Employee Engagement For Dummies

The easy way to boost employee engagement Today more than ever, companies and leaders need a road map to help them boost employee engagement levels. Employee Engagement For Dummies helps employers implement the necessary plans to create and sustain an engaging culture, allowing them to attract and retain the best people while boosting their productivity and creativity. Employee Engagement For Dummies helps you foster employee engagement, a concept that furthers an organization's interests through ensuring that employees remain involved in, committed to, and fulfilled by their work. It covers: practical steps to boost employee engagement with your company or team; how to engage different generations of employees; the keys to reduce voluntary employee turnover; practical tools to help retain and engage your employees; processes that will boost employee retention and productivity; hiring the best fits from the start; and much more. Helps you recognize and understand the impact of positive employee engagement Helps you attract and retain the best employees Employee Engagement For Dummies is for business leaders at all levels who are looking to better engage their employees and increase morale and productivity.

Table of Contents:
Foreword xiii Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part I: Getting Started with Employee Engagement 5 Chapter 1: Basic Training: Employee Engagement Basics 7 Say What? Defining Employee Engagement 8 Engagement is not a “program” 9 There is no “there”: Engagement is a journey, not a destination 10 Making It Happen: Driving Engagement 11 Pick Me! Pick Me! Picking the Right People for Engagement 13 Measure Twice, Cut Once: Measuring and Recognizing Engagement 14 Chapter 2: The Hard Sell: Making a Business Case for Employee Engagement 15 What’s the Big Deal? Why Employee Engagement Matters 15 Grow your own: Cultivating customer satisfaction with employee engagement 17 Profit margin: Driving profits with employee engagement 18 Danger, Will Robinson! The Dangers of Disengagement 18 Breeding Ground: Engagement Breeds Innovation (Or Is It the Other Way Around?) 22 We Are the Champions: Finding and Developing Engagement Champions 27 Objective Case: Setting Goals and Objectives for Your Engagement Plan 28 On a Budget: Budgeting for Engagement 30 Chapter 3: Engagement Gauges: Finding Your Employee Engagement Baseline 31 Survey Says: Conducting Employee Engagement Surveys 32 Working with a consultant 33 Asking the right questions 34 Analyzing the results 35 Communicating the results to your employees 37 Going forward after a survey 37 Exit Only: Conducting Exit Interviews 39 Who to interview and who should do the asking 39 When to conduct an exit interview 40 What to ask 40 Sit! Stay! Conducting Stay Interviews 42 Who to interview and who should do the asking 42 What to ask in a stay interview 43 Measuring Stick: Other Engagement Barometers 43 Assessing your training investment 44 Tracking employee referrals 45 Chapter 4: Motivation Nation: Engagement and Motivation 47 Outie or Innie? Understanding Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Motivation 47 Key Club: Identifying Key Intrinsic Motivational Drivers 49 A No-Malarkey Hierarchy: Putting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Work for You 52 A Yearn to Learn: Fostering a Learning Culture 55 Chapter 5: Talk to Me! The Importance of Communication 59 Mind the Gap: The Great Organizational Communication Fissure 60 Two-Way Street: Establishing Two-Way Communication 61 Bob the Builder: Building a Communication Protocol 63 Tool Time: Maximizing the Various Communication Tools 67 Face to face 68 Phone 69 E-mail 71 Social media 71 Putting it all together 72 He Said, She Said: Resolving Conflict 75 Identifying your conflict-management style 75 Resolving conflict with ease 79 Dealing with difficult people 80 Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Communicating Change 82 Talking It Up: Communicating Your Engagement Efforts 84 Communication Don’ts 86 Part II: Strategies for Driving Engagement 89 Chapter 6: Winning Their Hearts and Minds: Driving Engagement with a Sense of Purpose 91 Sightseeing: values Building Your Line of Sight 91 Identifying your firm’s purpose 93 Defining your firm’s 95 Identifying