4Cs Blog: Happy Employees = Happy Customers

Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

There is a difference between happy employees and engaged employees. Happy employees are most likely to say they are ‘satisfied’ with their work. They are the ones who come to work every day and put in their time and may even enjoy their jobs but they aren’t the ones willing to go the extra mile for your organization. 

What Good is a Boss or What is a Good Boss?

 Our research conducted across thousands of workers across the United States from a wide array of companies and organizations tells us that fewer than six-in-ten employees think their boss is doing a good job No wonder the Leadership training industry is booming; there are a lot of bad bosses out there who need help. Part of the problem is that even though we know good bosses act as coaches and teachers, the reality is there are very few people who end up as good bosses. Reasons why this happens is that sometimes talented people are forced into management or power-hungry people are drawn towards management. Often times it’s just a bad fit.

The Need for Effective Communication in U.S. Organizations

As humans, we have a need to be appreciated and a need to belong both at work and at home. This sense of belonging and feeling appreciated means so much to us that employees will often leave their jobs because they don’t feel needed. One of the key drivers of an employee’s attitude towards job satisfaction is the quality of communications.  We found in our 2014 Insightlink National Employee Survey that a shocking 60% of employees in the U.S. are not satisfied with the overall effectiveness of communications within their organizations. This suggests that many U.S. organizations are failing to make their employees feel needed and are at risk of low morale, high turnover and poor productivity.  

HR Can Make Work a Better Place

Anyone who has ever been an employee – or managed one – knows that there are many elements that contribute to a satisfying work experience. Because at Insightlink, we continuously conduct employee surveys for organizations across a range of industries, sizes and countries, we have a finely tuned sense of those elements. As a result we know how much and in what ways HR initiatives, programs and policies can move the needle on the key drivers of employee satisfaction.

For example, our research shows that the #1 driver in the US that determines job satisfaction, is having work that is satisfying, enjoyable and respected yet slightly more than 6 out of 10 employees actually feel this way. This represents a real opportunity for HR to influence job satisfaction but what are the best ways to make a positive impact on employees?  Here are just a few suggestions:

1.   Know where your organization currently stands and then make a commitment to plan for change as well as to invest in the tools and resources required to create change. Consider implementing an Employee Satisfaction Survey to benchmark your staff, then devise a plan.

2.   Make caring your mantra. Talk to people, learn everything you can about your employees, put yourself in their shoes and be honest about areas that need attention and improving. For example does your company censure mobile phones and use firewalls? Perhaps you should leverage that technology and enable it to your advantage and theirs. You may lose the respect and trust of many employees if you don’t find a way to embrace mobile in your workplace. Statistics show that that almost 70% of Americans will soon own a smartphone and they use them 24/7.

3.   See the person not the employee. Begin by changing your vocabulary through simple words like ‘please, thank you, and well done’. Show you care through words and actions because when you care about someone they will care in return.

Our advice based on years of experience helping companies transform themselves is to know where you stand in real-time using a meaningful employee survey so you have the facts to evaluate where you are so that you can plan where you need to go.

Contact us at Insightlink Communications to find out more about employee satisfaction surveys and how we can help you start to make work a better place.

Are You Ready to be Committed to your Employees?

Commitment

Employee commitment is one of the factors that can help prevent turnover in an organization. According to the 2014 Insightlink National Employee Satisfaction Survey, almost one-quarter of employees expect to leave their current organizations within the next two years. The National Survey also shows that six-in-ten employees see themselves as being highly committed to their organizations but less than one-half believe their organizations are committed to them as employees. 

Although there are many factors that influence turnover, organizations must recognize the need to demonstrate that they are committed to their employees if they expect their employees to remain loyal to the organization. Some of the elements that contribute to employee commitment include sharing open and honest communications, offering opportunities for employees to participate in training and development and helping them with their career advancement. 

Contact us at Insightlink Communications to find out more about employee commitment.

What Motivates your Employees?

Reward and Recognition

The 2014 Insightlink National Employee Satisfaction Survey shows that less than four-in-ten American employees are satisfied with the level of reward and recognition in their organizations. It is surprising to us that companies don’t realize the importance of reward and recognition. After all, they want their employees to perform at a high level but they do not recognize and reward the behaviors that they want employees to repeat.

When you recognize and reward your employees, they feel appreciated and bring higher levels of energy and commitment to their work. You can do a lot of things to make your employees feel they are valued, from tangible rewards, such as gift cards, to intangible rewards, such as time off, but the reward must be meaningful to the employee being recognized. Why not ask your employees what is meaningful to them?

Contact us at Insightlink Communications to find out more about employee engagement surveys.

The Eight Habits of Effective Employees

A survey of CEOs, business owners, HR directors and frontline managers identified the following eight characteristics as those looked for most often when hiring and promoting staff.

