engagement is one of the keys to productivity and efficiency. The cost of disengagement is high, often leading to decreased productivity, increased turnover, and reduced profitability. To combat these challenges, it’s essential for leaders to have a clear understanding of human motivation in theory and practice, and to effectively engage their workforce using various tools and techniques.

In this blog, we will discuss the importance of employee engagement and three specific tools that leaders can use to foster engagement and inspiration.

What is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is not the same as job satisfaction or happiness – individuals can be satisfied with their jobs but remain disengaged. John Smythe from The Chief Engagement Officer defined employee engagement as the extent to which people are personally involved in the success of a business. Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.

Tools for Fostering Employee Engagement and Inspiration

Let’s delve into three specific tools that leaders can utilize to foster employee engagement and inspiration among their team members. These tools can help create a positive work environment and encourage employees to perform at their best.

Tool #1: Building Trust

Trust is the bedrock of any successful relationship, and the relationship between a leader and their team is no exception. Leaders leave a lasting impact or ‘wake’, shaped by their actions and decisions, much like the trail left behind by a boat moving through water.

This wake influences both the results achieved, and the relationships formed within a team. Building trust involves assessing one’s own actions, understanding their short and long-term impacts, and ensuring that these actions inspire confidence and hope rather than breeding resentment or distrust. Stephen M. R. Covey’s diagram below explains the important elements in building trust, making it easier to understand the steps to creating and maintaining trust.

Here are some tips for building trust:

Reflect on the wake you’re leaving behind. Every interaction matters.
Build credibility through demonstrating your character and competence.
Understand the risks and opportunities involved in any given situation.

Tool #2: Engaging in Two-Way Feedback

Feedback is a vital element of effective leadership. Constructive, focused, and fact-based feedback can significantly improve an employee’s performance. A whopping 72% of employees believe that their performance would improve with actionable feedback. However, giving feedback is an art. For positive feedback, make it specific, connect it to the impact, and make it part of an ongoing conversation. For negative feedback, the focus should be on the facts and behavior without assuming intent. Provide affirmation alongside critique and ask open-ended questions to confirm understanding and gain commitment on next steps.

In a virtual environment, providing feedback requires additional considerations. Connect on a human level, provide early feedback, keep it bite-sized, and avoid ‘hit and run’ feedback. As for receiving feedback, employees need to prepare themselves mentally, stay present, reflect, ask clarifying questions, thank the person, and take necessary actions. Making feedback a routine part of your organizational culture can be transformative.

Here are some tips for creating a culture of feedback:

Make feedback specific, timely, and focused on behavior, not the person.
Foster a culture of open communication where feedback is a routine part of operations.
Embrace a mindset of growth and learning, both when giving and receiving feedback.

Tool #3: Delegating and Setting Expectations

Delegation is not merely assigning tasks; it is a journey up the ‘Expectation Mountain’.

Leaders need to clearly communicate the five W’s: Who, What, When, Where, and Why, along with the standards of quality and time. Gaining commitment from the team or an individual is essential, and this is where open-ended questions can be incredibly helpful. Understanding and discussing the potential consequences, both positive and negative, can also promote commitment and motivation.

Active coaching plays a significant role in the process of delegation. It involves setting up periodic check-ins or in-progress reviews (IPRs) to monitor the progress and recalibrate strategies as necessary. Coaching not only ensures the task is on track but also keeps the leader engaged without appearing to micro-manage.

Here are some tips delegating effectively and setting the right expectations:

Clearly define tasks and set realistic expectations.
Delegate by climbing the ‘Expectation Mountain’: communicate, gain commitment, and then coach.
Regularly check-in and provide support and guidance as needed.

By using these three tools, leaders can create a work environment that is conducive to employee engagement and inspiration. A leader’s commitment to understanding human motivation and utilizing tools to foster trust, provide constructive feedback, and delegate effectively is the cornerstone of successful employee engagement. An engaged workforce goes beyond increased productivity and efficiency. It breeds an environment of overall growth that drives the long-term success of the organization.

However, remember that every organization and every team is unique. Leaders must adapt their approaches to fit the specific needs and characteristics of their workforce, blending different leadership styles and employee engagement strategies.

Have you ever worked in an environment where employee engagement was a primary focus? What strategies have you found most effective in building trust, giving and receiving feedback, and delegating tasks? We’re interested in your experiences, insights, and questions about employee engagement. Your stories and thoughts can inspire others and provide valuable learning for organizations seeking to improve their employee engagement strategies. Leave a comment below, send us an email, or connect with us on Twitter.

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Engaging Employees Through Sustainability

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 10:14:37 +0000

So you want to start an employee engagement program? BBMG recently released a white paper that addresses sustainability as an organizational core value, which not only helps the planet but also increases employee engagement. Their rationale is that having this type of transcendent vision gives employees purpose and empowerment, if executed correctly.

BBMG’s data links sustainability to the rising Millennial generation (born between 1980-2000), including:

86% of Millennials would consider leaving an employer whose social responsibility values no longer reflected their own.
79% of Millennials would likely accept a job at an eco-friendly company over a conventional one.
About 55% of men and women under 30 believe it’s very or extremely important to work for a company that is socially and environmentally responsible.

BBMG provides some guidance on how to create a sustainability strategy that engages employees at all levels and generations. After partnering with Wal-Mart to create a global platform for an employee sustainability program, they were able to share the content with other organizations and individuals around the world. There are too many tips to list here, so I highly suggest reading their white paper to learn more.

Some of the interesting and most important phases of setting up a sustainability program were:

1. Make the strategy actionable and flexible

When working with Wal-Mart, BBMG created 12 broad categories of actions that employees could choose from. Though some employees may be extremely proactive, others may be unsure where to start, so give concrete actions that employees can engage in.
Flexibility comes by creating different phases that are slowly rolled out during the program. If your organization is geographically dispersed, let each branch define how they interpret those phases.

2. Make it rewarding

BBMG suggests creating friendly competitions and quirky rewards.

3. Internal communications are key

Create brown-bag lunch series, employee webinars, or breakfast panels.
Place communication material in areas where employees gather; the lunchroom, restrooms and elevators are popular spots.

4. Celebrate success

This could be the most important part of the program. How are you measuring success? Do you have a baseline? Success stories, small and large, are what spur engagement and motivation. How can you share these stories most effectively and also encourage employees to share their own? Facebook, intranets, email newsletters, company blogs and social media outlets are some ideas.

