Foreword xiii
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part I: Getting Started with Employee Engagement 5
Chapter 1: Basic Training: Employee Engagement Basics 7
Say What? Defining Employee Engagement 8
Engagement is not a “program” 9
There is no “there”: Engagement is a journey, not a destination 10
Making It Happen: Driving Engagement 11
Pick Me! Pick Me! Picking the Right People for Engagement 13
Measure Twice, Cut Once: Measuring and Recognizing Engagement 14
Chapter 2: The Hard Sell: Making a Business Case for Employee Engagement 15
What’s the Big Deal? Why Employee Engagement Matters 15
Grow your own: Cultivating customer satisfaction with employee engagement 17
Profit margin: Driving profits with employee engagement 18
Danger, Will Robinson! The Dangers of Disengagement 18
Breeding Ground: Engagement Breeds Innovation (Or Is It the Other Way Around?) 22
We Are the Champions: Finding and Developing Engagement Champions 27
Objective Case: Setting Goals and Objectives for Your Engagement Plan 28
On a Budget: Budgeting for Engagement 30
Chapter 3: Engagement Gauges: Finding Your Employee Engagement Baseline 31
Survey Says: Conducting Employee Engagement Surveys 32
Working with a consultant 33
Asking the right questions 34
Analyzing the results 35
Communicating the results to your employees 37
Going forward after a survey 37
Exit Only: Conducting Exit Interviews 39
Who to interview and who should do the asking 39
When to conduct an exit interview 40
What to ask 40
Sit! Stay! Conducting Stay Interviews 42
Who to interview and who should do the asking 42
What to ask in a stay interview 43
Measuring Stick: Other Engagement Barometers 43
Assessing your training investment 44
Tracking employee referrals 45
Chapter 4: Motivation Nation: Engagement and Motivation 47
Outie or Innie? Understanding Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Motivation 47
Key Club: Identifying Key Intrinsic Motivational Drivers 49
A No-Malarkey Hierarchy: Putting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Work for You 52
A Yearn to Learn: Fostering a Learning Culture 55
Chapter 5: Talk to Me! The Importance of Communication 59
Mind the Gap: The Great Organizational Communication Fissure 60
Two-Way Street: Establishing Two-Way Communication 61
Bob the Builder: Building a Communication Protocol 63
Tool Time: Maximizing the Various Communication Tools 67
Face to face 68
Phone 69
E-mail 71
Social media 71
Putting it all together 72
He Said, She Said: Resolving Conflict 75
Identifying your conflict-management style 75
Resolving conflict with ease 79
Dealing with difficult people 80
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Communicating Change 82
Talking It Up: Communicating Your Engagement Efforts 84
Communication Don’ts 86
Part II: Strategies for Driving Engagement 89
Chapter 6: Winning Their Hearts and Minds: Driving Engagement with a Sense of Purpose 91
Sightseeing:
values Building Your Line of Sight 91
Identifying your firm’s purpose 93
Defining your firm’s 95
Identifying your organization’s vision 96
Building your strategic plan 97
Promoting your purpose, values, and vision 98
Be Responsible! Engaging Employees through Corporate Social Responsibility 100
Chapter 7: People Who Lead People: Engaging Employees through Leadership 105
Vice Versus: Management Versus Leadership 105
The Big 12: Identifying 12 Leadership-Based Engagement Drivers 107
Top It Off: Leadership Starts at the Top 108
Purple People Leader: Identifying the Behaviors and Traits of Engaged Leaders 110
Here Comes the Train Again: Training Managers to Become Engaged Leaders 113
Put Me In, Coach! Coaching for Engagement 115
A quick guide to coaching 115
Using the GROW model 118
Do This, Not That: Identifying Leadership Best Practices 119
I feel you, man 119
Offering a hand up 120
You’re not the boss of me! 120
Recognize, recognize, recognize 120
Chapter 8: Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: Driving Engagement across Generations 121
Boom Baby: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Baby Boomers 122
Attracting and hiring Boomers 123
Training Boomers 123
Engaging Boomers 124
Rewarding Boomers 125
X Marks the Spot: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Generation X 126
Attracting and hiring Generation X 126
Training Generation X 127
Engaging Generation X 128
Rewarding Generation X 128
Y Ask Y: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Generation Y 130
Attracting and hiring Generation Y 131
Training Generation Y 131
Engaging Generation Y 132
Rewarding Generation Y 134
Putting It All Together 134
Chapter 9: Go, Team! Driving Engagement through Team Development 139
Yay, Team: Identifying Characteristics of an Engaged Team 139
Stormin’ Norman: Exploring Tuckman’s Stages 141
The forming stage 143
The storming stage 144
The norming stage 145
The performing stage 146
Putting it all together 147
From a Distance: Leading Teams from Afar 150
Team Player: Exploring Team-Building Activities 151
Running a successful team-building activity 152
Tackling common challenges 153
Looking at effective team-building activities 154
Hit Me with Your Best Shot: Conducting a High-Impact Team Workshop 161
Chapter 10: Brandy, You’re a Fine Girl: Driving Engagement through Branding 163
Better Relate than Never: Understanding How Branding and Engagement Relate 164
Hello, My Name Is _____: Defining Who You Are 165
Talking It Up: Communicating Your Employment Brand 168
Branding internally 168
Branding externally 169
Tri-Angle: Understanding Tri-Branding 171
Enlisting your employees as brand ambassadors 173
Making sure your customers sing your praises 174
Leveraging other stakeholders in your tri-branding efforts 175
Chapter 11: Game On! Driving Engagement with Gamification 177
Paging Mr Webster: Defining Gamification 178
