There's a lot of talk about Employee Engagement but the results are often much less than expected. Why? Could it be that we are placing emphasis on systems instead of humans?

1. Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901
Employee Engagement:
It’s All About Being Human
Why is Employee Engagement So Critical Today?
‘’Striving to maintain a higher level of employee engagement not only
contributes toward short-term survival during economic volatility, but also is a
key factor for longer-term business performance and better positioning when
market conditions become favorable. The companies that get engagement right
can enjoy a surplus of competitive advantage in talent strategy and business
results that is hard for others to replicate. If one believes that talent is one of
the last sources of competitive advantage—and that motivated and productive
employees are the make-or-break ingredient to successfully navigating the
business pressures outlined above—employee engagement should be a top business
imperative for all business leaders.’’ AON 2013 Trends in Global Employee
Engagement Report
It’s Easier than You Think….

2. Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901
Dreaming of an engaged workforce but afraid of the time and effort involved in order to be
successful? Don’t have a large HR department, or even a large staff to help you with
Engagement efforts?
Don’t worry; a successful start of an Employee Engagement program is relatively easy if you
follow the below three easy steps.
Are you going to watch your margins dwindle and your costs expand? Or, are you going to
decide that you’ve put too much effort and time into your company for it to slowly die because
of employees who just don’t care about anything other than increasing their pay checks and
plotting to use their paid time off hours?
If you’ve decided to move forward with Employee Engagement, here are three steps that you
can start taking now that will quickly net improvement. These three steps are ‘’Starters.’’
You’ll need more strategies to be successful, but you will at least know if Employee Engagement
is something you want to put time and effort into.
Step One: Improve Your Leadership Skills
‘’A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.’’ —John
Maxwell
Leadership is all about earning the right to be a leader. Company ownership does not make you
a leader. Employees continually observe and decide whether to follow you or sabotage you.
So, what to do?

Walk the talk of your Company Values. Don’t have an established set of Values? Create
them and then publish where your employees can see them. Then, start talking about
these Values and make sure you are a prime example of the values.

Create a Vision of the future and start telling employees about it

Communicate and communicate often. Start with talking to employees about the Vision
you just created and verbally paint a picture of what success will look like when your
vision is successful.

Since you will be bringing together your employees often, start telling stories of your
company history and how it has evolved. If you are a start-up, tell stories about why

3. Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901
you did the start-up and what you expect for the future. Blend you Vision with your
company’s history and tell stories around that. People remember stories. They don’t
always remember statistics and if you don’t create stories around your Vision, they will
simply ignore you.

Ask employees for input around ideas for attaining the Company Vision. Remember
who said what and recognize each person’s ideas, even if they are not worthy of
implementation.

Your goal in this effort is to motivate and inspire employees to help make the company
successful. If you are sincere, they will know it. If you are condescending, they will also
know it. Remember: You make the decisions but employees bear the burden of making
the decision to perform to your best advantage.
Depending on your company’s current culture, your Leadership can be immediately
successful or slowly successful. Either way, you win by engaging with your employees and
letting them know what the future looks like and then asking for their help in making both
the company and them successful.
Today’s employees are not impressed with yesterday’s strategies. They could care less
about your personal success, but they are totally involved in the concept of ‘’what’s in it for
me?” Once they understand that their futures can be positive, they will be willing to
contribute more effort. And, today’s employees do not respond to leaders who pound their
chests to impress, and they are even more unresponsive to bullying. If they don’t walk
away, they will simply determine their best course is non-participation in your requests of
them.
Step Two: Create a ‘’Learning Organization’’ For
Everyone
“The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is not training
employees and keeping them. ”Zig Ziegler

4. Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901
Employee training is completely necessary. Many executives believe employees train
themselves by observing others at work. They are correct: they learn all the bad and
negative skills of their coworkers and learn to do a great job of making errors, creating
safety issues, slowing productivity and generally ignoring management. Then, they train
new employees accordingly. Of course, you won’t do this and will hire professional trainers
to deliver consistent training based on information provided by your in-house subject
matter expert.
So, job skills training and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the training are selfactualizing. And, training is not only about job skills training, but also about performance
and behavioral training.
In my 20+ years of leading both Change and Employee Engagement programs, I refer to the
necessity of training employees as the ‘’No Excuses for Not Improving Performance:’’

Employees must have no excuses for making errors or poor performance. They
must be trained to know what to do when, where and how.