What do you think? Is sustainability a good way to engage employees of all generations, including Millennials?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Seventeen Incredible Employee Perks of Thriving Companies

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 11:05:35 +0000

Guest post by Reuben Yonatan

With so much of the average adult’s life spent at work, it’s surprising just how slow the workforce has been in demanding an environment conducive to productivity and satisfaction. In fact, millennials reported that besides compensation a good work-life balance is the most important factor when evaluating job opportunities. Companies all over the world have taken radical steps to improve their company culture by offering amazing perks and benefits, which have proven effective in increasing job applicants, employee engagement and retention.

Tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook are notorious for their amazing office spaces and unique working environments. It’s no secret that “Googlers” are served amazing food throughout the day, but you might not be aware that they also have on-site laundry services, access to a full gym, and massage therapists for particularly stressful days—all free of charge.

If You Want to Attract the Top Talent In your Industry…

Having this level of notoriety for being an amazing place to work is what garters them over 2 million resumes per year. If you want to attract the top talent in your industry you must consider the impact these employee perks and overall culture will have on the job candidate’s final decision.

Some of the most incredible examples of company culture and perks for employees are detailed below in this piece from GetVoIP. If you work at Starbucks, for instance, they encourage you to seek further education by attending college for which they reimburse your tuition. An investment like this a great way to show your employees that you care and are interested in their growth and future within the company.

Take Note.

There are no definitive rules to building a great company culture, but taking notes from these exemplary companies will certainly point your culture in the right direction.

Reuben Yonatan | Reuben is the founder and CEO of GetVoIP. As an entrepreneur and tech enthusiast, Reuben brings a wealth of hands-on telecom industry experience, backed by a 10-year track record in strategically shaping operational functionality in all his ventures. Find him on Twitter here.

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These 15 Companies Know How to Keep Employees Happy

admin — Tue, 11 May 2021 10:59:23 +0000

By Ashley Bell, originally published on SnackNation

Some companies just know how to keep employees happy.

You should be jealous of them. Research (and common sense) shows that happy employees work harder, work better, and work for you longer. Keeping your employees happy gives you more than just warm fuzzies; it bolsters your bottom line.

Jealousy aside, you can benefit from what other companies know about keeping employees happy. Unlike proprietary recipes or classified algorithms, you can steal these effective ways to keep your team happier.

Ready to be inspired? Here are takeaways from 15 down-to-earth companies that know how to keep employees happy.

1. Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated

How they keep employees happy: setting culture “rules”

Robert W. Baird & Co. boasts repeat placement on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list. How does the financial services company do it? By weaving associate happiness into every aspect of their business. You’ll even find it prioritized in their mission statement:

To provide the best financial advice and service to our clients and be the best place to work for our associates.

But Chairman, President, and CEO Paul Purcell has an even more concrete rule to guide employee behavior which he likes to call the “no asshole rule.” The rule boils down to employees treating their co-workers with honesty and respect at all times…even if they’re grumpy. It turns out this simple rule breeds an office full of happy employees.

2. Bucketfeet

How they keep employees happy: feeding curiosity

Photo belongs to John Keane via Flickr

Nothing invigorates a typical workday like learning something new…and relevant. Bucketfeet feeds its employees’ appetites for knowledge with a monthly learning series on topics relevant to their mission. The perspective of guest speakers keeps creativity thriving and employees inspired. It’s like attending the most inspirational session at a conference every single month…and with no travel necessary.

3. Cole’s Salon and Spa

How they keep employees happy: giving them ownership

Cole’s uses an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) to help employees get, and stay, invested in the business. Through the plan, Cole’s employees own a whopping 44% of the company. The salon’s employee happiness rate and low turnaround proves employee ownership vital to every kind of business. When employee feel invested, they don’t just walk away.

4. 2U

How they keep employees happy: by working hard, and playing hard

Photo provided by 2U

High employee ratings on Glassdoor.com landed this education technology company on the Washington Post’s Top Workplaces 2015 list. 2U offers the usual menu of employee happiness offerings from holiday parties to casual clothes. They shine above other companies by encouraging employees to make their own fun instead of waiting for company-sponsored events. This lead to a popular office basketball league. 2U also has an amazing annual company meeting where they send their entire company to Disney World.

5. Epic

How they keep employees happy: taking team building seriously

Photo belongs to Moyen Brenn via Flickr

For most companies, team building involves a trip to a baseball game or maybe an all-day winery outing if you’re lucky. Epic takes team building much further (literally) with the “Epic Odyssey.” They send teams to other countries to soak up culture in ways that inform their business and build team skills in unexpected ways. Additionally, they offer a four-week paid sabbatical program that has taken employees to New Zealand, Tanzania, and Germany.

6. Qualcomm

How they keep employees happy: being flexible… and meaning it

Many companies tout flexible work options, but prove stiff when push comes to shove. Qualcomm doesn’t just offer its employees flexibility, it makes sure employees have plenty of flexible options to fit any schedule like telecommuting, compressed weeks, and job sharing. Compressed weeks let employees load up on hours to get one day a week off and job sharing frees up time by letting two employees split the workload of one full-time job.

It pays off! According to a CareerBliss.com’s analysis, Qualcomm enjoyed one of the biggest jumps in employee happiness year over year when compared to other companies.

7. AnswerLab

How they keep employees happy: offering unique allowances

Photo belongs to 401(K) 2012 via Flickr

Since AnswerLab focuses on digital experiences, they want to attract employees who know tech, use tech, and presumably love tech. Knowing that a love for tech motivates their employees, they offer a $400 tech allowance for employees to spend on whatever they want from devices to apps. They find it a small price to pay for learning, which they consider one of the four buckets (career, learning, wellness, and giving back) of employee happiness.

8. Institute for Integrative Nutrition

How they keep employees happy: keeping them fueled with the good stuff

Photo belongs to US Army Africa via Flickr

The Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) goes beyond teaching employees what they should eat for wellness – they deliver it on a silver platter! All employees get a free, chef-prepared lunch every day, not to mention healthy breakfasts and snacks. And since they clearly value an integrative approach to health, they also offer free vitamin supplements and on-site massages, acupuncture, and chiropractic care.

9. Miller Auto Plaza, St. Cloud

How they keep employees happy: encouraging community involvement

Photo belongs to North Charleston via Flickr

Community philanthropy landed Miller Auto Plaza onto the Minnesota Star Tribune’s Top Workplaces list. From highway clean ups to food drives, Miller Auto Plaza and its employees have been involved with it all. The philanthropic focus provides a sense of well-being and fulfillment that keeps Miller’s employees happy.

