Employee Engagement Mistakes
David Zinger, the host of the Employee Engagement Network, has written a post titled “22 Awful Employee Engagement Mistakes”. As I went through the list, I found many of the points interesting and worth taking note of. The ones that I really liked include:
Rules are for Rulers. Thinking employee engagement can be reduced to rules. Rules are for Rulers and board games, not for people. I don’t want to work for someone who thinks they are my Ruler or that they can Monopolize me.
HR and Beyond. Thinking employee engagement is just another HR issue. And while we are at it, I think it is time for HR to morph into this century. Just as we let go of Personnel it is time to let go of HR and become Internal Community Mobilizers or Internal People Artists or something that doesn’t just keep pairing humans with the word resource.
Them is us. Leaders and managers and supervisors looking at employee engagement as something that they are not a part of too. Leaders, managers, and supervisors…you are employees too. Don’t ever refer to employees as them because, “them is us.”
Better systems. Believing the answer to employee engagement relies in a better system like a new performance management system and failing to see the importance of authentic, connected, and engaged dialogue.
No time to talk. Thinking engaging dialogue will take too much time. I believe NASA has proven it can occur in about 45 seconds and save lives.
Avoiding immediacy with social media. Engaging employees through email, slogans, and cute You Tube CEO videos while failing to really show up and talk with them face-to-face.
What do you think? What are some of the key employee engagement mistakes that organizations should watch out for?
I’m not sure I agree with the first point: “Rules are for Rulers”. You need to provide a framework (or guidelines) for your employees. This point maybe well made for people who have reached a certain status where the job needs them much more than they need the job, but for everyone else, they have to work by the rules.
Employees are easily motivated and are equally easily demotivated. This article on the theories of employee motivation examines different studies on employee motivation…
PM Hut
October 2, 2009 at 11:49 pm
What David means is perhaps there are no bounded rules for engaging employees…every individual is unique…and having a rulebook may not be effective..
Abhishek
October 4, 2009 at 2:26 pm