Employee Engagement – What NOT to Do

Engaging employees is a complex process and it never ends. Going back to basics is always good advice when things are not working well. When engagement is not going well it is useful to think about the following basic elements: clarifying the vision, the mission, the strategy and the values. Any lack of clarity or any mistakes by management in these areas will show up as a lack of engagement “down the road” in employee attitude, behaviors, and/or performance.

My daughter attends a State University. I encouraged her to apply to be a Community Counselor or Resident Assistant. This position is the student leadership contact within each dormitory. I felt it would give her great leadership experience plus it would help us with tuition (Counselors receive free room and board). My daughter reluctantly agreed to apply.

This semester she found out more information. In order to get an interview she needed to accept a job working the front desk in a dormitory. On the surface that sounded fine except the dormitory was across campus (not her dorm) and it was third shift. Yikes. Although it was only 12 hours per week she was being asked to “survive by fire” to earn her right to get an interview and to eventually be accepted as a Counselor. She needed to walk (or drive) across campus in the middle of the night.

She received a call for her interview after a few weeks of work. I asked her if she was excited. She said no. She told me the work at the desk was bad enough but the worst part was the way she was treated when new problems arose and she needed to ask questions of management. They either ignored her requests for information or they were unavailable when she needed them. She decided to drop out of the program. She said she could handle the rough work but she couldn’t handle the lack of responsibility by management. It wasn’t just one manager; it was all of them who behaved this way.

I am doing my best to remain objective in this situation but I know I can’t because she is my daughter. Therefore it’s easy in this case to be upset with the quality of leadership and management of the Counselor process. That is certainly an issue but my guess is the dysfunction goes much deeper. I am guessing it goes all the way to the strategy of the State University Counselor program. I believe they have consciously decided to set up a “Survivor Show” type of process to weed out those students who want to, and think they can, operate in chaos. It might be an “unconscious” choice of strategy but, to the employee, the result and affects are the same, i.e. poor attitude, turnover, or poor performance.

A University dormitory is a chaotic place to be. I remember my college dorm experiences and they certainly were chaotic at times. Between the drinking, loud music, and worse, the Counselor has to be prepared for anything. It is highly likely the University has chosen to create a chaotic environment in the Counselor training process to simulate the chaos that will occur during the job. Ignoring questions or not knowing answers to questions is not a very good training process. It is more like a trial by fire and my daughter decided she didn’t need that abuse.

Are you seeing turnover, poor attitude and poor behavior by your employees? Perhaps your hiring and training process strategy needs to be clarified and improved. A poor, or non-existent, strategy is certainly one way to dis-engage employees. The effects are subtle. They show up down-stream with wasteful and costly behaviors. It’s too easy to blame the managers and the employees for their poor behavior but that won’t help you address your root causes. That won’t help you change your strategy. Blaming is “What NOT to do”. Going back to basics first when you encounter these symptoms is “What to DO.”