Freedom, Liberty and Better Vending Machines - News Review

The opportunity to vote - employee advantage for nightmare?

In a season of television ads ensuring we exercise our right to vote, a new type of voting is beginning to appear in the business environment.  No, employees are not telling their employers what political candidate they find the most appealing, they are deciding workplace solutions with the democratic process.  In an article published in the Wall Street Journal, Workplace Democracy Catches On, we find that many employers are finding ways to engage employees by asking them to vote on items from important to trivial matters.  Most employees have never had the opportunity to voice their opinion on many of these items and find both positives and negatives with the voting process.  Questions about better vending machines, whether to play music in the common area to having a holiday party are now being directed to the employees for their vote.

The articles author, Rachel Emma Silverman, shares a few companies where this ‘workplace democracy’ has caught on.  These companies include, InContext, Whole Foods Market Inc., and MediaMath Inc.  Using “digital survey tools like TinyPulse and Know You Company enable more companies to give their staff a voice in running the workplace” Silverman (2016).  Mackenzie Siren, a manager at InContext, said, “People feel like they have a real voice” as decisions were made whether to have cubicles or open tables, standing desks and which type of coffee to brew.

This new type of employee engagement appears to be beneficial.  Providing employees an opportunity to voice their opinion on a variety of issues helps to create loyalty to the company.  When employees have a say in something, even if their individual decision is not the one picked, they are more likely to be engaged in the outcome.  Having an opportunity to have a ‘say’ is new for most employees and can be very beneficial in employee morale and engagement. 

Will all employee engage in the democratic voting process for their workplace?  Those companies that have instituted employee democracy have found that there are some negatives.  Sure, voter fatigue plays a part.  Employees can feel questions can be too cumbersome and may feel indifferent to the question or cause.  In addition, if the weight of the question is significant, employees may shy away from casting their vote.  An example of this is hiring a new CEO.  But the biggest impact, good or bad, comes from management's attitude toward the voting process.  If managers discredit the voting process, employees are less likely to play a role and the opposite is true, managers who encourage employees to voice their opinion find a higher percentage of those who vote.  

Employee voting = management nightmare?  Offering workplace democracy causes many HR professionals to cringe.  Sure, they will all say that they want employee engagement, but most dread hearing the negative.  In addition, management often will cite worries about handing over decision making to the average employee.  Sure, most  managers are control freaks - and the idea of giving away some control is a frightening concept.  The possibility of giving employees decision making opportunities that can affect what management does, even small issues, turn into a horrendous process?  Turns out, the answer is no - employee engagement makes for a better workplace environment and better managers!

The decision to integrate a workplace democracy is a new, interesting management tool that every business could benefit from, IF managed correctly.  Managers and top executives must decide what type of decisions they will empower the employees with.  Choosing the next CEO or choosing the snacks in the break room offer a vast difference in employee democratic power, although both can have a positive effect for the employees.  An example shared in the article comes from 1Sale.com.  The employees were asked whether the company should continue serving free lunch or apply the lunch costs to lowering their health insurance premiums.  A resounding 90% of employees chose to have lower health insurance premiums.  This decision did not cost the company any additional money but they received employee buy-in on the most beneficial way to spend the money for the employees. 

Asking for employee engagement offer a new level of empowerment for the employee and the managers.  When the managers know the direction that employees want to go, managers have a better ability to accomplish goals.  In addition, with employee engagement, it’s much harder for employees to complain about decisions.  Engagement helps create feelings of unity and also brings awareness to workplace benefits and concerns.  Now, employees are part of the process, which makes for an ideal environment for success.  

Management Game Changer - Employee Engagement Apps

Is your company ready to take the employee engagement to a new level?  Engagement apps are the new relationship builder for employees and managers. 

Employee engagement continues to be a struggle for many employers and managers find themselves being reactive instead of proactive.  In an article, Feedback Is The Killer App: A New Market and Management Model Emerges, Josh Bersin describes this low employee engagement.  “Gallup tells us that only about 1/3 of employees are actively engaged, Glassdoor data shows an average engagement of a C+ (3.1 out of 5), and Quantum Workplace believes engagement is at its lowest level in eight years”.  Introducing a feedback app will create a new engagement opportunity for your employees!  Most employers work diligently to create an ideal workplace environment.  Even with implemented improvements, employee’s rank their employers in the form of a traditional bell curve.  Some are terrible, some are great, but most land somewhere in the middle.

An ideal tool:

Engagedly is a new app that will redefine your business.  They advertise as “the most comprehensive tool available to drive employee engagement”.  The Engagedly platform offers tools that include manager feedback, idea generation, knowledge sharing and learning, peer praise, rewards and social performance.  It is an ideal app to strengthen the company’s engagement. 

Is this really needed and will it work?

