Employee or Leadership Engagement

The article below was first published Aug. 3 at InsideWork.net.

The other day, a group of us at work were having a conference call with a representative of an industry association. The association is actually useful—a collection of companies big and small who talk with each other about communications, sponsor studies, get consulting help and learn how others tackle similar problems. This organization also says it facilitates the sharing of best practices and key learnings, but I’ll forgive them for that.

One of our number asked the rep if there was any one question she was hearing from senior executives of member companies, any particular issue or concern or desire for information. In other words, “What’s on the minds of American corporate leaders about communication right now?” My first thought was that her answer would be “social media,” the current hot button in corporate communications. But I was wrong.

She said that there was one question that was coming up over and over again. And the question was—how do we get employees engaged?

The rep said this was the single biggest issue for member companies of all sizes, and some were beginning to sound desperate. They had tried everything – town halls, small group meetings with executives, special newsletters, one-on-one conversations and internal blogs. They had “segmented their target audiences” and “refined their key messages”—but nothing was working.

So I asked her a question: how many of those companies had recently been or were currently going through layoffs?

“Oh, about 80 percent of them,” she said.

So here’s a learning we can all share, and maybe one day it will become a best practice: When an organization is laying people off, employee engagement—with the business, with customers, with suppliers, with market conditions and competitors—is going to suffer, and for a considerable period of time.

Employees won’t get engaged until they know the answers to four questions:

1. Do I have a job?
2. Do the people I work with have jobs?
3. Is my organization changing, and what does the new one look like? And
4. Will I be expected to do significantly more work because there are fewer people?

Once those questions are answered and understood, then, and only then, can an organization realistically begin to entertain ideas of employee engagement.

When there are layoffs, answering those questions can take months, if not longer.

A more interesting question to me is, how could senior executives at so many companies not know this?

After the conference call, a few of us talked about it. And there is at least one answer.

At many organizations, leadership defines “interacting with employees” as town hall meetings, email broadcasts, and maybe a video or two. When leaders of such an organization decide they must lay off people, whatever the reason might be (even substantive ones), they make the decision and then move on. Their thinking is often six months to a year down the road. They decide to lay people off, and assign Human Resources and people managers to implement the decision. For the leaders, it’s a done deal and time to think about everything else they need to do. (It’s also unpleasant and often messy.)

The affected employees, on the other hand, are at the very beginning of the process. Sometimes it’s quick. Usually it takes at least weeks, but more often months. So if your own individual status with your employer is unclear, and you could lose your job, you’ll be less prone to take risks, create new programs, suggest changes or innovations that could save money, or volunteer for anything. Why should you? In fact, there’s an argument to be made that it would be irrational for employees to do anything else except hunker down and wait it out. Or find another job elsewhere, if that’s an option.

So there’s the rub. Employees are in the here and now. Leadership is in the future, and mystified about why employees aren’t engaged. If leadership gets addicted to layoffs as a routine form of cost savings, the problem will never disappear.

The solution lies with leadership engaging with employees in the here and now. Routinely. Walking around. Talking. Drawing people into conversation. Challenging people. Not letting HR be your conduit for feedback. Listening.

Leaders engage first. Ask Jesus.

Michael Snyder's "Return Policy"

I'm reading Return Policy by Michael Snyder, the story of three people (Willy, Ozena and Shaq) whose part-tragic, part-comic lives intersect, beginning with an espresso coffee maker that Willy unsuccessfully tries to destroy. It's Snyder's second novel; I haven't read his first, My Name is Russell Fink, which has a lot of rave reviews on Amazon.

How I came across Return Policy is a good example of how online connections work (and can help sell books). I began to follow a group blog called "The Master's Artist," written by several writers who are, according to their purpose statement, "united by the blood of Christ and a love for language. We come from different backgrounds, have different theological outlooks, and are interested in a wide variety of genres and artforms." I read Snyder's posts, and then the note about his new novel being published. I thought if it were like his posts, it was going to funny, entertaining -- and with something important to say behind the comedy.

Snyder is the comic in the group, but as with all comics, there's a seriousness just below the surface. His most recent post on the blog, "Conversating," is a short conversation about a possible broken jaw that's funny in and of itself but then becomes a satire when Snyder adds a list of "Reader's Group Questions," a send-up of the practice that's become common in Christian fiction. (These are guides for book discussion groups.) Other of the blog's writers and readers have been adding additional discussion questions in the comments, and the post with comments has gotten out-of-control funny.

Return Policy, by the way, does not include a group discussion guide. But I'd love to read the one Snyder would create for it.

Back to the novel.

Update: Blogging on Layoffs

Trying something different to help communicate layoffs at work, we've been posting articles on our intranet this week. So far, two have been posted, one about a layoff I experienced 10 years ago at another company, and the other about how my family reacted.

The response so far has been, well, what you might expect it to be. Both posts have been read. A lot. I've had people stop by my office, call on the phone and send emails. Several have posted comments on the blog. One person said that the first post had "gone viral" in their 1000+ department. One employee posted a heartfelt response and then accepted our invitation to write his own blog post.

The real understanding came yesterday afternoon, when I was called by one of the company switchboard operators, who was asking the right place to direct a reporter who had called. I told her, and then she said, "I read your blog post." She hesitated, and then said, "It was good. Thanks."

