Employee Engagement

[SecTrainer]

For about 30 years, the Gallup organization has been measuring employee engagement with (or commitment to) their jobs. This is no idle undertaking, because the relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance (including profitability) is well established.

Companies with engagement scores in the top half of the Gallup ranking, when compared to those with scores in the lower half:
* Have 86% higher customer ratings...
* Have 70% lower turnover rates...
* Have 44% higher profitability margins...
* Have 78% better safety records.

(Quoted in The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave by Branham.)

Gallup has identified 12 elements of engagement and measures them by asking employees to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with these 12 statements:

* I know what is expected of me at work.
* I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
* At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
* In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
* My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
* There is someone at work who encourages my development.
* At work, my opinions seem to count.
* The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important.
* My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
* I have a best friend at work.
* In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
* This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Based on their answers, employees are categorized as "actively engaged", "engaged", "disengaged" or "actively disengaged".

The bad news: 75% of America's workers are either "disengaged" or "actively disengaged". And those disengaged employees will cost you plenty - not only when they leave, but well before they leave, and it might take them a long time to leave. They have:
* Higher absentee/tardy rates.
* More workplace accidents.
* Greater tendency to steal or damage company assets.
* Higher supervisory demands.

...and you know what else? They cost you other employees in two ways - either by driving good employees out OR by taking other employees with them when or after they move on to another job.

What they do to your client relationships is another whole story altogether. Suffice it to say: Employee disengagement leads to client disengagement.

The good news is that if you'll run your eye over the list again, you'll notice that these elements of engagement are mostly about management/supervisory practices and the corporate culture. They do not necessarily require MONEY to be fixed. They do require a different attitude about, and a different approach toward, your employees.

You might also begin to see that line managers can, should and must be trained in these skills - AND that they must be held accountable for turnover.

Hold line managers accountable for turnover??!! YES! It is a fundamental business principle that for every aspect of a business operation, someone has to be the "owner". Someone has to be held accountable. And that "someone" must be whoever is in the best position to affect that aspect of the operation. Here, it is the line manager. Line managers include both direct supervisors and their immediate superiors.

Or, let's put it another way: Up to this point, just WHO in your organization HAS been held accountable for turnover?? I'm guessing the answer is "No one...it's just been treated as a fact of life that can't be influenced. It never occurred to us to make anyone responsible for it. It's just a cost of doing business."

Funny. I bet you hold someone responsible for all of your other costs, don't you? (If not, be sure to send us a postcard from bankruptcy court.)

Many security companies believe that turnover is inevitable - and some is, but how much is really inevitable and how much is avoidable? No hard number can be offered, so we might throw up our hands, thinking there's no target to shoot at.

A different approach is to use our own turnover rate as the basis for establishing a target. Can we reduce our turnover rate by 5%? 10%? 20%? Choose a reasonably achievable reduction goal, and hold line managers accountable for achieving that objective.

Of course, you have to give them the tools, which might have to start with some changes at the level of the corporate culture itself (a culture that encourages retention is different from one based on an expectation of high turnover and low employee engagement), and will likely impact other units (HR's hiring practices, for one).

And what about the "wage issue"? Just be sure that your compensation package is competitive, and stop blaming all your turnover troubles on that. In exit interviews, employees often list "more money" as the reason they're leaving, but this is deceiving. The fact is, most employees don't want to "burn their bridges", knowing that they might need a reference from their rotten supervisor. They mumble something about money, sign the exit sheet and run out the door rather than saying why they're really leaving.

In a carefully done study, 89% of executives thought that money was the main reason that people leave, when in fact money is actually the primary reason why around 12% of them leave. Compensation is important, but if you're paying a competitive wage and you have high turnover, that isn't the reason.

Here's my prediction: When a company has never really addressed turnover, it's a high-yield activity once it begins to do so. In other words, the early gains in retention are pretty easily achieved, because they're the low fruit that no one has been picking. I'd predict that by even starting to address the issue with the attitude that it is something you can change, you'll probably see some immediate results. The first 5% or 10% reduction in turnover will be easy, so why not pick the fruit? You'll have to climb higher for the rest - but you'll begin to understand the reasons for doing so.

Here's a thought that's worth taking a week in the woods to ponder: We work in a service industry, and in a service industry there is finally nothing but your people that matter. Not your patrol vehicles. Not your fancy logo. Not your website. Not your "client reporting system". Not your uniforms of whatever style or hue. Not your promises. Not your prices. Not your client-schmoozing.

Your people. At the end of the day, that is all that a service company has to offer.

No people, no service.
Bad people, bad service.
Indifferent people, indifferent service.

