Knowing Your Employees
Course Objective
•
Explain Who is an Employee
•
Explain Why Should You Know Your Employees
•
Explain What is Employee Engagement
•
•
Define an Engaged Employee
List the Benefits of Highly Engaged Employees
•
•
Describe the Methods of Engaging Existing Employees
Explain How Managers can Drive Engagement
•
•
List the Mistakes Managers Make in Knowing Employees
Describe Things that Employees Hide from Managers
•
Explain What You Should Know About Your Employees
•
Describe the Role of Communication in Knowing Employees
•
Explain How to Know Your Employees
•
Explain the Role of Leadership in Knowing Employees
•
Explain the Four Drive Model
•
Explain the Categories as per Gallup Q12
Introduction
?
What do you think is the
most valuable asset of any
organization?
Yes, it is the ‘employees’ which are the
most valuable asset of any organization.
It is the employees of an organization that
helps make it unique, have a good work
culture and produce great quality service
and products.
Hence, it is crucial that for the success of
any organization, it strives to keep its
most valuable asset, its ‘employees’ happy.
Introduction
?
So, what can you as a manager
do to keep your subordinates or
team members happy?
Apart from being a very
just and efficient leader, you
should also ‘know your employees’.
Introduction
When you as a manager learn
to ‘know your employees’, you
will learn to take a keen
personal interest in each and
every one of them. You will
learn that it is important not
only to look at your team as
one single whole but also to
look at and treat each and
every member of your team as
an individual contributor
to the success of your
organization.
Introduction
!
It is important that you should
learn to manage not only the team
as a whole but also learn to manage
and keep each and every individual
employee of your team happy.
You can keep your employees happy and know
about them in several ways such as getting to
know about their personal lives, learning
about their individual professional
weaknesses and strengths, knowing what
motivates each one of them etc.
Let us now learn about
‘Knowing Your Employees’ in detail.
Why Should You Know Your Employees?
• Management should know its
employees well.
• You need to understand your employees
and what they expect from the
organization?
• You cannot afford to ignore someone
who spends maximum part of his/her
day at the workplace with you.
• There are some organizations where
managers do not bother to even know
the names of their subordinates.
• Such organizations always face problems
like employee dissatisfaction, high
attrition rate and frequent conflicts
among team members and eventually
fail to do well in the long run.
Did You Know?
•
Fewer than 20% of workers are truly engaged
•
Low Productivity costs organizations about $350 billion a year
•
77% of employees do not like their current jobs
•
39% of disengaged employees suffer from work related stress which
eventually leads to resignation
What Do Employees Expect From Managers?
Open Communication
•
Employees expect managers to interact
with them.
•
No one likes to work in an organization
where they need to take permission to
speak to their reporting bosses.
•
Greet your employees with a smile.
•
Be transparent with your employees.
•
Encourage two way transparent
communication at workplace.
Employee Engagement
“Employee Engagement is a measureable
degree of an employee's positive or negative
emotional attachment to their job,
colleagues and organization which
profoundly influences their willingness to
learn and perform at work.”
Scarlett Surveys
Benefits of Highly Engaged Employees
The following are some of the benefits of highly engaged employees:
Engaged Employees have a sense of purpose and meaning in their
job
Such employees are interested in their work
Engaged employees tend to grow within the
organization
Engaged employees believe in the
organization
Methods of Engaging Existing Employees
Communications Activities
•
•
Reward Schemes
•
Activities to Build Culture
of Organization
•
Team Building Activities
•
Leadership Development
Activities
•
Recruit effective leaders
Have an effective Performance
Management system in place
Provide for fair evaluation of performance
of all employees
All the empowerment of subordinates
through effective delegation by their
leaders
Supervisors and peers should give honest
feedback to provide valuable coaching
and mentoring
Develop an open and transparent culture
to empower people and develop
entrepreneurs
How Managers can Drive Engagement?
