It was a dark day at the corporate headquarters. I walked into my client’s office and sensed despair. “The employee survey results are in,” he said glumly. “Engagement is really low – we’re below the benchmark on almost every key measure. Now what do we do? It’s my job to fix this!”
Does this sound familiar? Have you been through less than desirable survey results and felt defeated and beat up?
Employee engagement/commitment is critical. There are countless studies linking employee engagement with beneficial outcomes, such as productivity and retention. When employees are not finding meaning in their work and/or don’t understand how what they do contributes to the organization’s goals, they consider leaving the company, and that means something needs to change.
What can be done? Simply put, committed and motivated employees translate to committed and motivated customers.
This is what happened next:
After reviewing the results in detail, we began to look at each department’s dynamics and natural drives and what exactly motivates each employee. The tool we utilized, Predictive Index, gave us all that information and more. We compiled the data, met with department leaders, and began to dive deep into each of the company’s goals by matching them to those natural drives of each of their team members. Understanding the team’s strengths in communication, innovation, analytics and much more allowed us to bring together a task force made up of members with a variety of each of those needed skill sets. By taking this approach, we automatically motivated the employees individually by allowing them to be who they are naturally. The turnaround was astonishing.
Formula for Success
- Understand your team members’ natural drives and talents at all times
- Understand exactly what is needed from open positions, existing teams, and existing leaders
- Seek feedback and encourage continued open communication by providing an open forum, as well as task force discussion opportunities
- Get feedback – all the time – from leadership to employees and employees to leadership
- Address the feedback, but never look to blame. Rather, seek to resolve and create joint solutions
- Don’t get hung up on survey results and benchmarks, but do focus on what was said and what can be learned and then addressed for future improvements
- Implement changes must based on everyone’s feedback and use the approach most likely to motivate each of your members. Start at the beginning and understand your team’s natural drives and motivations, while keeping in mind that we are all different.
Would you like to hear more?
If you would like to know more about motivation and natural behaviors that will help ignite your employees’ performance, the Predictive Index can be a very helpful and effective tool. Contact me today to lean more.
