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I have been working on a series of posts detailing my thoughts on how I would fix or turn around a business operation. I would take a stab at a scenario an MBA candidate/intern threw at me. So far we have talked about financials and how to get a handle on your customers.

Its all about ENGAGEMENT. TP is a huge fan of employee engagement. Go figure – so am I. An engaged employee is a productive one. I read an article recently (can’t find it) that said U.S. working population is 26% engaged, 55% not engaged and 19% actively disengaged. in your 40 person shop, 20+ could care. 8 of your people are actively trying to screw you up. Are you listening now?

Oh…and those 8…they aren’t who you think.

I like a two phased approach coupled with a very strong helping of genchi genbutsu or MBWA (Management By Walking Around). Get yourself seen. Have breakfast with people. Have lunch. Fruit roll ups. Just do it. Then, the first step is to sit down with everyone and just talk. The second stage is to do a formal employee satisfaction survey. Depending on the size of the team, you may not get a chance to sit with everyone. But you can devote 30 minutes to each interview.

I love Capt. D. Mike Abrashoff (ret.), who wrote an EXCELLENT book on leadership -It’s Your Ship. (This is a great book for new leaders by the way.) Mike lays out a very simple plan in this book that has served me RIDICULOUSLY well over the years.

3 questions.

1. What are we doing well?
2. What are we doing poorly?
3. If you could fix one thing right now, what would it be?

Short and simple. The best part about this process is that once you have a decent sample size, you will know the top issues facing your team and you will have some pretty good ideas on how to fix them.

From a process perspective it is pretty easy. Gather everyone together and tell them you are going to meet with them individually. It is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to them and put them at ease. You don’t want to just start randomly calling people into your office. (Although – that tactic has its merits.)

From the long term approach – start conducting Employee Satisfaction Surveys. A long time ago I referred to a great set of questions that really get at Employee Engagement – the 12 Questions That Matter:

In hindsight, twelve questions seems like a bit much. Some of them are a bit redundant. Here are a solid 5 to get you started:

4. In the past seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
9. Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the past 6 months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This past year, have I had the opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Number 10 stays because there is a lot of research on the benefits of having a best friend at work.

5 questions and then leave room for feedback. And I hate anonymous surveys. They are pointless. Guess what though…if people aren’t comfortable filling our your employee survey and attaching their name – YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

You are not going to get all your answers the first time you do one. But that is ok because you’re already doing the 3 Question meetings. Do the E-Sat quarterly. You could do them monthly if you like but quarterly has worked for me. You have to be consistent. The WORST thing you can do is drop this survey on your people and then not do another one. Actually, the worst thing you can do is conduct the survey and not follow up on the results.

You have to be very clear in communicating your intent. That is: you want to make things BETTER. Make YOURSELF accountable to action items created out of the survey. And do it publicly. You have to share the findings. You have to share the actions you plan to take to correct problem areas. You must be c-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-t. You must be patient. It takes a bit of time to build trust.

You could deploy this survey using the 5-scale or the 3-scale. In a 5-scale, you can look at Strongly Disagree-Disagree-Neutral-Agree-Disagree. Only the top two boxes matter. That is why I can say go with a 3-scale:
Disagree-Sometimes-Agree. And then only count the “agrees”. Just seems simplier and eliminates ambiguity.

Our next installment will talk about Processes and continuous improvement.