3
When Managers get his list of annual objectives,
ideally he should first communicate the year’s
objectives to his team. Then he should ask for his
team’s suggestions and feedbacks. Finally, the
manager should work with them to formulate a
strategy and delegate responsibility.
By following such a process, the manager ensures
that his employees are more involved in the goal
setting process. This process also helps the
employees to have a say in how they will
contribute. It helps the employees to show their
creativity and willingness to be more accountable
for achieving their goals.
Importance of Knowing Employees
Employees feel happy when
managers connect with them
on a personal level. Team
managers should also discuss
an individual’s family, his/her
personal life, relatives and so
on to a certain extent. Do not
ask something which is too
personal for an employee.
A good manager who knows his
employees well makes his employees
feel happy to come to work, face
challenges with a smile and also
constantly strive hard to take their
organization to the top.
Make your employees feel responsible for the organization. Let them
understand that their projects or job responsibilities.
Mistakes Managers Make in Knowing Employees
The following are some of the common mistakes that managers make in knowing
and managing employees:
The common mistake which
managers make in knowing
employees is that they
Do not Expect Perfection
interfere too much in their
1
personal lives. Problems arise
Do not Overburden
2
when personal lives are
Do not Interfere Too Much in
discussed at the workplace.
33
Personal Lives
Please do not bring your
personal problems to work.
Do not ask for undue favors
4
Managers should avoid
Do not Disclose Confidential
discussing topics which have
5
Information
no relevance at the workplace.
Do not Use Nicknames
Too much of personal
6
interference in anyone’s life is
not at all acceptable in
organizations. Avoid being
overfriendly with your team
Let us look at each in detail.
members.
Things Employees Hide from Managers
It is a common observation that employees lie to their managers and
superiors. There are several instances when employees feel compelled to
hide the truth from their seniors. The following are some instances where
the employees feel compelled to lie or hide the truth from their managers:
Competition is necessary to extract the best out of employees
but be careful it should not lead to unnecessary pressure
among employees. Employees lie when there is unnecessary
work pressure on them. Give them enough time to complete
their assignments provided the client does not want results in
the shortest possible time frame.
How to Know Your Employees?
3
4
5
•
•
Managers need to communicate with the team members to make
them feel comfortable and important at the workplace.
•
Interacting with employees will help you know many things
about an individual which you would never come to know if
you maintain a distance from him. If you do not speak to
them, they would never come to you with their problems
and eventually lose interest in work.
Call employees together on a common platform to brainstorm ideas
or discuss major issues.
Role of Leadership in Knowing Employees
Find out what your team members are up to.
Always make it a habit to call your team members
by their first name. Avoid calling them by their
nicknames. It is completely unprofessional. Make
it a point to speak to your team members at least
once in a day. Enquire about their family
members, their well being etc. but do not
interfere too much in their personal lives. They
might not like it. Employees expect managers to
enquire about their personal lives but you do not
need to interfere much.
Join your team members for lunch once in a
while. Be careful not to discuss work during lunch
hours. Take them out for small get-togethers after
work. Ask your employees to bring their families
as well. As a manager, you have to take the
initiative to bring the employees closer to each
other and also know each other well.
Four Drive Model
Acquire
What is it?
How to achieve it?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
It is used to motivate and engage employees by
structuring the pay and rewards
Incentives can be used to drive performance
They should try to create a culture of recognition and
reward based purely on performance and merit
Acquire drive is relative, this relativity arises as
employees always tend to compare themselves to
others and hence the drive is never fully satisfied
You should also find out who your employees compare
themselves with and what they think about their
compensation
As a manager, you should make sure that your
employees’ pay and perks are comparable
The drive to Acquire is also about prestige and status
and not just about money, so, it is important that you
give due credit and promotions to deserving employees
The Gallup – Q12
Are your associates (fellow
employees) committed to
doing quality work?
Does the mission/purpose
of your company make you
feel your job is important?
At work, do your
opinions seem to
count?
In the last six months, has
someone at work talked to
you about your progress?
Do you have a
best friend at
work?
In the last year, have you had
opportunities at work to
learn and grow?
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