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A Polite Situation: The Rules of Employee Engagement
Kimberly Polite
How do you measure productivity? Is it by adding one new client per month; decreasing loss productivity per hour; or increasing weekly sales? Productivity is measured in terms of team performance, but your team must be prepared in order to perform. Leaders have to do their part to make that happen. That said, I’ll let you in on a little secret, employee engagement affects your bottom line!
There are four big productivity derailers that occur when you fail to inspire engagement and alignment on your team:
1. Sick Leave!
Did you know that employers spend an average of $800 per year per employee for individuals who aren’t really sick? People are more likely to call in sick when they don’t like their jobs!
2. Conflict
You can’t possibly expect your people to produce in a workplace filled with low trust, sabotage, and the lack of teamwork and vision. Conflict is a major engagement killer. It causes poor moods, poor listening, and zaps motivation and morale. Trust me, it shaves the bottom line when workers spend more time watching their backs, spreading venom, and planning counter attacks than on creativity, innovation, and making money. Read my lips, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE!
3. Loss Productivity
Manufacturers can experience an average of $7500 per hour in loss production because of poorly trained or untrained team members. Additionally, office workers spend two hours a day in non-work related activities such as unsanctioned websites, errands outside the office, social media interaction, and good old-fashioned computer games. Social media sites during work hours are only approved for communications assistants, entrepreneurs, and paid bloggers—a real no- no for everybody else!
4. Turnover
There are two outcomes for poorly engaged and underutilized talented employees: (a) they leave; or (b) they become cancerous to the organization. Turnover costs 30-50% of entry-level salaries to replace, 150% at mid-level, and over 400% for executive level employees—that’s an average of $10,000 per vacancy.
Training increases engagement, engagement increases productivity, and more productivity increases the bottom line. You make think you can’t afford to train, but the truth is you can’t afford not to.
I wish you and your team: “A Polite Situation.”
I welcome your feedback and questions!
Sources
Markos, S., & Sridevi, M. (2010). Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business & Management, 5(12), 89-96. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Rightpath Resources. (2008). Individual and Team Development. Suwanee, GA: Author
A Polite Situation: “The Spirit of What Moves Us–Ode to Employee Engagement”
Kimberly Polite
I suppose it’s every leader’s dream to have employees that are 1000% committed and engaged to doing a good job. As long as we’re wishing, we may as well ask for the moon—throw in some goal and objective accomplishment too. Take a minute to think about it. What keeps you coming back every day? Praises, raises, people, or all three?
There are many reasons as to why your team may choose to grace you with their presence day after day; but, I’m here to tell you that a paycheck beats the alternative. Engagement and commitment are gravy, and has everything to do with the significance of the job they do. People are different and they crave significance in the workplace with their job responsibilities.
I like to call it the triple “A” approach; and it has nothing to do with roadside assistance. Assessment, alignment, and action are a must when building employee engagement in the workplace. I spoke at a conference recently for high school students. One of the primary focuses was encouraging those young people to find professional significance based on personal gifts and talents. I bet the rest of us are not too different than those students. We all stay engaged when we’re doing what we like and are gifted to do.
Assessment
Our quest for significance in the workplace starts with keen self-awareness. The challenge with self-awareness is honest assessment. Career or personal assessment allows professionals and employers to account behavioral strengths and struggles, values, skills, goals, and purpose when considering job placement and choices.
Alignment
The proper team alignment naturally increases engagement and commitment. It brings into focus career objectives, organization, and understanding. The sooner we align with the right placement, the sooner we can stop the bleeding if we happen to fall victim to an unfortunate wrong fit.
Action
Employees are more committed when they feel that their employers are vested in their future. Help your people develop a career plan and execute that plan utilizing all available resources. When we learn better, it just makes sense to act accordingly.
I wish you and your team: “A Polite Situation.”
A Polite Situation: “Is Your Job a Total Deal-Breaker?”
Kimberly Polite
Steve Jobs spoke a great example in a commencement speech he once gave. He said, “Don’t waste your life living by someone else’s code. Do what you love!” Those are definitely words to live by.