10. Weebly

How they keep employees happy: considering convenience

Don’t take it personally when your employees beeline towards the door at the end of the day. They probably love their jobs; they just have stuff to do at home. Weebly hopped onto Greatist’s Healthiest Companies to Work For list by thinking about everything employees have to do at home…after work. They offer home cleaning and concierge services so employees’ thoughts aren’t plagued by chores they need to complete.

11. FullContact

How they keep employees happy: making vacation impossible to refuse

Business leaders everywhere extol the regenerative powers of taking vacation. The problem? It’s never really a convenient time for a break, so people put off vacation until it’s lost. FullContact makes sure employees recharge their brains by offering a vacation incentive of $7,500. Employees can only use it for vacation and they’re not allowed to check work emails while they’re on it.

12. MediaMath

How they keep employees happy: fostering autonomy

MediaMath’s employees spoke up to land them on Glassdoor’s Best Small and Medium Companies to Work For list. The company realized long ago that employee happiness runs deeper than the beer fridge. They’ve found that keeping employees happy means giving them some power. They build loose team structures so roles aren’t rigid and have even let employees re-write their own job descriptions.

13. Bain & Company

How they keep employees happy: promoting equality

Photo belongs to Sharon Mattheson-McCutcheon via Flickr

Bain & Company has landed on so many top workplaces lists, you can bet they know how to keep employees happy. Bain & Co shines especially in rankings of equality. The Human Right’s Campaign gave it 100% on their corporate equality index. It also topped Working Mother’s 100 Best Companies list for its flexible work schedules, assistance for new parents, and programs designed to advance women. Equality breeds respect, and respect breeds happiness.

14. Grasshopper

How they keep employees happy: using limited resources well

Photo belongs to Ginny via Flickr

Happiest employee lists often highlight companies with expensive initiatives. Onsite gyms, pools, and tracks? Sure, all of those fitness options would make anyone happy.

What if you don’t have the resources for things like that? A Salary.com list of companies with incredible employee perks featured Grasshopper, a company with no onsite gym. Instead, they have a Wii Room where employees can exercise virtually. The games still get employees’ heart rates up and release endorphins without breaking the bank.

15. Killer Infographics

How they keep employees happy: making it easy for them to speak up

Photo belongs to Gary Knight via Flickr

Killer Infographics knows what happens when employees can’t or don’t speak up about what’s bothering them: festering and inevitable explosions of anger. Even having “open doors” doesn’t mean that all employees will speak up. Some are too shy or they’re just too uncomfortable to voice their frustrations.

So, instead of the usual “open door” policies, Killer Infographics actively encourages employees to speak up using TinyPulse, a workplace survey tool. This gives everyone a chance to be heard, even if they’re not outgoing.

Conclusion

With so much food for thought on the topic of how to keep employees happy, you might feel a bit overwhelmed when you imagine actually implementing anything. Many employee happiness strategies spring from years of observation, discussion, and analysis of company culture.

SnackNation helps companies promote happiness around the office by delivering healthy snacks.

Snacks make employees feel appreciated and keep productivity up as they avoid the sugar crashes and food comas that come from eating junk food. To start helping your team feel even happier at work, take them up on their offer for a free sample box of SnackNation (just cover S&H).

Do you know of other companies that know how to keep employees happy?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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What To Do When Employees Resent Coworkers Who Work From Home

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 11:20:06 +0000

Maritza manages a team of fifteen, five of which work from home. Recently, she’s noticed some of her in-office team showing signs of unhappiness and disengagement. Terry, an employee of eight years, has stopped contributing to group discussions almost entirely. Jamal and Doug have started leaving the office together a little earlier than the official end of the workday. Ravi steps out for calls constantly, and takes extended lunches—that coupled with his nicer-than-usual attire makes her think he’s looking for work elsewhere. She’s even heard Fatima loudly say negative things about the company to her coworker.

Maritza tries to be good to her employees. She makes sure the office is stocked with healthy snacks, never emails anyone outside of work hours, promotes work-life balance, and has recently fought to include gym memberships as part of the benefit package. She even organizes quarterly volunteer opportunities for the team. What was she doing wrong?

What’s Going on Here?

When out with a colleague, Maritza mentioned what she’s noticed about her team and how she’s been trying to address it. Her colleague knew exactly what was going on. He had been working with her team on a project for the last two months and heard all about it!

It turns out several members of her team resent the fact that others work from home. The resentment started with a few people, and slowly spread until it’s now apparent in team performance. This is a problem popping up more and more in organizations around the country as the movement toward remote work increases speed. Gallup reports that 37% of workers say they have telecommuted, up from just 9% in 1995.

But What’s REALLY Going on Here?

If you take that resentment at face value as a manager, the only solution is allowing more people to work from home. However, that’s not always possible. So to manage the situation effectively and get employees back on track, you must look deeper into the situation. What is at the core of this resentment?

When it comes to the resentment about remote workers, there are a few things at play. Beyond simply wanting to skip their commute and work in pajamas, employees likely don’t trust that managers have their best interest in mind. They also see working from home as a privilege, and not being allowed to do so makes them feel that their manager doesn’t appreciate, value, or trust them. This feeling is especially magnified in employees who have been loyal to the organization for many years. As a manager, what can you do to handle this situation?

What to do When Your In-Office Employees Resent Coworkers Who Work From Home

1. Start With an Open and Honest Conversation

While it may be uncomfortable at first, it’s important to have an open and honest conversation with employees showing signs of resentment. This will not only give you insight into what is really going on, but it will also help build your relationship. Start by taking a coaching approach and ask short (six words or less), open-ended questions that are advice free. Why?

Keep questions short so that you don’t complicate the issue and derail the conversation. As a rule of thumb, make questions six words or less!
Make questions open-ended in order to start a dialogue. These are questions that start with “what” or “how” and do not lead to a yes or no answer. In Maritza’s case, she may ask, “What do you really want?” or “What’s the underlying issue?”
Finally, some people don’t want advice. When you keep your questions advice free, you keep the dialogue open and collaborative.

Once you get the conversation going, keep these eight quick tips for interpersonal communication and relationship building in mind. Look them over before you have the conversation to keep you focused on relationship building.

2. Work on Building Trust

Employees need to trust that their managers have their best interest in mind. If Maritza’s employees felt she was looking out for them, they may be more willing to accept the fact that some people work from home and others do not. Further, if they trusted Maritza, they’d have already spoken to her about their problem with the situation.

