Business Management

Large or small, companies can have a difficult time keeping employees engaged. “Engaged” is a term used to describe employees who are still motivated about their work and excited about the possibilities of your company and your products or services.
When an employee’s work for you becomes routine for them, he will often start thinking of his position as just another job for just another company. Suddenly, “the grass is always greener” comes into play and your employee starts seeing better possibilities outside of your company.
We all remember the excitement of finding a great new job: the potential of what the future may bring, the challenge of learning new tasks or roles, and the opportunity to meet new and interesting people. Even knowing that this excitement rarely lasts long before it, too, becomes routine doesn’t stop people from changing jobs.
Retention of your employees requires your attention and time. If you’ve done much hiring, you already know that recruiting takes much more time and money than retention. Turnover can be disastrous to your employees’ morale, your company’s knowledge base, your budget, and your production schedule. But how do you re-engage your employees in an effort to stop or prevent turnover?
There are at least as many ways as there are people suggesting them. One method I’ve found that works well is what we’ll call “Discovery Days.”
Discovery Days evolved after hearing feedback during managers’ meetings. The managers complained about the lack of shared knowledge between departments. What I discovered wasn’t unusual. As small companies grow, it’s easy for each department (or employee) to become so involved in meeting deadlines or doing the job that the big picture is lost.
Knowing why you are doing a task or job helps keep it interesting. You are no longer standing on a production line watching for a below-standard product to roll by. You are the last line of defense for the company, ensuring that customers will receive an above-standard product that cures their problem. The only way your employee is going to understand their role in the bigger picture is if you explain it.
Discovery Days is possible whether you have multiple departments or just multiple employees. The concept is rather simple; talking management into participating can take a little more effort.
Each department head prepares a presentation about what the department does for the company, how they do it, status of current projects, and projects in the pipeline. The presentation itself should take between 30-45 minutes and time is allowed for a question and answer period after the presentation. Scheduling an hour usually works well.
Depending upon the ability of your employees to stop working to attend, each presentation should be given at least twice. Schedule the presentations so they fall on different days and times to ensure everyone in the company has the opportunity to attend. For example, schedule a Tuesday afternoon one week and Wednesday morning the next. Talk with front-line managers to find out when would be most convenient for their employees. If you make it hard for your employees to attend, Discovery Days becomes a negative instead of a positive.
You can schedule a series of presentations so one department presents over a two-week period, the next department over the following two-week period, and so forth until all departments have presented. That’s the pattern I followed the first time I did Discovery Days. The advantage was that all the department heads were working on presentations at the same time so it was easier to meet deadlines. It may also be easier to work a series into your slow period each year.
The downside of a series is that it’s difficult to do it more than once each year, so a long time goes by before it begins again. A better schedule is one that happens more frequently so employees are constantly reminded of the company’s goals and vision.
Setting up Discovery Days so one department presents each quarter gives you an on-going re-engagement plan. A quarterly presentation also makes it easier to have all employees attend each department’s presentation because they only attend one meeting every three months. However, you still want to have more than one presentation scheduled for each department so production doesn’t stop because everyone went to the presentation at the same time.
How does this work if you are smaller and don’t have specific departments? Your Discovery Days will be simpler but still hold value. Even if you only have a few employees, you’ll want to make sure they understand what your company is doing, trying to do, and what you hope to do in the future. Connect their jobs to your current and future goals and projects. Explain how the widget they help build helps the company and helps the company’s customers.
Success relies on several factors. First and foremost, it is critical that senior management agrees to make the presentations and understands the value these add to the retention and engagement of all employees. Next, make sure all supervisory personnel also understands what you are doing and why. You want the anticipation for these presentations to build and create excitement and interest.
The meetings cannot be mandatory or they will lose value. It is management’s job to encourage employees to attend and arrange attendance to ensure normal production continues. In addition, you must schedule these during work hours and pay your employees for the time they spend at these presentations. Although you could schedule these during lunch hours, it’s not really the message you want to send … that you don’t feel these are important enough to take work time for them.
You will probably find, as I did, that the first meeting will have the lowest attendance because employees don’t really know what to expect. Once word-of-mouth gets out, the meetings are well-attended if you are presenting interesting information. I have found that employees become, once again, highly motivated when they are reminded of what the company is striving to achieve and how all the pieces fit together.