It’s Monday morning, and you’ve just been introduced to the new day by the shrieking of your alarm clock. It’s time to face reality, time to get up and go to work. There are no words to describe the feelings of dread associated with going to the job you “dislike.” We won’t use the word hate. It’s such a strong word. Yes, dislike is a much nicer one. More heart attacks happen on Sunday and Monday than any other days of the week. Talk about stress related to your job.
So why is it that so many of us do it anyway? Not only do we do it day after day, but we do it week after week, and year after year. Yes we have families to support and bills to pay. Consider the energy and time spent on creative ways to avoid work? Then, imagine expending that same energy on a job you actually love. We spend more hours working than on any other activity, including time with our families.
Your job just might be a deal-breaker, and you owe it to yourself to sort that out. In past writings, I have shared the importance of finding personal mastery. It is possible and necessary to find purpose in the work that we do.
Disclaimer: Don’t go out and quit your job, please. Just find a better approach to loving the job you have, or finding one that you can love.
It is surprising how so few of us are willing to be proactive about our personal and professional futures. We have no idea what our whole-life approach or career plan is to our personal behaviors, skills, passions, goals, values, and life purpose. Yet, daily we lose a small part of ourselves to the alarm clock—which is fine if that’s not a “deal-breaker” for you. The point is do you know the difference?
I wish you: “A Polite Situation.”
I welcome your feedback and questions! I am available to speak or train at your organization, and stay tuned for my new book coming soon to amazon.com.
A Polite Situation: “There Is an I in Team–The Truth about Teamwork”
Kimberly Polite
(Action Steps Below)
There is an “I” in team, because teams are made up of individuals that collaborate to achieve a common mission or goal. The individuals are the parts that make the whole. Those parts are unique, diverse, and there to make the team better. Before you get all bent out of shape from the title of this post, give me a minute to explain.
People feel better about team efforts when they know their personal efforts are appreciated. I don’t know about you, but I like to be celebrated not tolerated. Its football season right now and maybe you football fans can appreciate my next analogy. When college and professional coaches recruit players, they recruit talent. They want their benches deep so they can pull out their secret weapon in crunch time!
When the game is over, the winning “team” is reported, but you still get hear the game stats on individual players. Give your team something to strive for, and celebrate them when they meet the mark!
So it goes with organizational teams. If you want your team’s optimum performance, you’ve got to recruit, celebrate, and use talented individuals. Once you get them, use them. Don’t stifle your people. It is disheartening to see a talented person lose their “flair”. People stay when they get to play. Unused talent gets restless and bored. They eventually leave or become cancerous to the organization.
On the flip side, there is that occasional teammate who can never pass up an opportunity to plug their 30-second commercial. That’s okay if you’re in sales. Your teammates don’t want to hear it, and they don’t think it’s cute.
I don’t know about you, but creating a genuine positive social capital just makes me feel like doing my job. Your financial bottom line is affected by the performance of your people. Let them perform and reward them accordingly.
Gary Portnoy wrote and sang it best in the theme song to the 1980’s sitcom Cheers, you want to go “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”. There is an “I” in team, because it takes the collaborative efforts of individuals to meet goals through great teamwork.
Action Steps for the “I’s” in Team:
1. Celebrate unique talents and diversity.
2. USE the talent on your team. Remember, people don’t stay if they don’t get to play.
3. Create a positive work environment that encourages unity and teamwork. Don’t play favorites, it fosters the wrong kind of competition.
I wish you and your team: “A Polite Situation.”
I welcome your feedback and questions. I am available to speak and train in your organization, and stay tuned for my new book coming soon to Amazon!
A Polite Situation: “Get a Clue-Bring on the Personal Mastery Please!”
Kimberly Polite
Let’s have a memory exercise. A couple of weeks ago, we visited about finding out who we are as leaders. As a continuation of my plea for a “call to excellence”, I would like to visit about how to employ our new found self-awareness to work with others. I am always amazed at how, some of us professionals have experienced personal mastery assessment, but we somehow still manage to mess up our relations to others. Some of us practice the golden rule, well how about donning the platinum rule: Do unto others as THEY would have you do unto them, not as YOU would have them do unto you.
