Kevin Sheridan recently spoke as the Day 1 opening keynote for the 2018 HR Daily Advisor Annual Conference. In the keynote session, Sheridan focused on how to attract talented employees to the workplace, empower them, and sustain an environment in which they are more likely to stay. Here, Sheridan provides a brief recap of the session and offers a few more tips on how to engage your employees.
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Gallup’s recent State of the American Workplace Study highlighted the single greatest thing you can do to increase employee engagement: hire the right managers. In fact, the study said that if you hire a manager who is disengaged, the workgroup they manage is three times more likely to be disengaged.
So even if you hire the right, highly engaged managers, they still need to know, and do, the most effective things to bring their work group to higher, and hopefully best-in-class, levels of engagement. And even if they know these engagement management “to dos,” they often forget to implement them, or execute them consistently.
So why not give them a checklist? Well, I created one for you and them, based on a key driver analysis of millions of employee engagement survey responses. The following suggestions are in order of importance. This chechlist can be used by a variety of organizations, worldwide, and with it, you’ll achieve great success.
Things to consider and questions to ask when building an employee engagement checklist:
- Have you put a reminder in your Outlook calendar to carve out 1 hour each week to recognize employees who do great work or accomplish great outcomes?
- Have you had a Career Development conversation with each of your direct reports during the last quarter?
- During this conversation, did you ask them where they wanted to be in 6 months or a year, and offer them help to achieve that career objective?
- Also during this conversation, did you ask them what things get them passionate and excited about doing their job? Conversely, did you ask them what things disengage them while at work?
- Did you ask them what their passions and hobbies are outside of work, showing a genuine interest while listening to their response? On a related note, the next time they do great work, give them a gift related to that passion or hobby (such as a paperback book).
- Give your direct reports access to a free resource which will empower them to privately see how engaged they are, as well as get suggestions on what they can do to become more engaged. Here is a link to such a free resource.
- Have you given your employees clear instructions and your expectations on what outcomes they should accomplish in their job?
- Have you encouraged them to review a list of reflective questions to ensure they are in a job/role about which they can get excited and passionate? Here is a link to a free resource.
- Have you found ways to insert more FUN into your department and workplace culture?
These checklist ideas and questions will prove useful to ensure that your managers are fully leveraging the key drivers of employee engagement. It is a best practice that managers should review this checklist every month. Let it work for you and your team!
 Kevin Sheridan is an internationally-recognized Keynote Speaker, a New York Times Best Selling Author, and one of the most sought-after voices in the world on the topic of Employee Engagement. For 6 years running, he has been honored on Inc. Magazine’s top 100 Leadership Speakers in the world, as well as Inc.’s top 100 experts on Employee Engagement. He was also honored to be named to The Employee Engagement Award’s Top 101 Global Influencers on Employee Engagement of 2017.
Having spent 30 years as a high-level Human Capital Management consultant, Kevin has helped some of the world’s largest corporations rebuild a culture that fosters productive engagement, earning him several distinctive awards and honors. Kevin’s premier creation, PEER®, has been consistently recognized as a long-overdue, industry-changing innovation in the field of Employee Engagement. His first book, Building a Magnetic Culture, made six of the best seller lists including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He is also the author of The Virtual Manager, which explores how to most effectively manage remote workers. Kevin received a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School in 1988, concentrating his degree in Strategy, Human Resources Management, and Organizational Behavior. He is also a serial entrepreneur, having founded and sold three different companies. Connect with Kevin on Twitter, LinkedIn, or e-mail: kevin@kevinsheridanllc.com. For more information, visit Kevin Sheridan’s website: www.kevinsheridanllc.com. |