Manager's Tools: Newsletter
Learn the three ways to engage employees around the world
May, 2009
Your instincts are razor sharp. Your business plan is flawless. Raging success is at your fingertips, right?
But wait! There is a wildcard.
After your brilliant business plan is in place, this one factor can squash the most intelligent innovation instantly, or catapult a vision to greatness. Typically, this wildcard gets very little attention during the execution phase of your plan. But the amount of care it is given can cause an execution phase to crumble, or skyrocket it to success.
Execution of a business plan can fail because people have to execute it. Employees aren’t perfect. We are only human—laden with distractions, worries and other unexplainable quirks that need not be mentioned. We daydream. We fret. Some even undermine.
...unless we are engaged…
Motivated, energized and passionate employees can create miracles. And, now more than ever, your company needs engaged, committed and focused employees. Engaged employees separate companies who thrive from companies who just survive. Engaged employees are the holy grail of business, and the ultimate wildcard. Think about it. One spirited and passionate employee can often produce more innovation and customer loyalty than a dozen disengaged employees. Even if your company downsizes its workforce, you can’t downsize the work. Engagement is critical.
...But how do you draw the wildcard of engaged employees?
In The Carrot Principle, Second Edition, we highlight the findings of a massive global survey we conducted in conjunction with Towers Perrin during the fall of 2008. Our goal was to prove that the Carrot Principle works around the world—that recognition was, in fact, a performance accelerator in every country, in every culture, and in any industry or profession.
A key part of the study was searching out the predictors of engagement—of which, we found three. The first two shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but the third is definitely a shock. The first two basic drivers are:
1. Opportunity & Well Being—I as an employee have opportunities to develop, to advance my career, to enhance my skills; and I know my company cares about me as an individual. Those ideas are, universally, the number one drivers of employee engagement.
2. Trust—If I can’t trust my manager or my company, I’m probably not going to be that engaged at work. A clue that your team isn’t engaged: When you leave they log in and watch Celebrity Apprentice outtakes on Hulu.
It’s fairly well-accepted that these are the two most important drivers of engagement around the world. But the third driver shocked us and became a wildcard.
3. Pride in the Corporate Symbol—yep, that was a big “ah ha.” The corporate symbol is a unique, bonding element between employee and organization, but statistics show most companies haven’t considered it. Only 23 percent of the companies we surveyed actually had any symbolic award in their award program. And, 55 percent of employees surveyed said they owned nothing of value that had the corporate symbol on it.
We then dug deeper. We wanted to know what are the drivers of the drivers?
Let’s back-track, because this is really cool. Data showed that the driver of (#3) pride in the organizational symbol is alignment—having clear personal goals that are aligned to the overall organizational goals. The number one driver of (#2) trust is communication—it turns out that you can’t over-communicate. And, the number one driver of engagement (#1) is, in fact, the Carrot—appreciation.
Basically, if you want engaged employees, you must practice recognition. It drives all components of employee engagement. And, while organizations spend considerable sums of money on leadership training and competency instruction to promote leadership abilities, many overlook the most powerful (and quite possibly the most economic) tool in the engagement arsenal—appreciating great work.