Personal mastery is about building a healthy self-awareness that makes one progressively productive. Do we not all have a desire to be totally different but better 365 days from now, or even by tomorrow or next week? If we aren’t getting better—leaving the world better than we found it—we are simply getting old, taking up space, and using natural resources.
Now don’t twist what I just said, there is nothing wrong with achieving geriatrics, I’m headed there myself. It beats the alternative. What I am saying is “get a clue.” When relating to others, I really don’t know anyone that the bull in a china shop approach has worked for??? The “shut-down” denial approach is pretty bad too.
Simply put, know yourself, so you can get to know others. Having an objective view about yourself translates to gaining an objective view about others. We are much more productive when we can effectively relate to others. We also save time and energy when we know where our strengths and struggles lie.
Developing personal mastery also helps us align our talents and core values with the right individuals, teams, and organizations. Healthy self-awareness prepares us to quickly process and sort situations that are worth our time and energy and those that are not. In such unsavory cases, we can make a faster, cleaner break with more relationships intact. Personal mastery is king!
Behavior Navigation Action Steps:
- Gain an objective view of yourself through personal mastery assessment.
- Gain an objective view of others through team building and assessment.
- Practice personal mastery by leveraging personal strengths against personal struggles that you will learn through the personal mastery assessment.
- Align your talents, core values, and personal vision with individuals, teams, and organizations that are like-minded.
- When necessary, make faster, cleaner breaks that leave relationships intact.
I wish you and your team: “A Polite Situation.”
I welcome your feedback and questions! I am available to speak or train at your organization, and stay tuned for my new book coming soon to amazon.com.
Reference
Rightpath Resources. (2008). Individual and Team Development. Suwanee, GA: Author
A Polite Situation: “Perfect Professionalism or Perfect Pretense”
Kimberly D. Polite
(Suggested Action Steps Below)
It’s always best to take the “high road”. Ugghh, when I hear that, it’s mostly a mark of those who choose to take the path of least resistance. Trust me, there is a distinct difference. Please process this within the vein through which it is given. I am not extending rein to instigate arguments on every street corner unchecked; however, I am calling us to excellence to decide whether we are squelching dissension or harnessing a healthy dose of the fear of confrontation.
Contention as well as avoidance poses the same evil: discord, low trust, and an organizational team that is ultimately not unified. Why is it such a difficult task to combine relationships and results? Results leaders tend to inspire contest, and relationship leaders are often guilty of avoidance. Kimberly, how do we combine the two? I thought you’d never ask.
In case you haven’t already guessed, I tend to be a results leader. Experience and the loss of good team members have taught me to look outside myself for decision-making that enhances the greater good. Yes, we are called to our authentic selves, but the key to building great teams is the effective use of awareness that acts accordingly.
I’ll explain. As leaders, we must possess a degree of self-awareness through which we leverage our strengths against our challenges to become effective. Notice I said effective–not feared, not popular, not the most organized, not well-liked, but effective. The rest is gravy. Once we gain this awareness, it is important not to use it as a crutch to remain stagnant hovering in the path of least resistance in a forbidden zone just below excellence. We must not only lead true to our personal values, but we must act in consideration and out of respect for those who may even represent beliefs that are polar opposite.
Translation: “professionalism” should not be used as a pretense for resolving challenge that cannot be ignored. There is no need to kill a mosquito with a cannon, but surgery requires more than a band aid. Resolution is what our teams seek, and our organizations need it to experience healthy growth, sustainability, and innovation.
Suggested Action Steps for enhanced Professionalism and Challenge Resolution:
- Gain Self-Awareness in the form of Personal Mastery. Personal mastery is about gaining an awareness of one’s personal strengths and challenges that will allow effective objectivity when making decisions in the workplace. This awareness also helps team members better relate when faced with the need of conflict and challenge resolution. The more we become objective about ourselves, the more objective we are about others.
- After we gain self-awareness, but become more objective about others. We can then benefit from Leadership Development. Tell me, can you actively articulate your leadership style and give specific examples of objectivity and effectiveness? Leadership is always an extension of consideration and collaboration with others.
- Always consider the collective effect on your team when resolving challenge. It is certainly easier said than done, and requires much integrity and preparation on the part of and effective leader.
