MAKE WORK MORE INTERESTING

One of the greatest benefits of employee engagement is that it makes work more interesting for everyone. Employee engagement can challenge employees in ways they never experienced in the past. This concept can be applied to virtually any job or workplace. Regardless of the complexity of a job, there will always be aspects of that job that are normally someone else’s responsibility. Moving these challenges into an employee’s area of responsibility can create new or renewed interest in his job. This can make a supervisor or manager’s job easier because she doesn’t have to be the only one trying to motivate the employees—they are self-motivated by the challenges that being engaged can present to them.

But what really makes someone’s job interesting? To answer this question, let’s first think about some things people do away from the workplace that they enjoy, such as their hobbies or favorite pastimes. What makes these activities interesting or fun? For example, think about sports that people participate in on a regular basis—specifically, the game of golf. Golfers are often very passionate about this activity and seek it out every chance they get. When you think about it, this game really involves someone trying to propel a tiny round object in a straight path forward toward a specific destination, using the force of a special device they must swing in a very specific manner, repeating this process hopefully as few times as possible in specially designated areas. They must normally repeat this process 18 times as they walk across often difficult terrain, which contains obstacles, traps, and hazards such as water, sand, and trees to make it even harder. If the golfer does not comply with all the rules of this activity, she is penalized. The equipment that a golfer must use to complete these tasks is usually expensive, heavy, and bulky, which must be carried around for many miles or transported by an electric cart that the golfer normally must rent from the establishment where this activity is held. Engaging in this activity is often a very frustrating experience, as it requires a special skill and expensive training to improve performance, and it is not unusual for participants to get extremely angry, sometimes throwing these expensive pieces of equipment around, and even using profanity when their performance does not meet their expectations. Perhaps the most curious thing about this activity is that people are not paid to perform these tasks but rather pay to participate in it!

Of course, golfers play the game because they actually enjoy it. But what makes a golfer enjoy being engaged in something that can sound more like something to avoid rather than seek out? Let’s examine some of these elements of the game that make it fun to play for golfers:

• Challenge. Golfers are constantly challenging themselves to try to improve their performance. They set goals for themselves on how they hope to improve by constantly increasing their performance level. They study this subject by reading golfing books and magazines, watching others who are professionals in the sport, and taking lessons.
• Motivation. Perhaps as a result of the challenging nature of the sport, golfers are typically very self-motivated to improve every time they play. They are typically willing or even eager to play this game in their quest to better their scores, and they get great satisfaction from even the slightest positive improvements in their performance.
• Maintenance. Golf is inherently a difficult sport to learn and particularly to become proficient at playing. Just learning to play this game at a higher level of performance doesn’t guarantee that a golfer can maintain this level of performance. This makes playing well even more satisfying when it is achieved.
• Support. Golfers provide each other support and encouragement as they play the game together. They often compliment each other’s shots (sometimes when it is really deserved). They even give advice to one another (usually unsolicited) to try to help each other improve their performances.
• Scoring. Golfers keep precise (sometimes) score of how they play each round to measure their performance against previous performances. They keep track of these scores, often sharing them with other golfers and noting when they have performed particularly well. Sometimes scores are collected over time and calculated in terms of performance against a standard of performance called a handicap, which provides another level of comparison between different golfers’ varying skills.
• Recognition. Golfers often recognize others’ good performances by commenting on particularly high levels of performance. Sometimes this recognition is formal and public, such as the presentation of awards or trophies for winning.
• Camaraderie. Golf is typically played in foursomes together. These groups often play together regularly, sometimes for years. As each player takes his turns hitting his ball, the others provide encouragement and support. Golfers not only enjoy playing the sport but also enjoy being involved in an activity with others who have the same interest in playing the sport as they do.

Now, think about how these same things that make a favorite pastime such as playing golf could make your workplace more enjoyable and engaging; think about how your own job could become more satisfying if these things were part of your workplace.

• Challenge. Think about how challenging your employees’ jobs are for each of them. Are they currently challenged by their work? Challenge makes activities more interesting. Challenge gives an employee something to strive for to achieve in the future. People need to be challenged to stay interested in their jobs. Challenge doesn’t necessarily mean just giving someone more work—which may not be challenging but rather frustrating to the employee—instead, it means providing more challenging goals and objectives for employees to obtain. It is highly satisfying for someone to stretch to achieve a goal previously thought unobtainable. Engaging employees involves giving those who report to you more challenging but achievable assignments that they’ll feel a sense of accomplishment completing. However, if you provide challenges to employees who are not ready to accept them, they can become highly frustrated, particularly if they feel they have not been provided the necessary resources to meet these challenges. These resources may include training, access to information, and so on—whatever is needed to meet these challenges.
  
