Kabachnick

Posts for Category: Employee Disengagement

Hiring the Engaged Employee

Posted on: June 6th, 2016

How do you hire the best talent?  How do you know they will be the right fit for the job and your organization?  At the Kabachnick Group, we have learned from experience that being aware of these components before making a hiring decision is very important to hiring an engaged employee.  Consider using assessment tools.

  • imagesIndividual Driving Forces are the prime forecasters of success employee engagement or failure (disengagement). Discover an individual’s motivators and beliefs through the use of our Driving Forces assessment.
  • Certain jobs require certain natural abilities. Define the job, define the ability, match the two, and you have a winning formula for engagement at all levels of an organization.
  • The DISC profiling system reveals four basic human behavior dimensions: Drive; Influence; Steadiness and Compliance.
  • When you define an individual’s beliefs and values, you can align the person with a job at which they are likely to excel – leading to engagement and passion in what they do.
  • Overlooking people who do poorly in traditional interviews may cause you to overlook their superior qualifications and skills. Uncover these hidden factors by using online assessments.
  • Employers usually look for themselves in the person they’re interviewing. They rely on their biases when making hiring decisions rather than rely on unbiased and validated assessments.
  • The four assessment profiles best suited to effective recruiting, hiring, retention and engagement are: the self-assessment; assessment of success requirements for the job; assessment of your organization and its culture; assessment of an applicant or employee’s competencies and natural abilities, beliefs and values.
  • When in doubt, choose will over skill. Many times experience alone causes a gap between what the employee knows and what he is willing to learn – leading to disengagement.
  • Benchmark the job by focusing on the job requirements and key accountabilities rather than the “type” of person you think you want.
  • “Supporters” are not disengaged. Although they often interview poorly when compared with “Relaters,” they can make good management material. Assessments are the tool you need to point out this difference.
  • Understand the emotional requirements of a new employee by discussing her strengths and limitations, needs, and reasons for working. During the interview see if her answers match up with her assessment results. If not you need to probe further.
  • Be observant. Watch for behavior changes during the first six months of employment. Job performance either grows or drops during this period. You can forecast disengagement by following this practice.
  • Provide informal feedback monthly by asking specific questions related to the employee’s perceptions of how he or she is doing. Go back to the assessments the employee completed and see if the behavior you are witnessing is congruent with the assessment results.
  • The disengaged employee “cycles” through four “seasons” – from the honeymoon period and full engagement to reactively disengaged and then actively disengaged.
  • Fire the actively disengaged worker – when the person has moved beyond “redemption.”
  • Disengaged workers cost US organizations more than $250 billion per year. Research shows that three of four workers are disengaged. The total cost and impact on profits have yet to be measured.
  • Disengaged workers are more than disillusioned; they are mentally divorced from their jobs.
  • Managers usually fail to recognize the symptoms of disengagement, or they avoid dealing with “people issues” entirely.
  • Management often promotes disengagement by rewarding poor-to-mediocre performers with attention and “incentives,” while heaping additional work and responsibilities on top performers.
  • The average manager waits nearly two years before separating the actively disengaged worker from the company – two years during which the worker poisons relations with co-workers, customers, and managers.
  • Firing can be a favor. But fire the person quickly and without recriminations.
  • The truly engaged worker is committed to her job and company, and is unavailable to other employers.
  • People are engaged when they understand and agree with what is expected of them.
  • A simple exercise to encourage engagement: Ask employees to write down what they believe their job requires and the behaviors they feel are necessary for their success. Follow-up with discussions to gain agreement and commitment resulting in an engaged worker at all levels of an organization.
  • Companies are only as good as their engaged people, because companies are their people.
  • Engaged people drive the success of companies. They are the source of all revenues, sales, customer satisfaction and (ultimately) profits.
  • Life and work cannot be separated into compartments. Managers must accept that the two intersect, and become more “professionally personal” if they want to destroy disengagement problems and improve productivity.
  • Given the huge cost (largely hidden) of employee disengagement, businesses cannot afford to continue with “business as usual.”
  • Employee engagement and loyalty cannot be bought, and cannot be imposed through superficial means such as pep rallies, slogans and smiley buttons.

Engagement formula: People = Productivity = Profits. Adapt and adopt behaviors in order to treat workers as individuals.

 

 

Disengagement Affects Everyone

Posted on: February 18th, 2014

As customers, we’ve been waited on by people who quit but never left. As employees, we’ve been managed by bosses who quit but managed to stay. As managers, we have managed people who physically attend but mentally pretend.

