Employee Engagement – You can't do it alone
When an employee begins a new job, most of them bring enthusiasm and optimism with
them; but over time this enthusiasm and optimism can turn into disillusionment and resentment if the employee feels unappreciated or undervalued. Turning this disillusionment and resentment back around to enthusiasm and optimism will take time and effort, so lets start off by exploring the engaged leader and the importance of trust between managers and employees.
Become an engaged leader
Employee disengagement is a growing problem that needs to be wiped out. But where do you start? You start by making sure managers are engaged leaders and trust is in place between employees and management.
Strong leadership and relationship skills will help the managers to inspire others and will make them stronger leaders. After all, you won't have engaged employees if you yourself are not engaged.
The managers who have good relationship skills will have no problem mentoring their employees and fostering a positive environment where engagement can grow. This will strengthen the relationship and will increase the trust levels between the manager and the employee.
Every employee has talents and skills, and the effective leader knows how to utilize each employee's talents and skills. Employees feel more useful to a company when their talents and skills are being effectively utilized which will lead to greater job satisfaction and increased engagement. The trick is to capitalize on employee's talents and skills let them do what they do best.
When employees understand how their presence in the company makes a true difference, they will usually work harder for the success of the company as well as for their own personal success.
Giving recognition lets the employee know that their efforts are appreciated and that they do make a difference.
All of these traits will help you to become and stay an enthusiastic and engaged leader and to earn the trust of your co-located and virtual employees, which is crucial to your success as an engaged leader and to the success of your team.
Gain employee trust
Did you know that it takes four times longer to build trust in a virtual environment; and when you add cultural diversity into the mix, it adds 17 weeks for the team to perform as well as a collocated team? It can be hard to trust employees that you cannot see, but having trust between co-workers is crucial in developing and strengthening employee trust and engagement.
A key element in earning and keeping trust, which can easily break down in the virtual environment, consists of reliability and consistency. When employees communicate, provide feedback, and produce work reliably and consistently, there will be fewer doubts about the reliability of the employees. When people consistently keep their commitments, trust builds quickly, relationships are more likely to develop, and engagement has a stronger chance of being fostered and maintained.
Effective communication is also essential in earning or regaining trust, especially with the virtual team. You and your employees, after all, are working toward the same common goal the success and profitability of the company as well as professional success and fulfillment.
To gain professional fulfillment, you all need to have long-term goals and a genuine interest in each other's needs and ambitions that, if remembered and fostered, will help you create partnerships and mutual respect that will continue to grow and will help to create a harmonious and productive team. This, however, is just a start to professional fulfillment since each person will have different motivators. After all, what motivates one employee might not motivate another; some people are motivated by recognition for good work, others may be motivated by salary and bonuses, while others are motivated by achievement.
All of these can be more difficult to do in the virtual environment, so it is crucial to communicate with the employees and find out what each of their motivations are they might want more tasks or more challenging tasks, they might want to earn more time away from their jobs to spend with their families, they might want to invest time in career development, or they might want to mentor' others. Whatever their motivations might be, you need to align the goals of the organization with the goals of your employees and then follow through to make them happen.
It is important to remember that you cannot have engaged virtual employees without first having engaged leaders; therefore, it is crucial that company leaders and virtual employees work together to build an engaged and profitable virtual team. You the manager cannot do it alone; but if you are an engaged leader, it will be much easier to engage your virtual team and keep them engaged.
Upcoming Article "How to engage employees Part 1"
Employee Engagement You can't do it alone
By: Claire Sookman