  Think about how you could be more challenged in your job. How can creating a more engaged workplace create a more satisfying work experience and result for you?
• Motivation. As in golf, motivation must come from within an individual. You can’t force someone to become motivated. However, as a supervisor or manager, you can help employees to become motivated by creating reasons why they should become motivated to perform their jobs better. Providing challenges (as mentioned above) is one way to motivate employees. Providing incentives such as recognition or rewards can also provide motivation to employees. Perhaps the best way to motivate employees is to find out what really interests them about their jobs and to provide these opportunities to them when possible.
• Support. Being supportive of those who work for you is critically important in the engagement process. Employees need to feel that their supervisor—as well as the organization—supports them in their work and careers. They need to feel that someone has their best interests in mind, that someone has their back. Support comes in many different ways and forms. It can simply be the encouragement of a supervisor as employees are given the opportunity to make a greater contribution in their jobs. Support could also be providing the resources that engaged employees need to meet these challenges. Employees will not feel engaged if they don’t sense that they have this support, and may even become disengaged if they feel otherwise. Employees may see the amount of support they receive as the true measure of the organization’s commitment to the concept of employee engagement.
• Scoring. Every sport involves some kind of scoring or measurement of performance. It might be the amount of points that each team has earned, the time it takes to complete an athletic activity, the distance that an object can be propelled, or many other measures. As illustrated in the previous golf example, one of the things that makes golf interesting and enjoyable is keeping score to measure one’s performance currently and over time to track improvements. Just think how different any sport would be if there wasn’t some kind of score or time measurement. Would a golfer still feel challenged and interested in the game if she didn’t keep score? Work can be made more interesting and engaging if there are accurate measures of performance and employees are encouraged to improve their performance against these measures.
• Recognition. Recognizing improved or improving performance is essential to creating a more engaged workplace and workforce. Everyone needs recognition and to be rewarded for their accomplishments. Recognition and rewards are what motivates employees to become more engaged. Employees become disengaged when they feel they aren’t being recognized or rewarded for their hard work and accomplishments, and this is especially true when it comes to their supervisor. Recognition can come in many different forms. It can be formal, such as award programs sponsored by the organization that single out exceptional performance of individuals and groups. It can also be informal, such as a simple “thank you” or acknowledgment of employees’ extra efforts.
  
  Think about how much recognition there is in your workplace or work group. Do you think that those who work for you feel they are receiving the recognition and rewards they deserve? How do you think those who work for you would respond to receiving more recognition than they presently receive? How do you think this would affect your role as their leader if your work group felt more recognized?
• Camaraderie. People enjoy being part of a team in which everyone is working together toward shared goals. They enjoy the relationships that are developed in the process. Just think about the many potential benefits of increasing teamwork in your work group or organization. Teamwork creates greater synergies in an organization because employees who work well together can achieve much more than employees working independently. Chapter 4 will review the many benefits of creating greater teamwork in an organization in more detail.

Getting Employees Excited About Work Again

It is common for employees to lose the interest they once had in their jobs because it no longer provides many of the things mentioned above. At one time they may have been excited about their work and felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but as time passed, their job became something they had to do to earn a paycheck. Supervising employees with this attitude can be difficult and frustrating. It may seem like you are constantly trying to get employees to do what you expect them to be doing on their own. Imagine how much easier and less frustrating it would be to lead others who were more interested, even excited, about their jobs again. Think about how much more effectively they could perform their jobs and consequently how much better you could perform your job if those who reported to you were interested in their jobs. Think about how much you could accomplish. You might even get more excited about your own job than you have been for a long time!

So what can you do to get employees excited about their jobs again? The following are five keys to getting employees interested and even excited about their jobs again.