Disengaged workers are costing U.S. based organizations in excess of $250 billion as noted by a recent Gallup poll. Our own research shows that three out of four workers polled are disengaged. This price tag includes co-worker and customer dissatisfaction plus loss of loyalty on both sides. Who wants to work with a person who performs only enough to get by? Who wants to be served by a person who barely does what is expected?

Detached, disheartened, and disconnected.

Posted on: January 3rd, 2014

Disengaged employees can cost your company thousands of dollars in lost productivity every day.  The costs are even higher when you factor in customer dissatisfaction.     

Engaged Leader Essentials, a proven and highly successful process from The Kabachnick Group, is comprised of custom services to help executives, managers, and supervisors learn to increase employees’ engagement — and their productivity.  Your leaders will learn how to turn their staffs into devoted and determined employees who delight customers and strive to exceed expectations.

How do you Turn Leaders into Engaged Leaders?
Engaged Leader Essentials is designed to put the principles of Terri Kabachnick’s book, I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You, to work throughout all levels of your organization.  This groundbreaking book, based on detailed analysis of approximately 50 organizations, lays out a straightforward and proven process for creating an engaged leadership team which, in turn, fosters an engaged employee workforce.

The process helps leaders apply proven, no-nonsense techniques and tools to all the stages of the employee lifecycle.  Tailored to your business challenges, workforce characteristics, and your organization’s unique culture, the process addresses:

  • Aligning leaders with the company’s goals and objectives.  Your management team will learn how to organize work to efficiently and consistently produce results.
  • Selecting the right people and matching them to the right jobs. Employee engagement starts with the “right hire”; we’ll help your team increase its hiring success.
  • Building capacity to achieve business objectives.  Your leaders will learn how to help employees gain the knowledge and skills required for a successful start and how to provide the right resources and development to ensure ongoing engagement and employee loyalty. 
  • Motivating employees to be passionate about their work. Leaders will learn how to increase employee productivity by focusing on accountabilities and contribution rather than executing responsibilities.

Engaged Leader Essentials is not a typical management training program.  We help your management team embrace new techniques and tools that focus on employee performance, productivity, and loyalty.  In fact, unless your management team first understands the causes of employee disengagement and learns practical ways to address it, the value of future training investments will be greatly reduced.    

After a detailed assessment of your organization and business goals, we’ll create a customized solution that can include many – or all – of these components:  executive briefings, job benchmarking, results-focused assessments and coaching, leadership workshops, integrated learning programs, and an efficient implementation process. 
Learn more today.  Call us for a free consultation and find out how you can increase profits and productivity through an engaged workforce.  As part of our consultation, we’ll deliver an executive briefing for your company’s senior management team.

 

 

Eight Fateful Reasons for Disengagement

Posted on: May 6th, 2013
  1. Job-employee mismatch.  
  2. Overwork and under-appreciation, including heavy workloads, long hours, and lack of sufficient recognition.  
  3. Culture shock, usually after mergers, when management fails to prepare employees for new culture.  
  4. Politics and perception, when employees perceive managers playing favorites.  
  5. Politics and control, when managers make it clear they want to “bring in their own people.”  
  6. Unwanted promotions (the “Peter Principle”).  
  7. Business “by the book,” or strict adherence to rules at the expense of thinking.  
  8. Disengaged bosses.

“To be truly motivated, one must make personal commitments.”
– William G. Dyer

Engaging the Disengaged

Posted on: January 20th, 2013

When a manager becomes aware of poor performance, what generally happens? Unfortunately, the manager often waits too long to speak with his or her direct report, hoping the negative behavior will fix itself.  Therein lies the biggest problem.  It’s not about healing disengagement, it’s about prevention. By the time active disengagement becomes apparent, the damage is done. Look at these statistics:
Poor performance by co-workers is the number one reason that dedicated and caring – engaged – employees leave their jobs. In a recent survey conducted by The Kabachnick Group, more than 1,500 executives and front-line people were assessed.  The majority – 92 percent – agreed that their companies do not identify or deal with poor performers. Our recent studies also show that most people spend 80 percent of their time doing tasks and only 20 percent of their time achieving results.

Therefore, it is critical for managers to be sensitive to and aware of every report’s job satisfaction status. Frequent conversations and involvement with the employee’s views, preferences, and goals are a must. However, if disengagement has already set in, a thorough assessment must be completed before any solution initiatives are prescribed. Trying to determine reasons for or causes of disengagement by simply asking the employee is like determining a heart condition by listening to the heart. Management needs to know the exact root of the disengagement and define the focus of improvement. In addition, the worker must agree that these assessment analyses are correct. Opinion has no role here.






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