David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and author of The Truth About Trust, says trust is an “evolving thing that ebbs and flows.” It’s important for all managers to actively work on building trust with their teams, regardless of any issues of resentment. Here are five quick tips to help managers reinforce their trustworthiness:

Get to know your employees and let them get to know you.Express interest in your employees. Do you know where they grew up, or what their hobbies are? Look for things you have in common. This can happen casually, or at brown-bag lunches. You want your employees to know you’re in this together.
Be transparent and tell the truth. Share what is going on with the organization as a whole with your employees. This includes the current status and future goals. Consider distributing information like notes from board meetings or performance metrics to employees. Don’t forget to share bad news too—if you don’t tell people the difficult stuff, they are less likely to trust you.
Don’t play favorites.This one is a no-brainer, but sometimes managers don’t realize they are favoring certain employees over others. If you treat certain people to lunch, give particular employees assignments first, or share information with only a few on your team, your effort to build trust is completely undermined.
Trust your employees. Trust is a two-way street. If your employees don’t think you trust them, they aren’t going to trust you. Show your team you trust them by delegating tasks and giving them autonomy. Don’t tell them what to do, motivate them to meet their (clearly set) goals and let them decide how to achieve them.

Be competent and accountable. In order to believe in your management decisions, employees need to know you are competent. Show them this by being accountable, taking the blame when you make mistakes, and by always working to develop your skills. Don’t play the expert card—instead, have the humility to ask questions and show an eagerness to learn.

3. Develop a Plan to Show Appreciation

Employees who are resentful that others work from home often feel they are not appreciated, because if you appreciated them, you’d give them the option to work remotely too, right? The problem with that logic is that it is based on the fallacy that working from home is a privilege, when often it’s due to the type of position, or necessity. Get around this by actively and consistently showing appreciation. Here are some easy ways to show appreciation:

Say thank you. When thanking, it’s more impactful if you are specific. Instead of saying, “Thanks for all of your hard work,” you might say, “Thank you for staying late and keeping on top of this project. We couldn’t have done it without your organization skills.”
Give personalized gifts.
Provide lunch or breakfast for staff. You can do this to celebrate an accomplishment, or for no reason at all.
Give praise and feedback. Just like when saying thank you, being specific in your praise is more meaningful. Rather than, “You did a good job,” you could say something like, “Your attention to detail is amazing and your work really shows that.”

Give money. This isn’t always possible, but gift cards and holiday bonuses go a long way in making employees feel appreciated.

4. Facilitate a Discussion Between Remote and In-Office Workers

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. What many in-office employees don’t realize is that working from home has its own challenges. To start, remote workers can feel isolated and miss the causal socializing that happens in an office. Job security may feel precarious if they are left out of the loop, or miss too many impromptu meetings. They also miss out on any free lunches or special office activities. And they don’t have an IT person to handle broken printers, Internet outages, and poor phone connections. There isn’t a facilities manager that comes to their home to empty the garbage, vacuum, and dust their desks either.

Facilitate a discussion between remote workers and in-office workers to let each air their personal challenges at work. It can be town hall style or even a brown-bag lunch. This will dispel the assumptions that each hold about the other.

5. Actively Invest in Your Employees’ Careers

Do you know what your employees’ greatest assets are? Are you using them to their full potential? Do you know how they’d like their career to develop? You should. Sit down with your employees and find out how they see themselves in the future of your organization. If working remotely is one of their career goals, work with them to develop a career plan that leads to a role that can be done from home. Added bonus: Having a goal to work toward will vastly improve engagement.

Ask Yourself the Big Question: Why Are Only Some Employees Permitted to Work From Home?

Studies have shown that employees who work from home are not only happier and less likely to quit, but they are more productive. Have you stopped to reevaluate why some employees work remotely while others have to come into the office? Remote working is a relatively new reality in organizations. Many have not adopted the option, even if it would cut down costs and improve productivity. Take time to evaluate why certain roles are done from home, and if those roles are being done well. It’s possible that you’ve overlooked other positions that would be fine as remote jobs, even for just part of the time. Consider developing clear criteria for remote work—is it only for certain positions? Do you have to be at the company for a certain amount of time? Can this be an option for employees with medical issues? If there is a clear criteria in place, and your employees know that criteria, resentment will not fester due to assumptions.

We are seeing many big changes in the workforce and there are more to come. Remote work is a major workforce trend that is here to stay. Start planning now to successfully manage teams that are mixed with in-office and remote workers, and you will avoid many potential problems that will negatively affect organizational culture and even the bottom line.

Would you rather work at the office or from home? I’d love to hear your reasoning.

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How Workplace Flexibility Can Dramatically Reduce Employee Turnover

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 10:02:50 +0000

By Kevin Conner

Low rates of employee turnover are an indicator of a healthy business. Keeping your company from becoming a revolving door makes it easier for you to plan long term, saves you the expense of recruiting an onboarding new hires and it also helps you develop an internal company culture that can help push the business forward.

However for an employee retention strategy to be successful, you need to take a holistic approach. It starts with taking the time to understand who your employees are, and then you need to make sure you’re offering competitive salary and benefits packages. Furthermore, you also need to be sure you’re giving people enough room to grow, as a lack of professional development is one of the top reasons people decide to leave a company.

But another thing you need to do to keep employees from leaving is offer them flexibility. Part of the reason for this is that flexibility is one of the things people look for in a job, so if they feel they aren’t getting it from you, then you can expect them to start to seek out new opportunities. But there’s a lot more to it. Consider the following ways flexibility can dramatically impact your ability to retain employees.

Avoid Emergency Departures

As you are surely well aware, things happen in life that we simply cannot predict. People get sick, or they pass away, or a disaster or emergency can bring us far from home. And the last thing you want to do if you’re trying to retain employees is force people to choose between these pressing personal needs and their jobs, largely because when push comes to shove, they will almost always choose their personal lives.

Offering flexible working arrangements allows people to tend to these other things in their lives without fear of losing their jobs, or more importantly, without worrying that they have sacrificed their opportunities to advance.

In this sense, offering flexibility to your employees helps make your organization more flexible. You won’t suffer as a result of a shock, and this puts you in a better position to be more sensitive to people’s needs, something they will appreciate and that will encourage them to stick with the company for the long haul.

Create A Culture of Inclusion

It’s no secret that we live in a patriarchal world. Men have held a disproportionate amount of positions and power and influence for essentially all of time, and although things are changing slowly, there is still a lot of work to be done. And one of the things that often holds women back from being able to more passionately pursue their careers is the challenge that comes from trying being a mom and an employee at the same time.