They must be thoroughly trained on any changes and/or improvements related to
them.

They must also receive training on performance and behavior training.
Unfortunately, many employees do not know good behavior from bad; neither do
they know good performance from bad or mediocre performance. You must help
them by setting standards of performance and conduct.

After training, they must be held accountable for their performance and rewarded
accordingly.
Supervisor/Manager Training
Once your employees are trained, it’s time for further training and evaluation of your
supervisors and managers. First line supervisory training is absolutely critical to your
success, as well as, your company’s success. Supervisors must be trained to:

Coach employees to improved performance;

Learn to treat each employee as an individual. Get to know each worker and the most
effective method for making each successful.

5. Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901

Train and coach employees to begin to make some of their job decisions.

Coach employees to come up with possible improvements, and,

Train each employee on teaming with his/her coworkers to improve work processes.
Step Three: Fire Your ‘’Supervisors from Hell’’
‘’You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not
leadership.’’ –Dwight Eisenhower
Supervisors who cannot or refuse to learn how to maximize productivity through Employee
Engagement must be fired or moved into an individual contributor positions.
Bullying, intimidation or harassment of subordinate employees is no longer effective.
Employees quickly learn to ignore or blatantly sabotage both their supervisors and company
when subjected to this type of behavior.
Ineffective supervisors will destroy you and every effort you make to move your company
forward.
‘’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 Chairman
and CEO Gallup

6. Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901
How do you eliminate your ‘’managers from Hell?’’

The quickest, easiest, and fairest way is to conduct 360 degree evaluations on every
supervisor and manager;

Evaluate all and determine those who exemplify your company Values and positive
Employee Engagement;

Rank the remaining possible ‘’managers and supervisors from Hell’’ and according to
the degree of negativity, implement Performance Improvement plans that focus on
Employee Engagement and the blatant exhibition of your Company Values;

Re-evaluate every 30 days. At the end of 90 days, fire those who failed to improve
sufficiently enough so that you see improved 360 degree evaluations and Employee
Engagement activities, such as improved productivity, fewer absences, fewer safety
issues and improved employee participation in team meetings.

In lieu of the 90 day Improvement plans, another option is to remove the possible
‘’managers and supervisors from Hell’’ and place them in non-supervisory roles.
Replace with a proactive supervisor/manager and re-start the 360 degree
evaluations.

If you decide to terminate your supervisors from Hell before implementing the
Performance Improvement Plans, be certain that you have documentation and
verifiable evidence of the improper conduct and performance of these supervisors.
Success?
Congratulations! If you followed the above 3 steps, you’ve hopefully started to see
improvements in

Employee productivity

Voluntary turnover

Safety

Customer Service

7. Karol Zerr

Decision Point Executive Consulting Confidential Report
936-537-2901
Sales
As always, it’s best to track metrics and get employee feedback on how you and your team are
performing. An easy way to do this is Survey Monkey, or one of the related anonymous survey
tools available through Google.
A successful Employee Engagement program involves many more steps and continual feedback
from all involved. Individualized programs are imperatives since every company culture differs
from other similar and, supposedly the same types, of companies.
Employee Engagement is not a ‘’rubber stamp’’ program that a consultant programs into your
leadership team and then disappears. It is necessary to implement, adjust and re-adjust several
times until your metrics determine your success.
How do you know when you’re successful? Your improved ROI will tell you….And, your
improved Shareholder Return, if you’re a public company. Either way, the value must be
proven in the form of better business results. An additional perquisite is your improved
Leadership, your team’s improved performance and the obvious employee inclusion results you
observe. After all, Employee Engagement is all about being human and letting your employees
see that you are human……And, that you need their help.
Sound interesting? I’m always available for discussions with you. Thanks for your interest in
one of your most important career decisions.
Karol Zerr
Decision Point Executive Consulting
936-537-2901
ktzerr@gmail.com
It is in your moments of Decision, that your destiny is shaped. Tony Robbins