Absolutely!  The workforce is changing which requires managers and HR professionals to adapt to different ways of engaging their employees.  No longer is an annual performance appraisal possible.  The new, upcoming workforce has always had instant feedback and expects the same from their job environment.  Research has shown that employees and managers want feedback and the more frequent, the better.  If they do not receive any feedback, they worry about what people are saying, wonder whether their future is secure or even if they’re doing a good job. 

A word of caution from Dr. Karissa Thacker, a Delaware-based workplace psychologist, “It is critical that human resource leaders be proactive in developing rules of engagement regarding instant feedback apps.  The rules need to be developed through a partnership of business leaders and HR function.”  Most managers have been there, realizing they should have been proactive instead of reactive.  Save yourself some hassle and don’t assume that employees or other managers will simply govern themselves, set down ground rules before you implement.

How easy can we implement this?

So easy, an HR professional can do this!  No IT needed – although it’s a great idea to get your IT department involved!  Engagedly offers IT support for those that do not have an individual IT department.  The software is a web-based application that takes only a few hours, not weeks to implement and begin to use.  Software is added to desktop computers, smartphones or tablets and as long as the user has internet access, they can check their performance anywhere, anytime.  Engagedly comes loaded with employee tracking features, ways to set goals and foster teamwork.  With views for employees, managers and HR professionals, it has a user-friendly, easy-to-use dashboard. 

The cost of feedback, worthwhile?

Engaging employees from a management or human resources perspective cannot be quantified with a specific number, although the accounting department will require one!  Engagedly comes with reasonable price-tag.  For the basic plan the cost is $5 per user per month.  The premier plan costs $8 per user per month.  For large companies, this cost would be too burdensome, and many of these larger businesses are integrating their own, self-made feedback software.  GE, as an example, has created a unique app called PD@GE.  Depending on the size of the business, costs can vary, although strengthening employee engagement offers additional benefits that cannot be measured with money.

Engagedly is the best of employee engagement applications available on the market today, especially for small to mid-sized companies.  Implementing this new feedback app lets you focus on issues as they happen.  The feedback is immediate which provides managers to tackle problems or issues as they arise and not need to wait until the information filters through the rumor mill. 

The management game is changing.  Managers who wish to create an ideal workplace where management and employees work hand in hand together and empower each other to strive for greatness, incorporates instant and constant feedback.  Engagedly is an application that will help make this a reality.  

Empower Management - Dr. Seuss Style

Empower management – who even knows what that is?  And how can this possibly be tied to Dr. Seuss?  First, we must define management.  According to Modern Management, management is “the process of reaching organizational goals by working with and through people and other organizational resources” (Certo & Certo, 2014).  Sure, management is reaching goals and managing people – but great managers, empowering managers, see the opportunity to strengthen those around them.  A good manager works to encourage and nurture greatness from their employees.  Yes, this can be complex and sometimes overwhelming, yet empowering managers work to bring out the best in everyone around them.  

Using quotes by Dr. Seuss, I offer three suggestions to show the importance of strengthening management skills to empower employees, hence becoming an empowering manager.

As a manager, empowering employees to care about their job is critical to running a successful department or organization.  It’s taking ownership and finding a connection to the overall organization's goal.  Empowering managers help employees find that connection and then leads them through the process, encouraging and nurturing their skills and abilities along the way. 

Encouraging employees to know and understand that each of them can make a difference.  Every employee brings different skills and abilities to the table and it is important that empowering managers utilize and never diminish those skills.  It is also important that managers help develop an employee’s unique skills and talents, as well as focusing on the positive traits that an employee brings.  Accepting, understanding and focusing on the positive can make the difference between reaching the end goal or falling short.

Empowering managers lead by example and show their employees that learning new skills or information is an important aspect of success.  This success comes to the individual and bleeds over into the department and organization.  Learning helps everyone achieve their best.  Sure, the more you know the more places you'll go, yet it offers one critical benefit.  It helps employees and managers succeed in many aspects of their individual jobs that connects to the bigger picture, succeeding as a whole.  No one is too old or too young to gain new knowledge.    

Empower management is not simply a fun catch-phrase – it is a way to encourage greatness from employees.  This greatness then fosters success for a department or organization.  Empower management is about leading, encouraging and nurturing an employee to greatness.  It is seeing the good in their employees and believing that everyone is working towards greatness. 

Kevin Daum, a Inc. 500 entrepreneur and best-selling author said, “Having empowered employees is the dream of every leader.  All managers want people who show initiative by taking on and completing tasks with little guidance.”   He continues by saying that many times, leadership has not completed the task of actually empowering their employees or hasn’t had enough training to find ways to create an environment of empowerment.  Dr. Seuss has given us some great ways to define empower management, but also ways to empower employees.  Whether it is helping them care and take ownership of their job duties, utilizing their unique skills and accepting them as who they are, or continuing to gain knowledge and learn new skills, empower management ensures each employee and manager reaches for greatness.  From Krexy.com, “There is no need to reach high for the stars.  They are already within you.  Just reach deep inside yourself!”  Empower management is finding the greatness within.