With so many businesses moving their operations online, many leaders are struggling to find a balance in hybrid environments. The remote experience has a learning curve and things become even more complicated when you combine it with in-person activity.
Four tips for engaging meetings in a hybrid environment:
Send out a pre-meeting email where everyone can access all meeting materials.
Give everyone a chance to voice questions or concerns.
As much as possible make sure everyone can see and hear each other, and encourage a friendly, professional discourse.
Encourage everyone to participate and make an effort to make the remote employees feel included.
Hybrid work environments can be challenging, however, when you have the right tools in place, you can change your meetings from chaotic to connected.
George was seen as an up-and-coming leader in the organization. People who worked for him liked and respected him. Senior leaders saw his potential and wanted him to attend the company’s leadership development workshop.
George was ecstatic. He loved the organization and wanted to move up and contribute as much as he could. He saw this opportunity as a positive step in that progression. Plus, he had some challenges in his job that he hoped he could learn how to deal with more successfully.
After he found out he was slated to attend the workshop, George didn’t hear anything more about the training until about a week before it began. With the workshop details in hand, he was excited all over again. Excited, that is, until he looked at his calendar and saw how much he had to do prior to the start of the workshop.
Because the training meant so much to him, he was determined to be focused while he was there, so he worked really hard to get all of his projects caught up before he left for the workshop.
George loved the workshop! The facilitator was great, the content was helpful, and the food was even good! He was very motivated by the new ideas and the people he met. His confidence level increased as they practiced some of the things they learned. As an outcome of the program, he built an action plan. He left the two-day workshop completely stoked about what he had learned and how he would be able to apply it.
After the Workshop
George woke up the next morning and reviewed his action plan. He was excited because he knew what he would do to become a better leader starting today.
Back at work, he fired up his computer and checked his voice mails – 23 messages.
His heart sank a little. As he listened to the messages, taking notes as needed, he opened up his emails and found an even more depressing sight – 91 emails. Giving them a quick glance, they all required him to read, work through and respond.
After getting a cup of coffee, George went to say hello to his team. This took awhile because they had questions and issues they wanted to discuss with him. By 9:15 am he was back at his desk, ready to tackle all the phone and email messages including seven new emails that had come in while he was out.
By 3:00 pm he had mostly forgotten about his action plan and only remembered it when he saw the document in his briefcase. He took it out and looked at it wistfully. He was still committed to working on those items, but they would have to wait awhile, as the next project meeting was all day tomorrow.
Reviewing the Situation
Perhaps the situation above sounds familiar to you – a willing learner, a well-designed workshop, and a person excited about their action plan.
Admittedly, this story might be a bit too rosy, not everyone who attends training will be as excited and motivated as George. In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter because a highly motivated person like George won’t get as much from this effort as he could.
Why?
Because while most leadership development programs focus on developing great training, that is a small part of the overall likelihood of success. Why? Because, training is an event, but learning including leadership development is a process.
We don’t learn important, complex life skills in a brief instant. We don’t learn to play a musical instrument in a one-day workshop.
From a training event, we can have insights, be inspired, get ideas, approaches, checklists, and knowledge.
Skills, however, develop over time and not in a one-shot, one-time training course regardless of how well it is designed or how awesome the trainer is. It’s not a one and done activity that someone can check off their to-do list. Learning new skills come with practice and application.
Leadership development is a process and as long as those efforts are training events, the return on those investments will never be high.
Make your leadership development process more successful
To make your leadership development process, whether for yourself or your organization, be more successful, the Leader Foundations Leadership Academy is a customized program specifically created to support new leaders build a solid foundation to succeed in their new roles.
This interactive, practical learning and implementation program will get leaders up to speed fast. They will identify skills they need to develop or strengthen to level up and increase their effectiveness.
For more information about the Leader Foundations Leadership Academy please visit: https://redworkscoaching.com/services/executive-coaching/leader-foundations-leadership-academy/
As technology continues to evolve, people only gain more things that are distracting. When it comes to your employees, their working hours are valuable, so you need to make sure you’re keeping them engaged as often as possible.