Of course, many women manage to do this, but too often this means making sacrifices in their personal lives that men are typically not asked to make. Essentially, women are often forced to choose between their careers and their desire to be a parent, and this simply is not fair.

And this is why advocates for gender equality in the workplace are also often proponents of flexibility in the workplace, as these arrangements make it so that people do not need to make this difficult choice. People will recognize this and appreciate it, which will make them more loyal to you. And those who are not affected by this injustice will see you as an employer focused on inclusion and equality, meaning that offering flexibility is not only the right thing to do, but it’s also a great way to improve employee retention rates.

Allow for Better Work Life Balance

The concept of work-life balance is somewhat new, but it’s one that’s rapidly gaining in importance. As technology allows us to be more and more productive while working less, we have a lot more time to pursue hobbies and other interests.

But if you still use a rigid work arrangement, then it’s going to be tough for your employees to actively pursue their non-work-related interests, which will cause them to stagnate and look for other opportunities.

As a result, you’ll want to offer your employees flexibility so that they can be free to live their lives in whichever way the want, which they will recognize and appreciate as something special, making it easier for them to decide stay put instead of looking elsewhere for new opportunities.

What Does Flexibility Look Like?

It should be clear that flexibility is a great way to help you reduce your employee turnover rates, but what exactly do we mean by flexibility? In general, there are two ways you can incorporate flexibility into the workplace:

Allow people the chance to work remotely. Not having to commute to an office every day can free people up to be more effective in both their personal and professional lives.
Allow for flexibly scheduling, meaning people still need to come into the office, but they can do so according to their own schedule, provided their output doesn’t suffer.

Most companies will opt for a combination of the two. They may offer people flexible schedules, and they can combine this with the opportunity to work from home one or several days out of the week. However, the best thing to do is take things on a case by case basis. This will demonstrate authentic sensitivity to people’s needs, something that will help build better employee-employer relations.

But no matter which route you take, it’s important to set your employees up for success. If they’re going to be working from home, help them get setup with the best possible internet service and also give them access to tools such as Slack, Zoom and Trello, or whatever other project management software you might use. This will help make sure they can still adequately perform their jobs while also enjoying the perks of a flexible work arrangement.

Make Your Workplace More Flexible

Now that you see just how valuable flexibility can be to the success of your company, it’s time to start implementing this policy into the way you do things. If you’re not sure which is the best route to take, then consider consulting with employees to see what would work best for them. This will help shine some light on the right strategy for your company, making it easier for you to enjoy all of the benefits of a flexible workplace.

About the Author: Kevin is the founder and CEO of Vast Bridges and has also recently launched an internet provider search tool. Kevin is passionate about learning how other businesses do things and what he can do to help make them be better, so when he’s not working with a client, he’s writing to be a resource for other entrepreneurs and business leaders.

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What Courses Should All Leaders Take?

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 09:28:03 +0000

Isn’t it odd that certain professions require a certification process, yet being a leader doesn’t require one? Social workers, CPAs, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals all went through some type of licensing or exam process, yet leaders don’t even require an MBA.

What if there were pre-requisite courses required for leadership? What would that curriculum look like?

In truth, it’s almost impossible to pick a standard leadership course because leadership is situational. Just think about the type of leadership required in a government office versus a tech startup. How about the variation in leadership between a non-profit and a for-profit business? Also, are we talking about leadership for the workforce of today, or the drastically different workforce of the future? While the core competencies needed for effective leadership won’t change 100% from situation to situation, there will definitely be nuances.

Taking nuances into account, I wanted to give this hypothetical curriculum a shot. What pre-requisite courses would I propose? As you can imagine, after over 20 years of coaching corporate leaders, many ideas came to mind. I took a deep dive into my professional and personal experiences to surface with five courses that I think will benefit all leaders and set them up for success.

Five Pre-Requisite Courses for Leaders

1. How To Use Accountability to Get Results

Leaders set their teams up for success by employing consistent accountability. More than that, they need to hold themselves accountable too.

You hear this story often: Juan, the employee, works hard in his current position, has a positive attitude, takes initiative, and contributes greatly to his team’s success. Gwen, Juan’s manager, takes notice of Juan’s dedication and knowledge, and suggests they talk about a role with additional responsibility, which means a new title, and a higher pay grade. One month goes by, then two, then three, and still there is no talk of the advancement. Juan follows up with Gwen, who responds enthusiastically but sets no specific timeline for the conversation. Eventually Juan feels like he’s been led on, and that Gwen doesn’t hold herself accountable for her promises. Juan starts to feel unappreciated and matches Gwen’s behavior by completing his work with less urgency. His engagement dwindles as he starts looking around for other opportunities. What we see here is an organization losing talent due to the lack of accountability of its leader.

Talking the talk isn’t enough; you’ve got to walk the walk consistently for effective leadership. If you are accountable for all that you say, you will challenge others to do the same.

2. How to Cultivate Creativity for the Bold, New World

We are in a bold, new world where innovative solutions to organizational challenges are imperative. Today’s companies are global and inundated with rapidly changing technology. Not to mention other changes, like a new generation filling the many spots left by Baby Boomers as they retire, the rise of temporary workers, and more. All of these shifts require new and creative solutions.

For example, a software company that was previously at the top of its market begins to face irrelevancy due to the fact that its product does not include any social media components. The company needs to come up with an innovative solution that not only updates the product, but also surpasses the competition.

The leader of this organization, Leon, sees that they need an innovative solution, and they need it fast. He puts together a capable team of product developers and creative strategists, who turn around a possible solution in just three days. After testing the solution, it becomes clear that it is not only unviable, but the competition is doing it better. If Leon looks at this situation as a total failure with harsh words for the team, and responds to that failure by scrambling to put together a different team, he has squashed an opportunity for innovation.

To cultivate creativity, leaders must leave room for failure. Innovation requires new and untested ideas. Failure during the process only pushes the team to create more ideas as they move closer and closer to the best solution.

3. The Importance of Purpose

As Aaron Hurst says, “The future is Purpose. It is what is driving innovation and radically reshaping careers and organizations.”

Consider this: By 2020 (five short years from now), 50% of the US workforce will be from the Millennial (Gen Y) generation. Everyone wants a sense of purpose and Millennials especially do. Leaders need to learn how to find, cultivate and express their organization’s purpose, in addition to their own individual purpose, which involves prioritizing personal growth.

When an organization is more aligned with a greater purpose than quarterly results, and when people understand how their role fits in to that greater purpose, everybody wins.

4. Resurrecting the Lost Art of Listening

What is the point of hiring experts if we don’t listen to their ideas? And why is it such a challenge for leaders to listen?

