You Need to Stop Making Your Employees Happy

These engaged employees are fulfilling two core components: 

• Affiliation — your employee feels like they are a ‘part’ of the organization, which is measurable 
• Effort — they are exceeding expectations and going above and beyond what’s required of them, which is measurable as well 

• A satisfied employee may not necessarily be engaged. 
• Research has shown that perks are typically short-lived boosters. 
• Only a company that looks Inwards from the leadership to the culture can utilize the perks in tandem with engagement initiatives. 
• If all other elements of the job remain unchanged, the employee will simply become dissatisfied again (which means they will be Disengaged) a satisfied employee may not necessarily be engaged. 
• Perks are great, but they are not enough to boost engagement.

• “I’m engaged at my company” — your employee needs to believe in your core mission and go beyond expectations to do tasks that fulfill it. 
• You need to give them the right entitlements, foster Positivity, and open communication as well as build amicable Co-Worker relationships.
• “I’m satisfied with my job” — it’s all about the perks and benefits, this is a deep HR issue 

You need data.  

• A Fifteen-minute Survey: Create a weekly employee pulse survey that captures their feelings, emotions, and facts. The overall result should be compiled into a report that takes no more than 5 minutes to read.
• Do a weekly Check-In. Go personal with this and start conversations with employees every time you catch them be available.

• According to Simon Sinek, leaders inspire action with emotions and resonation. 
• Employees at Apple knew what they were trying to do, even if they were doing frontline at an apple store. 
• The key is to communicate the purpose, which leads to ‘ start with why. 
• If your business is 'Another' company in the industry, your employees won’t be invested in it.

The best way any business can drive engagement in culture is to embed a coaching and continual feedback culture:

• Performance recognition has an impact on business outcomes. Give verbal compliments, follow up with Encouragements.
• People perform best in environments of adversity. Deliver it with tact and Straightforwardness. People perform best in environments of adversity.
• Create an environment where you can understand your employees as human beings. The key is to forge a connection that allows the employee to believe that you care.

If something is going wrong, be it in the organization or the team, tell them straight and facilitate two-way communication. 

Leverage on technology to keep the communication going slack, Microsoft teams, Chanty or these other alternatives.

IBM researched the employee experience and found that employees interact across ‘three primary spheres’:

• The Social Sphere — how is your employee communicating and interacting with others at work?
• The Work Sphere — how do your employees interact with their assignments and work?
• The Physical Sphere — what kind of interactions do your employees have in the environment?

Ergonomics and workplace architecture is a core component in employee experience. You could segment a meeting room and design it for Sprints. 

You could also dedicate areas for Quietude so concentration and flow can occur there.

The physical environment is not just on furniture and spaces but also on other factors like temperature control, noise, ventilation, and ambient lighting. Even choosing which window your quiet space will be near to is significant.

• When your software takes too many clicks or takes 15 seconds to get one task done, decision fatigue kicks in.
• If there’s sensitive information, is the internal storage structured to be easily accessible by employees?
• Employees want to spend more time figuring out how to do their jobs than figure out how to use the company’s technology.
• Is your software capable of adapting to Auditory and visual needs?
• The tools should be easy to use, and information, like documents and scans, should be easily accessible within seconds.

High performance is not due to our biological drive — like our need for dopamine — but in fact due to our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives. When employees deploy self-awareness and understand how their task fits into the work, they are much more able to perform.

Many companies underestimate just how long the culture-building game is. 

It is insanely difficult to change an internal brand when it has been cemented a long time ago. Identifying blockages in culture and educating or removing them is paramount. It is high time HR goes offence and not defence.