Majority of American Workers Not Engaged in Their Jobs

According to a recent Gallup poll - Seventy-one percent of American workers are "not engaged" or "actively disengaged" in their work, meaning they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be productive. That leaves nearly one-third of American workers who are "engaged," or involved in and enthusiastic about their work and contributing to their organizations in a positive manner. This trend remained relatively stable throughout 2011.

These findings are from a special Gallup Daily tracking series conducted on an ongoing basis since the fourth quarter of 2010 to explore American workers' engagement levels. Gallup's employee engagement index is based on worker responses to 12 actionable workplace elements with proven linkages to performance outcomes, including productivity, customer service, quality, retention, safety, and profit. Further research shows significant linkages between engagement at work and health and wellbeing outcomes.
Americans' levels of engagement at work are generally consistent with Gallup's trends on workplace engagement from various studies since 2000. The current percentage of engaged employees is similar to the historical high of 30% in 2001 to 2002 and 2006 to 2007. The percentage who are actively disengaged is near the high of 20% recorded in 2007 and 2008.
Article date October 28, 2011

Communicate - Train - Build

As economic conditions slowly improve, organizations all over the world are beginning to focus on growth. But, as global organizations prepare to move forward, many say one particular challenge stands in their way: retaining top talent.

A Towers Watson survey of more than 700 global companies revealed 51 percent view the loss of key talent as the biggest obstacle to growth. An additional 38 percent cited concerns about attracting the right talent to fit their needs.

What can be done to keep top performers on board? How can your organization bring new talent to the table? In a time when salaries are frozen and budgets are tight, consider these:

• Consistent Communication – Discuss goals and expectations with employees. Recognize effort, provide constructive feedback and reward results. When workers feel their employer is vested in their career development, loyalty is the result.
• Training – Arm employees with the knowledge and support needed to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
• Team Building – A well-planned team building workshop or program can build trust, improve morale and bolster culture.

O.C. Tanner has the tools to help you attract, develop and retain top talent. We would like to explore whether we can help to develop solution that matches your unique culture and goals with some of our best practices, maximizing results for you.

Team Assists

To stay on the theme of TEAMWORK, here is a great story:

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden had an interesting rule for his teams. Whenever a player scored, he was to acknowledge the person on the team who had assisted. When he was coaching high school, one of his players asked, “Coach, won’t that take up too much time?” Wooden replied, “I’m not asking you to run over there and give him a big hug. A nod will do.”
To achieve victory on the basketball court, Wooden saw the importance of teaching his players that they were a team—not “just a bunch of independent operators.” Each person contributed to the success of everyone else.

From The Orange Revolution - 101 Ways to Bring your Team Together
page 178 - Create a softball, volleyball, or bowling league made up of teams from work. Friendly competition between departments pulls people together in a very positive way.

Have you given a nod to a team member today?

The Orange Revolution - How One Great TEAM can transform an Entire Organization

Are you ready to start your own Orange Revolution?

Log in to http://carrots.com/orange and receive free white papers, videos and other cool tools that will help you and your team excel. Plus, get exclusive insights from some of the most revolutionary “Orange Teams” in the world.

What our research clearly reveals is that within the most productive teams, employees feel a heightened sense of camaraderie, considering at least one of their co-workers a close friend. They also feel their manager cares about their well-being, a dramatically human emotion. For those who prefer numbers, 63 percent of workers found office productivity to be positively affected when co-workers are friends outside of work.
All these indicators clearly point to camaraderie, or even love if you choose to call it that, as a major driver of esprit de corps, which in turn drives productivity and achievement. page 12 - The Orange Revolution

INSPIRE GROWTH

Appreciation does more than keep people happy. It inspires them to do more. To go further. It transforms managers into leaders and employees into champions. By appreciating people who embrace and move your vision forward, you also strengthen your organizations brand and mission.

What’s important to your organization? Sales? Mission? Safety? The bottom line?

Appreciating those who get it done can deliver powerful results. To turn potential into performance you have to inspire people to see possibilities, connect with your mission and embrace your vision.

