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Reengage Your Disengaged Workers! 3 Steps to Changing Your Workplace

4/27/2015

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I often talk about "disengaged and actively disengaged" employees and the first question I usually get is, “what is the difference between the two.” Disengaged workers are those employees that are not adding any type of contribution to the organization, knowingly or not. These folks are just going through the motions of their work day. Actively disengaged employees are those individuals that are knowingly calling off work, stealing from the company or participating in behavior that hurts the organization.
 

Hopefully your organization doesn't employ too many of these folks, but the odds are not good. A 2013 Gallup poll revealed 70 percent of American workers fit into these two categories. Therefore, the next question leadership must ask is how do we fix it?

There are three ways to reengage!

1. Get your Management Team to Ask Employers How to Make Improvements. 
Those on the front lines are more apt to understand what is working and what isn't, but most of the time they aren't asked! When the organization asks and implements these ideas, employees naturally feel a stronger connection to the organization and want to do their best every day. There are whole systems that are designed to make the most of getting improvement suggestions from employees. 


2. Build Trust.
If your leadership team doesn't instill trust in the organization’s employees you are dead in the water. While top tier employees will always move forward with their best effort, you will eventually lose them to better organizations. What you are left with will be employees who have been burned or have seen what happens to others and are no longer invested in trying to make a difference. Building trust is the single most important element leadership must possess. 


3. Show Appreciation. Regularly.
It is critical that your employees know they are appreciated. I talk a lot about getting employees to add value to their positions and why it is so important. When you have an employee that gets this concept, they are worth their weight in gold! Tell them and show them they make a difference, not just once a year during performance reviews, but all the time. For those employees that don't understand what it means to add value teach them and then reward them for it. It seems that these "value adders" are scares in today's workplace, but it doesn't have to be that way. Management just needs to add value to those employee’s lives. As the saying goes "It's a two way street."


With 70 percent of the workforce hating or not caring about their jobs, and it costing businesses over $500 billion each year management needs to take notice. Therefore, leadership must get engaged themselves to solving this problem. 

While these three ideas are a great start to changing workplace environments, organizations need to be consistently dealing with these concepts on a larger scale.

These concepts are just some of the ingredients that go into a larger focus called invoking a Professional Intelligence Culture. Give me a call today to see how I can help you reengage your organization.

Best,
Nicole

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Do Millennials Drive You Crazy? Ok this may help!

4/13/2015

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The Millennial generation (ages 15 to 34 approx.) seems to be the topic of every conversation that asks the question "What's wrong with them?"

It’s true the Millennials have caught some of us Generation Xers (ages 35 - 49) and Baby Boomers (ages 50 - 69 ) off-guard. Let's face it, Millennials are different and we do have the preconceived notion that every generation that comes after another is worse and much less clued in about the world.

There are some significant differences between the aforementioned generations; and might I add, some really great things that come with Millennials.

While we never want to stereotype a group of people, I think we can learn a lot about different generations by looking at what major influences they experienced growing up. Authors Rodney Deyoe and Terry Fox help us better understand these differences in their article, Identifying Strategies To Minimize Workplace Conflict Due To Generational Differences.

Baby Boomers: Their life experiences were shaped by the Vietnam War, Woodstock, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movements, the Cold War, the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination, and Women’s Rights Movements. They are idealistic, driven and willing to make personal and professional sacrifices. They live to work. 

Generation X: Events that shaped their lives included Three Mile Island, the Iran Contra affair, MTV, AIDS Crisis, Challenger disaster, Desert Storm, Los Angeles Riots, and the Iranian hostage crisis. They are considered the latchkey kids as most of them had two working parents and they spent considerable time at home alone. Technology has been a big part of their lives. They are independent, disloyal and skeptical of authority. They ushered in work-life balance.

Millennial:
 Their lives have been shaped by events such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the Waco Branch Davidian Massacre, school violence, the digital age, Enron and other corporate scandals, reality TV, 9/11, the War on Terror, and Web-based social networking. They are fearless, have an inflated sense of self and believe they can achieve anything. They look at work as a means to have fun.
 

Our experiences have shaped us and that's okay as long as we are willing to move beyond our differences and try to see what we each bring to the table. We can also do a few things to help our Millennials fit into the workplace. 

First, challenge Millennials because they want to do work that matters. Ask them their opinion, they are great collaborators. Give them a lot of feedback, they need to know how they are doing. If you're a Gen Xer and find that you feel you are constantly giving feedback, then pair them with a mentor or peer to help them see their progress. Remember to have fun with them. Millennials don't see work as having to be hard, they want it to be an extension of their life.

Finally, my best advice when it comes to dealing with Millennials who have a difficult time understanding deadlines, work hours and scheduling with others is to remember that you can't hold someone accountable for that they don't know. Teach them what you expect. Don't assume they understand why these things are important. They may not have a full understanding of what being professional means so teach, show, and give them feedback for what you expect. 

All generations bring great things to the workplace. We just need to see our differences and appreciate them. Check out how you can better understand generational differences in the workplace by cultivating a P.I. Culture at the link below.

Best,
Nicole
www.NicoleDarling.com 

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Nicole Darling  44 Pear Tree Lane, Dallas PA  18612 
​phone: 570-406-2035   email:  Nicole@NicoleDarling.com