My Recipe for an Engaged Workforce

Employee engagement is like that thing that kids have which we all wish we could bottle up and sell to make our millions. It’s that unexplainable energy and drive that is evident in their behavior. How do I connect children’s energy and employee engagement in my brain you may be wondering? Well, wonder no more, I’ll tell you. I am always amazed at how my children can spend 5 hours running around a zoo and still have the energy to go play at the park and play for a few more hours when they get home. I wish I could bottle that energy up and sell it to the world. 

I have come across employees in my years in HR that have similar energy in the workplace. You wonder how they can do X for 8 hours and still be smiling and full of life at the end of the day. Maybe they are in sales and despite 100 rejections, they keep their game face on and keep smiling and do their best on every customer interaction every time which leads to the next 100 sales. How can they stay so positive? Or for a person working in a labor-intensive or physically or mentally demanding job, how do they still do their best all day and even in the proverbial 11th hour?

Here is my theory, observation, and a subsequent recipe for an engaged employee… Start with good leadership, throw in a dash of continued support and encouragement, whisk away all negative feedback and pour in positive reinforcement, and combine that with a person who is both willing to do the job and qualified to do it. This is your recipe for an engaged and happy workforce. Granted, some employees will defy logic and be happy and engaged even with the worst manager and the worst working conditions, and I wish I knew how to find more of those folks. However, we can help employees to be engaged and thriving in the workforce with my recipe.

I know it sounds easy enough, but how do you get all those ingredients to work together? Training your managers to lead and not micro-manage is an important first step. I highly recommend that every manager read ‘Whale Done!” by Ken Blanchard, Thad Lacinak, Chuck Tompkins, & Jim Ballard. It is a great book about the power of positive reinforcement in relationships. It’s a short and easy read with some great insights. Positive reinforcement is an important tool to help employees feel empowered and encouraged to do the right things at work without the shame and resentment that is often brought about from negative reinforcement.

No matter how much positive reinforcement you provide an employee, if they are not qualified or trained to do a job, they are not likely to succeed or at least not to thrive. It is important to make sure that you have the right employee in the right job. To be fully engaged at work, an employee needs to be in a position that they have the ability to thrive in. If they struggle to understand core concepts and what is expected, they are not likely to really be tuned in and using their strengths to make improvements to efficiencies and to tackle tough assignments.

Is your workforce engaged and doing their best? If so, great! You are doing something right! If not, start by working with your staff to ensure they are getting the support and encouragement they need from management to tackle the challenges they face every day.

Refreshed and Ready to Tackle Another Monday

I'm here to tell you today that there is no better way to start your Monday morning than a good night's sleep. All too often on Mondays I see my coworkers dragging themselves in while yawning all throughout their day because they didn't get enough sleep. The problem is that their lack of energy is also a drain on their productivity. This is evident even to the untrained person, but as I thought about this topic I did what most curious minds do... I googled it. Here is an interest tidbit of information for you from a recent Harvard study discussed at http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/importance_of_sleep_and_health. Quoting directly from this link, I found this information quite interesting…

The Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests six reasons to get enough sleep:

 Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
 Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
 Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
 Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.
 Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
 Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.


Back to my own original thoughts on this issue. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a sleep scientist for that matter) to figure out that you perform better when you are well rested and refreshed from a good night's sleep. I recently invested in a new mattress, and now it feels like I'm sleeping on a cloud every night! I can honestly say that I feel better every morning since having the new mattress. Who would have thought a new bed could lead to a new and improved me? I wake up easier in the morning and feel more alive and awake and ready to tackle the day when I get in the office. So the moral of this story is... INVEST IN YOURSELF! Whether it be allowing yourself more time for that needed cat nap or a new bed to make your slumber more tranquil, take the time to ensure your body and mind have the much needed reward of a good night's sleep.