Why your employees don't care and what you can do about it. Companion audio: https://soundcloud.com/worksmart/33-why-employees-dont-care-what-you-can-do-about-it ----- Get alerts when we publish new podcast episodes: Register @ blog.getspeakup.com Create positive change at work and give everyone the power to SpeakUp, try it free: getspeakup.com Host more intelligent meetings with SpeakUp Live (live Q&A): getspeakup.com/live Follow us on Twitter: @GetSpeakUp

1. Ray Gillenwater
CEO, SpeakUp
Confronting the Ugly Truth of
Poor Employee Engagement
How to Modernize Your Business Practices

2. Who Am I?
• Co-Founder and CEO of SpeakUp –
getspeakup.com
• Ex Managing Director at BlackBerry
• Student of Communications
• Contributor to Entrepreneur.com
• Host of the “Work Smart” podcast

3. Today’s Objective:
Commit to implementing at
least two new changes

4. Let’s start with definitions
Employee engagement is quite simply:
The emotional connection you have to your job
Just like in other relationships, it is made clearly apparent by:
The level of discretionary effort you invest
An intrinsically rewarding experience creates engagement
Things like: Money, surveys and events don’t (on their own)

6. Now let’s quantify the problem
We’ve all heard the stats, and they’re an indictment:
• Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work
• 24% are actively disengaged – undermining everyone else’s work
Which equates to an opportunity cost of:
Over ½ a TRILLION DOLLARS in the U.S. alone
But, there’s another reason to care about engagement:
• People are spending the majority of their waking hours doing work
they don’t care about

8. The impact is clear
But why is it happening?

9. Does your company have a problem?
Let’s look at the symptoms (you don’t even need a survey):
• Average results, even from your most exceptional talent
• People have a vanilla, boring and safe “work-persona”
• And completely different energy levels, language and behaviors
outside of the office
• Most don’t “speak up” to share new ideas or challenge bad ones

10. But wait, there’s more
• The team is in the office when asked to be, no more and no less
• Dozens of meetings per month, many with ill-defined agendas
• Stale products, customer happiness at mediocre levels
• People accept their fate when things don’t make sense
• A new policy, a bad product, software that doesn’t work
• Venting behind closed doors, no open/constructive debate

11. Let’s evaluate root causes
…And some potential solutions

12. Common root causes: Work is not a good place to be
1) 20th Century workplace rules
• Rigid office hours, grey cubicles
• Strict dress codes (even for non customer-facing staff)
• Too many things that have “always been done this way”
What you can do about it
• Poll the team – let them decide which practices to kill
• Do a self-assessment
• What changes would make you markedly happier and
equally or more productive?

13. Common root causes: Work lacks meaning
2) The “why” behind your company’s existence is missing
• With no “why,” there is no emotion – no connection, no sense
of purpose
• People feel like a cog in the wheel
• Employee <-> employer relationship is transactional
What you can do about it
• “The company exists to _________” Define it
• Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” is a good place to start
• Communicate it. Refer back to it. Use it as a rallying cry!
• Everyone needs to know how they contribute to the “why”

14. Common root causes: Employees can’t make real change
3) Bottom-up communication is broken
• Even those that want to speak up, don’t have permission
• Front-line input isn’t systematically captured and curated
• When was the last time a product innovation or process
change happened due to team input?
What you can do about it
• Deploy software that suits your needs – Hint: SpeakUp
• Rollout a process to match: Toyota has 40M new ideas!
• Don’t forget – asking people to speak up and then failing to
respond shows a lack of engagement from leadership

15. Common root causes: Getting work done is frustrating
4) Software is slow, outdated and not user-friendly
• IT makes decisions without considering user-experience
• Sales, marketing, etc don’t have input into what SW is used
• Cloud services and/or BYOD are limited or not allowed
What you can do about it
• Update your IT policies – employee experience is #1
• Include teams in setting requirements, software selection and
piloting new tools
• Allow people to use hardware and software that they like, if
and when it’s feasible

16. Common root causes: People can’t see the finish line
5) People are operating without a plan
• Not everyone is clear on the objective
• There are no (or too many) priorities
• People aren’t being measured on what matters
What you can do about it
• Adopt an objective setting process: Google uses OKRs
• Ensure everyone has priorities and can say “no”
• Setup simple metrics so that everyone can reach for
excellence and feel good about achieving it

17. Common root causes: Progress is left to chance
6) Decision making is unclear, too slow, or is ineffective
• The same agenda items are discussed ad-nauseum
• Solutions are agreed upon but not implemented
• Two departments decide on the same thing - differently
What you can do about it
• Adopt a decision making framework such as RAPID
• Recommend, Approve, Perform, Input, Decide
• Document when decisions are made, make it public

18. Common root causes: Not respecting everyone’s time
7) Everyone’s too busy to focus on quality work
• Meetings are common, random and unproductive
• Emails are out of control and undisciplined
• The office is distracting and noisy
What you can do about it
• Setup meeting guidelines:
• Defined objective, clear agenda, adequate notice, approved
timeslot and documented next steps
• Setup email rules: Not for IM! CC only when necessary
• Make sure people have a quiet area to focus

19. A quick video to reinforce the importance of that point

20. Common root causes: Fear of failure, or worse, belittlement
8) Team members regularly undermine each other
• Yelling, berating and bullying are commonplace
• It’s safest to go unnoticed and do what’s required of you
• Ideas are criticized or discredited instead of evaluated
What you can do about it
• Lead by example – treat everyone with respect
• Correct those that don’t. Fire repeat offenders
• Value ideas, even the bad ones
• Allow anonymous feedback

21. Common root causes: Command and control leadership
9) The management culture is militaristic
• Marching orders flow downhill
• Decisions happen at the top-levels only
• Your importance correlates to your spot on the org chart
What you can do about it
• Enable bottom-up & lateral communication
• Provide autonomy and empower teams to make decisions
• Act like a flatter organization – value input from all levels of
the org – recognize and rewards all superstars

22. Common root causes: Lack of employee focus
10) Customers, products or revenue are the #1 priority
• No measures for employee happiness
• Poor reviews on Glassdoor
• Declining revenues, stale products
What you can do about it
• Clearly define employees as the first priority
• Even above customers, products and revenue!
• Regularly survey the team
• What’s making them “mad, sad or glad?”

23. Common root causes: The company culture grew on its own
11) There are no real values, which means
• Hiring is random (lack of focus on personality fit)
• Toxic people and bad attitudes are ignored
• People are unsure which behavior is encouraged – they just
do what works (or what others do)
What you can do about it
• Define the behaviors and attitudes you value
• Set rigorous hiring standards (again, Google)
• How much of your day is spent on people?
• Give people time to adjust

24. “The most successful companies of the
21st century will succeed by how well they
engage their teams to
make the best products and
happiest customers”

25. Thank you!
Ray Gillenwater
CEO, SpeakUp
getspeakup.com @raygwater info@getspeakup.com
Feel free to contact me with questions