How Engaged are Your Employees, Especially Your top Performers?
When I ask this question of CEOs, I typically get a sheepish look and a burdened response. Struggles with employee engagement appear to be almost commonplace.
Imagine facing this scenario…
You’ve hired someone you believe to be a top performer – a potential “superstar”. They commence employment and quickly prove to have more skills and abilities than you imagined.
After 12 months, they reveal they are suffering significant personal issues and they need to move back home to have the support of their family who live across the other side of Australia.
Working remotely is not a viable option for this particular role, nor does it support the collaborative culture and personal contact your people crave. You do not have a satellite office they could transfer to. It is most likely that this team member will have no choice but to leave and head back home, get the support they desperately need and find alternative employment. Besides, there are plenty of other roles out there!
They remain at your business, as they contemplate their options. Yet, how engaged do you think this person would now be? How focused would they be on doing their job? How much of an impact would you expect this to have on their performance? How much energy might this take for you and your team to support this current team member?
Impact on the employee
There’s no doubt their level of engagement would be impacted, I know that when I hit personal hurdles throughout my life, other parts of my life (my work, my health, my community) are always impacted and have experienced dozens of staff and colleagues go through the same.
Impact on colleagues
Knowing that a colleague wants to be elsewhere can also impact the surrounding team. Whilst I am sure they can empathise with the situation, they may well be wondering whether that team member is either ON or OFF the team bus?
What could this mean for you and your business?
I encourage all my clients to really assess the levels of engagement of their employees. Whilst these are not conclusive, asking the following questions will provide a guide to directly assessing levels of engagement AND keep your team engaged. The very fact that you are asking these type of questions and spending time WITH these team members, is a major engagement piece anyway.
Employee engagement is certainly a lead indicator of customer satisfaction, profitability, safety and business growth amongst other key measures. One disengaged employee will typically not perform their role to the best of their ability (not intentionally). This will usually translate into a sub-optimal focus on detail, on getting things right the first time, on delivering an unwavering customer focus, and the list goes on… I’ve seen this on many occasions in my leadership roles throughout my corporate career and continue to see it every day in my clients’ businesses.
Having regular and proactive staff conversations with your team is a quick and personal approach to determine the current scope of individual and team engagement levels.
Top 5 questions for you to contemplate and take action around:
How accurate is your awareness of your staff’s levels of engagement?
How are you measuring this?
What is this costing your business?
For those whose engagement is not at the desired level, what actions are you taking to enhance this?
If you were to increase the levels of engagement by 5%, what outcomes could you and your people realise?
Richard Branson once said “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” So, if you want to grow your businesses successfully and sustainably, it’s worth remembering your employees are your number one asset and managing and engaging your top performers will enable these outcomes!
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