Employee Engagement: It’s All About the Relationship
Employee engagement is a popular phrase in today’s business world. It is quite common for employees to expect more than just a paycheck when it comes to their work, and employers are struggling to figure out what they can do to meet these expectations.
I have a simple answer for you: human relationships.
It’s really not that simple – if it was, everyone would do it. When it comes down to employee engagement initiatives, most programs fail because organizations forget to focus on human relationships, which I would argue are the building blocks of engagement.
There are many different definitions of employee engagement, and they all revolve around a common theme: emotional commitment and attachment to one’s workplace and fellow employees. Engaged employees feel a profound connection and commitment to their company; they work with passion, they are loyal, and they are willing to go the extra mile.
What separates those organizations with high levels of employee engagement and those with low levels of employee engagement? Culture.
Employees want to be hired and retained by organizations with exceptional workplace cultures. These cultures have many different aspects to them, but they often involve overall feelings of trust, contribution, inclusion, altruism, achievement, and happiness. These feelings are all derived from one thing: human relationships.
A 2016 survey by the Society of Human Resources Management revealed relationships in the workplace are top drivers of employee engagement. Respondents described how relationships in the workplace were vital to their overall engagement in the workplace. 77% believed their relationships with their co-workers influenced their engagement and almost the same number, 74%, believed their relationship with their immediate supervisor influenced their engagement.
This makes sense – if you enjoy the people you work with, the easier it is to enjoy going to work each day. If you don’t enjoy the people you work work with you likely experience the Monday Morning Blues on more days than Monday.
Do you have a best friend at work?
Gallup, a research-based, global performance-management consulting company, has conducted employee engagement research for over 30 years and the best friend question, “Do you have a best friend at work?” is one of the most controversial.
Gallup asks this question for one primary reason: performance. The research shows a “concrete link between having a best friend at work and the amount of effort employees expend in their job.” They give the example of women who strongly agree they have a best friend at work compared to those who don’t strongly agree: those who strongly agree are two times (63%) more likely to be engaged at work.
Holistically though, it’s becoming more acceptable to want and expect more than just a paycheck from work. As social beings, we want sense of accomplishment, value, and altruism from our work. If positive social/human relationships are missing from your workplace, chances are you feel less energized and motivated by the work you do – even if you are good at what you do. This leads to being less invested and possibly less productive.
51% of employees who strongly agree that their organization encourages close friendships at work (who rate this statement a 5 on the 5-point scale) are extremely satisfied with their place of employment, compared to just 19% of employees who disagree with that statement (by choosing a 1 or 2) – Getting Personal in the Workplace, Gallup
If 75% of employees agree relationships in the workplace influence their engagement, how do companies and management prioritize human relationships and make their workplace more relationship-centric?
Bonfyre describes how human relationships in the workplace are a result of how often people connect and communicate (interaction) and how much people have in common (relatedness). Organizations, leadership, and managers are relationship-centric when they set up their work environment for their employees to become best friends. This is done by increasing the ability to interact with other employees, which may lead to a discovery of what the employees have in common. As Bonfyre describes, best friends are a product of high levels of interaction and relatedness.
You typically can’t discover what you have in common with someone (relatedness) without interacting with them first. Companies looking to become more relationship-centric need to focus on giving their employees the opportunity to interact with each other.
How?
1. Step away from the computer.
Instead of sending an email, take the opportunity to go speak to the recipient in person. It’s been said that 93% of communication is nonverbal. If this is the case there is a high chance that a miscommunication may occur if you only communicate via text-based means.
2. Invest in technology that promotes social relationships such as video chat software and/or collaboration software.
If you must communicate in ways that are not in-person, invest in video chat or collaboration software that will enable your employees to interact on a more personal level. Of course emails and phone calls are a popular communication means, but you can make it more personal by providing a different social element.
3. Gratitude.
There is no such thing as too much gratitude. The benefits of gratitude are numerous both in the professional world as well as in your personal life. In my article 3 Ways Gratitude Promotes a Culture of Engagement in the Workplace, I describe how gratitude increases productivity, job satisfaction, and may increase feelings of psychological safety. It’s important to know your people: some may like public displays of gratitude, others may prefer a private thank you in the hallway.
4. Ask for employee input.
Have you heard of the Ikea-effect? This is the idea that if you help build something, you will love or value it more. If your employees feel heard and like their input matters, they will feel valued by the organization and their engagement can increase. Giving employees the opportunity to collaborate and co-create will promote positive relationship building, trust, and belonging.
5. Talk the talk and walk the walk.
When it comes to culture changes employees typically won’t buy-in or join-in until leadership and culture champions show they are dedicated to the change in culture. If you are genuine with your efforts to change the culture your employees will notice.
Connecting the Dots
Employee engagement initiatives fail because organizations forget to focus on the basic building block of engagement: human relationships. Organizations promoting relationship building between employees gives employees opportunities to discover what they have in common with other employees. This discovery can lead to close friendships; possibly even best friendships. If an organization is looking to become more relationship-centric its leadership and culture champions must invest in face-to-face interactions, whether this is in-person or virtually, they must become comfortable expressing genuine gratitude on regular and consistent bases. When employees feel like their input is valued and considered they feel a deeper connection to their work, fellow employees, and organization. All of this is irrelevant if leadership and management don’t create and stick to patterns of behavior that is consistent with building a culture of trust, contribution, inclusion, altruism, achievement, and happiness.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post! If you’re looking for ways to increase your organization’s level of employee engagement and improve positive workplace relationships, please review my services here and contact me here.