your organization’s vision 96 Building your strategic plan 97 Promoting your purpose, values, and vision 98 Be Responsible! Engaging Employees through Corporate Social Responsibility 100 Chapter 7: People Who Lead People: Engaging Employees through Leadership 105 Vice Versus: Management Versus Leadership 105 The Big 12: Identifying 12 Leadership-Based Engagement Drivers 107 Top It Off: Leadership Starts at the Top 108 Purple People Leader: Identifying the Behaviors and Traits of Engaged Leaders 110 Here Comes the Train Again: Training Managers to Become Engaged Leaders 113 Put Me In, Coach! Coaching for Engagement 115 A quick guide to coaching 115 Using the GROW model 118 Do This, Not That: Identifying Leadership Best Practices 119 I feel you, man 119 Offering a hand up 120 You’re not the boss of me! 120 Recognize, recognize, recognize 120 Chapter 8: Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: Driving Engagement across Generations 121 Boom Baby: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Baby Boomers 122 Attracting and hiring Boomers 123 Training Boomers 123 Engaging Boomers 124 Rewarding Boomers 125 X Marks the Spot: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Generation X 126 Attracting and hiring Generation X 126 Training Generation X 127 Engaging Generation X 128 Rewarding Generation X 128 Y Ask Y: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Generation Y 130 Attracting and hiring Generation Y 131 Training Generation Y 131 Engaging Generation Y 132 Rewarding Generation Y 134 Putting It All Together 134 Chapter 9: Go, Team! Driving Engagement through Team Development 139 Yay, Team: Identifying Characteristics of an Engaged Team 139 Stormin’ Norman: Exploring Tuckman’s Stages 141 The forming stage 143 The storming stage 144 The norming stage 145 The performing stage 146 Putting it all together 147 From a Distance: Leading Teams from Afar 150 Team Player: Exploring Team-Building Activities 151 Running a successful team-building activity 152 Tackling common challenges 153 Looking at effective team-building activities 154 Hit Me with Your Best Shot: Conducting a High-Impact Team Workshop 161 Chapter 10: Brandy, You’re a Fine Girl: Driving Engagement through Branding 163 Better Relate than Never: Understanding How Branding and Engagement Relate 164 Hello, My Name Is _____: Defining Who You Are 165 Talking It Up: Communicating Your Employment Brand 168 Branding internally 168 Branding externally 169 Tri-Angle: Understanding Tri-Branding 171 Enlisting your employees as brand ambassadors 173 Making sure your customers sing your praises 174 Leveraging other stakeholders in your tri-branding efforts 175 Chapter 11: Game On! Driving Engagement with Gamification 177 Paging Mr Webster: Defining Gamification 178 But What Does It Do? Understanding What Gamification Does 178 Get with the Program! Developing a Gamification Program 179 Pinpointing your business objectives 179 Identifying desired behaviors 181 Choosing rewards 182 Selecting game mechanics 184 Part III: Selecting the Right Employees to Increase Engagement 189 Chapter 12: You’re Hired! Hiring for Engagement 191 Trait Up: Pinpointing Key Behaviors and Traits 192 Good, Better, Best: Using the BEST Approach for Job Selection and Advancement 194 Assembling the BEST job description 196 Looking at a sample BEST characteristics matrix 199 Mix and Match: The Importance of Diversity 203 Heads or Tails: Hiring from the Outside or Promoting from Within 204 Identifying investment employees 205 Spotting performers 206 Recognizing potentials 206 Identifying transition employees 207 What Newspaper Ad? Leveraging Social Media 208 Exploring LinkedIn 209 Using Facebook for recruitment 209 Connecting with potential recruits on Twitter 210 Using YouTube to find prospective employees 212 Making the Sale: Selling Yourself to Prospective Employees 213 Chapter 13: Why Do You Want to Work Here? Interviewing Job Candidates 217 Best in Show: Interviewing the BEST Way 217 Step 1: Develop your BEST profile 217 Step 2: Develop your interview questions 218 Step 3: Conduct preliminary phone interviews 218 Step 4: Prepare for the face-to-face interview 220 Step 5: Hold the face-to-face interview 222 Step 6: Collect input from your selection team 223 Step 7: Check references 224 Step 8: