Employee engagement is important, and disengaged employees cost their employers money. We've known this for quite a while. So why haven't organizations gotten better at engaging their employees? The reasons appear to range from a foundational misunderstanding of the concept of engagement to a lack of actionable advicea bout exactly what organizations can do. This ebook focuses on creating a culture that fosters employee engagement. You'll learn ways to improve employee engagement, such as working with data, selecting the right managers, connecting to employees, and much more. - See more at: http://www.bizlibrary.com/resources/ebooks/zombies.aspx#.UpXoMMSsim4

1. 7
How to Create a Culture
That Fosters Employee
Engagement.
Created by:
Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing, BizLibrary and
Jessica Batz, Marketing Specialist, BizLibrary
Brought to you by:
Elements of
Next Generation
LEARNING STRATEGIES
BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
CHRIS OSBORN, VP OF MARKETING, BIZLIBRARY
and JESSICA BATZ, MARKETING SPECIALIST, BIZLIBRARY

2. In this eBook, we are going to provide some data that will not be a surprise to most HR and learning and development
professionals. Employee engagement is important and disengaged employees cost their employers money. We’ve known this for
quite a while. So why haven’t organizations gotten better at engaging their employees?
The reasons appear to range from a foundational misunderstanding of the concept of engagement to a lack of actionable
advice about exactly what organizations can do. In the pages that follow, we plan to clarify some of the misconceptions and
myths about employee engagement, and provide some actionable tips your organization can begin using right away to improve
the engagement level of your employees.
When leaders in the United States of America — or any country for
that matter — wake up one morning and say collectively, “Let’s get
rid of managers from hell, double the number of great managers
and engaged employees, and have those managers lead based on
what actually matters,” everything will change. The country’s
employees will be twice as effective, they’ll create far more
customers, companies will grow, spiraling healthcare costs will
decrease, and desperately needed GDP will boom like never before.
Jim Clifton
CEO Gallup
Forward to, State of the American Work Place, Gallup, 2013.
BIZLIBRARY.COM

3. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Employee engagement seems to be on everyone’s mind lately and for good reason.
Disengaged employees are like the walking dead in our workplaces. The actively
“Engaged workers stand
disengaged – the zombie-like employees – spread a malaise that is contagious and
apart from their not
poses a risk to everyone around them. Lastly, these disengaged employees cost
engaged and actively
employers a lot of money.
disengaged counterparts
In one of the most comprehensive reports ever published on the subject, Gallup
because of the
estimates that active employee disengagement costs the U.S. economy $450 billion to
discretionary effort they
$550 billion per year. State of the American Workplace, Gallup, 2013. Gallup’s datadriven report identified three different levels of engagement:
ENGAGED employees exhibit a “profound connection” to
their employer. Some commentators view engagement as
the level of discretionary effort these employees exert.
Gallup goes on the note that these employees “drive
innovation and move the organization forward.”
consistently bring to their
roles day after day.”
To read more about how
Gallup defines these
categories, see, State of
NOT ENGAGED are those employees who are
emotionally “checked out.” These are the “zombies”
who sleepwalk through their day and simply go through
the motions.
ACTIVELY DISENGAGED are those employees who aren’t
just unhappy at work. These are employees who are
actually undermining the efforts of those around them.
These are the “zombies” whose attitudes are contagious
and pose real risks to organizations.
the American Workplace,
Gallup, 2013, p. 21

