Employee Engagement From The Start = Production

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eeping employees engaged is important in this economy, but I believe employee engagement matters, regardless of the economy.  Most companies are not changing the way they hire or engage current employees, although they should.  Most want to, but don’t think they can or know how.

Here are the primary considerations of how I have successfully implemented employee engagement programs.

a.     Buy-in: Leadership must be able to articulate goals or objectives, and what each team or employee’s role is to that goal.  Management makes the mistake of assuming that the team or the individual’s objective and purpose are understood.

b.     Empowerment: Once all the necessary parameters have been established, employees must be allowed and expected to make certain decisions, given specified authority and the assigned responsibility for results.

c.     Motivation: What is the team or individual benefit?  Management assumes it is money.  A recent survey indicated that 95% of employees say, ‘it’s not about the money’.

People are driven by 3 basic incentives;

ü       Competition – competing business / co-worker

ü       Ego – award / recognition

ü       Opportunity – More customers served, benefiting others, etc.

And, when acquiring new employees, especially in sales (the most important function) or any business development / maintenance face to customer interactions, studies show that 52% of producers give up after only one rejection.  Only 4% will try more than 4 times.  Yet today, it takes 8.4 rejections just to get a sit-down.  And what makes the difference between someone who will deal with that rejection one time and quit or 40 times and never quit, is purely personal confidence (self esteem).  Yes, you can train some people to go back again and again, and I have and can do that.  But, why not hire someone who is made that way?  Don’t know how to do either, call me.

Another aspect of confidence is personal ambition.  Isn’t it fun when you hire someone who expands upon and improves every single task you assign them?  Not just in the first few months, but as a long term exemplar.

This demonstrable confidence, in a job interview, may even come on too strong.  Don’t let their apparent overconfidence turn you off; it is an exemplary element in every pacesetter.  If who you, the organization, are not the A, B, C’s above; when they find out, they will fire you.