To begin with, we are often not even taught how to listen. To make matters worse, leaders are expected to have all of the answers.

To further master the art of listening, leaders should be fluent in all three forms of listening.

The first form is the typical conversation style of listening. You’ve already figured out what a person is trying to say, and are just waiting your turn to share.
The second form is the ability to incorporate body language into listening. Often a person expresses one thing (like enthusiasm) verbally, but their body (arms crossed, chin down) is telling a completely different story.
The final tier is energetic listening. With this skill, leaders can sense a shift in the room when it arises. When someone is angry, insecure or fed-up, a skilled listener will be able to sense it. For example, a leader might say, “Wow, I really felt a shift in the conversation when I mentioned the fact that we need to put you at 90% project management with our new client. What are your thoughts on that?”

When it comes to listening, leaders should also learn to ask open-ended, advice-free questions 80% of the time. It’s a real game-changer!

5. Understanding the Close Relationship of Strategy and Organizational Culture When Facing Change

As organizations evolve, there often comes a time where its strategy needs to be reevaluated and changed. This could be due to competition, changes in the market, increased or decreased resources, and even climate change.

Changing strategy requires change in the organization. Because organizations are systems made up of people, and not just machines, organizational change can be a challenge. People inherently dislike change for the sake of change and will resist the change. So in order to successfully change strategy, leaders need to make organizational culture a major component of the plan.

Let’s look at an example: A state university has a high retention rate, with many employees working at the university for over ten years. Leadership decides it’s time to update the main computer platform that is used for key elements like scheduling courses, managing grades, and evaluating requirements needed for graduation. Suddenly there is an email requiring all staff to complete a three-week training course on the new platform within the next six months. The staff has no problem with the current system, as they’ve been using it for years. They don’t want to have to learn a totally new program and they don’t want to interrupt their work schedules with training sessions. So they resist the change. They complain. They miss training classes or refuse to attend. The culture becomes “us against them” and the staff feels like leadership is on a different planet than them. It doesn’t take long for all the complaining to create a negative and sometimes even hostile culture.

It would be easy for leadership to say, “What is wrong with you people?” Yet, instead, the leaders should note that there is collective wisdom in the resistance. There are always upsides and downsides in every situation; rigid change will bring the most resistance. So it’s important to take a hard look at the organizational culture, and let that inform how and when things change as strategy evolves.

So there you have it—my five pre-requisite courses for leaders cover: accountability, purpose, creativity, listening, and paying close attention to organizational culture during times of change.

Next week I will share some valuable input I received from my LinkedIn peers when I asked them, “You don’t have to be “certified” to be a leader, like you do in order to be a CPA. Imagine we get to design a curriculum that is a pre-requisite to becoming a leader. What would the top 5 classes be?”

Now for the fun part—what classes would you require? I can’t wait to hear about it. Please share the top five classes leaders should take from your perspective

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Five Tips to Transform Talent in the Workplace

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 08:45:30 +0000

Let’s talk talent. I don’t mean Broadway and Hollywood talent; I mean organizational talent. The people at work who lead projects, clash with their colleagues, and often give 100% to their organization.

The questions I’ve been asked to address in my various talks over the years include:

How to retain talent with limited promotional opportunities?
How to attract the best and the brightest?
How to keep employees engaged and producing to their fullest potential?
How to better manage the generational differences in my team?
How to prepare for the impending workforce changes?

What’s the common thread? Talent. If you look at all these questions, the underlying issue is talent. How to attract, recruit, hire, onboard, mentor, develop, coach, and lead a team of people who fit the organizational culture and produce results for your organization. It seems like this would be a straightforward problem to solve, but it’s not. HR leaders and the C-Suite lose sleep over this very issue on a regular basis.

So let’s look at talent. According to Merriam-Webster, talent has Greek and Latin roots, meaning a unit of weight or money. Today’s common definition is a unit of value equal to the value of a talent of gold or silver.

That’s interesting. If you follow this thread of thought, then your organizational talent has the value of gold or silver. It is worth its weight in gold. It is a unit of value equal to the weight of your organization.

That’s worth pondering….how do you value your talent? Do it treat your talent as a precious metal that forges your organization together and creates something sustainable and beautiful? Or do you treat your talent as scrap that can be torched and melted through intense heat?

By working with Fortune 500s and start-ups over many years, I have seen many different approaches to managing talent. Here are the best practices I’ve seen:

Treat your team with respect.No one likes to be spoken down to. What does it mean to treat them with respect? Read the next four tips.
Communicate, communicate, communicate.Up, down, sideways, and out, many times. The biggest organizational problem I often see is that one team doesn’t know what the other teams are doing. So communicate regularly and often to help teams connect the dots and prevent process redundancy. Engage across departments and across generations. For example, if you are a manufacturer and rolling out an onboarding process, talk to corporate, the plant managers, the Executive Team, the Communications team, and others to get their ideas and communicate yours.
Listen to your people.One way to do this is MBWA or Manage by Walking Around. If you run a hotel, get behind the bar and ask the bar team what they’d do if they were the general manager. If you run a retail company, go into the warehouse, and ask the stockers how they’d improve the inventory flow. And when these people speak, truly listen without an agenda, ask open-ended questions, thank them for their courage and honesty and invite them to share their thoughts with you any time in the future. The art of inquiry and listening is an effective tool to develop leaders and empower employees.
Be strategically purposeful.If your employees are unmotivated, remember, people want their work to matter. They don’t want to just create a product; they want to know that their product matters in other people’s lives. So constantly connect them to the bigger vision and purpose.
I’m not talking about a pat on the back. I mean honest, direct, specific feedback to someone about something they did. Saying something as simple as, ‘You stepped up to the plate in creating the graphics for that report.” or “You listened to the client and created a product they wanted.” will go a long way in retaining your talent.

Your talent is your gold and silver. Don’t let it tarnish.

As a leader, which step do you find most difficult to implement? Leave a comment below, send us an email, or find us on Twitter; as a leader what do you find most difficult to implement?

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20 Ways to Boost Employee Engagement Starting Today

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:24:32 +0000

HR managers can agree that employee engagement and retention are at the top of their priority list.

Every company wants to attract and keep the best talent.

The problem?

Many employees in today’s job market quickly feel uninspired by their work, get bored after 2 years and start job hunting for something new.

So we decided to speak with some of the best HR professionals and business leaders around the country to find the strategies and employee engagement best practices that they recommend. There are also some tips below that have been really successful at our company.

