Employee Engagement Starts With You
(Editor’s Note: Today’s article is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. The Workforce Institute at Kronos has a new book out, “Being Present: A Practical Guide for Transforming the Employee Experience of Your Frontline Workforce”. Learn how you can get a free copy in today’s article!)
I loved today’s Time Well Spent from our friends at Kronos. Many times, the cartoon is a nice pun or poking fun at the workplace. Today’s is different, but there’s no funny. The teacher is great with her students because she’s engaged in her work.
It reminded me that employee engagement rests with the person. And that an engaged employee can pass along their enthusiasm to others.
Employees need to be a part of the engagement solution. Many companies are looking for the secret to unlocking employee engagement. Because they know that engaged employees are good for business and the bottom-line. A huge piece of the solution is letting employees be themselves at work. We can’t force engagement. We can’t say, “By gosh, get engaged or else.” It doesn’t work that way.
Managers need to practice what they preach. If a manager wants an engaged workforce, the first question they should ask themselves is “Am I engaged?”. Employees know when their manager isn’t engaged. You can’t fake it. Managers that aren’t engaged should do some exploring to find out what it takes to become engaged.
Organizations need to create workplaces that allow employees to own their engagement. Adding to the last paragraph, employee engagement isn’t just an entry-level employee thing. It needs to happen at every level of the organization. If every level of the organization was focused on allowing employees to be themselves, think about how inclusive and innovative the organization could be. But it takes a total organizational effort.
Employee engagement isn’t an organizational mandate. Employees will be engaged when they feel like they can be themselves at work (without retribution and disrespect). The way that happens is when managers and senior leaders feel like they’re engaged. Not just doing the job and delivering results. But when they truly feel engaged with their work.
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