creating employee engagement

An Intertech Course

Values Alignment Strategies for Increasing Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement

Copyright © Intertech, Inc. • www.Intertech.com • 800-866-9884 Slide 2

Employee Engagement

• Alignment with Goals

• Teamwork

• Trust with Coworkers

• Individual Contribution

• Manager Effectiveness

• Trust in Senior Leaders

• Feeling Valued

• Job Satisfaction

• Pay and Benefits

Employee Engagement


What do you want an answer to?

• Take a couple minutes… In groups of four to six, come up with one thing you’d like answered today around employee engagement

• Also, choose someone to speak for the group when called upon !12

Employee Engagement


Tom Salonek

• Intertech Founder and CEO

• 2014 #1 mid-sized employer—Minnesota Business magazine

• 2014 #1 employer, 50-150 people—Star Tribune

• 10X Best Places to Work—Business Journal

• Past instructor, UST Graduate School of Business Management Center

• Executive education at Harvard and MIT, undergrad UST

Employee Engagement


What Engagement Is Not

• Gimmicks like foosball tables, Nerf guns, or beer in the break room

• An environment where we’re all friends… the kind that stop by your house announced

• Expensive

Employee Engagement


What Engagement Is…

Employee Engagement


What Engaged Employees Say…

Employee Engagement


Engagement Drivers: The Job

Employee Engagement


Engagement Drivers: The Manager

Employee Engagement


Engagement Metrics

An Intertech Course

Alignment with Goals

Employee Engagement


Alignment with Goals

• I understand the company’s plans for future success.

• I believe this organization will be successful in the future.

• I understand how my job helps the organization achieve success.

• I know how I fit into the organization’s future plans.

Employee Engagement


Engagement and Vision and Goals

• What’s your long-term mission?

• What are the top goals for the year and quarter?

• How do your people fit into your plan?

• If you can’t answer these questions, don’t expect your people to!

Employee Engagement


Values and Culture

• Culture is defined by your values

• They should be points of difference

• If you don’t know it, don’t expect others to know it…

• Not sure of your values or want to see if they’re in check? Try the Jim Collins Martian exercise

Employee Engagement


Values and Culture

Employee Engagement


Values and Culture

• Weave values into the organization’s fabric

• For example, at Intertech, we:

• Evaluate fit-to-values in interviews. In-person and online assessment

• Cover in new employee orientation

• Have daily recognition through the Intertech’s ACE program

• Include ACE nominations in the weekly company e-newsletter

• Review values at monthly meetings

• Have quarterly prize drawings including ACE nominee and nominator

• Have a yearly ACE awards recognizing the top nominee, top nominator, and top rookie ACE (person with us a year or less)

Employee Engagement


Values and Culture—Group Discussion

• In what ways do you integrate values into your organization?

• After each group will share their top practice with the group

!12345

An Intertech Course

Teamwork

Employee Engagement


Teamwork

• My immediate coworkers consistently go the extra mile to achieve great results,

• Goals and accountabilities are clear to everyone on my team.

• My team effectively collaborates leveraging individual strengths.

• The people I work with most closely are committed to producing top quality work.

Employee Engagement


Teamwork

• “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.” – Ronald Regan. As a leader, you can set the example

• “Its easy to stop one guy, but it's pretty hard to stop 100.” – Jack Stack

Employee Engagement


Goals and Accountability

• Key Result Areas (KRAs) are a Dale Carnegie approach to performance management

• KRA’s define clear performance expectations

• KRA’s are proactive and forward looking (vs. a review)

• KRA’s matrix to organizational goals and answer the question, “I understand how my job helps the organization achieve success”

Employee Engagement


Leaders Focus on Employee’s Strengths

• Don’t be in the human change business

• Focus on and grow strengths, manage weaknesses

• By the time someone is in their young adulthood, at their core, their mostly “baked” as a human

• Tiger Woods was ranked 61st on the PGA tour for chipping from the sand. His short game was “middle of the pack.” What did Tiger practice during this time? World class driving and putting – Now, Discover Your Strengths – Marcus Buckingham

An Intertech Course

Trust with Co-Workers

Employee Engagement



• I have a close and trusting relationship with one or more coworkers.

• I feel loyal to my immediate team or work group.

• I know I can depend on the other members of my team.

