“All you OD folks want to make things so difficult. Making my employees happy is simple. Just serve up pizza on Friday and you’re pretty much done with it.” ~Business Owner
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Mine differs considerably from this fellow’s!
From my perspective, keeping employees motivated day-in and day-out isn’t the result of one-time events like parties, cookouts, passing out cupcakes on Tuesdays or pizza on Friday. These overly simplistic approaches put employees on the same level as trained seals who will patty-cake to get their sardine!
Great leaders build a trusting and giving environment where employees motivate themselves because they feel valued, appreciated, and even loved. (Love at work is a good thing!)
In addition to the qualitative benefits, plenty of positive quantitative benefits accrue to employers that equally value results and relationships. John Baldoni provides some great examples:
“…strong employee engagement promotes a variety of outcomes that are good for employees and customers. For instance, highly engaged organizations have double the rate of success of lower engaged organizations. Comparing top-quartile companies to bottom-quartile companies, the engagement factor becomes very noticeable. For example, top-quartile firms have lower absenteeism and turnover. Specifically, high-turnover organizations report 25% lower turnover, and low-turnover organizations report 65% lower turnover. Engagement also improves quality of work and health. For example, higher scoring business units report 48% fewer safety incidents; 41% fewer patient safety incidents; and 41% fewer quality incidents (defects).”
7 ways to foster real employee engagement
Gallup’s latest survey shows that a meager 13% of employees are engaged. Here’s some simple ways to reach the other 87%.
- Communicate openly, honestly, and frequently.
- Let your employees know you have their back.
- Let employees make decisions.
- Offer a heartfelt “thank you”
- Seek out and listen to employees’ feedback.
- Say I’m sorry and mean it.
- Deal quickly with employees who aren’t doing their jobs.
If you’re regularly doing these seven things, then the cupcakes on Tuesday and pizza on Friday are icing on the employee engagement cake.
I’d love to hear your reaction to the boss’s quote at the beginning of the post and say what recommendations you have for building employee engagement?
Please share!
Photo source: morgueFile
Wow, I can’t believe that in this day and age and current economy, that a business owner actually uttered those words about their employees. I honestly wonder how some people stay in business sometimes! I agree 100%, your article hit the nail on the head!
On one hand, I agree with you that a business owner uttering these words is surprising. Yet, when I look at what’s happening in Washington and on Wall Street, there seems to be a disconnect with real people. Thanks for your kind words!
I love that the suggestions offered require no money. The only resource is time and energy of the leader. Of course the challenge for some will be to do those things and be authentic in the doing – not as a means to an end of “buying” loyalty. The suggestions for me emphasized simply the characteristics of being a servant leader.
Yep, being kind, thoughtful, and showing respect only require our time and attention. The authenticity part is important…glad you flagged that. Some folks may believe in the “used car salesman” style of leadership, but I think most employees are going to figure that out pretty quickly and the impact on engagement would be a negative one. Thanks much for sharing, Becky!