Extend an offer of employment 226 Kick Ask: Asking the Right Questions 227 Assessing the Candidate’s Responses 233 Weighting questions 233 Rating answers 234 Scoring candidates 234 Chapter 14: All Aboard! Onboarding Techniques to Foster Engagement 235 What’s the Big Deal, Anyway? The Importance of Onboarding 236 Brain Swap: Considering Things from the New Employee’s Point of View 237 The Final Countdown: Preparing for a New Employee 238 What to do before day one 238 What to do on day one 240 What to do during week one 240 Great Expectations: Performance Management and Onboarding 242 Part IV: Measuring and Recognizing Engagement 245 Chapter 15: Measure Up: Measuring Performance and Engagement 247 Score! Building a Balanced Scorecard to Measure an Organization’s Performance 248 Designing an effective balanced scorecard 249 Maintaining your balanced scorecard 250 Communicating results 250 Take It Personally: Measuring Individual Performance 252 Team Player: Measuring Team Performance 254 Measure by Measure: Measuring Employee Engagement 257 Key metrics for measuring employee engagement 257 Assessing your team’s level of engagement 258 Chapter 16: Goal! Setting Performance Goals and Conducting Performance Appraisals 261 Get Smart: Establishing SMART Performance Goals 261 Don’t Be a Tool: Retooling the Performance Appraisal Process 264 Building an employee development plan 265 Conducting 360 assessments 270 Collecting “more of, same as, less of” feedback 273 The Secret of Your Succession: Building Succession into Performance Appraisal 276 Identifying successors 277 The great disconnect 277 Leadership development 278 Chapter 17: You Win! Rewards and Recognition 281 The Rewards of Rewarding: Understanding Rewards 281 Designing a total rewards strategy 282 Developing your compensation strategy 284 Avoiding reward pitfalls 289 Rec Center: Recognizing Employees 290 Building a recognition program 291 Setting a recognition budget 293 Recognition ideas and best practices 293 Providing positive feedback 294 Building a celebratory culture 295 Chapter 18: Help Me! Helping Struggling Employees 297 Copping an Attitude: Aptitude- Versus Attitude-Based Disengagement 298 Determining whether the disengagement comes down to aptitude or attitude 298 Looking at the reasons for aptitude- and attitude-based disengagement 301 Plotting employees using the aptitude/attitude matrix 303 Throw Me a Line! Helping Underperforming Employees 307 You’re Fired! A Word on Firing 308 Part IV: The Part of Tens 311 Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Engage New Hires 313 Start Before the First Day 313 Make the New Hire Feel Welcome on Day One 314 Load ‘Em Up with Swag 314 Give the New Hire a Welcome Tour 315 Stop Making Snoozer Introductions 315 Recognize That Cliques Exist — Even in the Business World 315 Introduce New Hires to the C Levels 316 Take the Mystery Out of It (and Stay More Productive Yourself) 317 Have New Hires Meet with Key People in the First Month 317 Set Goals for New Hires 318 Chapter 20: Ten (Or So) Additional Employee Engagement Resources 319 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H Pink 319 Investing in People: Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives, by Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau 320 Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report 320 The Employee Engagement Group 321 1501 Ways to Reward Employees, by Bob Nelson 321 How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie 321 Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell 322 Who’s Sinking Your Boat, by The Employee Engagement Group 322 The University of Windsor Employee Engagement & Development Website 323 Love ’Em or Lose ’Em: Getting Good People to Stay, by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans 323 Business Gamification For Dummies by Kris Duggan and Kate Shoup 324 Chapter 21: Ten Ways Engaged Employees Help Your Bottom Line 325 It’s All About the Effort, Baby! 325 Voluntary Turnover Is Expensive 326 I’m Really Not That Sick! 326 The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line 326 A Happy Customer Is a Returning Customer 327 Innovate or Perish 327 Hey, Want to Work for My Company? 328 “I’ll Volunteer” 328 Doing Well by Doing Good 329 Can You Expand Your Margins? 329 Index 331