RELATIONSHIPS (Build peer and management relationships)


• Be transparent in your professional communication. • Get to know your employees as people: their families, milestones, personal interests, and career goals.


• Create an inviting break room to lure people away from their machines.  Provide games and encourage friendly competition with ping pong, foosball, or darts. This allows for casual interaction and repeat contact.


•  Provide good coffee and low-cost beverages. •  Buy the occasional free lunch. Have food trucks, catered meals, and themed events.


 Make sure management is there to share in the experience and do it for every shift.


 Take a break or eat with your employees regularly.


• Let your hair down. •  Share a little about yourself. •  Show empathy and be sincere. • Encourage group activities. •  Sponsor a 5K team. •  Volunteer with a community project. •  Host an event or a class.


pull down morale for everyone and consume dispro- portionate management time.


The question of how to engage employees has been analyzed for the better part of 15 years, but employee engagement is not rocket science. Taking the data and analyzing it through the lenses of psychology, work- place experience, and common sense distills it to three main elements of engagement: mission, relationships, and impact.


Several concepts underlie all three of those elements. Foremost among these concepts is communication, which underlies the critical process of building rela- tionships between employees, managers, and their peers. It is also an important part of mission because it provides the unifying bond between management and employees. Communication is the most important concept underlying the employees’ sense that they have an impact with the company. Whenever possi- ble, give employees a voice by requesting and adopt-


ing suggestions. This may improve production and lets employees know their importance. In addition, communication will link the employees’ impact to the mission of the company by identifying each person’s role in upholding and venerating it.


Several years ago, Doug Rawson, CEO & Founder of Superior Lithographics, wanted a change for his com- pany. Twenty-five years in, Superior’s growth was flat. And while employee turnover wasn’t terrible, it was more than Rawson liked. Superior’s business revenue was stagnating. Rawson attended the PIA CI Confer- ence in 2011 and, setting his sights on a higher stan- dard, decided to change his company’s ideology and invest in employee engagement and Lean management initiatives. Rawson incorporated most of the employee engagement techniques listed in this article’s sidebars. Change was hard and didn’t come cheap, yet the new ethos paid off. Five years later, Superior’s business has increased by 80%, with 40% happening in just the past two years. He doesn’t claim the growth is solely due to the new culture, but he believes it substantially contributed, with the added benefit of creating long- term sustainability.


IMPACT


(Make work meaningful for everyone) • Create peer recognition programs that reward the nominee and the person who submitted their name.


• Give immediate, meaningful, specific, positive feedback whenever possible and do it publicly.


• Make sure everyone knows the importance of their role through up-to-date job descriptions that recognize their place in the process.


• Dust off the suggestion box and let employees know that their suggestions will be implemented whenever it is feasible, and if not feasible, explain why.


• Use bulletin boards in prominent places to acknowledge people for their good work.


• Write a note to an employee for above-and-beyond behaviors and make a copy for their personnel file.


• Invest in training and cross-training. It enhances self-esteem and demonstrates that you are making a long-term investment in your employees. Plus, it enhances production efficiency.


The Magazine 9 5.2017


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