1. Understand and demonstrate the value they bring to the organization,

2. Have a positive impact on the company, its customers and their colleagues,

3. Embrace and initiate positive change,

4. Communicate openly and directly,

5. Commit to lifelong learning,

6. Deliberately look for opportunities to build their leadership skills,

7. Learn to ask for help when they need it and work with their company on how to solve problems, and

8. Not only work harder but also smarter, faster and better.

Characteristics like these are desirable because they represent the ideal employee; the kinds of people all companies should aspire to have working for them. Why? Because it is essential to the success of your business to have motivated employees working for you. Motivated employees save you money because they stay longer and work harder. And, they make your company look good to the outside world whether they are connecting with the people you do business with or telling stories from the office to friends and family. Like Brand Ambassadors, your staff reflects all that is good, or bad, in your company.

You probably already have an intuitive sense whether people in your company are miserable, enthusiastic or somewhere in between. To be absolutely sure, we encourage you to implement a well-executed Insightlink Employee Engagement Survey and get the facts. We are experienced professionals who can help you take the first step to ensuring you are a company comprised of Highly Effective People.

5 Essential Elements for Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is essential to a company’s success. When a company receives an employee satisfaction survey report, there are often several things that become important for success with employee engagement. These essential elements become the backbone of an engagement program in many successful companies like Google, Microsoft and others: Communication between staff and management is key.

Did you know that at least 37% of employees never have discussions with management on anything? This is a problem that can easily be solved. Companies that have advancement options have better engagement. Listing what is needed for advancement helps to brew motivation. Career development plans tend to help engage their employees. Plus, employees who are engaged are likely to be 2.5 times more productive than those who are not. Recognition from management plays a major part of engagement. Just a few simple, kind words can boost engagement by 60%. It also motivates employees to do their best. This in turn increases productivity for employees. Employees need to get along with both their managers and each other. Most employees greatly value teamwork, knowledge and positive attitudes.

If they get all of the above from everyone around them, they will most likely be engaged. Set goals for everyone to collaborate on. This plays big into teamwork and recognition. Set reachable goals for the employees in your organization, and then recognize when the goals are met or exceeded.

For more tips and information on how to keep employees engaged, contact us at Insightlink Communications.  

5 Things that Ruin Employee Engagement

Employee surveys tell you everything that is going well and not so well within an organization. They are crucial to helping identify issues that affect employee engagement. However, they do not normally explain how the employees became disengaged in the first place. Below are five things that could cause disengagement in most employees:

Not enough training, or problems with training. Most employees expect to be trained for their job. Just telling them what to do is not enough. Continuous training with the ability to expand their knowledge helps to keep employees engaged in their job.

Overpaying employees for engagement. If you throw money at employees, it’s only going to temporarily fix engagement. At first, employees will be happy with the extra pay, but in the end the problems in the organization are still there. Engagement cannot be bought; it must be earned.

Poor management skills. When the wrong person becomes manager, nothing else can fix the impact that the employees feel. This causes disengagement. In fact, most employees leave jobs due to management, not pay or benefits.

Inability of a company to share information spreads distrust. Employees feel like they cannot trust their company when information that can help them do their jobs better is not shared. This information includes how the company is doing, overall, and the annual outlooks.

Bad hiring practices. Hiring people who are not right for the job will eventually weigh heavily on a company. Employees who feel they do not fit in or do not have the right skills for the job are generally disengaged.

For more information on employee engagement, contact us at Insightlink Communications.  

Millennials and the Push for Engagement in the Corporate World

Disengaged employees are common in today’s society. It’s expected, since the workforce and jobs available as a whole have changed dramatically in the last 50 years. In the United States, alone, employment satisfaction has hit a low. This low is equal to about 30%, which is one of the lowest in the world. More and more companies are sending jobs overseas, and the American pride sometimes seems to have been taken over by greed.

But the newest generation hitting the workforce, the so-called Millennials, are demanding better employer relations, as well as social responsibility from the largest companies. This could, in theory, create a shift in how employers handle their business. It seems that engagement for this new generation is dependent on how innovative a company is with their corporate social responsibility programs. These programs dictate how money is donated, where employees can volunteer, and how the company tries to help the environment. These programs were traditionally held behind closed doors, but this might change.

Considering the current demands of the Millennials when it comes to these programs and the employee’s level of engagement, a more transparent policy needs to be instituted. It has been suggested that corporations should allow employees to choose where their donations go. This, in turn, will increase engagement. So far, the best way to create engagement is to create an atmosphere of community in the workplace. This brings the employees together to solve problems, interact and create stronger working relationships. This hits on many of the major points where engagement tends to fail in Corporate America. Contact us at Insightlink Communications for help with employee engagement surveys and strategies.  

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