Feedback - The Key to Employee Engagement

The real key to engagement, emotional intelligence, is understanding how to communicate according to the behavioral style of the person you are talking to. It is important that feedback becomes the mainstay of any communication within an organization. It is a two-way dialog that is the responsibility of both the manager and the employee to provide feedback in a timely manner that can support the company in this highly competitive world. Proper feedback can provide enhancements in policy and procedure, quality assurance, rapid responses to customer needs, and much more.

Here are a few guidelines for proper feedback:

How to Find Leaders in the Workplace

In a department or work group of any size, smaller groups begin to form along the lines of common needs and desires. You can often observe these groups during breaks or lunch time. Workers enjoy being together because of similar interests, problems, work, or other factors. This is where your informal leader emerges. When you recognize these informal leaders, you can use their power and influence to enhance the results and productivity of the group. You can antagonize informal leaders and their followers and see productivity sabotaged, or you can harness the power of informal groups to increase productivity.

Although informal leaders are not designated by the organization, they frequently wield extensive power and influence because of their ability to help other team members satisfy needs and reach goals. They are automatically sought out for advice and help when a colleague experiences a problem. They often are outstanding team members with common sense, loyalty, and can contribute a great deal to your company’s success when you delegate to them and help them develop their abilities even further.

What is the best motivator?

All three basic approaches to motivation (fear, incentive, and attitude) have been available since the early beginnings of organized society. Both fear and incentive motivation have consistently proven to be temporary because they are external. Fear ceases to exist if the power to inflict punishment is gone. But it also ceases to motivate action if people find out they can live with the punishment, or if it is an empty threat. A team member who is careless about following established procedures learns that the only punishment is an angry reprimand; it may be easier to tune out the lecture than to follow the rules exactly. Fear is successful as a motivator only if the pressure is constant and power to punish is exercised.

Incentive motivation loses its power when the promised rewards are perceived either as unattainable or as unappealing. When employees consistently earn a promised reward over a period of time, that reward is expected. It no longer appears desirable enough to inspire extra effort. In fact, it is soon looked upon as a right instead of a special reward. Unfortunately, incentives must become progressively more impressive to continue to motivate. Both fear and incentive motivation fall short because they are externally controlled and temporary.

Attitude motivation, on the other hand, is a permanent force for producing desired behavior. It has the additional advantage of being internally produced and controlled. It continues to be effective whether the individual is working alone or in a group. Attitude motivation grows out of an individual’s dreams and desires. It is a function of the need to belong, to achieve, and to use the innate talents with which the individual is endowed. motivating people is basically a matter of showing them how to develop the power of self-motivation and then demonstrating to them the desirability of using that power to accomplish a purpose. Admittedly, it takes longer to start the process of achievement in your organization through attitude motivation than you might produce through either fear or incentive. But once team members experience the sense of fulfillment that comes through the use of attitude motivation, they are permanently sold on making full use of their potential.

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