Think engaged employees – what are the possibilities?



Studies prove it. Experience confirms it. And the most successful organizations can feel it. Appreciating great work creates a high performance culture where things like innovation, extra effort, and more effective leadership practices drive results.

Appreciate INSPIRE

What is YOUR praise to criticism ratio?

Over the past 30 years, renowned marriage counselor John Gottman has been able to predict with 90% accuracy which newlyweds he works with will stay married versus getting divorced after watching just 15 minutes of their interactions on videotape.

The key factor that Gottman looks for is the ratio of positive to negative reinforcement that couples give to each other. When the ratio is 5 to 1 positive, the couples report the overall relationship as positive. Anything less than 4 to 1 and the relationship is perceived as negative.

Why does it have to be slanted so heavily in the positive direction? The answer is emotion. The emotional response surrounding each praising or criticism amplifies its impact. For most people, criticism is stinging and leaves a far larger emotional footprint than positive praising.

Leaders can promote healthy relationships with the people who report to them by praising and reprimanding effectively. Here are three tips.

1.Be timely. Nobody likes to deliver negative feedback. But some managers have trouble delivering positive praising also. Uncomfortable with the whole situation, these managers believe that by not communicating, at least they are doing no harm. But the reality is that “not communicating” is sending a message. If your boss never communicated with you about your work, how would it make you feel? What message would it send to you? People want to matter and they want to be noticed. As a manager, it is your job to make sure that you are paying attention to your people.
2.Be specific. Feedback is best when it is specific. A general praising of, “You’re doing a great job!” is nice, but a more specific praising of, “The way you ran that meeting today was fantastic. You really did a good job of having all of the background information ready and also redirecting the discussion when it was getting off track,” is better. When it comes to negative feedback, it is even more important to be specific. Consider how damaging a comment like, “You really don’t seem to understand how we do things around here,” is. Instead be more specific. Say, “We have a very specific process for approving email that needs to be followed. Anytime something new is created, please make sure I see it first and have a chance to review it before sending it out.” This turns criticism into redirection—which is what you’re looking for. Even though it will still hurt, you want to keep the focus on the behavior that needs to change. If you don’t, the recipient will only remember how you made them feel and the necessary change will be an afterthought.
3.Be aware of your emotional impact. Remember that negative feedback is serious business and carries five times the emotional weight as positive feedback. Anytime that you find yourself having to deliver a reprimand, make sure that you follow it up with a reaffirmation of the person and their abilities. This doesn’t mean that you backtrack or soften the reality of what needs to change, it just means a reconfirmation of your faith in the direct report to do better and your belief that they can change.
By mastering the art of positive and negative feedback, managers can strengthen their relationships with direct reports. Keep in mind both the quantity and the quality of the messages you deliver. It’s an important skill that will keep people engaged and performing at their best.

Strategic Recognition

For companies looking to do more with less, this is where the strategic use of recognition comes in.

The way to expand the impact of your compensation effort, without increasing the costs, may lie in expanding the use of recognition. Dr. James Oakley from Purdue University examined the impact of compensation and the role it plays in fostering and sustaining culture in his study “The Road to An Engaged Workforce”, (www.performanceforum.org). In Oakley’s opinion, all forms of compensation must be leveraged to drive the culture that’s right for your business. He feels non-cash as a compensation lever is actually under-utilized in all business models.

Effective use of recognition, using non-cash rewards that are distinct from ongoing compensation, is a powerful tool for sustaining culture, driving innovation and rewarding the right behaviors across the corporation.



Ask us about your free thanks website to send e-cards and personalized certificates - be strategic and recognize someone today!

Onboarding vs Orientation - what's the difference?

Here's an interesting article that talks about the difference between Onboarding and Orientation. How is your organization using Onboarding to engage YOUR new employees?