4. WHAT EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IS NOT…
Some of the confusion stems from the use of “employee satisfaction” and “employee engagement” interchangeably. The terms
are not synonymous. Employee satisfaction is the degree to which employees have their basic needs met by their employer.
They are “satisfied” with their jobs and exert an appropriate amount of effort to perform at an adequate level.
Engagement is not driven by extrinsic things like monetary rewards. In fact,
there is some interesting writing about how monetary rewards can have a
ENGAGING MANAGERS IN TRAINING
negative effect on engagement. See, Drive, The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink, Chapter 2.
Engagement is a complex topic, and there is no simple answer. In a quote
from The Manager’s Guide to Employee Engagement by Scott Carbonara, a
VP of HR said:
Most HR professionals understand the business
benefit of training, but many managers don't. This
video will help you engage your managers in your
training program.
“I am concerned the popularity of employee engagement may result in
reducing a complex topic to slogans and easy-to-implement lists without
ensuring managers, leaders, and human resource professionals have the
necessary context for understanding them. If employee engagement were
simple to understand, define measure, implement, change, and sustain,
everyone would have achieved high engagement and we would all be
challenged with how to distribute the significant profits it generated. My goal
is to continue to learn more about (and continue to question) employee
engagement — what creates it, what sustains it, what destroys it, and how
can I impact those elements. “
A side note on engaging managers…
Nikki Baker, VP Human Resources
BIZLIBRARY.COM
•
Understand what motivates
•
Explain the business benefits from the
employee’s perspective
•
Manage expectations

5. BACK TO ZOMBIES…
Our zombie employees are a lot like the protagonist in this
Let’s go back to our zombies for a moment, because in
movie. Many of them can be brought back. They just need a
spite of everything negative about the impact of
spark, and we have to provide it. The question is, “How?”
disengaged employees, there is still reason to hope.
There was a fun zombie romantic comedy released in
early 2013 called, “Warm Bodies.” I know, fun zombie
romantic comedy seems like an oxymoron, but trust me
on this one. In the film, some zombies, including the
protagonist retained just a glimmer of a human heart
How can we overcome the walking dead and create a culture
that fosters engagement? The cure? Your managers. The
answer is right in front of us, but executing and delivering is a
different matter.
Scott Carbonara summarizes it perfectly:
beat – not much to be sure. But the hero is brought back
to life – reengaged, so to speak – by his interest in a
Why do employees quit? What disengages them? While
young woman.
employees may learn more about the company’s
operations—including details they dislike—these factors
don’t usually send them fleeing. Brick-and-mortar
companies can’t love or hate people; so at the core,
employees rarely have feelings of love or hate for
corporate entities. No, employees reserve that level of
emotion for individuals—like their supervisors or
managers. Disengaged employees act like they’ve been
hurt—as if something has been done to them personally.
In fact, the leading cause of attrition and disengagement
SOURCE: Google images
is poor leadership.

6. WHAT CAN ORGANIZATIONS DO TO IMPROVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?
FOCUS ON ENGAGEMENT AT MULTIPLE LEVELS
1.
Work with data.
One of the most fascinating aspects of improving
2.
Focus on engagement at multiple levels – senior leadership
employee engagement is the way senior leadership
and grass roots.
involvement tends to start cultural shifts, however in
3.
Select the right managers.
the end employee involvement is where the action is.
4.
Train and coach managers on key skills and strategies that
You must make employee engagement a part of the
lead to employee engagement.
routine job expectations of all of your managers, and
5.
Define engagement in realistic and everyday terms.
that requires senior leadership support, involvement
6.
Find ways to connect to every employee.
and buy-in. Once that occurs, you’ll start to see the
grassroots transformation you seek.
WORK WITH DATA
SELECT THE RIGHT MANAGERS
Organizations need to use good engagement survey tools so they
Employee engagement centers on managers,
are measuring the right indicators of engagement. This is crucial so
manager performance, manager skill and manager
organizations can work with information that allows for corrective
capability, so it is entirely logical that getting the right
action when engagement levels are low and need improvement.
managers in place to begin with is important. In many
The problem organizations face is the sheer volume of employee
cases top performers get rewarded with promotions
engagement survey tools that are available. Gallup uses its Q12 tool
but very few top performers are adequately prepared
and SHRM has an engagement survey service, too. The tool you
to be managers. You must promote people to
select is less important than the fact that you must develop data
manager roles based upon the skills, competencies
that illustrates at what level your employees are willing to exert
and traits necessary for success as managers, and the
discretionary effort to perform their jobs. Once you have data, you
success profile for a manager is different than the
can develop plans to make improvements.
success profile of individual contributors.
BIZLIBRARY.COM