Here are 59 employee engagement ideas that you should apply at your office.

Free bonus: Download this entire list as a PDF. Easily save it on your computer for quick reference or print it for future company meetings. Includes 5 bonus ideas not found in this post.

1. Focus on your company’s purpose

SnackNation CEO Sean Kelly recently gave a presentation at the HR Star Conference, a large gathering of human resources professionals.

The presentation, titled “Millennials in The Workplace”, discussed how organizations can increase engagement with their millennial employees.

One of the key points Sean discussed was how important it is to align your company with an overall purpose. Don’t focus on what you do, but why you do it.

As millennials quickly begin to dominate the workforce, this message becomes more and more important.

2. Stock the office with healthy snacks

Jason Lauritsen, Director of Best Places to Work at Quantum Workplace, discusses how to increase employee engagement by making healthier foods available on-site with office snack delivery and healthy vending:

“Three-fourths of employees want access to a healthy cafeteria or vending options at their workplace, but less than half of employers actually offer it as a benefit. This creates a great opportunity. Not only will providing this benefit help organizations play a role in boosting productivity, increasing performance, and lowering healthcare costs, but we’ve also found that employees who work at organizations that provide healthy marketplace or vending options are 10 percent more likely to be engaged.”

3. Offer an awesome health and wellness program

Kevin Sheridan, New York Times best-selling Author of Building a Magnetic Culture, has helped some of the world’s largest corporations improve their culture and foster productive engagement.

When we asked him what companies should be doing better to improve workplace engagement, he offered us this wisdom:

Kevin Sheridan, New York Times best-selling Author of Building a Magnetic Culture, has helped some of the world’s largest corporations improve their culture and foster productive engagement.

When we asked him what companies should be doing better to improve workplace engagement, he offered us this wisdom:

4. Keep your employees in the know

Want to know a great way to get your team more involved and committed?

Keep them up to date with “inside” information. These are things like the direction of the company and the challenges that the Leadership Team is facing.

Tim Sackett, HR Pro and President at HRU Technical Resources, explains this important part of your employee engagement strategy:

“The one true fact in all workplaces is your people want to be in the know, they want to be in the circle of trust. HR and leadership, in general, do a crappy job at this, and it has a huge impact to engagement. Find ways to make this happen and let your people know that it’s “inside” information. Trusting your employees can handle it raises engagement.”

5. Celebrate. Treat personal wins as a win for the whole department or company.

If someone on your team hits their monthly or quarterly goal, make it a win for your department or the whole company. Announce it to the rest of the team and celebrate with a Friday Happy Hour or fun outing.

6. Champion work-life balance

Work-life balance often seems like an impossible struggle. It’s difficult to find that right balance between work and personal life to feel good that both areas are receiving enough attention.

Blake McCammon of Blogging4Jobs, a popular blog focused on HR and the workplace, had this to say about work-life balance’s role in employee engagement:

“Work-life balance is one of the most important things employers can do to help employees not only stay healthy and fit but keep them engaged day by day. Provide a work from home scenario and flexible hours where employees with children or adults with hobbies are allowed the freedom to enjoy life to the fullest, but still get their work done.”

Work-life balance is going to mean something difference for each employee, so speak with your team to see what you can be doing better as an organization to enhance it. Often times you’ll find that a flexible work schedule will be the easiest way to help people feel more balanced between work and leisure.

7. Pass out praise for each other

It shouldn’t only be left to managers to praise good work. When you hear about someone’s achievement, go over and personally congratulate them. It’ll mean a lot to that person and they’ll likely do the same for you when your big wins come through.

8. Invite a motivational speaker to the office for creativity workshops, team building, or good old pep talks.

To shake up the workday, or start Monday off with some inspiration, Cooleaf recommends hiring a motivational speaker to come into the office. Maybe your team would benefit from a creativity workshop or team-building seminar to improve in-office relationships. Employees will be grateful for the opportunity to grow and learn from experts and will come out of these experiences more energized and focused.

9. Have fun. Then have even more.

Take a half day Friday to do something fun together. Go on a scavenger hunt, play sports outdoors, go paintballing or bowling. These social events help people bond with others on the team who they don’t interact with on a daily basis and builds a better sense of community within your organization.

10. Stand for something your team can be proud of

Irene Becker, voted as one of the Top 100 Employee Engagement Experts Online, answers the questions of how companies can drive and sustain employee engagement activities at a time when engagement is at an all-time low:

“By showing our employees that we care, that we stand for something they can be proud of, and that we offer them meaningful, purposeful work and an opportunity to grow, learn, contribute and succeed because we know that success is a me to WE equation that starts with:

Personal, professional development and a structure for growth, recognition and are alive in the organization.
Managers, mentors and trainers that are equipped to coach, inspire and bring out the best in their people.
Communities of purpose; groups that are centered around a purpose driven business, CSR or community activity are alive, aligning shared values and mission with collaboration.
Transparency of communication and the integrity of the organizations commitment to growth, recognition and the optimization of individual and collective potential is mirrored in new ways of developing team spirit and vertical/horizontal collaboration.
Human interaction, social activities that engage our people as human beings in the human side of being part of a vibrant, growing, thriving culture.”

11. Ask for honest feedback via an anonymous survey

Sometimes it’s a lot easier for employees to say how they really feel in an anonymous survey. Actually, it’s always easier when it’s anonymous.

Use a tool like TINYpulse or SurveyMonkey to create a survey and send it out to your team. Surveys are one of the few ways to actually measure and track engagement, so definitely make this part of your efforts.

Ask questions like:

How are you feeling? What’s the morale you see around you?
Good Idea (what one thing will make the biggest improvement in your job, your team or the organization?)
How satisfied are you with your opportunities for professional growth?
Do you have a good working relationship with your manager?
Are you satisfied with your overall compensation?

12. Find out what your team members are passionate about

Are they into mountain biking? Do they write a personal blog? Do they want to backpack around Southeast Asia next summer?

Know what your team is passionate about. It’ll help you connect with them and show them that you actually care about their interests.

13. Bring on the perks

Perks can help make your office a more fun place to work.

JellyVision Interactive Marketing offers these awesome unique perks to their employees:

Unlimited vacation days (with the assumption this privilege won’t be abused)
The ability to work from home whenever necessary or work out an unconventional schedule
On-site yoga and a free healthy catered lunches every week
Refrigerators and cupboards stocked with fruit and healthy snacks for the entire office
A yearly Wellness Day featuring free 15-minute back massages for every employee and a taste test of unusual, healthy juices
Mustache Day (a sort of mustache-themed Halloween that culminates in a fancy lunch out)
Frequent company-wide involvement in charity fun runs

Beyond all these employee benefits, JellyVision also told us that they reduce work anxiety for their employees by 1) hiring nice, funny, talented people who become the sort of colleagues who make the day more enjoyable and 2) by nurturing a culture of transparency, humor and kindness—a way of being that is modeled by their founder, Harry, and CEO, Amanda.