Simple ways to engage employees:
Offer rewards like a free lunch for anyone who meets their monthly goals.
Use workflow management apps like Asana or Trello to keep everyone up to date and on task in a fun and easy-to-understand way.
If your team is working remotely, conduct morning meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page.
You can always adjust your workplace processes depending on your business as you try different approaches and see what works and what doesn’t.
A recent report by Gallup shows that global employee engagement has seen an impressive rise in the past decade. The companies that fell into this category report higher earnings-per-share, up to quadruple that of their competitors who have less engaged personnel. However, the same report notes the effects of the pandemic on employee engagement and the risk of employees becoming disengaged. Now more than ever, company leaders are considering employee wellness and job satisfaction as a top priority. Creating the right working environment could be the thing that takes your business to the next level, it’s essential to remain competitive in today’s marketplace.
There are various implementations you might consider for increasing employee engagement. Depending on your industry, you can get more specific, but at the very core you’ll want to consider these three concepts:
Recognition
Work-life balance
Employee Wellness
It’s important to consider more than one channel for engagement because your employees are all unique individuals. Part of engagement is acknowledging the skills and characteristics each employee brings to the table. The more you understand someone, the better chance you have at connecting with them. Now you can consider these concepts in a little more detail and think about how you might apply them to your own business Each one contributes to overall productivity in its own way.
Recognition
When a person feels valued, they generally want to keep creating that feeling. Even a few simple words of appreciation can go a long way and help someone power through the rest of their day. Not only does recognition have a positive effect on the employee, but it reflects well on the manager or owner. One of the simplest ways to implement a system for recognition is with some form of reward. Of course, the reward itself might change depending on the nature of your business.
Work-life balance
Even though your business might mean everything to you, your employees still have a whole host of responsibilities outside of work. If you try to maintain a professional yet flexible workplace, your employees will generally be much happier coming into work. Try to be understanding that everyone deals with daily stress, and it benefits you most when your employees can focus solely on their work. If they can worry a little bit less about scheduling conflicts, they’ll have more energy to complete work tasks.
Employee wellness
Productivity is all about maximizing time and efficiency. When you’re focused on your wellness, you can carry that positive experience into other areas of your life. Companies with wellness programs report high levels of employee satisfaction. It might be a small investment but it shows good faith in your employee and contributes to their ability to perform well in their work. Wellness programs also attract qualified candidates that prioritize their health, which generally indicates a higher ability to perform and potentially an even greater work ethic.
The bottom line
Employee engagement is directly related to the success (or failure) of your business. When it comes to creating an engaging work environment that fosters productivity, you need to focus on bringing value to your employee, as well as making them feel valued.
The Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Program
To develop more strategies our Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program focuses on simple but powerful behaviours that will have maximum impact on a leader’s ability to engage his or her employees.
Your organization may be eligible for funding through the Canada-Saskatchewan Job Grant program or the Re-Skill Saskatchewan Training Program.
“Engaging the hearts, minds, and hands of talent is the most sustainable source of competitive advantage.” Greg Harris, President and CEO of Quantum Workplace.
We’re excited to launch our new free one-hour webinar called, The Great Engagement: Three Powerful Practices.
Use your free 30-60-90 Day Employee Engagement Plan Blueprint to design your own Great Engagement for 2022.
The Great Engagement is a call to action to expand your approach to more effectively engage your employees. Employee engagement impacts your bottom line!
How engaged are your employees now?
Research indicates that 60% of employees are not engaged, and 15% are actively disengaged at work.
The costs of this situation are staggering. Disengagement costs the North American business economy over $350 billion per year in lost productivity.
What might employee disengagement be costing your organization?
How do you currently engage your employees?
How will you engage with your employees in 2022?
If you’re not currently focused on engagement then how will you engage your employees in 2022?
If you’re not sure how to start, get your free 30-60-90 Day Blueprint to actively design your own great employee engagement program. We have included a few simple ideas and a planning framework to set you up for success in 2022!
“Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” – Sam Walton
The Great Engagement is a call to action to praise more often.
