Monthly Archives: April 2011

Employee engagement strategies for the 21st century

There’s a free teleseminar today that focuses on employee engagement strategies that I’m looking forward to. As I posted yesterday, I’m really excited about the opportunities that exist once you get your workforce engaged.

If you’re interested in listening in on this free resource, click here and you can learn more. But do it quickly! Patty is going to get things rolling at 1:30 Central on Tuesday, April 12th.

What you’ll learn

Patty will share with you five missing 21st century employee engagement strategies that are preventing your company from becoming the employer of choice, including:

  1. The strategy missing that leads to your company\’s inability to find great people.  (hint: its not about hiring expensive executive search firms!)
  2. The strategy you are missing that leads to a the loss of great employees to your competitors.
  3. The strategy you are missing that is keeping your revenues from soaring.
  4. The strategy you are missing that leads to exorbitant training costs.
  5. The strategy you are missing that is harming your company\’s reputation.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, click here to sign up for the free call.

For those reading this after Tuesday, April 12th, the call will already be finished! Sorry!

The cost of disengaged employees

disengaged employees impact the bottom lineDisengaged employees cost companies money in numerous ways. They are much more expensive to maintain than their engaged counterparts, and many organizations are working hard to find ways to help get their people engaged and more productive.

I’ve been a disengaged employee. It stinks.

I didn’t start out planning to be one. I don’t know that anyone sets their life goal as becoming a disengaged employee, but there are more of them in the workforce than we would like to admit. Here’s my story as a cautionary tale. You can turn an enthusiastic, engaged person into a disengaged, discouraged one with time.

The bright, beautiful beginning

I was excited. I was beyond pumped. I was going to knock this job out of the park. I had been researching ideas weeks before I started the job. I had a list of things I wanted to streamline and improve. I was going to make a difference and impact the organization in a big way.

And then it happened. Not suddenly. There was no explosion or flash of light. I just sort of noticed it, kind of like when you see something from the corner of your eye. It was the beginning of the end.

Where good employees go to die

You know when you start something new you can only see the good things? You see how everything works well and the positive aspects of every little detail. And then as time goes on you start to realize that there are problems, but hey, everyone has some, right? No company is perfect. And eventually those problems accumulate until they block out all else and you finally come to realize that no matter how much you do or care about your work, it doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. I looked up one day and realized:

  • I wasn’t getting any coaching or support from my manager.
  • Our executive leadership was incompetent.
  • Much of the workforce was unappreciated, including me.
  • Fresh, new ideas? They were disregarded or ignored. Why put in extra effort for ridicule or lack of acknowledgement?
  • Some of the work I was asked to do did not contribute to the organization in any meaningful way. But it was “essential” that it was completed “like we always have done it.” The best part? When the department went into a manpower crunch, some of the work just stopped being done with no discernible impact. When that happened all I could think was how many hours I had spent wasting time on something that nobody even cared about.
  • Other than the executive team, nobody had much of an idea of the overall strategy or direction of the organization. It’s hard to focus your efforts to support that when you don’t know where you’re going.
  • Turnover for the positions that made up about 75% of our staff was in the 50% range annually.

If that is disheartening for you to read, I can promise you that it’s much, much worse to live it out in person. But don’t you worry, I’ve come a long way since then and now work for a company that makes the other one, for lack of a better term, look like a pile of manure. My company’s culture and engaged workforce is one that other CEOs dream about.

A glimpse of “the good life”

Notice how much different these aspects are from the list above. The difference is astounding!

  • My manager coaches and supports me on a daily basis.
  • The executive team is open, honest, and highly connected at all levels of the organization.
  • Our people are appreciated and rewarded in many ways (monetary and not) for their efforts.
  • Ideas? We have a special database set up to capture them. Even ones that might not fit currently can be deferred until a later date.
  • You can see a direct impact that your efforts have on the company’s direction and mission. Even in the HR/operations role I hold, that’s still true.
  • Everyone has an idea and grasp of the strategy and mission of the company, and the leadership team readily shares information as it comes out about new victories and opportunities.
  • Turnover… We’ve had two people voluntarily leave to go work elsewhere in the history of the company. Telling, huh?

After my experiences, I know one thing for sure. Engagement isn’t easy if you don’t already have it. It’s not about setting up a program or getting your CEO to agree to support you. I’ll talk more about what engagement looks like soon enough. I’m reading Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work by Dr. Paul Marciano. It’s an excellent book and I plan to review it soon, but I read something today about the qualities of a disengaged employee and it brought on the idea for this post. If you haven’t read the book, you are missing out. Big time.

By the way, if you haven’t seen it, check out this free eBook on employee engagement. Feel free to download, print, or just read it on your computer.

Wasting time at work (but not how you think!)

wasting time at workWasting time at work is an act as old as work itself. Today I’m going to talk about something different from the common procrastination behaviors we immediately think about (the Water Cooler Chatter, the Champion Web Surfer, etc.). Today we’ll talk about washing the car.