...well, you can finish it. The question is, can you face up to what it means? It means this: When a service business treats its people like expendable commodities, it has no room to complain when its services are also treated like expendable commodities.

[CTEXSEC1]

Wow...I look at those 12 and I can say that I answer negatively to all of them with my current employer. However, I can speak pretty highly of my current bar job looking at those questions.

I can certainly say that they do affect engagement. My boss threatened to fire me if I left for Christmas (which I did and he didn't) and I really couldn't have cared less. I really could not find one reason to keep me employed there.

[HotelSecurity]

Sometimes Management's hands are tied. They see the negative efffects that cutting the department to less than 24 hours a day. They worry about what one day is going to happen. But when you have an owner with tight purse strings there is not much that can be done. Find another job or do your best at what you do under the circumstances.

Some of the things management does does cause a lot of friction in the work place. Here the employees of the front desk got a bonus just before Christmas. It is not clear what it was for because they've all (including my daughter) been sworn to secretcy. It has someothing to do with enrolling people in the chain's loyalty program but was based on hours worked, not number of people enrolled. Some people at the FD made $800 to $900. The rest of the staff were given $0. This is causing problems here. (At least my daugter was able to pay me some of the money she owed me)

[SecTrainer]

Wow...I look at those 12 and I can say that I answer negatively to all of them with my current employer. However, I can speak pretty highly of my current bar job looking at those questions.

I can certainly say that they do affect engagement. My boss threatened to fire me if I left for Christmas (which I did and he didn't) and I really couldn't have cared less. I really could not find one reason to keep me employed there.

That's rather sad, CT. And what's worse, it's hard to see what benefits the organization gains by ignoring the things that create engagement.

[SecTrainer]

Sometimes Management's hands are tied. They see the negative efffects that cutting the department to less than 24 hours a day. They worry about what one day is going to happen. But when you have an owner with tight purse strings there is not much that can be done. Find another job or do your best at what you do under the circumstances.

Some of the things management does does cause a lot of friction in the work place. Here the employees of the front desk got a bonus just before Christmas. It is not clear what it was for because they've all (including my daughter) been sworn to secretcy. It has someothing to do with enrolling people in the chain's loyalty program but was based on hours worked, not number of people enrolled. Some people at the FD made $800 to $900. The rest of the staff were given $0. This is causing problems here. (At least my daugter was able to pay me some of the money she owed me)

I'm sure there were some hard feelings over this, HS. Anyone with half a brain could have predicted that there would be.

As for management's hands being tied by tight budgets. If you look at the things that contribute to engagement, you'll see that many of them have nothing to do with money, staffing levels, etc. Mostly, they have to do with how management regards and values employees. It costs nothing for a supervisor to acknowledge an employee's extra effort to make a hotel guest happy, for instance, or his professionalism in dealing with a challenging security problem. It costs nothing to communicate the security mission in such a way that security people feel that their job is important. It costs nothing to ask for the opinions of your people about possible ways to handle a recurring security problem. Even if no one comes up with a useful idea, it's being asked for your opinion that matters, because it expresses high regard for people's ideas - and hence, for themselves.

Many of these things merely require the determination to develop a culture that gives people the things that they need and want from their jobs, many of which are non-monetary. It's one thing to have to withhold raises, etc. But when we withhold the things that we could freely give, there's no excuse. In this industry, we often cannot pay the wages we'd like to pay. However, if we expand our notion of just what "compensation" means we can enrich the employee's "take-home benefits" in ways that might be even more important than money.

[5423]

CTex, the saddest part about your employer droppin' the ball so thoroughly on that list (12 elements of engagement) is that by far most of them are either ridiculously inexpensive or outright free; it would cost them virtually nothing to fulfill at least a few of those each week, for each and every one of their employees.

I read the OP from a slightly different perspective: Although I can't speak for how my subordinates would answer those questions if polled, I ask myself just how many of those elements I put some real effort into fulfilling for them whenever possible.

I'm restricted to a pretty dam* tight budget at work; there's no way I can offer my officers pay increases, bonuses, nifty gifts, outside training opportunities - in short, any material benefits whatsoever, above and beyond their basic employee comp package they're signed up for.

So all I can offer them for stickin' around through the tough times is a sincere "attaboy" of some sort, when appropriate, and on a fairly regular basis. And since I've never been a particularly shy sort about (privately) telling my people when they're wrong, I certainly can't afford to miss any opportunity to publicly tell them when they've done well. It cetainly doesn't cost me or the company much.

