So I just came back from having the most incredible meeting. We had done an employee engagement survey and what had happened is the organization felt like no one was going to participate, no one was going to say what they thought and in fact just the opposite happened. We got 97 percent engagement.
Do you know what the typical response rate for something like that is? It’s 30 to 40 percent and we had 97 percent. So how did we do it? Well, we created a few incentives. We met ahead of the survey and told people it was important and we built trust from the very beginning.
If you would like to find out what’s on the minds of your employees and create a better working environment for everyone, let’s do an employee survey. I look forward to working with you.
I’m Karen Snyder, helping people be more productive at work.
Can you take a look at the setting? This is such a beautiful place and I get to go in in a few minutes and share the results of an employee engagement survey.
The particular group I’m working with came up with eight distinct categories of ways they wanted to improve and here’s something people don’t always understand.
The leadership team at some organizations thinks they are the only ones who want productivity to improve. But in fact, that is not true. Employees like to be productive.
This particular group said things like, “We want people to return our emails. We want people to respond more quickly. We want to make sure the results that we roll out are accurate.”
They want increased accountability too just like their leadership team and they said so in the survey. If you would like to improve, if you would like your organization to improve, please give me a call. I’m Karen Snyder and I help people to be more productive at work.
Eight years ago on a snowy day, I met with Nancy, a director of a government agency. Driving to the meeting, I received a phone call from Tonya, Nancy’s administrative assistant. Tonya wanted to let me know that it would not be an easy meeting. Three change management consultants like myself had already met with Nancy and she didn’t like any of them.
Interesting, I thought. I had no idea what to do with this information. Should I recite a list of my credentials? Turn around? Stop and pick up a shield and armor and slip it in my briefcase? Where do they sell shields and armor locally?
When I arrived, Nancy was quite considerate and provided an avalanche of background. She talked about low motivation, lack of trust, and lack of vision.
When Nancy finished, I asked, “How are you contributing to these problems and this culture?” Nancy sat back, looked at me with curiosity and said in earnest, “I don’t know.” A few seconds later she added, “No one has ever asked me that.”
Then she repeated under her breath, “No one has ever asked me that.”
We are all co-creators in every situation we are in. When we receive criticism, we have either done something to show arrogance or spend too much time with critics. When we receive anger, we have either done something provocative or we allow anger to whirl around unchecked. When we receive ongoing anger or criticism, we must ask ourselves, “How and when will I change my environment (the people I spend time with), or will I change my reaction?”
When people are kind and respectful of us, it is because we project kindness and self-respect.
What situations do you co-create both at home and at work?
