Benefit from a team booster approach to resolve issues who have to resolve.

As I continue to earn CEUs for my coach certification, ~ 85% of topics relate to employee engagement. I question why this topic is such high priority with companies and my client?

Here is what I see:

·      Employee engagement is about purpose. It is a visceral response and agreement, by the employee, team or tribe member, to emotionally connect to a company or cause’s mission in the world. Millennials are strongly connected to this idea.

·      Generational communication issues are at play here. With technology as a buffer to actual human interaction, people have lost the social skills to engage in meaningful conversation and connection. For example, SnapChat filters deliberately mask to enhance a person’s post. They do not know how to act, the rules of engagement. This affects how they also perform in their work and how they respond to stress and challenges.

·      Those who read less and rely on visual stimulation have reduced their vocabularies. It is more difficult to accurate express their feelings and meanings without specific references.

·      Contemporary workflow relies on digital communications for perceived expediency. Face-to-face meetings often are viewed as time wasters—I suggest a lot of speculation occurs if questions are not asked for clarification.

·      Brain changes—Unfortunately, our 21st Century selves have not evolved from our 10,000-year-old selves that required bonding together for survival, language to share knowledge, and ways to express empathy.

·      There is an abundance of “talking” and yelling at each other through social media. Yet, these shallow encounters do not improve our social skills. We require abilities to negotiate, debate, and have civil discourse to maintain our humanity and raise our empathy and understanding of the world around us.

Here are my recommendations to acquire easy tools to accomplish this:

1.     Employees have immediate exposure to the mission during the on-boarding process. Provide an assignment for the next meeting so they will continue to interact with the statement. Why would they want about the employee values qualify them to be part of the company?

2.     Leaders model the behaviors they want on their team.

3.     Create symbols of the connection. (This is why logos are valuable.) Use colors, badges, ribbons, anything that the employee can use as a pride link. Explain what they mean. This can be a systemwide project to have everyone on board. Make a memorable experience. Prizes work well here.

4.     Provide continuous engagement with messages throughout the company’s universe as snippet reminders of why the employee has a job to do—how we treat people, attitudes toward work, screen savers, posters, and awards.

5.     Have a VMP™ (Virtual Mastermind Project) experience in your organization. Here all levels are on equal footing-think King Arthur’s round table.

6.     Make a big deal—recognition of behaviors by leadership that advance the mission go far to have others see what is respected in the company. Have levels, like in games, to achieve. Give employees “bragging rights”, which encourage confidence and pride.

7.     Company culture becomes an ecosystem throughout which the mission is expressed. For example, this principle aids in decision making, because if an idea is not connected to the mission, it is stored for future reference without wasting current resources.

Remember, that which gets measured gets done. That which gets done gets rewarded. That which gets rewarded gets repeated! Anonymous

I am eager to hear your feedback. Thank you in advance. MC