Expanding Employees’ Interest in Their Jobs

Looking at Figure 2-1, you can see the overall job responsibilities shown in relation to the parts of the job that really interest this employee. This is actually a model for employee disengagement. In this example, this employee’s interests are outside the overall responsibilities of the job. This is not an unusual situation in which many employees find themselves. For various reasons, employees feel stuck in a job that is of little or no real interest to them or is not consistent with the type of job responsibilities they would actually enjoy performing. In many situations, there is not much that can be done to address this problem, but it is still the cause of many disengaged employees who are uninterested in their work in general. If this is a problem in your workplace, the more you are able to address and move toward correcting this situation, the more engaged your employees will become in their jobs. But don’t despair—there are many things you can do to address this problem.

In this view, the employee’s interests are obviously outside the responsibilities and scope of the job. There may not be much that can be done to change this situation (based on the nature of the job) for it to be compatible with the particular interests of the incumbent in the job. However, thinking creatively, you may be able to find ways to channel these personal interests into the employee’s job, as his supervisor. If you can do this, you will find that this individual will be much more engaged and excited about the job.

In this model shown in Figure 2-2, the employee’s interests are still mostly outside the scope of the job responsibilities, but there is now more overlap with the job. This model begins to move toward employee engagement. When employees are more interested in their jobs, they will become more engaged both in the short- and long-term. The more the job and an employee’s interests are connected, the more connected the employee will feel about their job. Finding ways to both identify and utilize your employees’ interests in their job is one of the secrets to creating a more engaged workforce.

Finally, Figure 2-3 shows a situation in which an employee’s interests are being fully incorporated into the job. In this model, the employee is doing what he is most interested in during the course of performing the job. This naturally leads to employees who are more engaged and excited about their jobs. This is the scenario when you often hear employees express how much they enjoy their jobs and how they feel fulfilled by performing these duties and responsibilities. Again, you may not always be able to reach this level of job interest with your employees, but the closer you can come, the more engaged they will be as a result.

One of the ways to address this issue is to think about job fit. Do you have the employee in the right job that best matches her skills and interests? If the answer is no, then you should first be thinking about how this problem could be addressed. Is there some other job that this person could be placed in that would be a better fit given this situation? If not, is there a way to change certain aspects of this job which would allow this employee to become more interested in the job? Are there certain responsibilities that could be expanded or redirected toward this person that would use his talents and interests better? Could some of the responsibilities of this job be redirected to another employee, which might be more aligned with her interests and talents?

Employees Enjoy Doing What Is of Most Interest to Them

Think about the following things when considering how to bring out your employees’ talents and interests concerning their jobs:

• Think about the strengths and interests, talents, experiences, training, expertise, and so on that each person who works for you brings to their job.
• Think about how much more interested in their job your employees would be if given the opportunity to do these things that they are most interested in concerning their job.
• Have you ever talked to each of your employees about what it is that they would really like to do more or learn to do in their job?
• Think about how you can help develop the strengths of your employees to allow them to make a greater contribution to their job.
• Think about how you could better use these attributes of each of your employees that they bring to their job.
• Think about the benefits of developing these strengths of your employees to both your employees and the organization.
• Think about how employees could share their expertise and abilities with others.
• Think about how better using the talents of your employees could open up other career possibilities for them.
• Think about how much more innovative employees might be if they were interested in their job.
• Think about how less likely employees might be to leave the organization if they were encouraged to build on their strengths in performing their job.

Too often, we focus on what individuals need to improve on rather than what they excel in and do well. This may have the effect of moving the amount of interest an employee has in his job further outside the scope of the job. The employee begins to think more about what he would really like to be doing in his career and less about the actual job he has to perform. Again, think about how much more productive people would be if you put less energy into correcting their weaknesses, and instead put this effort into developing their strengths. If you focus on someone’s weaknesses, you will only bring this level of performance to an average or an acceptable level at best. But if you focus on developing someone’s strengths, you can realistically expect to get excellent job performance as a result, because you are now playing to that person’s strengths. It just makes sense that employees will be more interested in work they enjoy doing and are good at performing. It feels good to do something well and when you get praise and recognition too, it is all the better.

Think of yourself as a coach of a sports team. You would assess the talents, skills, and interests of each of your players in assigning them to certain positions. For instance, it just wouldn’t make any sense to assign someone who has an interest in passing the football into a lineman’s position or a defensive position. Doing so would not only frustrate the aspiring quarterback, but also the other players who might be required to play quarterback who also may be disinterested in that role. The same is true in assigning your employees to roles and positions on your work team when you have the discretion to do so. Finding the right role for employees can be an important part of creating an engaged workplace for everyone.

