Alert! What Your Employees Need from You to Be Engaged!

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Employee engagement is a great way to attract and keep great employees. It’s every hiring boss’s #1 concern today…or, should be.

If you don’t believe employee engagement is important, stop for a moment. Use the Cost of Hiring Calculator to get a conservative dollar value of what turnover is costing your company! Remember, you are already experiencing how hard it is to replace good employees! In the meantime, you’re losing profits, customers, and top talent while you are looking for the ideal candidate or attempting to manage someone that doesn’t fit the job.

6 Tips to Engage Employees and Create a Happier and Healthier Workplace

1. Begin Onboarding Immediately. Starting employee engagement on the day candidates apply for the job produces happier and healthier employees and reduces surprises later.

 Questions to ask yourself:

  • -Am I responding quickly and in an effective manner?
  • -Am I prepared for each conversation?
  • -What were the promises made (e.g., when to expect the job offer, key points and salary discussed during the interview)?

Remember, candidates today have short attention spans, but, long memories of how they were treated.

2. Engage in Conversations. Instead of checking the box for each interview question, engage the candidates in all conversations.

 Questions to include:

  • -What are they really looking for in this job?
  • -What is their purpose in life? In work?
  • -What are their goals in the next 3 to 5 years? (Don’t shy away from this question for older talent.)
  • -What specific skills do they need to learn or improve on?
  • -How can we provide a work/life/balance with our company?

Write down their responses and review them before each conversation. Remember, Millennials and Gen-Zers want to make a contribution that fulfills their purpose…not just pushing keys on the keyboard. Also, Baby Boomers and GenXers want to contribute…however, they will have different expectations of what the company needs to provide.

3. Use Qualified Assessments. While there are over 3,000 assessments on the market today, most are only for fun. They do not meet the Department of Labor’s Guidelines for pre-employment use. When you use scientifically validated tools with strong validation and reliability studies, you are telling candidates and employees that you value them and want to make sure they fit their job responsibilities. The right tools help you as a boss to hire, manage, coach, and train your employees effectively, while engaging them!

4. Stay in Communication. One manager said it took 9 months before he met his boss. During that time he felt he was doing a great job…until his manager told him he wasn’t, during their first meeting! It was a disempowering conversation that could have been avoided! The manager left 3 months later. Lesson? Bosses need to be available on Day #1. Schedule daily meetings for the first week, and less often as time progresses and they are on the right track!

5. Create 180-Day Success Plans. What will the successful candidates achieve? Be realistic. Include in the Plan how to build relationships, understand systems and policies, and be a contributing member of the team. Don’t forget to provide resources (e.g., training workshops, videos, or podcasts) and a mentor. During this time, provide positive daily reinforcement. This is very important and often overlooked. Remember, it’s a stressful time to learn a new job, meet new co-workers, and understand company expectations (both, written and unwritten).

6. Offer Brags! Studies have shown that bosses who provide daily acknowledgments to their employees don’t need formal recognition plans…and their employees stay much longer! Be sure these kudos are specific to each employee’s contribution to make them more meaningful.

©Jeannette Seibly, 2019

Jeannette Seibly is an award-winning champion for people and results. For the past 27 years, she has guided bosses and teams to excel. Want to improve your employee engagement practices?  Contact Jeannette today for straight talk with dynamic results.

 

New Podcast! How to Energize and Have Productive Meetings

We’ve all grown to hate meetings and feel they are a big huge waste of time. How can we turn this around and achieve the intended results?

My guest this week is Dr. Ronald Beach, author of The Virtual Divide.

http://ow.ly/kNRf30pUYfD (Anchor.FM/Jeannette-Seibly)

https://youtu.be/ux_UdwN0dPw (YouTube)

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