Here are my favorite articles for the week on employee engagement and creating a culture of appreciation. Feel free to share your comments.
Clever Ways to Engage Employees and Shake Up Company Culture by Curt Finch
(SmallBizTrends.com) “Be quick to recognize excellence in your employees and team members. Don’t be afraid to publicly acknowledge an individual’s fine efforts, and pair up employees that are complimentary to each other for complex projects. Another important step is to open a dialogue with your employees.”
My Thoughts: Stop focusing on what employees are doing wrong in order to “fix” them. Catch them doing the right things, and you’ll find they do more things well.
Why your approach to employee engagement may be wrong by Pope Ward
(Melcrum.com) “Individuals with a fixed mindset get a thrill from what’s easy – from what they’ve already mastered. If things get challenging, they lose interest. Tests are viewed as a judgment of their intellect. Individuals with a growth mindset enjoy doing hard things to stretch themselves. Mistakes or setbacks are seen as learning opportunities.”
My Thoughts: When you understand the mindset of your employees and communicate with them in the way THEY want to be spoken to, your chance of success increases exponentially.
Why Zappos thinks employee happiness ‘shouldn’t be about the dollar’ by Kelsey Lindsey
(RetailWire.com) “’If you [encourage employees to bring their full selves to work], you don’t have work-life balance — you just have life,” Ms. Foley said. “People don’t feel like they’re cutting off a piece of themselves at the workforce. They’ll feel happier and engaged, they’ll feel appreciated because they won’t feel siloed into a certain box that they have to be in at work.’”
My thoughts: There really is no such thing as work/life balance. It really is this thing we call “life.” The more organizations realize this, the better it works. Zappos provides a great example of a company that is doing things right.
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Lisa Ryan, creator of Grategy® is a gratitude expert, professional speaker and bestselling author. For more information contact (216) 225-8027. For information on Grategy® programs please visit http://www.grategy.com. Follow on Twitter: @Grategy
