William Kahn, one of the pioneer researchers of employee engagement, compared employees in their jobs to occupants of a house. Some invest in the property and maintain it well; others put up a mailbox but barely seem to move in let alone do any updates. While ultimately, it’s true that the employee “owner” has responsibilities for the “house”, it’s sad but true that many employers don’t do their best to help the new employee make the house that represents their job a home toward which they feel a sense of ownership and want to stay.
Over the last several years, LMA Consulting has conducted focus groups with hundreds of employees to determine what employees value most about their employment, their supervisors and the organizations where they work. The focus group participants came from many different types of organizations in food and hard goods manufacturing, healthcare, and services. In spite of the variety of career paths and occupations, we heard many of the same themes repeated over and over again. Regardless of the type of work, clear patterns emerge that describe best practices any employer can adopt to create a more satisfied, productive and engaged workforce. Here are just a few of the factors employees told us make a difference in the level of commitment they feel towards their jobs and place of employment. These four factors emerged as keys to engagement for newly hired employees.
Orientation Programs
New employees really do want to know what to do, and want to be able to feel confident about their ability to perform the duties of their position. A well structured orientation and training program that provides employees with the knowledge they need to perform their tasks and duties with a sense of competence is the first key to creating employee engagement. In fact, it is absolutely critical. Feeling competent goes hand-in-hand with feeling cared for and connected to the organization. Feeling incompetent leads to job dissatisfaction, disengagement, poor performance and turnover.
Buddy Programs
A strong buddy program that partners a new employee with an experienced employee who is a positive role model, knows how to teach job skills, has a friendly and professional demeanor and has enough time to work with the new employee is a huge plus. A poorly designed buddy program is a disaster that accelerates turnover and guarantees poor morale. We heard many stories of buddies who were never trained how to teach and coach; either didn’t take the time or weren’t given the time needed to do a good job; and some that even appeared to go out of their way to avoid working with the new employee they didn’t happen to like for their own personal reasons.
Coworkers
Two key points of connection for every new employee are their supervisor and their coworkers. Based on our focus groups, it appears that few employees invest in getting their own employees involved in the effort to create a workplace culture of engagement. An employee at a local plant of a large, nationally known organization told us, “No one talked to me until I was here past my first 90 days. They told me so many people quit during the first three months, they don’t bother anymore with new people.” Given that kind of reception, no wonder so many new employees leave this organization. How are your employees? Are they on your side in the war for talent?
Supervisors
Time and again employees in every focus group told us about supervisors in their workplace that no one wanted to work for, and other supervisors that everyone wanted to work for. The supervisors who get the least respect are those who “kick down and kiss up” – behaving in ways that are controlling and abusive to their subordinates while being ingratiating and submissive towards senior managers. They are self centered and seek to further their own careers at the expense of their employees.
The supervisors who were preferred were approachable and firm, but fair. They listen to employees with understanding, and show compassion, but are not wishy-washy. They are enthusiastic about the organization and the work that is done in their part of the business, and their enthusiasm is contagious. They have strong technical skills in the area they supervise, and also have strong people skills. They lead by example and are positive role models. Most important of all, they took time every day to connect with their employees, know them as individuals, provide encouragement, and clear, accurate feedback. Every dollar invested in developing strong leaders at the supervisory level pays dividends in higher productivity, product and service quality, better attendance and lower turnover.
The lessons learned are clear – to develop employees who take ownership of their jobs, provide a workplace that helps new employees learn, coworkers who welcome them, and supervisors with strong leadership skills who form a strong connection with their people.
HR Viewpoint 