7. DEFINE ENGAGEMENT IN REALISTIC AND EVERYDAY TERMS
BALANCING THE NEED FOR SPEED WITH COMPETENCIES
Employees must work towards realistic goals on a
day-to-day basis led by managers using effective
A side note on how to balance the need for speed with the need
managerial skills. Gallup’s report describes four
for competence…
stages of employee engagement, and the stages
are not too dissimilar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Essentially, once we have some basic workplace
•
Have employees own their
learning and development
•
Provide information that
needs met, we move to more complex needs, and
employees can use in their
eventually we rise to the level of looking for
own way
improvements and opportunities for professional
•
Hold them accountable
growth and fulfillment. Managers must express these
needs in easy to understand ways for employees.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
SELF ACTUALIZATION
FIND WAYS TO CONNECT TO EVERY EMPLOYEE
This is a critical piece of the puzzle to employee engagement, and
it’s one of the reasons manager performance is so closely linked to
engagement. Each person must feel valued, and that sense of value
SELF-ESTEEM
must come from his or her manager. We have to rely upon our
managers to make these connections.
SENSE OF BELONGING
SAFETY
PSYCHOLOGICAL
BIZLIBRARY.COM

8. MANAGERIAL COMPENTECIES AND CHALLENGES
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Every organization will need to evaluate the unique
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive,
requirements for their managers and supervisors. For instance,
control and evaluate emotions. It’s not intelligence per se, EI
managers in certain industries may require a unique set of
is a complex competency that involves our ability to
competencies such as regulatory requirements in healthcare,
understand and monitor not only our own feelings and
financial services or transportation organizations. Regardless
emotions, but also the feelings and emotions of those around
of the industry, organizations will likely have some unique
us. Then EI allows us to use this information to guide our
requirements based upon culture and specific organizational
actions and thinking. For a much more complete explanation
goals or objectives.
of the concept, refer to a scholarly article by Peter Salovey
and John D. called "Emotional Intelligence” written in 1990.
However, there are some foundational managerial
competencies and behaviors that appear to directly affect
Another leading authority on the subject, Daniel Goleman
employee engagement. We recommend that you develop
wrote in his book, Working with Emotional Intelligence,
these core competencies in your managers:
“Emotional Intelligence is the largest single predictor of
success in the workplace.” Goleman describes Emotional
Emotional Intelligence
Coaching
Intelligence as “managing feelings so that they are expressed
appropriately and effectively enabling people to work
together smoothly towards their common goals.”
Communication
Delegation
The value of EI for our managers can best be illustrated by
referring to the immense changes we are witnessing to the
demographics in our workplaces, and the challenges in
Each of these competencies and the skills needed to execute
working with employees with widely varying motivations,
can impact the areas and factors that the data and research
needs and perspectives.
indicates affects employee engagement.
BIZLIBRARY.COM

9. COACHING
Some specific examples of coaching behaviors are:
This is a critical competency for managers that few
organizations take the time to adequately develop.
Taking an “Ask vs. Tell” approach. Coaches ask their
Coaching is crucial to developing the skills and abilities of
employees questions and help employees solve problems.
each manager’s team, so this begs the question. Why isn’t
They don’t tell employees what to do.
coaching a core competency for managers in every
organization?
There is a focus on the employee and not on tasks. So the
focus is on the development of employees.
Coaching doesn’t have to be a complex process for any
manager. In fact, it’s not complicated at all. At its core,
There is a structure for accountability, action and
coaching is primarily about a perspective where the
outcomes. The manager and employee stay tightly
manager focuses on the actual needs of his or her employees
focused on achieving goals using this structure.
and puts those needs first.
Coaching is an everyday, consistent part of every
A study conducted by Bersin by Deloitte showed that
manager/employee relationship. The best way for employees
organizations with senior leaders who coach effectively and
to learn is for a trained manager to coach and teach the
frequently, improve their business results by 21 percent as
employee as things occur. Additionally, this type of day-in-
compared to those who never coach.
day-out interaction and adjustment helps the employee,
manager, and team and by extension, the organization
DEVELOPMENT OF MENTORS
actually attain goals.
A side note on developing the skills of mentors…
To put the idea of coaching into an equation it would read:
Target three areas:
Coaching = Effective Conversations. Effective conversations
Coaching
are a dialogue where the manager asks open-ended
Emotional Intelligence
questions and stays focused on positive and useful results.
Communication
BIZLIBRARY.COM

