Make Employee Engagement Your 2017 Resolution

As 2016 comes to a close…

Our inboxes are flooded with “best of…” and “worst of…” lists, compilations of the year’s biggest news and events, and advice on how to make 2017 a better year than the last. We don’t recommend making a best and worst office news list, but we do encourage you to think about where employee engagement will fit in on your 2017 New Year’s resolutions list.

What Engages You as a Manager?

Similar to the metaphor of strapping on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you, an important part of engaging your employees is to take a critical look at what is engaging or disengaging you as a manager. Ask yourself these questions:

• What about your job gets you out of bed every morning?
• Do you like your current position and the team you manage?
• Are you in need of different challenges in the new year?

Remember to make time for your own engagement in 2017, it can help you grow your own engagement, and that of your team/employees.

What Can Engage or Disengage Your Employees?

From Bob Kelleher’s I-Engage, this image illustrates that there are many pieces to the engagement puzzle, with some factors from the “home” part of life, and others factors from work.

Now that you’ve given some thought to your own engagement, think about what the level of engagement for your team is. Ask yourself these questions:

• In 2016, how do think the workplace culture and senior leadership affected your employees?
• Did your company have a great year, or was it a time of transition and change?
• Did any of your employees have major life changes (a new baby, loss of family member, job promotion, etc) that could have been effecting their engagement or may in the months to come?
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How to Activate Engagement for 2017?

What can you do in 2017 to activate engagement?

• Establish a baseline – whether by means of an employee engagement survey or a more informal reflection with your employees.
• Set goals for you and your team to work towards in 2017. Check in frequently on your own and your employees’ engagement and goals throughout 2017.
• As employee engagement guru Bob Kelleher says “Empathy is the new black.” The life side of the engagement puzzle is what may have the most impact on engagement, and yet it may be what you and your employees have the least control over.

Happy Holidays!

Cheers from The Employee Engagement Group