Onboarding has become a human resources buzzword but it seems as if many people confuse it with orientation. The two are similar, but very different. In fact, I suggest that orientation is simply one small piece of onboarding. While orientation is an introduction to a new job and some of the nuances of the organization, onboarding is an entire process designed to immerse a new employee into the vision and culture of your company.

Engagement occurs more quickly and the process is also designed to assist in retention by making sure the employee aligns with the organization’s goals and wants to stay.

Onboarding is proving extremely valuable in many areas where human resources is currently challenged such as engagement, workforce optimization, and retention. Successful onboarding programs result in an employee who is excited by their role, anxious to begin and feels valued for what they can bring to the table. In other words, the employee becomes engaged quickly which results in a higher level of production in a much quicker timeframe.

Recent research shows that employees decide shortly after they are hired how long they plan to stay at your company. Anything you can do to make sure they feel welcome and valued from the day they are offered a position is going to lengthen the time they choose to stay with you.

Another benefit of an effective onboarding strategy from the date of hire is the effect it has on counteroffers made by their current company. If a candidate is offered a role and you maintain contact with them in a very positive and welcoming way while they are deciding, they are more likely to view the offer of a raise from their employer in a new light. Instead of thinking that they just earned a raise, they are more likely to question why they weren’t more valuable to the organization yesterday. They will also feel great about accepting a job for a company that is already showing that they value the talent they are hiring.

Once a role is accepted, reiterating over and over in many meaningful ways that the employee made the right choice will do wonders for your engagement and retention rates.

Does your organization have an onboarding process in place? Have you seen this affect your production and retention rates? If you don’t have a process established, do you see the need for one and are there plans to create one?July 2, 2010 by Jen Turi, CareerCurve

How does your T-E-A-M rank? Take the test!

Measure Your Team Engagement
In our work with global organizations, we find that teams with the most engaged people have the best results. Here’s a simple test to determine the engagement level of your squad. If your team members answer 'yes' to the following questions, there’s a good chance they are engaged.

•My team consistently puts in extra effort beyond what is expected.
•My team is highly motivated to contribute to the success of the organization.
•My team has a strong sense of personal accomplishment from its work.
•My team understands how its roles help the organization meet its goals.
•My team always has a positive attitude when performing its duties at work.
•My manager does a good job of recognizing employee contributions.
•My team consistently looks for more efficient and effective ways to getting the job done.

How did your team do? What have you done this week to build engagement within your team?

What can YOU do to motivate your team? Funny you should ask! Here are a couple of suggestions:

Give each team member a stack of thank-you cards and ask them to recognize co-workers when they see them furthering your organization's values.

One day a week, let team members work on a self-defined project. The only qualifier is that the project benefits the team!

Take responsibility for your own mistakes; but share the credit for your successes. Fun follow-up: Whenever you make a team-related presentation, make it a point to mention, by name, team members who helped- even if they just cheered you on!

Make a list of what you know about each person on your team. What do they do at work? What do they hang on their office/cubicle walls? Do they have kids/pets? If so, what are their names? Then ask yourself: Which co-worker do I know the LEAST about? Take time today to visit that person in their office and get to know them better!

At the end of each day, take a moment to gather the team and write down three things that went right. Getting in the habit of looking for the positives around you will pay dividends at the office, at home and socially. It also gives you many things to recognize as a team!

Carrots are back in the area!

Don't miss this chance to be a part of our our award winning ‘A Carrot A Day Training Workshop’- How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance.
We are inviting the Human Resource, Organizational Development and Training executives from public and private organizations, located in the Greater DC Metro area.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
TIME: 9:00am - 12pm EST
WHERE: Sheraton National Hotel, Arlington, VA

Please join us for a 2 1/2 hour entertaining and interactive session based on the best seller: “The Carrot Principle” on April 6th starting at 9am! Come early, 8:30-9am, to network with other human capital management professionals. Continental breakfast is provided.
Please see the attachment for further details.

*Groups of 5 or more will receive a 20% discount on the $199 session fee (does not include shipping and taxes).

Please call our office for more details - 410-363-3800.
We look forward to seeing you there!