A recent discussion with a colleague and some clients has prompted this week’s opportunity to reflect on empowering and engaging your team to assist them and, ultimately, the organization to higher levels of contribution and satisfaction. It is straightforward to correlate your team’s happiness and contentment with greater productivity. When people feel valued and contribute to the greater good, stuff gets done. Not just timely but on schedule, and everyone feels a strong sense of accomplishment.
This energy and focus cannot be underrated. This emotional glue keeps teams together and builds chemistry among the people. They want to be more involved and contribute to the end results. It is no longer just about showing up. It is about being part of something bigger, better, and more fulfilling.
Unfortunately, leaders and staff can drift away from this energy over time. It is not intentional, but with so much noise and things being tossed around the business, distractions happen, and thus, focus shifts away from positive energy toward problem-solving and conflict resolution.
There is an option leaders can take to keep this constructive energy flowing at a more consistent rate throughout the year. Historically, businesses would hold annual employee reviews, during which leadership would set aside time to interact with staff members and provide feedback on performance. Some positive areas and some areas for improvement. These reviews would typically also outline future objectives and development efforts. They might also incorporate a financial incentive if and as appropriate.
The challenge with annual reviews is the time gap between interactions. A plan is made, and a number of months later, another block of time is set aside to review and discuss the plan’s outcomes. Lots of things change in the months between sessions, and there is plenty of opportunity for staff to become discouraged. This, in turn, causes staff to question a whole bunch of things going on in their world – employment, compensation, happiness, etc. With this mental distraction, their contribution to the work suffers, and the organization takes another productivity hit.
This is not to say that leaders don’t have staff encouragement or conversations between major annual reviews, but those meetings are typically centered on corrective actions rather than developmental ones. To prevent this from happening, rather than setting aside an hour once a year, leaders need to reshape and resync their employee engagement reviews to be quarterly, for about 10-15 minutes each. Remove the entire annual review process and the once-a-year financial incentive discussion, and weave them in when staff are directly raising the bar on their measurable contributions to the organization’s objectives. This approach is more timely for both affirming contributions and short-circuiting potentially distracting actions by team members.
This does require leadership to develop the discipline to adhere to the 10-15-minute team member interactions. To improve the timeliness and effectiveness of the sessions, team members must come to the meeting prepared to provide an update to the leader. They carry the weight of preparation in being prepared to identify contributions and challenges. The leader is there to absorb and then take subsequent action to remove obstacles they might not have been aware of. This process not only enhances the session but also develops the talents of each and every person on how they directly contribute to the organization’s success.
This week, decide to move to quarterly staff engagement sessions rather than annual review meetings. Everyone in the organization will be far better off in the short and long run.
Looking for insights on shifting your organization’s contribution levels? Give JKL Associates a call at MI (313) 527-7945 or FL (407) 984-7246.
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