Employee engagement matters more than ever during a year as tumultuous as 2020.  What’s your plan for keeping your team engaged with their work?  In this episode, we bring you a special Business On Purpose webinar conversation between Chris Allen and Mike Boyes, both experts in the field of employee engagement and company culture.  Chris and Mike share insights for keeping team members engaged, motivated and productive based on scripture, social science research and their work with business leaders. They address how current conditions disrupt God’s plan for work and how to restore healthy mindsets, relationships and productivity to your workplace.   

Conversation highlights:

--Connections with team members should not be simply about sharing information.  Instead we should also plan to make our connections with team members or employees about connecting on a personal level.

--Isolation causes our ability to personally connect with people to atrophy.  The personal connections we need are what we may be tempted to drift away from as we move more towards virtual connections and less spontaneous personal-level connections.  Leaders are especially tempted to do this, to connect less in order to “get more work done.”

--Can monkeys teach us about how to cope with the stress which leads to disconnection?

--“In the absence of information, people make up stories.”  Keep your teams informed, otherwise they will create an alternative reality.

--Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic motivational factors.  Leaders help employees understand the purpose and meaning of their work both within the organization and within the scope of what really matters in life.

--Helping people find meaning and purpose in their work requires leaders to take on an “inspirational” role.  Keep reminding people of the purpose of their work, even if you did it yesterday or last week or last month.

--Ensure team members know who your customers are.  Some customers are outside the organization, some customers are within the organization.

--When the world is rapidly changing (as it is right now), companies need adaptive employees.  These are people who innovate and solve problems.  But how do we help people become adaptive? 

--Who is responsible for doing the “thinking” in your business?  Does that need to change?

--Sin, shame and blame are active in your organization, whether or not you acknowledge it.  How will you deal with these realities?

--Engaged team members know exactly what it means to win. 

--Anxiety stems from maintaining pre-COVID expectations, even if those expectations are no longer valid. Engaged teams talk about this openly and collaboratively.

--We are wired to look to leaders and model their behavior.  How does that truth inform your leadership of your team?

Books to consider:

Primed to Perform

Winning Now, Winning Later

What’s Best Next

Nonviolent Communication

Get connected!

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Connect with Mike.

Connect with Aaron.