I wish you and your team “A Polite Situation”.
Next Time: “Personal Mastery Please!”
I welcome your feedback and questions! I am available to speak or train at your organization, and stay tuned for my new book coming soon to amazon.com.
A Polite Situation: “Check Your ME Meter”
Kimberly Polite
When I was growing up, my mom used to say to me, “If you think you’ve seen it all, just keep livin’ baby”! You ever have one of those communication experiences that left your eyebrows up and your jawbone down? I consider myself a seasoned professional, but there are still some interactions that make me wonder about the modern condition of the human spirit.
I believe that doing what’s right goes beyond just doing what is right for you and yours. Translation: manage your me meter. Teamwork is about advancing the collective greater good, not splashing the words “personal agenda” across the workplace marquee. By that, I mean, save the drama for the real movie cinema.
I often see very talented individuals who never develop to full potential because they continually struggle with ethical decision-making. Have you no shame people? Apply this figurative principle to weight loss. We lose weight when we burn more calories than we eat, right? It’s what I like to call the calories in, calories out principle. If we deposit some trust, compassion, honesty, and positive human capital, we can lose the weight of mistrust, low morale, and negativity.
Get up. Go to work. Do a good job. Do your job without sticking your nose in your coworkers’ affairs. Stop trying to manipulate other people. The key is to play nice no matter what. Others will be disrespectful. Play nice anyway. Others will lie. Do it anyway. You are the only one responsible for reading your “me meter” regularly.
Remember, all relationships are about reciprocity. If you are one of those people who like to push, dig, or “one-up” others; don’t be surprised when people push back. We have to be careful not to mistake confronting challenge with “taking the high road”.
The proverbial “high road” is never an appropriate exchange for confronting negativity in the name of integrity. So please make me a promise. The next time you decide to dig, push, or one-up, don’t be surprised or play the victim when your intended target decides to push back. It’s very simple if your “me meter” is in check.
I wish you and your team “A Polite Situation”.
A Polite Situation: “And Who Are You”
“And Who Are You?”
In the workplace, we are plagued with exposure to various personality “flavors”. Those “flavors” are recognized as personality traits. We’ve all been assessed. Let’s see now- you’ve got your colors, animals, elements, traits, factors, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and all of that. What does it mean, and why does it matter?
Let’s get real, down, and dirty for a moment. We all like to be appreciated and valued for EXACTLY who we are, right? Close your eyes, breathe the clean air, and imagine a workplace that celebrates everyone. Now, exhale. Refreshing!
STOP! Rewind before you unwind. Accomplishment requires work on your part. This work “utopia” starts with you. The history of personality assessment offers four basic behavior distinctions. The premise is that all people express themselves based on one, two, or a combination of all four of these behavior preferences. They are:
Vision
Organizations need clear direction. Visionaries communicate quickly, concisely, and unabashedly. The “bossy folks”, or in kinder terms, are simply assertive. They welcome and resolve challenge. They are capable of extreme focus, strong will, and great ambition. Forgive their egocentric forcefulness, but you’d much rather have them fight for you than against you.
Methodology
Somebody has to stay grounded. Methodologists give detailed clarity, consistency, reliability, and longevity. They represent the reality of the resources you have or do not have to accomplish organizational goals. Method people keep it all the way real. They will save you time, money, and trouble if you have 10 hours to listen to the detail. No really, listen. How much will it cost or save you long term by doing things the right way up front?
Diplomacy
Diplomats are magnificent team players, and are truly compassionate to the needs of others. They keep customers happy, and are true gems at resolving in-house conflict. In spite of their greatness, unfortunately, they cave in high-pressure situations. They are so easily contaminated, so keep it positive for them please.
Engagement
Engagers are magnetic influencers that attract people to your organization. They mesmerize clients into true loyalty. Innovation and creativity rule the day with these glamorous teammates. They are the epitome of workplace couture; however, the drawback is their extreme high maintenance. Please give them credit for a job well done—a simple exchange for workplace fun and creativity.
Who are you in this scenario? I wish your team “A Polite Situation”, which in this case, is a balance of all four.