But What Does It Do? Understanding What Gamification Does 178
Get with the Program! Developing a Gamification Program 179
Pinpointing your business objectives 179
Identifying desired behaviors 181
Choosing rewards 182
Selecting game mechanics 184
Part III: Selecting the Right Employees to Increase Engagement 189
Chapter 12: You’re Hired! Hiring for Engagement 191
Trait Up: Pinpointing Key Behaviors and Traits 192
Good, Better, Best: Using the BEST Approach for Job Selection and Advancement 194
Assembling the BEST job description 196
Looking at a sample BEST characteristics matrix 199
Mix and Match: The Importance of Diversity 203
Heads or Tails: Hiring from the Outside or Promoting from Within 204
Identifying investment employees 205
Spotting performers 206
Recognizing potentials 206
Identifying transition employees 207
What Newspaper Ad? Leveraging Social Media 208
Exploring LinkedIn 209
Using Facebook for recruitment 209
Connecting with potential recruits on Twitter 210
Using YouTube to find prospective employees 212
Making the Sale: Selling Yourself to Prospective Employees 213
Chapter 13: Why Do You Want to Work Here? Interviewing Job Candidates 217
Best in Show: Interviewing the BEST Way 217
Step 1: Develop your BEST profile 217
Step 2: Develop your interview questions 218
Step 3: Conduct preliminary phone interviews 218
Step 4: Prepare for the face-to-face interview 220
Step 5: Hold the face-to-face interview 222
Step 6: Collect input from your selection team 223
Step 7: Check references 224
Step 8: Extend an offer of employment 226
Kick Ask: Asking the Right Questions 227
Assessing the Candidate’s Responses 233
Weighting questions 233
Rating answers 234
Scoring candidates 234
Chapter 14: All Aboard! Onboarding Techniques to Foster Engagement 235
What’s the Big Deal, Anyway? The Importance of Onboarding 236
Brain Swap: Considering Things from the New Employee’s
Point of View 237
The Final Countdown: Preparing for a New Employee 238
What to do before day one 238
What to do on day one 240
What to do during week one 240
Great Expectations: Performance Management and Onboarding 242
Part IV: Measuring and Recognizing Engagement 245
Chapter 15: Measure Up: Measuring Performance and Engagement 247
Score! Building a Balanced Scorecard to Measure an Organization’s Performance 248
Designing an effective balanced scorecard 249
Maintaining your balanced scorecard 250
Communicating results 250
Take It Personally: Measuring Individual Performance 252
Team Player: Measuring Team Performance 254
Measure by Measure: Measuring Employee Engagement 257
Key metrics for measuring employee engagement 257
Assessing your team’s level of engagement 258
Chapter 16: Goal! Setting Performance Goals and Conducting Performance Appraisals 261
Get Smart: Establishing SMART Performance Goals 261
Don’t Be a Tool: Retooling the Performance Appraisal Process 264
Building an employee development plan 265
Conducting 360 assessments 270
Collecting “more of, same as, less of” feedback 273
The Secret of Your Succession: Building Succession into Performance Appraisal 276
Identifying successors 277
The great disconnect 277
Leadership development 278
Chapter 17: You Win! Rewards and Recognition 281
The Rewards of Rewarding: Understanding Rewards 281
Designing a total rewards strategy 282
Developing your compensation strategy 284
Avoiding reward pitfalls 289
Rec Center: Recognizing Employees 290
Building a recognition program 291
Setting a recognition budget 293
Recognition ideas and best practices 293
Providing positive feedback 294
Building a celebratory culture 295
Chapter 18: Help Me! Helping Struggling Employees 297
Copping an Attitude: Aptitude- Versus Attitude-Based Disengagement 298
Determining whether the disengagement comes down to aptitude or attitude 298
Looking at the reasons for aptitude- and attitude-based disengagement 301
Plotting employees using the aptitude/attitude matrix 303
Throw Me a Line! Helping Underperforming Employees 307
You’re Fired! A Word on Firing 308
Part IV: The Part of Tens 311
Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Engage New Hires 313
Start Before the First Day 313
Make the New Hire Feel Welcome on Day One 314
Load ‘Em Up with Swag 314
Give the New Hire a Welcome Tour 315
Stop Making Snoozer Introductions 315
Recognize That Cliques Exist — Even in the Business World 315
Introduce New Hires to the C Levels 316
Take the Mystery Out of It (and Stay More Productive Yourself) 317
Have New Hires Meet with Key People in the First Month 317
Set Goals for New Hires 318
Chapter 20: Ten (Or So) Additional Employee Engagement Resources 319
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H Pink 319
Investing in People: Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives, by Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau 320
Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report 320
The Employee Engagement Group 321
1501 Ways to Reward Employees, by Bob Nelson 321
How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie 321
Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell 322
Who’s Sinking Your Boat, by The Employee Engagement Group 322
The University of Windsor Employee Engagement & Development Website 323
Love ’Em or Lose ’Em: Getting Good People to Stay, by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans 323
Business Gamification For Dummies by Kris Duggan and Kate Shoup 324
Chapter 21: Ten Ways Engaged Employees Help Your Bottom Line 325
It’s All About the Effort, Baby! 325
Voluntary Turnover Is Expensive 326
I’m Really Not That Sick! 326
The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line 326
A Happy Customer Is a Returning Customer 327
Innovate or Perish 327
Hey, Want to Work for My Company? 328
“I’ll Volunteer” 328
Doing Well by Doing Good 329
Can You Expand Your Margins? 329
Index 331