This was originally posted on LinkedIn on May 18th, 2018. See the full post here.
Why I Almost Quit Social Media: The Importance of Workplace Relationships
I almost quit social media because of work.
I loved social media. I thought I did a good job keeping things private, that was, until someone at work told me he Googled me. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve Googled people before and I know recruiters/potential employers Google job applicants to learn more about them.
Why was this particular event different?
It was different because this person made me extremely uncomfortable in the workplace. He was above me in the workplace hierarchy and, looking back on it now, he used his status to influence when and how I did my work. He would request meetings lasting for hours, in his office, just the two of us, with the door closed. When one of my coworkers moved, he would ask me about her, he would tell me about the emails he sent her and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t emailing or calling him back.
He requested an early morning meeting, before anyone else was in the office. He said he Googled me.
He told me he found my wedding registry and asked to be invited to my wedding. He said he read through my entire Twitter (over 3 years of content) and wanted to talk about some tweets. He had written them down and brought them to the meeting. He wanted to know “more” about my family. He said he “thought he knew me before,” but “now feels like he knows me so much better.”
I felt sick. I felt like my privacy was more than invaded. It was violated. I felt like it was my fault.
He told me we didn’t have to talk about it if it made me uncomfortable. I told him it made me uncomfortable. He ignored my statement and proceeded to his questions, which were written down on multiple sheets of paper.
I sat in his office, silent, until he said I could leave.
I couldn’t believe what had just happened.
The instant I escaped his office I took personal responsibility for the event and I decided to protect myself from this happening again. I Googled myself and went through the first 12 pages of Google results to see what I could find and remove; I deleted all social media accounts except for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram; I locked down those three remaining accounts; I deleted or disconnected from people I didn’t know very well; I deleted pictures; I deleted posts; I made things so private it looked like I almost didn’t have an online presence.
I quit posting.
I became less connected to long-distance friends. My relationships with those outside my immediate circle began to dwindle. I became suspicious and distrusting of others, especially those I met at work.
This distinct experience significantly influenced my perception of safety in the workplace, and it was a key reason I refrained from building relationships in the workplace and in school for the next two years. I didn’t trust anyone, especially people who reminded me of the individual I described above.
After several years of going to work just to get paid and being the person who didn’t want to make friends or put significant effort into workplace relationships, I realized just because this happened to me in one workplace didn’t mean it would happen to me in every workplace.
The importance of workplace relationships
Most people are aware of boundaries. Even if they Google you, they don’t tell you they Googled you and they especially don’t start a discussion by pulling out a list of questions about things they read/found.
I realized I spent more time with people at work than with my family or non-work friends. This was my turning point. Workplace relationships are important, if not vital to the success of an organization, and if people work to build positive workplace relationships, workplaces can thrive. People don’t have to show up to work just to get paid. Those who do are likely not engaged and they may end up decreasing the overall level of engagement within an organization.
The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) released survey results in 2016 that showed how workplace relationships are drivers of employee engagement.
77% of respondents indicated relationships with their coworkers influenced their engagement in the workplace and 74% indicated relationships with their immediate supervisor also impacted their level of engagement in the workplace. Along the same lines, Gallup, a research-based, global performance-management consulting company, has conducted employee engagement research for over 30 years. One of the most controversial questions Gallup asks is, “Do you have a best friend at work?”
Gallup repeatedly shows a concrete link between having a best friend at work and the amount of effort employees expend in their job. Gallup uses the following example: women who strongly agree they have a best friend at work are more than twice as likely to be engaged (63%) compared with the women who say otherwise (29%).
Research shows employees seek out and stay with organizations with exceptional workplace cultures. While there are many different components to workplace culture, exceptional workplace culture is often characterized by overall feelings of trust, belongingness and inclusion.
We want our work to feel worthwhile and meaningful. Having trusted confidants and supporters helps foster those feelings. We go to our work friends when we need to celebrate and commiserate about both our personal and professional lives. In the absence workplace friendships, work can become lonely and isolating. It lacks attachments. Although we may like what we do and we may get to use our talents and strengths every day, if we don’t have positive workplace relationships or workplace friendships, we’re probably not feeling fully motivated to put everything into our roles.
If companies focus on creating relationship-centric workplaces they will allow employees to build quality relationships with one another. These quality relationships will strengthen business by increasing morale, employee retention, productivity, and teamwork.
Connecting the Dots
Lesson 1: Be prepared for someone you don’t know very well to Google you. You may even want to be prepared for them to tell you they Googled you AND for them to want to talk to you about it. If this happens, don’t go nuclear on your online presence like I did. If you disconnect from your online presence you may become distanced from important connections and opportunities. Don’t over react and determine all workplaces are equal and this will happen to you again (it hasn’t happened to me since).
Lesson 2: Positive workplace relationships are important to the functioning and overall success of a business. Research shows that those who report having a best friend at work are significantly more engaged in the workplace than those who don’t. Foundational feelings of contribution, trust, and altruism are all derived from one thing—human relationships. If positive human relationships are missing form a workplace, engagement will most definitely suffer.
Have you ever had something uncomfortable like this happen at work? How did you handle it?
Do you have a best friend at work? How does your friendship influence your perception of the workplace?
Thank you for taking the time to read my post! If you’re looking for ways to increase your organization’s level of employee engagement and improve positive workplace relationships, please review my services here and contact me here.
This was originally posted on LinkedIn on March 26th, 2018. See the full post here.