A recent article shares something most managers know as fact: The employee – employer relationship has changed. They offer 3 reasons why the relationship has changed:

The psychological contract has been broken.
There’s increased competition.
Employees and employers aren’t engaged.
So what? Why do you care if the relationship has changed? LOTS of reasons, but I’ll give you 2 of the most important:

Lower performance of existing employees– If nobody is engaged, performance can’t be at the highest levels and thus productivity will decrease and nobody will be at their absolute best. The lower the performance, the less money the company makes, which …read more

While I frequently slant the articles on Slacker Manager towards new managers, I think this is one that even the most experienced of managers need to read and understand. Wally Bock inked One thing you can do to supervise better and offered a great tip:
Show Up (Often)
Wally shares 3 reasons showing up often works:

No longer an event when you do show up, so folks will be more likely to shoot you straight
Reducing stress by decreasing the chance folks will be surprised when you show up
Creating opportunities for conversation

I’d like to share a few more reasons showing up works, and offer …read more

One of the amazing readers of Slacker Manager wanted to do a little more digging on the causes and stats behind employee engagement increasing. Rather than just leave a long comment, Rick Hamrick wrote a wonderful follow-up article for you to learn more about this VERY important topic. Thanks Rick!
Here is what I discovered in digging a little deeper: Modern Survey does not include a margin of error in their own article about these statistics (see http://modernsurvey.com/news/?p=157#), but they do make the point that the “willing to go the extra mile” number is statistically significant. By omission, one would expect …read more

According to a recent survey conducted by Modern Survey, U.S. worker’s employee engagement is trending upwards:

Wow, this is shocking news to me! I’m shocked in a very good way.
The news and all the “experts” think employee engagement is decreasing, or at least should be decreasing in a bad economy, and now, a survey shows us that is wrong!
Maybe it’s increasing because managers are being more intentional about engagement now, and they realize with less ways to pay folks, they need to invest more time saying thank you and doing the little things that add up to a BIG boost in …read more

Think fast: How much do you know about your team?
Do you know…

What their spouse’s/significant other’s name is?
Children’s name (or a pet’s name if that’s important to them)?
Why they first looked at the job they’re currently in?
Do they have any friends that work with them?
Favorite sports team?
Favorite TV show?
Favorite book?
Favorite movie?
Are they a morning person or a night owl?

The point of this is not to think about EVERY possible thing you can know about your team. The point is, you need to know what IS important to each member of your team, and make it important to you. You also should …read more

Recently I was asked to participate in the Engaging Voices project at Terry Seamon’s Here We Are Now What? blog. I wrote an article about the importance of asking questions to engage others’ voices.
Here’s a snippet:
One of the best ways to get employee engagement is to listen to others’ voices, for you are not alone in your quest to engage employees.
How do you listen to others’ voices?
Start by asking yourself “What will I do with the feedback I get from these other voices?” If you’re not willing to listen and take action on the trends you hear from those you …read more

Need a little more employee engagement where you work? Who doesn’t!
Former co-editor of Slacker Manager David Zinger compiled 52 of the most powerful sentences for employee engagement and put them into a free employee engagement ebook. All the tips are from the amazing folks in the Employee Engagement Network, facilitated by David, and now over 680 people strong!
For those scoring at home, that’s 1 tip, per week that you could read and put into action, to greatly improve your company’s employee engagement.
Here’s a few of my favorites:
To connect “head and heart” connect every person’s daily activities (and results) to the …read more

“The happier your employees are, the happier your customers are, and never the other way around!” – Phil Gerbyshak
One of the rules I’ve lived by as a manager is knowing I need to keep the folks that report to me happy, and they will keep our customers happy, and not the other way around. Though I’ve read from plenty of trusted sources that happy customers make happy employees, I’ve never ever seen that work in my life.
What do you think?
Do you think happy employees make happy customers, or do you think happy customers make happy employees?
Happy employees courtesy of darlene …read more

Frequent commenter CK shared a response to 5 Ways to Improve Employee Morale that gave me pause. As a manager, I hope I don’t fall into the pit of despair CK’s management team has fallen into.
Job Fit – Get the person management wants (or recommended by the buddy system) and train them how to do the job they are hired to do. And if that doesn’t work out, hire a contractor to do the job and the employee to boss the contractor around.
Job Clarity – There is none. If management doesn’t like you they give you only half the information …read more

Chris Young shared 8 ways to improve employee morale, and offered some great insights into employee engagement and overall job satisfaction.
A few of the ones Chris covered are key to me, and I’ve got one other one that is critical to my personal morale and job satisfaction. I’ve listed my favorite 4 from Chris, along with my commentary on it, and shared 1 more to get you started towards improving employee morale.
Job Fit – Get the right person doing the right job. If the fit is bad, morale is bad. Makes good sense, and though it’s tough to help …read more