10. COMMUNICATION
Even if organizations do not have remote employees, how
This key competency flows very naturally from coaching.
well prepared are managers to communicate using current
However, communication in today’s complex workplace also
technology tools? The communication challenges for
requires the application of EI (emotional intelligence) so the
managers with remote employees are radically different. For
communication message AND method are appropriate to
instance, how do managers provide:
the situation and desired results.
Feedback
Another critical aspect of communication skills and
Coaching
competencies many organizations tend to overlook in their
Keep employees connected
managerial employees is virtual communication skills. Many
Maintain relationships
organizations now have remote employees or multiple
locations. We are more reliant than ever before on
All of these things are possible, but these require a new and
technology tools to effectively communicate and in many
emerging set of communications skills that require a high
instances we are forced to rely upon these tools to supervise
degree of comfort with technology.
and manage these remote employees and locations.
RECOMMENDED BIZLIBRARY RESOURCES
Telecommuting Basics: Communication Strategies for the
Remote Employee (60 minute, eLearning Course)
Business Etiquette: Written Communications (7 minute,
Video Course)
Global Scenarios Series: Building the Virtual Team (18
minute, Video Course)
For a free 30-day trial of these courses and more, click here.
BIZLIBRARY.COM
According to the 2013 Regus Global Economic Indicator –
research that includes over 26,000 business managers
across 90 countries:
48% work remotely for at least half of their work week.
55% say that seamless remote management is an
achievable goal, but only if managers undergo special
training.
54% consider trust an important issue.
43% use video communication between managers and
employees.
39% believe remote management helps maintain a more
professional relationship.

11. DELEGATION
One of the hardest transitions for new mangers to make is to
learn to delegate tasks as opposed to simply doing them. For
many managers, there is a feeling that they are “dumping
work” on their employees when they ask employees to do
things. This mind set must be shifted, and managers must
master the competency of delegating to their teams.
Employees actually NEED to feel connected to their work,
and they NEED their managers to demonstrate confidence in
them. So rather than “dumping” on employees, delegating to
RECOMMENDED BIZLIBRARY RESOURCES
Delegating - Strengthen your leadership capabilities
through delegation (2 minute, Video Course and
Competency Toolkit)
Developing Employees through Delegation (15 minute,
Scenario-Based eLearning Course)
Q&A: Delegating and Empowering (13 minute, Video
Course)
A Leader’s Guide to Delegating (23 minute, Video Course)
For a free 30-day trial of these courses and more, click here.
them is not only appropriate, it’s necessary. The trick is in
delegating the right tasks to the right people.
Gallup has found that managers who focus on their
employees’ strengths can practically eliminate active
disengagement and double the average of U.S. workers who
are engaged nationwide.
Managers have unique opportunities in their daily
interactions with employees to empower them to
discover and develop their strengths, and they have the
ability to position employees in roles where they can do
what they do best every day. When managers succeed
in these endeavors, their teams become more engaged.
And Gallup has found that employees who feel
engaged at work and who are able to use their strengths
in their jobs are more productive and profitable and
have higher quality work.
SOURCE: Gallup Study, 2013 State of the American Workplace
BIZLIBRARY.COM

