Thought Leadership: Employee Engagement

 

FROM BROADCAST TO EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Thought leadership traditionally focused on the leader broadcasting their vision, mission and directions to their tribe.  There has been a shift from this broadcast leadership style to employee engagement.  How do you achieve employee engagement?

CORE VALUES

Do you lead your team with a set of core values everyone buys into and embraces?  At our team discussions, we share our core values to ensure all the AlphaKORians’ know how important it is to ask themselves if they are 100% engaged in subscribing to these core values.

This is one of the core values:  excellence.  Without employee engagement being empowered to do whatever it takes you will not end up with the “wow everyone” effect.

WHATEVER IT TAKES

Empowering your tribe with some structure and guidelines, while providing them the autonomy to do whatever it takes to wow everyone builds a strong employee engagement.  Every member of the tribe knows they have a voice, they make a difference and they can challenge a better way to ensure we are always doing our best.

Encourage employees to speak up and share because the same voice is not as strong as all the employees' voices when they share their messages.

PARTICIPATION

When employees participate in person or virtually in company events, fund-raisers, after-hours events by volunteering and similar actions, you know you have good employee engagement.   How do you make this happen?  Lead by example.  Encourage them. Show them how it makes a difference.   Recognize their contributions.  It takes time to achieve a high volume of participation.  Be patient and keep at it.

SENSE OF OWNERSHIP

I enjoy doing “laps” around our building several times a day, reaching out to those working from home and our monthly team discussions.   These are great ways to interact with the team as well.   You can tell when employees are committed to their work as they nod their head while deep in a task or project.   Many take the time to share what they are doing and engage in a brief conversation or share what is going on at home with them and their family.   They have a sense of ownership and pride when they talk about their role and know their voice is heard by others.

What does employee engagement look like in your organization?

(Originally published on 04.13.22)