Specific organizational examples of behaviors that increase employee engagement

[Michael Lee Stallard]

In workshops I'm conducting at various companies, I've been citing examples of specific behaviors and processes that increase employee engagement (I lump them into the Vision, Value, Voice framework of a Connection Culture...see attached changethis.com manifesto for an explanation of Connection Cultures). I would be interested in hearing from other members of the Employee Engagement Network about examples that increase employee engagement. I'll keep posting more examples as time permits. Here are a few just to get the ball rolling.

In the leadership training program at Sewell Automotive they encourage every manager to have a portfolio of stories that reflect "The Sewell Way" i.e. its values. For example, I heard a story about a team of mechanics who hired a mechanic from another car dealer in town. When the new mechanic started billing for work he hadn't done, the team confronted him and made it clear that "we don't do that here." When he persisted, the team fired him because "he wasn't one of us." Telling these stories engages employees by making them feel proud to work at Sewell.

At Beryl Companies, a call center outsourcing company for hospitals, they have a program entitled "Beryl Cares." When someone becomes aware of an employee in need, they can pull up a "Beryl Cares" screen on their pc and explain the need which is then communicated to Beryl management. Beryl's management responds to each need.

At Lockheed Martin Aerospace in San Antonio, Texas, they use the start/stop/continue exercise to give employees a voice in their business. An organizational development professional facilitates sessions and records the recommendations of the group. Managers are then held accountable to implement the recommendations or explain why they do not agree with the recommendation. This practice helps keep employees informed about the business and it gives them a voice to share their opinions and ideas.

The biotech company Genentech's tagline is "In Business for Life." It brings in cancer patients periodically to interact with its employees. This helps keep the importance of Genentech's mission at the forefront of employees' minds.

Sabre Holdings created a social media platform branded "SabreTown" to help encourage connections among its employees in different geographic locations worldwide. Sabre Holdings encourages interaction that is work-related as well as social interaction that builds trust, cooperation and esprit de corps. SabreTown also has a "relevance engine" that allows users to ask a question that SabreTown will automatically mail to a number of individuals that it determines are experts based on their historical contributions to SabreTown. The result is that SabreTown not only connects employees it also helps them perform better by extending the network of knowledge providers they can learn from. The knowledge providers are more engaged because they feel recognized.

When Tasty Catering in Elk Grove Village, Illinois faced some challenging market conditions, it pulled its employees together and asked them for ideas to grow their business so that they wouldn't have to make job cuts. This made everyone feel like part of the team and gave them a voice to share their opinions and ideas. Today, the company is thriving.

At Focus on the Family, a religious organization that has programs heard on 3,000 radio stations in 160 countries, new employees go through a two day course on the organization's mission, guiding principles, core beliefs/values and key events in its history. All employees must take a refresher course once every three years. To help employees understand the importance of alignment with mission and values, the story is told that when the Pioneer spacecraft was sent to Jupiter, the slight deviation in its flight plan resulted in missing the planet by a million miles and that's something Focus can't afford given its mission to help families. This training and use of a memorable metaphor combine to keep Focus employees engaged, united and on strategy.

The commander of the U.S.S. Montpellier nuclear submarine wrote out a clear and compelling articulation of his mission and values entitled "The USS Montpelier Command Philosophy." It's the best I've seen and I've attached it in hopes that it might be helpful to some of you in your own organizations or (for coaches, trainers and consultants like me) in your work to help increase employee engagement at your clients' organizations.

[Ana-Maria Calin]

Hi Michael!

This was a very helpful forum, i might say, and i feel sad noone has updated it for so long!
Sadly i cannot really give concrete examples from so many companies.
I've only worked for one year at HP and i must say the little habbits we had in my department weren't present in the whole company, so dont take this as "organisational" example, just as personal experience.
When i started working there the team was extremly new (we evolved from tens to hundreds of people in a matter of months) and getting to know new people was part of our day-to-day activity. Every new comer was led, in their first day, by an older team member to meet the people on the whole floor. We were split in teams of max 10-15 people. The rule was, if you didnt remember someone's name the next days, you had to bring coffee to each member of that person's team for a week, every morning. Of course, that only worked when there were fewer of us, but that's a good rule to have when you have a VERY fast growing team (i.e. in BPO centers). Of course the coffee was free, and none of us took the rule as a punishment, more as an anectode and an excuse to get in a conversation with everyone.
We also had trouble with the "cigarrete breaks" where people used to rant and complain to eachother, instead of going to their superviser and actually doing something about their problems. Our manager put up a "cigarette-break-gossip" box in the kitchen, where team members could drop questions anonymously, and she would answer them in our morning meetings (we had a meeting every morning, with the whole department, just to say good morning and share the news, or to sing happy birthday to someone, if there was the case).

There are tons of little initiatives like this and i am totally curious to find out more! I wish more people could share their experiences, as managers or employees, so we can create a helpful knoledge flow!

Come on, let's pick eachother's brains a bit on concrete examples!!

[Agnes Goh]

Hi Michael,

This is really useful. Hope more people add in their examples. Here's mine:

At our organisation, we organised a "Career Fair" during our bi-annual staff conference last year. Each Division set up a booth with interactive games, shared information, had fun activities (like a Fun Fair Carnival) to showcase to other colleagues in the organisation the work that they do, and how they contribute to the organisation's mission, thus invoking a sense of pride for themselves. It also allowed the other employees in the organisation to learn about the various work and job roles, to foster collaboration and career development opportunities.

[Joshua Gair]

What a great topic with fantastic responses. Our business has of course been affected, although not as much as i thought it would. I have asked my employees for feedback about going into new markets, conferences, and more. The result is a 20% increase in sales and we have also embraced social media, especially my blog, which gets me lots of business.


Josh Gair - Impact Entertainment