12. DIFFFERENT TYPES OF EMPLOYEES NEED DIFFERENT ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES
One size does not fit all. That’s why the four foundational manager competencies we identified are so vital. Each competency
revolves around building managers’ ability to deal with employees as individuals on different levels. This is crucial when we begin
to look at the data about the levels of engagement among different employee demographics.
For instance, generational differences matter. Research tells us that
RECOMMENDED BIZLIBRARY RESOURCES
employees at the beginning (Millennials) and near the end (Traditionals) of
their careers tend to be the most engaged. Women tend to be slightly more
Employee Engagement Video Series. In this series
engaged than men, and people with college degrees tend to be slightly less
we answer the questions, 'How important is this
engaged. Surprisingly, remote employees log more work hours AND tend to
and what do we do about it?' Is this one of those
be slightly more engaged.
teddy bear and fluffy bunny topics that
organizations get hooked on? Is this a ridiculous
Organizational size can impact engagement, too. Generally speaking,
subject? NO! Watch this series to learn more about
engagement across larger organization mirrors the engagement figures for
employee engagement!
the broad population. But there is an interesting exception uncovered in
Gallup’s research. Organizations with fewer than 10 employees see much
higher levels of engagement, and employees working on TEAMS of fewer
than 10 members likewise see much higher levels of engagement.
Ridiculous or Strategic?
The Business Case for Engagement
Measuring Employee Engagement
Managing for Engagement
Creating an Engaged Organization
Engagement tends to be lower for teams of more than 10, suggesting
managers with larger teams have a bigger challenge when it comes to
engaging their employees.
BIZLIBRARY.COM
For a free 30-day trial of these
courses and more, click here.

13. THE DIFFERENCE MAKER – PLAYING TO EMPLOYEE STRENGTHS
Gallup’s research revealed a stunning piece of data.
Managers who focused on their employees’ weakness cut active disengagement
roughly in half, to 22%, proving that even negative attention is better than no attention
at all in employees’ eyes. By contrast, for the 37% who agreed that their supervisor
focused on their strengths, active disengagement fell dramatically to 1%. What’s more,
nearly two-thirds (61%) of these employees were engaged, twice the average (30%) of
U.S. workers who are engaged nationwide. This suggests that if every organization in
America trained their managers to focus on employees’ strengths, the U.S. could easily
double the number of engaged employees in the workplace with this one simple shift in
approach.
This simple shift in focus by the manager – from weaknesses to strengths had the
remarkable effect of virtually eliminating disengagement. It’s so stunning and simple that
it’s a wonder every organization doesn’t do this already. And what’s even more stunning
is that the finding is even a surprise at all.
Everyone performs better when we play to our strengths. There are no exceptions. Think
of great athletes in this context. Would a great basketball star achieve the same level of
greatness if he or she attempted baseball? Do you remember Michael Jordan’s failed
attempt to play professional baseball? That’s because his strengths were on the
basketball court. Our employees are no different. They will excel when they play to
their strengths.

14. 10 REASONS TO INVEST IN MANAGER TRAINING
Victor Lipman, wrote a great article for the Leadership section of Forbes Online Magazine in Sept 2012, titled 10 Reasons to Invest
in Manager Training. We’ll paraphrase his top 10 as follows:
1. The employee/manager relationship is the most important single factor in driving employee engagement.
2. Employee engagement leads directly to higher productivity and profitability, and disengaged employees are
disruptive.
3. Managers don’t become managers and automatically “know” how to manage. They have to learn.
4. Sound management practices are not complicated and can be taught.
5. It’s important to develop the next generation of leaders from within.
6. Investments in front-line manager training are likely to yield a better return on investment and be more needed than
any other type of leadership development and training.
7. Good management training can help develop a better level of consistent manager performance throughout your
organization.
8. Respected, high-performing managers boost engagement, productivity and retention – all of which improve the
bottom-line.
9. Well-trained managers help mitigate risk and avoid litigation – which is expensive and disruptive.
10. Repeat #1 – it’s just that important!
We know employee engagement is important and employee engagement has a direct impact on the bottom line. We also
know that our managers are the critical element in our organizations that can either engage OR disengage our employees.
The research proves that by employing some simple, common sense management best practices, we can radically shift the
playing field so that our employees are far more likely to be engaged. How do we do that? We train our managers, and we
teach them to play to the strengths of their employees. It really can be that simple.
So – what do you plan to do about it?

15. Whatever training your employees need, you’ll find it with BizLibrary.
Content and Learning Technology all in one place. The industry’s largest and
fastest-growing collection of high-quality training videos and eLearning
courses covers every topic area imaginable.
For a free 30-day trial of BizLibrary, click here.
http://www.bizlibrary.com/free-trial
BIZLIBRARY.COM