• I feel close to the other members of my work group.

Employee Engagement



• Create an environment where it’s O.K. to be wrong

• Lead the way and admit mistakes

• A highly functioning team has disagreement without questioning intent

• Not questioning intent requires trust and knowledge of that person as a person

• Have a corporate calendar the includes business and social events… e.g. first of the month Friday BBQ, management weekly lunch, etc.

Employee Engagement



• For teams, use a tool like the TriMetrix Assessment to create a “cheat sheet” on how to relate to team members

An Intertech Course

Manager Effectiveness and Trust in Senior Leaders

Employee Engagement


Manager Effectiveness and Trust in Senior Leaders

• My immediate supervisor cares about my development.

• My immediate supervisor regularly gives me constructive feedback on my job performance.

• I trust, respect, and like working for my immediate supervisor.

• There is open and honest communication between leaders and employees

• I trust the senior leadership team to lead the company to future success.

• The leaders of this organization demonstrate integrity

Employee Engagement


Personnel Development

• All employees have a learning Key Result Area goal

• Examples would be attending a class or conference or gaining a certification

S: SW

Employee Engagement


Leadership, A Way of Thinking

• How we think and what we do

• “We become what we think about.” –Earl Nightingale

• When problems occur, leaders ask “In what ways can we _____________?”

S: SW

Employee Engagement


Leadership, A Way of Acting

• Take blame for mistakes

• “Great leaders look in a mirror when there is a mistake and look out a window when there is a success.” –Jim Collins

• Give away credit

• Create an environment where mistakes are O.K.

• “If you do nothing, you’ll make no mistakes.” –Ted Salonek

S: Truck

Employee Engagement


Leadership, The 7 Roles of a Leader

1. Plan organizational goals

2. Align individuals with the goals of the firm and hold them accountable

3. Solve problems

4. Delegate

5. Give praise

6. Give corrective feedback

7. Treat people with care… Rudolph Giuliani said “Weddings are optional. Funerals are mandatory”

Check out Dale Carnegie’s books on management.

An Intertech Course

Job Satisfaction

Employee Engagement


Job Satisfaction

• There are “spheres” of job satisfaction

• What’s most important: Satisfaction in job and with the supervisor

• When addressing engagement, start from the inside and work outward

Job Satisfaction & Supervisory

Satisfaction

Career & Personal

DevelopmentWork Obstacles/Extrinsic

RewardsSenior Management & Firm

Confidence

Employee Engagement


Job Satisfaction

• What are the factors of job satisfaction?

• Stimulating, challenging work

• Clear expectations

• Continuous feedback

• Unparalleled learning

• Explicit career paths

• Fair reward and recognition

• Inclusive culture

An Intertech Course

Benefits and Pay

Employee Engagement


Pay

• Thoughts from a Board member

Employee Engagement


Benefits

• What benefits can be points of difference?

• Not sure of what to offer, ask your employees

• Examples:

• 9 9-hour days

• Flexible work from home policy

• Sabbatical program

• ACE recognition program (winning the Oscar isn’t about money)

An Intertech Course

Feeling Valued

Employee Engagement


Feeling Valued

• The organization makes investments to make me more successful.

• The leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource.

• Considering the value I bring to the organization, I feel I am paid fairly.

• The leaders of this organization are committed to making it a great place to work.

Employee Engagement


Positive Feedback

• Data on the need for positive feedback:

• Human flourishing is predicted by a ratio 3:1 for positive to negative affect

• It takes 5 good or constructive actions to make up for the damage done by 1 critical or destructive act

• The pleasure of gaining a certain amount of money is less than the pain of losing the same amount

• In character evaluations, it would take 25 acts of life saving heroism to make up for 1 murder

• The Withdrawal System is faster and more powerful than the approach System

• Celebrate success… employment anniversaries, project milestones, sales achievement, corporate awards

Employee Engagement


Giving Praise

• Let them relive the win… “How’d you do that?”

• Hand-written note > Praising in person > Sending an email

Employee Engagement


Giving Praise

1. Be specific

2. Acknowledge they went out of their way

3. Stay what it personally means to you

Employee Engagement


Feeling Valued—Group Discussion

• What things do you do or programs do you have in place to make employees feel valued?