So yeah, man; it really disturbs me to see the number of posts here on these forums detailing just the sort of employee treatment you report. Once again, an example of Leadership: Fail in the security industry.

[CameraMan]

I have nine 'NO's. Not good. If another offer comes along that is even remotely attractive, I'll jump at it.

The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is one of my few 'YES'es; namely:

The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important.

The mission or purpose of my organization is to sell stuff to people, I'm a salesman, without me answering phones sales wouldn't happen.

Nevertheless, I'm actively disengaged. I don't have the materials I need to do my job, specifically product training; I don't get praise for doing a good job; I've been turned down for promotion on numerous occasions because I'm too difficult to replace; I hate the majority of morons I work with; my opinions are dismissed outright; no one gives a crap about learning or growing; some of the morons here ignore ringing phones or don't put any effort into answering questions; in short, they don't seem to care about us and we don't care about the company in turn.

I don't think I'm a lazy guy, and I try to do the best job I can for customers, but it's been harder and harder to care lately.

[SecTrainer]

I have nine 'NO's. Not good. If another offer comes along that is even remotely attractive, I'll jump at it.

The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is one of my few 'YES'es; namely:

The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important.

The mission or purpose of my organization is to sell stuff to people, I'm a salesman, without me answering phones sales wouldn't happen.

Nevertheless, I'm actively disengaged. I don't have the materials I need to do my job, specifically product training; I don't get praise for doing a good job; I've been turned down for promotion on numerous occasions because I'm too difficult to replace; I hate the majority of morons I work with; my opinions are dismissed outright; no one gives a crap about learning or growing; some of the morons here ignore ringing phones or don't put any effort into answering questions; in short, they don't seem to care about us and we don't care about the company in turn.
I don't think I'm a lazy guy, and I try to do the best job I can for customers, but it's been harder and harder to care lately.

This is the inevitable outcome of active disengagement...whether the disengaged employees stay or ultimately leave. And it's probably a pretty good bet that if there's even one other employee who you like and enjoy working with, when/if you find another position with a better company, sooner or later you'll tell him about it too. It's the nature of friendship to help a friend.

Employees aren't just disengaged themselves; they disengage others around them - including customers.

Employees don't just go elsewhere themselves; they take others with them.

Why? Because they're "mean"? Because they're "vengeful"? Not usually. Disengagement is a cancer in the workplace, and cancers grow and spread. It's just their nature. That's what makes them cancers.

[SecTrainer]

I read the OP from a slightly different perspective: Although I can't speak for how my subordinates would answer those questions if polled, I ask myself just how many of those elements I put some real effort into fulfilling for them whenever possible.

Great read, 5423. Supervisors should turn the OP upside down and read it from the other direction, as you did.

[CTEXSEC1]

That's rather sad, CT. And what's worse, it's hard to see what benefits the organization gains by ignoring the things that create engagement.

CTex, the saddest part about your employer droppin' the ball so thoroughly on that list (12 elements of engagement) is that by far most of them are either ridiculously inexpensive or outright free; it would cost them virtually nothing to fulfill at least a few of those each week, for each and every one of their employees.

I read the OP from a slightly different perspective: Although I can't speak for how my subordinates would answer those questions if polled, I ask myself just how many of those elements I put some real effort into fulfilling for them whenever possible.

I'm restricted to a pretty dam* tight budget at work; there's no way I can offer my officers pay increases, bonuses, nifty gifts, outside training opportunities - in short, any material benefits whatsoever, above and beyond their basic employee comp package they're signed up for.

So all I can offer them for stickin' around through the tough times is a sincere "attaboy" of some sort, when appropriate, and on a fairly regular basis. And since I've never been a particularly shy sort about (privately) telling my people when they're wrong, I certainly can't afford to miss any opportunity to publicly tell them when they've done well. It cetainly doesn't cost me or the company much.

So yeah, man; it really disturbs me to see the number of posts here on these forums detailing just the sort of employee treatment you report. Once again, an example of Leadership: Fail in the security industry.

Great read, 5423. Supervisors should turn the OP upside down and read it from the other direction, as you did.

To all of these: When I worked as the Assistant Supervisor at my alma mater, I made sure my guys knew I was watching them. Not just to see if they were doing their jobs, but also to thank them for going above and beyond. My boss and I would pay for any perks out of our pocket due to tight budget. For example, we had Christmas dinner for our staff. One officer had to stay on-site, so we took his order and then passed a hat and took up a collection for him because he volunteered to stay. When I supervised with a larger company, I went out of my way to help my subs in any way possible. If they forgot their lunch, I would relieve them as time permitted. It is my opinion that the supervisor is almost solely responsible for turnover.