In our last blog “Wake Up and Smell The Coffee-Your Managers Might Need Development” we explored various considerations related to how you might evaluate manager-employee relationships in order to improve engagement levels. Now we want to take a closer look at this leading indicator – if you want to proactively grow engagement in your organization, improving the quality of manager-employee relationships is a good place to start. Why? Through their daily interactions with their teams managers affect the engagement of their employees – through the way they communicate with employees, develop them, conduct meetings, how transparent they are, to name just a few examples. It’s the daily words, actions or gestures from the manager that form an impression in the mind and heart of the employee and greatly influence how the employee behaves and performs. Whether they know it or not, managers are role modeling all the time. Employees are paying constant attention to how the manager interacts. In contrast to surveys, the manager’s behavior has an immediate impact - for good or bad. The good news, of course, is that actions and words are all in the manager’s hands. If you want stronger engagement, help managers cultivate effective relationships with their employees.
How can managers affect engagement through small, daily interactions? Here is a simple example. If you are a manager and Linda, your employee, has just finished a challenging project, when you are debriefing the project you might ask some questions along the following lines:
- What about this project did you find most stimulating?
- Is there anything we can do so those elements that meant the most to you will also be there on the next project?
You can sense the power of such questions. They get Linda thinking about what she loves doing, and forge a stronger cooperation between you and her in pursuit of work tasks that she cherishes. If your interest in helping Linda do more enjoyable work is not short-lived and results in some tangible and beneficial changes on the next project that show you are paying attention, she will show her appreciation though greater commitment. Over time, she will become more engaged!
Clearly, this is one of many examples. Every day, almost every interaction with employees can be rich with opportunities for the manager to connect with employees and create a lasting positive impression. How can managers have impactful interactions with employees? By being intentional – by intending to make the interaction meaningful, even it’s an exchange that lasts a minute. Are your managers capturing moments such as the one described in the simple example of the manager connecting with Linda’s aspirations? All this takes is a shift in perspective – from: “My job is to drive performance,” to: “By interacting in a way that has meaning for Linda I help her grow and this positively impacts her performance.”
You may be thinking, “This is easy to say, hard to do.” And you are right. But if you are seriously looking to improve engagement, help your managers not miss the daily opportunities that are all around them!
How many of your managers care about the big impact they have on employees every day? If your answer leaves room for improvement, maybe it’s time to take action! can help you improve engagement? Get in touch with us. We can help – we specialize in helping managers build employee engagement and improve performance through meaningful interactions.
We look forward to hearing from you.
www.engaged2perform.ca info@engaged2perform.ca 519-656-1066