The important thing the blog posts have done have been to say it's OK to talk about this, that we're all feeling the same concerns and fears. They also underscore we have management that's not typical.

Two more posts are scheduled for next week: what happens when you're not laid off, and networking in a totally networked world.

Blogging on Layoffs

Today at work, we started blogging on what it means to be laid off. We have some 900 layoffs coming, beginning in late August, and there hasn't been much communication while the process is underway. We have a lot of younger employees who've never been through this before, and anxiety is running high.

So I blogged my own layoff 10 years ago. We posted it on our intranet. The response has been amazing -- the blog post clearly touched a chord with a lot of people. I've gotten emails and phone calls, and vague reports of the post "going viral" in parts of the company.

Standard operating procedure is don't talk about it. We're trying something different.

The first post was about what happened. Next will be questions you get from family and friends. Then we'll have a post by someone who went through the process but didn't get laid off. And then one on why networking is so important, and all of the various ways it's done today.

I'll provide an update on what happens.

"Faces in the Fire" by T.L. Hines

If you read the back cover of T.L. Hines' Faces in the Fire, you’ll see that Library Journal calls the novel a supernatural thriller, and Publisher’s Weekly says it’s “breathless suspense that’s a little off-center.” Even the publisher’s description suggests edginess: “noir bizarre.”

And this is Christian fiction published by a Christian publishing house. Noir bizarre?

That’s exactly what “Faces in the Fire” is – edgy, gritty, supernatural, breathless, and off-center. This is fiction that doesn’t so much make the reader think as it does assault the mind and the senses.

It’s one wild trip and a flaming good read.

The novel is four (or is it three?) interlocking stories. Kurt is a truck driver/sculptor suffering from amnesia and likely hauling his last load; his hobby is buying clothes at garage sales, but only the clothing containing trapped voices, calling for help. Corinne is a professional email spammer who comes to face a deadly kind of email spam. Grace is a tattoo artist and heroin addict, a woman who has run away from her husband and children not once but twice; she uses a new ink and changes everything. Stan is a hired assassin who kills by touching his victims, until he himself is touched to help save a life rather than destroy it. They briefly intersect with each other, and those intersections are the crucial heart of the novel.

I was thrown at first by the chapter numbering (it starts with chapter 34) but soon rolled with it and ultimately understood it as part of the story being told.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find overt Christian messages here. But you will find them, if you read hard enough, especially the message of redemption.

Finishing the book left me with one thought: “Wow! What a story!” But the reviewer and publisher blurbs omitted the most telling description of all.

Haunting.

If you want to be a face in the fire, you can upload a photo at Hines' web site.

I didn't. Reading the novel was sufficient.

Short Notes

A few short notes today.

My article on engagement -- employees or leadership -- is posted this morning at InsideWork.net. If you're interested or concerned about faith in the workplace, Inside Work is a good place to visit. Currently, it's featuring articles on public education, a different philosophy of success, causing God pain, charitable giving, and dealing with annoying people.

I've completed a short review on L.L. Barkat's Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Difficult Places and posted it on Amazon. This is the book I had with me at the hospital when I had my ribs and lung attended to. The author is a writer and poet and writes for several print and online publications. If you're interested in exploring her work, a good place to start is her web site.

Currently I'm reading Faces in the Fire by T.L. Hines. He's written several books; this is the first of his I've read. It's an edgy, gritty supernatural thriller -- four interlocking stories about a man with no memory, an email spammer, a tattoo artist/heroin addict and a hit man. It's unlike any Christian fiction I've ever read -- Hines grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go.

Finally, I continue to mend after my bike crash. The last four days had been marked by doing very little except resting, reading and writing. The pain and soreness are lessening; I'm relying less on the prescription and more on over-the-counter stuff like Aleve, which is good. I plan to return to work on Tuesday; I have a check-up with the doctor on Wednesday. Thanks for your notes and prayers.

Routines, Reading and Writing

I've learned that broken ribs feel better during the day -- something happens at night, probably not unlike fevers getting higher at night. It's the evenings that let me know my ribs are there -- and they hurt.

I've napped a lot, read a lot, napped some more, talked with my son and daughter-in-law who have just arrived in St. Louis. They're moving here from Phoenix. So I give up biking the Arizona Canal Trail once a year in exchange for having them around all the time. OK, it's a deal.

I've spent some time yesterday and today rereading parts of L.L. Barkat's Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. I cited it in my last post -- it's the book I read during my short hospital stay -- and I'm working on a longer review. It's good. In fact, it's better than good. It's remarkable.

Today, I opted for something completely different and began reading Faces in the Fire by T.L. Hines. It's suspense and thriller and supernatural suspense/thriller and I already know not to try to read it before I go to sleep. I'm hooked -- Hines does that to a reader.

I've also spent my enforced rest to work on an outline for a post, either here or on another blog, about layoffs, and how and why organizations get disconnected when they do them. The idea came from a conference call I was in the other day. Someone was discussing the problems so many companies and organizations were facing with employee engagement, and said it was perplexing management across America. It was one of those "Duh" moments, and an idea for an article was born.

And somehow, between hosptial visits, broken ribs, family arriving in town, work and having to rest, I'd managed to write about 5,000 words on the novel. Ar first I thought it was getting completely out of control, until a I reread the whole thing with the new material included. And the story is actually becoming more focused.

Then again, maybe it's the pain meds.