Did anybody notice?

Photo by Fanny.b

Last week I attended a lecture (actually more like a Q&A session) with Naomi Simson, CEO of the fast growing online gifting retailer RedBallon. This event was organized by the AGSM MBA ICE (Innovation, commercialisation, entrepreneurship) Club and after briefly describing the story of creating RedBallon, Simson answered many questions of the eager MBAs. One of the questions posed touched the subject of employee engagement. Here is the main part of Simson’s answer:

To create an atmosphere where employees feel engaged, every manager should make sure that every day each employee will give a positive answer to these three questions:

1. Do I know what am I here to do?
2. Did anybody notice when I did it?
3. Did I go home feeling like a winner?

My eyes literally lit up when I heard this answer. This is a simple answer that is so profound, that I think it actually covers most of the important concepts of employee engagement. And mind you, this is a subject managers struggle with every day. Still, instead of talking about the entire answer, I want to concentrate only on part two: “Did anybody notice when I did it?” – I think this is the part most managers forget.

When I was training commanders in the Israeli Air Force one of the classes dealt with how to deliver punishments and give prizes. The basic concept that was taught was as follows: you punish every time somebody deviates from the norm negatively and give a prize once in a while for a positive deviation from the norm.

I disliked this class. I think it misses the most important point. You should recognize people for keeping the norm. This happens all the time. Managers concentrate on trying to “help” the struggling workers. Those who under perform. They think to themselves, hey – that guy who is doing OK doesn’t need me, he is doing OK. So they ignore him and work with the struggling guy. How does that make that make the “OK guy” feel? What is the message that this kind of behaviour sends to him? How does this affect his perception?

What is the problem with this scenario? Not only is the “OK guy” not being recognized, he is also doing OK. OK is not enough. A manager’s job is to make him excel. Average, is not enough. Helping employees excel starts by noticing and letting our employees know that we noticed. This is the basic elements of employee engagement and employee recognition.

So, when did you last made your employees aware that you noticed what they did?

Elad

What keeps you engaged to your workplace?

Today in class we talked about employee engagement by looking at it from two dimensions.

The first dimension is organisational identify. The basic idea is that when we admire our work organisation, we take pride in it and are willing to engage more strongly and co-operate with colleagues. It was interesting to note that when our professor asked for positive examples, the people who described their former companies still used the “we” and not the word “they” to describe them.

This makes sense. People like to connect and like to be proud of their respective culture, including the culture of their work place. I think this idea is the source of a large number of initiatives dealing with the condition of the work place and with CSR and sustainability programs that boost up morale and create employment pride.

The second dimension is organisational justice. People look for justice in their work environment in different ways. Different people (and this differs in different cultures) look for three kinds of justices: Distributive (regarding outcomes), Procedural (regarding process) and Interactional (regarding interpersonal relationships and provision of information).

My experience teaches me that a lot of times, procedural justice help people overcome difference in distributive justice. When people are aware and understand the process that led to the distribution decision, they are more willing to accept results that don’t favour them.

But I think the most important aspect is interactional justice. The way our direct manager treats us, taps into our strengths and help us excel in our job, is more important than any other factor. I think this is even more important than the pride we take in our work place. Yes. People like working for a good successful company, but most of them would prefer a remarkable manager.

Try to think about it, if you would quantify the number of complaints you here from your friends about the workplace – how many of them will be about their managers? I haven’t done my research, but I believe that this will be the main topic of complaints, overshadowing all the other reasons.

This means that companies should consecrate their efforts on recruiting and training great managers that will make employees feel interactional justice. These managers are the most important resource that companies have.

What about you? What do you think is the most important for employees in a workplace?

Elad