Do you praise your employees easily, sincerely and often?
If not, you may be losing out on an opportunity to trigger a dopamine release which can then boost innovative thinking and creative problem-solving.
Tips to Take Action
Catch someone doing something well and praise them promptly.
Consider how each employee would like to be praised – publicly, privately, in person, by email, on social media, etc.
The Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program
While there is no quick fix, there are simple leadership practices that can produce immediate improvements in engagement.
To develop more strategies our Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program focuses on simple but powerful behaviours that will have maximum impact on a leader’s ability to engage his or her employees.
Your organization may be eligible for funding through the Canada Job Grant program. Employers may be eligible to receive two-thirds of the training cost.
“By not understanding what their employees are running from, and what they might gravitate to, company leaders are putting their very businesses at risk.” McKinsey & Company
The Great Engagement is a call to action to reduce this risk of losing employees.
Do you know what your employees are running from? What might they gravitate towards? Is your business at risk of losing employees?
As a leader you may think you know the answers but, according to McKinsey &
Company, managers and employees do not agree on what’s the most important factors for staying at an organization.
Top three factors employees cited as reasons for quitting were that they didn’t feel:
Valued by their organizations (54 percent) or
Valued by their managers (52 percent) or
A sense of belonging at work (51 percent).
Tips to Take Action
As an organization, by understanding the reasons why employees are leaving or would even consider leaving, you can take effective actions to not only retain but also attract potential employees.
How do you as a leader show you value your employees?
What does the organization do in terms of making people feel they belong and are valued?
Is your organization struggling with effectively engaging employees?
The Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program
While there is no quick fix, there are simple leadership practices that can produce immediate improvements in engagement.
To develop your strategies our Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program focuses on simple but powerful behaviours that will have maximum impact on a leader’s ability to engage his or her employees.
Your organization may be eligible for funding through the Canada Job Grant program. Employers may be eligible to receive two-thirds of the training cost.
“You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.” – Zig Ziglar
The Great Engagement is a call to action to expand your approach to more effectively engage your employees.
Research from Gallup suggests that rewards and recognition, with its low cost and high impact, might be one of the most underutilized tools that managers have for boosting engagement.
Do you regularly show appreciation to your staff members?
If not, you could be losing an opportunity to provide encouragement and bolster engagement.
Take Action
A simple thank you can make them feel more valued in the workplace and also brighten up their day!
Other simple ideas:
Fancy teas or coffee in the coffee room
Team lunch
Bring in snacks to a meeting
Acknowledge people during staff meeting
Ask people for a personal or professional highlight
Give a hand-written thank you note;
Acknowledge their specific contribution to a business success;
Time off to volunteer
The Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program
While there is no quick fix, there are simple leadership practices that can produce immediate improvements in engagement.
Our Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program focuses on simple but powerful behaviours that will have maximum impact on a leader’s ability to engage his or her employees.
Your organization may be eligible for funding through the Canada Job Grant program. Employers may be eligible to receive two-thirds of the training cost.
The Great Engagement is a call to action to increase output and innovation.
According to the Cicero Group, research shows that employees receiving strong performance recognition are much more likely to be highly engaged at their job. They are also more likely to perform at their maximum output and develop innovative ways to improve their company.
Do you make it a practice to regularly recognize your employees’ performance?
Do you know one of the reasons employees leave is that employees don’t feel valued by their manager?
If you’re not regularly recognizing your employees, you may be missing out on your employees using their key strengths to contribute their best efforts.
Tips to Take Action
Take the time to personally get to know your employees and find out how they prefer to be acknowledged.
Prepare key messages for each employee that you can customize and deliver as the opportunity emerges. You can also create the opportunity to share your message!
Create accountability for yourself by setting a ‘deliver by’ date.
Then acknowledge your employees often!
The Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program
To develop more strategies our Great Engagement: Engage and Mobilize Employees Training Program focuses on simple but powerful behaviours that will have maximum impact on a leader’s ability to engage his or her employees.
Your organization may be eligible for funding through the Canada Job Grant program. Employers may be eligible to receive two-thirds of the training cost.