Sometimes it might not be possible to assign someone a job which best fits their interests for many valid reasons. In these circumstances, are there elements of the job which you could encourage or assign an employee to perform which are consistent with their talents and interests? For example, you could have an employee who is very good at artwork but the nature of the work has nothing to do with anything artistic or creative. You should consider if there are opportunities at work outside—of his job itself—in which this employee’s artistic abilities could be used, for instance the company newsletter, company brochures, even murals in the workplace. The more creative you can be, the better. Think about how this employee might appreciate being asked to draw something in one of these venues and the recognition she might receive from co-workers as a result, not to mention her self-satisfaction. What about a person who has an interest in writing or photography? Could you channel these interests in similar ways, such as the company newsletter or brochures, and so on? Could employees’ interest in sports be channeled in company golf or softball teams or tournaments? Even better is when you can find ways to channel these interests somehow in their jobs, such as developing programs or contests with sports themes. Think about how you can channel as many of your employees’ personal interests that could be used at work. These are the type of activities that get people engaged. Think about the benefits to you by getting those who work for you more interested in their work. How much more of a contribution do you think they will make to the goals of your organization? How much different of a work environment do you think this type of engagement would create? Think about how getting employees interested and even excited about their jobs and work could make supervising them easier and more productive.

Jonathan Simpson was the supervisor of a group of 10 accountants working for a small financial services company. Jonathan sensed that people in his group were not fully engaged in their jobs. Yes, they performed their jobs the way they were expected to, even exceeding his expectations most of the time. Yet he had the sense that there was something missing in the overall job satisfaction of his group. Perhaps, he thought, it was the work itself, which could be very routine and detail-oriented. But that was the nature of their jobs and he believed that everyone in his group enjoyed working in accounting because they often expressed this to him. Still, he wondered why everyone seemed so disengaged in other ways at their jobs.

Jonathan expressed his concerns to his human resource manager, who suggested that he consider introducing the concepts of employee engagement into his work group. The human resource manager offered Jonathan a book about leading employee engagement and he quickly became interested in the subject. One of the things the book suggested was to ask employees for their suggestions about how the workplace could be made more engaging to them. It suggested that allowing employees to use their skills and interests as they could relate to their jobs or just the workplace would help get them more engaged. Jonathan immediately decided to give this approach a try. The next morning he called a meeting for all of his employees to introduce this idea and ask them for their suggestions on how to proceed. He was quite surprised at their response.

Jonathan began by explaining that he had recently learned about employee engagement. He learned that providing opportunities for employees to do what they were most interested in could change how they felt about their work. He was about to qualify this statement by acknowledging that the nature of their accounting work may not particularly lend itself to this type of concept when several members of the work group began to speak up.

“I think that’s a great idea!” Mary Simpson responded. Mary was normally a very quiet person who always did a good job but never really did more than she was asked to do, so Jonathan was quite surprised by her reaction. “I’ve been thinking recently that there are many things we could do that would not only make our jobs more interesting but more efficient as well,” Mary added.

“What are your suggestions?” asked Jonathan, anxious to hear what she was thinking.

“Well, for one thing I think that our work area looks drab!” Mary replied, getting a laugh from everyone.

“OK, what would you suggest we do to improve our drabness?” said Jonathan.

“I have always been interested in interior design and decorating and would love to have the opportunity to make this a warmer and more comfortable work environment for all of us. I would really like to get rid of all the ‘institutional grey’ that’s around here everywhere. I would be happy to give you some rough sketches to consider. It really wouldn’t cost very much to make a big difference in the appearance of our work areas,” Mary responded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, that would be great, but I think it would be a better idea if we formed a team to review your ideas to get more people’s input.” Jonathan suggested, clearly beginning to get the idea of what employee engagement is all about.

“Who would like to participate in this team?” he asked. Nearly everyone in the group raised their hands. He hadn’t ever seen this much enthusiasm among his employees on anything they had worked on previously. Jonathan knew that he was on to something that was going to have a very positive impact on his work group and ultimately his leadership.

1. What do you think would be the potential benefits to you of having your employees become more interested in their jobs than they may be presently?

Think about how giving those who report to you the opportunity to use their personal interests and skills on their jobs could help make the workplace more efficient and an even more enjoyable place to work.

1. What do you think would be some of these benefits?

1. How can you better tap into your employees’ personal interests to get them more engaged at work? List ideas below:
2. How can you get started?