• After each group will share their top practice with the group

!12345

An Intertech Course

Communication and Feedback

Employee Engagement


Create a Corporate Calendar

• A calendar with meetings, communications, and social events

• At Intertech, we have the following standing/set at start of year:

• Daily huddle

• Weekly KRA meeting

• Weekly company e-newsletter

• Monthly management workout

• Monthly all company meeting

• Yearly Town Hall

• Yearly Strategic Planning offsite

• Yearly FedEx days

• In addition to the above, social, volunteering, and award events

• Relax in the process

Employee Engagement


Communication and Meetings

• Daily huddle:

• Updates for your area. These are big rocks and group worthy. If there’s nothing significant for your respective group, honor time and say “No big updates.”

• Metrics (Below are an example for a leadership team… six data points in any direction are a trend)

• Sales and profits for the next three months

• Leading indicator (three months out, what’s the metric that shares how your organization will be doing in the future?)

• Stuck items. What are big problems or potential future big problems for your respective areas. There doesn’t need to be a stuck item.

Employee Engagement


Leverage Technology to Stay Connected

• In addition to standing communication and meetings, leverage technology:

• Yammer = Facebook for a company’s employees

• Slack = Facebook + a repository for project teams

• Uber Conference = Auto dial conference system to support huddle

• Evernote = Team notes and collaboration

Employee Engagement


Employee Feedback and Engagement

• We ask the following at an annual employee Town Hall

• Start/Stop/Continue to get feedback:

• Start doing: What is something we can start doing to improve how we run our organization?

• Stop doing: What’s something being done that’s a waste of time?

• Continue doing: Remind us on what we should continue to do as we grow?

• Hassles to get feedback… a hassle is a minute wasted doing something that could be avoided with a change in how we run the organization, a system or process change, etc.

• What’s a hassle for you?

• What’s a hassle for our organization?

• What’s a hassle for our customers?

Employee Engagement


Employee Feedback and Engagement

• When asking for feedback implement

• Or, go into detail as to why you can’t implement

An Intertech Course

Communication Tips

Employee Engagement


Communicating Good or Bad News

• A study on human behavior gave participants the option to:

Win $10 once — or— Win $5 twice

• They overwhelmingly preferred to win $5 twice. In the same study, participants were given the choice to:

Lose $10 once — or— Lose $5 twice

• They preferred losing $10 once

Employee Engagement


Communicating Touchy Subjects

• A study by Harris/Osborne in the 1970s found:

• 7% of communication happens with words

• 38% of messages are gleaned through perceptions of voice, including tone, rate, and inflection;

• 55% of communication happens through face and body language.

• Email is read using the tone of the reader not the writer

• Discuss sensitive things face-to-face

Employee Engagement


Communicating Bad News

• Giving someone a choice when there’s bad news to communicate

• Even if the choice is between two equally disagreeable scenarios

• Choice gives a sense of control

Employee Engagement


Increasing Support for Ideas

If you need cooperation on something, ask for support before you go public. People want to follow thru on commitments.

In 1987, a social scientist named Anthony Greenwald asked voters on election-day eve if they’d vote.

100% said yes.

On election day, 86.7% of those asked went to the polls compared to 61.5% of those in the “control group” who were not asked.

55

Employee Engagement


Increasing Support for Ideas

Get people to like you. Social scientist Robert Cialdini, said, “People prefer to say ‘yes’ to those they know and like.”

In 2005, Randy Garner mailed out surveys to strangers with a request to return them. The request was signed by a person whose name was either similar or dissimilar to the recipient’s.

According to a study reported in Yes!, “Those who received the survey from someone with a similar-sounding name were nearly twice as likely to fill out and return the packet as those who received the surveys from dissimilar sounding names.”

56

Employee Engagement


Questions?

• Any questions on what we covered today?

Employee Engagement


Summary

• Share vision, values, and goals

• Weave values into the fabric of the organization

• Create alignment between organization goals and individual objectives

• Over communicate

• Be clear on expectations

• Recognize and celebrate success

Employee Engagement


Thank You!

Tom Salonek

Intertech, Inc.

651-288-7030

[email protected]

creating employee engagement

Business

employee engagementalignment

employee engagementalso

engagement drivers

cultureweave values

values alignment strategies

future success

organizations future

companys plans