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Your Business

BEST PRACTICES AND OUTSIDE-THE-BOX SOLUTIONS

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Management

MIND READING FOR MANAGERS

Fully Engage Staf in 5 Conversations |
by Kim Seeling Smith

their employees’ minds and

igure out what they really want
and what they need to be fully

engaged—and productive.

There are no psychic forces
at work: Getting into the heads

of your employees to glean the
information needed to increase

not only engagement but pro-
ductivity can be as simple as

conducting the following ive
FOCUSed conversations.

CONVERSATION 1:

FEEDBACK
There are two types of

feedback that fall under this
conversation. First, give praise

where praise is due. Studies

have shown that a vast majority
of employees do not feel appre-

ciated enough for the job they
do. Praise, it seems, is a scarce

commodity in the workplace.
So if your staf is doing a good

job, be sure to let them know.
Conversely, one of the key
D
factors in employee engage-
id you know that only a fraction of your staf bring their “A game” to ment is the ability to have your say. Be

work every day? According to companies like Aon Hewitt and the Gallup receptive to your staf ’s feedback. Who
Organization, this number is about one in ive. The rest? At best, they’re knows, they may just come up with a bril-

bringing their B or C games to work; at worst, their main goal is to keep liant idea that makes a huge diference for
from getting ired.
the team or company.

This is the employee engagement crisis we now ind ourselves in.
Countless companies dedicate a sizeable chunk of their annual budgets to solving
CONVERSATION 2:
their employee engagement issues, when in reality, most engagement issues (as well as OBJECTIVES

performance and behavioral problems) can be solved through conversation. Five conver- Most performance issues stem from a
sations to be precise.
disconnect between what the manager per-

But most managers don’t talk to their staf frequently enough, don’t know how to talk ceives as meeting objectives and what the
to them, or don’t know what to talk about. Managers are unaware as to how to plug into
staf member perceives as meeting them.

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