14. Kick cubicles to the curb

Whether you’ve seen them in employee engagement films like Office Space, or experienced them yourself, cubicles are quickly dying out. Today, the most engaged companies opt for office decor and cool office supplies that promote comfort and collaboration, not seclusion. So cut out the cubicles and replace them with spacious, open desks. The possibilities for creating an open air office environment are endless, so be creative, and have fun with it!

15. Offer ongoing mentoring, coaching and training

Coaching and mentoring shouldn’t stop after an employee’s initial on-boarding process. A study done by Deloitte in 2012 found that retention is 25% higher for employees who have engaged in company-sponsored mentorship.

Some people in your organization will proactively seek mentors and training, while others will need it to come directly from their manager. Offer an optional weekly coaching session to discuss strategies and tactics that can help each member of the department improve in their role and make them fun!

16. Make open communication easy and consistent

Ask the managers of your organization to setup a weekly meeting to see where their direct reports need resources, any new ideas they have, and how things are going in their role. You’ll find that both managers and direct reports will look forward to these meetings and use them like a strategy session to improve their department on a weekly basis. Engage companies rely on open internal communications.

17. Capture the magic of your team’s “I’s”

“To improve employee engagement, capture the magic of the I’s in team: integrity, initiative, individual talents, and invaluable diversity. Highlight each individual’s talents and how they contribute to the whole.”

–Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach

18. Make sure newbies comfortably meet the whole team

An employee who feels cared for and is surrounded by people who bond with them is much more likely to feel happy and engaged at work. We all get to know our bosses and direct reports pretty well, but it’s also important for new team members to build relationships with the rest of the staff.

UserVoice demonstrates this point well – they invite the whole staff to a game night whenever someone new joins the company. The company offers free beer, a game (think board games or pool/ping-pond/darts) and a “ridiculous sort of quiz” they invented.

19. Make it clear how your employees job directly advances the company’s vision

Your company has undoubtedly recorded its vision and goals for the year. Why not show employees exactly how their jobs advance the vision? This will boost each employee’s investment in the success of the company instead of just feeling like a cog in the wheel.

20. Help employees to move laterally within the organization to follow their passions

There are times when employees (especially the younger ones) are still figuring out their career paths. If a member of your team finds something else at your company that they’re passionate about and want to pursue, create a roadmap to get them there. This will help you retain some of your young talent when they might have otherwise abandoned ship.

What are your favorite employee engagement ideas? I’d love to hear about them and I’m sure others would too.

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How Using Games and Game Mechanics in Business Can Increase Your Bottom Line Starting Today

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 09:27:57 +0000

Most people think that games are just for kids. According to Jane McGonigal’s TedTalk, embedded below, three billion hours a week are spent playing games. Gamification, the underlying mechanics that make video games so compelling, can also help professionals develop into better team members, employees, managers, and innovators in non-gaming environments.

What Is Gamification?

Gamification is a workforce trend worth paying attention to. Great, but what is it? In the Pew Research Center’s study, The Future of Gamification, gamification is defined as “interactive, online design that plays on people’s competitive instincts and often incorporates the use of rewards to drive action.” Awards can be virtual (points), real (discounts, gifts) or status indicators (progress bars, ability to “level up”). These interactive design elements are powerful. The study reports that “such elements can cause feel-good chemical reactions, alter human responses to stimuli—increasing reaction times, for instance—and in certain situations can improve learning, participation, and motivation.”

Could this be all hype? Pew asked technology enthusiasts and stakeholders to make predictions about the future of gamification. Opinions were split with 53% agreeing about the prominent “game-changing” role it would play. Pew points out that Gartner predicts 50% of corporate innovation will be “gamified” in the next two years and Deloitte referenced it as one of the top technology trends of 2012.

“Playbor (play plus labor) and weisure (work plus leisure) will be ubiquitous.” – P.J. Rey, managing editor of the Cyborgology blog, predicts.

How Play Can Increase Employee Engagement

Gallup released the results of a poll, which stated that 71% of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” from work. If game mechanics are indeed game changing, how can you use it with your teams? One way is to increase employee engagement.

Organizations share the goal of constant improvement and the desire to be at the top of their industry. Without employee engagement, this is impossible. Employees must be aligned with the organization’s mission in order to move beyond the status quo. Computer games are designed to keep players in the game. By using similar incentives that motivate players to strive for the next level, work related games can inspire employees to reach for a higher level of performance and engagement. The design already exists; it is up to companies to implement it for the benefit of their organizations.

Play Leads to Increased Innovation

In Fast Company’s “How Serious Play Leads to Breakthrough Innovation,” Bruce Nussbaum, author of Creative Intelligence, says play allows for deeper engagement and creates the space for innovation. In his book, he writes: “When we play, we try things on and try things out. We improvise, taking on new roles, imagining what would happen if we possessed new capabilities or behaved differently. We throw away what doesn’t work and build on what does.” He also points out that you may lose a game or battle, but in play there is always a chance to start again.

We begin to see that games also teach flexibility and assertiveness. In the context of a game, employees feel at ease to speak their mind or explore new ways of solving a problem. Games and technology claim to facilitate this type of thinking, through something as simple as a room or space that serves as a design zone where creative thinking is encouraged.

How Leaderboards Increase Friendly Competition

Leader-what? A “leaderboard” is kind of like a scoreboard. It shows who is ahead, and by how much. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, which is what leaderboards and achievement “games” accomplish, by allowing employees to compare themselves to others. Many apps focus on this element, such as Strava, where you track your runs and bike rides and challenge friends to beat your records.

Yammer released leaderboards to encourage experts to chime in more often and increase the resourcefulness of network activity for both the business using Yammer and Yammer itself. Everyone likes seeing their name in gold, right? Right, as long as the friendly competition stays friendly and does not create silos within the organization.

While incorporating game design into organizations can improve employee engagement, ultimately does this type of play help increase sales? Can it decrease costs? Will it help improve team collaboration? How are employees benefiting from their contributions? In the next few posts on gamification in business, I’ll look at organizations that successfully implemented games and play and explore suggestions for using it internally to motivate and engage your own employees.

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