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One of the more recent workplace concepts is employee engagement. Wikipedia notes, Employee engagement can be seen as a heightened level of ownership where each employee wants to do whatever they can for the benefit of their internal and external customers and for the success of the organization as a whole.

Most everyone would agree that the business results of engaged employees are positive. The question is: How much time and energy should businesses spend to ignite this employee engagement and do you expect employees to keep the engagement going once you light the fire?

Employee Engagement: Light the Fire Image by:OddBod

Great leaders inspire. They have engaged employees. Yet great leaders also expect engagement from employees. They avoid the mistake of becoming the perennial entertainer who sees lapses in employee engagement when they are not entertaining.

As a consultant, leaders bring me in to help light the fire for employee engagement. Often they ask me when engagement is low. My success in re-igniting the fire in various organizations for 20 years includes the steps noted below. As a leader, you can use this approach to do the same.

1. Highlight unique talents. Have the employees identify their unique talents. Share your view of it as well. An employee initiates and sustains engagement when s/he believes they make a unique contribution or difference.
2. Identify the impact of their efforts and their lack of effort. A common problem among employees is limited sight distance. They fall into the rut of daily routine and become more and more detached from the big picture. Use specifics from the business instead of generalities.
3. Handle the chronic complainers (aka perennial naysayers). There is nothing wrong with intelligent disagreement nor with venting some negative emotion. Employees are people not robots. Yet chronic complainers and naysayers have a strong erosive effect on employee engagement. They do not contribute ideas, innovation, nor solutions. Over time they stop others’ who would otherwise engage yet who no longer want to engage and interact with the complainers.
4. Focus on and recognize learning. When you build a learning culture, you breed long term employee engagement and long term organizational success. Learning from mistakes. Learning about customers. Learning about themselves and each other. Learning how to deal with seemingly unfair conditions and turn them into huge successes. Build pride in doing tough jobs well!
5. Have a zero tolerance for lack of engagement. An employee chooses to work for you and get paid. Engagement is expected. Great leaders quickly address lack of engagement with a clear statement of what is expected and with openness and discussion on how to make it happen. They do not debate if it should happen and don’t get sidelined with endless discussions of obstacles, barriers, and complaints.

What other steps are in your critical plan for employee engagement?

©2010 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is widely known for her success inspiring zealous employee commitment and engagement in diverse industries. See this site for what leaders and other session participants have said and accomplished with Kate’s contributions.

Tags: complainer, contribution, employee, engagement, expectation, Innovation, inspiration, leaders, Naysayer, solutions, talents, unique