3 Keys to Unlock Employee Engagement
For decades, companies across the world have attempted to figure out the puzzle of employee engagement — that is, what conditions are necessary to ensure that the people we hire are able to give their best every day, be invested in organizational goals, visions, and values, are motivated to contribute to the organization’s success, and are able to operate with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. This is more than an issue of employee morale or the perks and benefits of belonging to a company. This is a matter of the company’s very culture — the soul of an organization.
Let’s take a moment to be very honest: there is no magic pill to “fix” employee engagement. If anyone promises you that, you should ask them to turn straw into gold for you as well. Building a thriving organizational culture where employees are engaged requires a robust, comprehensive, talent management strategy that considers a variety of factors. That said, there are some things that can be done on a smaller scale that can drastically improve employee engagement. The good news? Not only is it natural for human beings, but you probably have experienced them at some point yourself!
The Harvard Business Review recently published an article by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, The Power of Hidden Teams, where they tell us that employee engagement levels more than double when someone is on a team and double yet again when the people on that team trust the team’s leader. Sounds simple enough, right? But how, exactly, do you establish that trust and how do you ensure that a group of people working together is actually a team?
The key to unlock the engagement of a team involves 3 critical pieces: authentic leadership, effective management, and inclusion.
Authentic Leadership
We hear the word “authentic” frequently these days. So much so that it may be difficult to parse what it means or truly value its importance. Authentic means so many things — it’s about honesty, it’s about integrity, it’s about competency. Authentic leaders know themselves intimately and, therefore, know their limitations. They draw on the strength of their team to make the collective stronger and they do this in a way that makes them a part of the team, as opposed to the figure-head. This means that they are both willing, eager, and create structures that welcome their team challenging them directly and challenging each other. They are incredibly aware of their salient identities and how those identities impact how they show up for their team and where they might have some blindspots. They understand that their development as a leader is an ongoing journey and openly share their successes and their struggles. They’re also impeccable with their word, ensuring that what they say and what they do are always aligned.
This is not comprehensive — indeed, there are whole books dedicated to being a good leader. The point, however, is that authentic leaders are fully themselves and do not present a different face or facade to their teams in order to be who others believe they should be. So many managers, executives, and leaders across the spectrum make this mistake and, in doing so, immediately fracture their teams. Make no mistake — the mask you put on for your team is not a good one. You are fooling no one but yourself, and the teams will only trust leaders who are authentic.
Effective Management
In order for teams to trust their leader, they must believe in that leader’s capacity to manage the team. That means believing in the leader’s vision, being able to see clearly how they contribute to that vision, and extend that contribution to the organization. That means that team leaders actually have to manage their direct reports. They must know the unique strengths of the people they’re managing and put them in positions to have impact on the vision and organizational priorities. In 2019, there are few people who are willing to be cogs in a machine. Rather, they need to see themselves as a thread in a tapestry that creates something meaningful. That requires leaders that are reasonably effective managers.
Managers, for a long time, have often been looked at as monitors and provokers of production and productivity. To some extent, this still needs to be true of all managers. A manager who never checks in on a direct reports work streams sends an implicit message that their work does not matter and is not impactful. That is true of a CFO reporting to a CEO, and it is true of a fast-food clerk reporting to a shift supervisor. People deserve to know if their work is good, if it’s making a difference in company goals, and how they can do better. That said, the most effective managers see the role of managing productivity as a smaller aspect of a far more important job, which is nurturing the talent of your direct reports. By far, the best managers are those who view themselves, in some way, as coaches or mentors. This means that the manager actually cares about the professional goals of the employee and the personal matters affecting the employee.
Yes, I said it. You have to care about their personal matters. Don’t look at me like that! It’s true.
The instinct for so many managers is that they should not be concerned about matters that not about work. And, to be explicitly clear, no one is expecting you to be a therapist for your employees (let me say right now — don’t do that! You’re not equipped to do it and you may cause more damage than help). But the hard reality is that the person you’re leading or managing is a whole person who has a life beyond their job. There are times when those things will impact how they’re able to show up, which will impact your team, which will, in turn, impact your team’s productivity. The solution isn’t to scold your staff or tell them to leave their issues at the door. That’s a recipe for disaster. Would you tell someone to leave their disability at the door? No, because you would get sued (and that would make you a real jerk). Well, refusing to take the time to care about what’s going on with your staff is a similarly bad idea. So, effective managers care about the people they manage enough listen to them, support them, and, when needed, direct them to resources to help them through their issues (think your Employee Assistance Program, benefits your staff might frequently forget about, or people within the organizations who are actually paid to help them through those exact issues).
Inclusion
This is one of the hardest things for a team to do well, if only because there is often deep misunderstanding of what inclusion is. In my experience, there are too many people that limit inclusion to helping people feel like they belong. And, sure, that’s a piece of it. You should absolutely ensure that there are structures in place that allow space for everyone to interact with one another and where everyone has a purpose and place. But the piece that people often neglect in strategizing around inclusion is the aspect of power.
If you want to have the best team possible, that means you’re going to want a diverse team — they will bring different experiences and perspectives that you would never think of yourself. Every significant piece of research that has come out over the last 20 years affirms that the best companies are diverse companies. It’s also worth noting that the moment two people exist on the same team, you immediately introduce some form of diversity. That said, it is irresponsible to bring people together across lines of difference and not be thoughtful about the dynamics that creates. You need a talent strategy for diversity, equity, and inclusiveness.
What you cannot do is have a diverse team consisting of different identities and pretend those identities don’t exist, aren’t important, or aren’t affecting your staff (remember that piece above where I said you have to care about your staff? That applies here too). You have to recognize the reality that racism exists, sexism exists, classism exists, ableism exists, etc. So team leaders must actually take the time to get to know the people on their teams, what identities exist, how those identities impact their people, and actually create structures that disrupt the dominant norms.
What do I mean by that? Well, that means insuring that the voices of people of color are lifted up in spaces that are dominated by (either numerically or positionally) white people. That means ensuring that the voices of women are elevated in spaces dominated by men. It means being conscious of ableist tendencies (i.e. giving 2 minutes to read through a lengthy document and then asking people to give feedback in the moment). That means not making assumptions about what people can and cannot afford and ensuring that moments of culture building are not limited by the money people have available to them.
As you can see, there’s a lot that goes into inclusion. In all the examples I provide, there are elements of power that are at stake. Exclusion isn’t just about people not feeling a sense of belonging — it’s about people not having access, autonomy, or influence within a system, a culture, or a community. How are you ensuring that everyone on your team is heard, especially those whose thoughts rarely bubble to the surface? When you’re having a conversation as a team, how do monitor airtime and whose ideas get attention? How do you encourage your team to monitor for these things too, as you will inevitably miss things? That’s inclusion. And that’s hard.
But if you can foster and lead with an orientation towards inclusion on your team, manage your people effectively and with care, and model authenticity as a leader, you will be well on your way to building a highly engaged, thriving team, even within the most volatile of organizational cultures.
Are you trying to increase employee engagement? InspirED Solutions offers coaching and workshops to support leaders of all positions to be authentic leaders, effective managers, and develop strategies for inclusion. Schedule time with us if you’d like our support!