One of the fun things about where I work is that they have their own little unique vocabulary. One of them I’ve learned recently is “washing the car.”

I had one of those ugly, “please don’t make me get around to doing this today” tasks to complete. While I was procrastinating, I was getting a lot of the little things completed that have been have been sitting on the back burner for a while.

I sat down to talk with my manager for a few minutes, and she asked about the status of the project I was procrastinating. I grinned, and she smiled knowingly and asked if I was “washing the car.” At my puzzled look, she explained that the phrase means that you’re doing something that looks good on the surface but really doesn’t help in the long run.

The moral of the story

It’s important to remember as managers and leaders that just because someone is staying busy, they aren’t necessarily getting the right things done. It’s up to us to point them in the right direction, keep tabs on progress, and course correct if necessary.

Next time someone is working hard but not focusing on the priorities, ask them if they’re “washing the car.” It could be a great teachable moment and from that moment on, you’ll have an easy way to communicate that feedback without having to have one of those difficult, confrontational conversations.

Do you have any special lingo at work that you use? I’d love to hear an example!

I’m moving to MailChimp!

mailchimpNew email service

Since the inception of the blog, I have used Feedburner to handle email and RSS subscriptions. While they do an okay job of it, I’m not quite satisfied with their delivery via email. Plus if I have a really neat idea or something that I’d like to send to subscribers only (as a side benefit of subscribing), then Feedburner does not allow me to do that.

So I’m switching to the monkey.

MailChimp offers me the ability to do those one-off emails to subscribers, plus their delivery is much more secure. It’s going to be a great experience. Why am I telling you? Well, if you want to subscribe, just put your info into the box below or click here if you don’t see a box below. Just an FYI, if you are subscribed via email currently, then I will port over your email and save you the trouble of resubscribing. There might be a post or two where you get double delivery while the services overlap, but I will fix that by week’s end.

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If you subscribe via RSS, that service will not change. But you might miss out on some of those bonuses that are subscriber-only in the future. :-)

SHRM Connect-SHRM’s Social Networking Tool

Recently I had the opportunity to visit Washington D.C. to work with the Society for Human Resources Management and a great team of individual contributors on SHRM’s social media tool, SHRM Connect. While some of us have criticized SHRM for moving slowly at times, it looks like they are making great strides on this project.

Check out the video below for more information.

The Need for Workplace Conflict Resolution

handling conflict at workToday we have a guest post from Claudia Vandermilt on conflict resolution in the workplace. By the way, if you’re local to the Huntsville area, make sure you check out our April lunch meeting on the very same topic. You can find more information on the NASHRM homepage.

In a perfect workplace, everyone would work together in peace and harmony – there would be no politics, disagreements or differing opinions. However, no such workplace exists; conflict is a normal part of daily life and doing business, as each employee has a different view on the world (which is also what makes a business successful). It\’s also a typical challenge for HR.

HR professionals, like yourself, must work hard to create a work environment that allows employees to grow and thrive, and to work together without tension. It\’s your job to ensure that interoffice conflicts don\’t escalate into interpersonal conflicts, so intervention is necessary. Your HR knowledge, management and mediation skills play a critical role in getting employees back to being productive.

From your perspective, conflict within the workplace should actually be considered neutral territory. Your job is to take into consideration the individual, their concerns and the policies of your organization. While addressing conflict is often not an enjoyable part of being in an HR role, it is an aspect that cannot be ignored.

Conflict Resolution vs. Conflict Avoidance

Determining precisely when to intervene in an employee conflict is tricky, but leaving a conflict totally unresolved can greatly harm productivity and teamwork. Addressing conflict isn\’t easy, but giving employees the opportunity to be heard can have positive results for the staff and organization. In a supportive environment, employees experience higher morale and file fewer formal grievances, as they feel validated and appreciated.

Because most conflicts can be resolved quickly and fairly, it\’s best to address them early. Waiting too long or avoiding the conflict altogether only adds to the tension and could even escalate the grievance.  When faced with the challenge of conflict resolution, consider the pros and cons of intervention:

Pros

    Dealing with conflict resolution results in:

    • Stronger relationships
    • Builds teamwork
    • Diffuses anger
    • Encourages problem solving
    • Re-focuses employees toward results
    • Conveys a positive environment
    • Encourages open communication

      Cons

        Avoiding conflict results in:

        • Defensiveness
        • Discourages productivity and teamwork
        • Damages relationships
        • Creates hidden agendas
        • Drains energy and morale
        • Produces stress and animosity
        • Harbors workplace chaos and negativity

        In your role, you have the ability to create a positive, supportive work environment that opens communication and enables employees to achieve success. Swiftly dealing with workplace conflict creates a harmonious environment that motivates employees and encourages creativity, willingness and loyalty.

        Claudia Vandermilt works in conjunction with Villanova University and University Alliance to promote professional training materials. She\’s currently enrolled in Mastering Organizational Effectiveness through Villanova because there\’s little else more challenging than remaining organized.