From Informed Decisions: Conversations and Q&A with Randall Craig and Ronja Francoeur

From Informed Decisions: Conversations and Q&A
with Randall Craig and
Ronja Francoeur

Who's Running Your Company: Achieving High Employee Engagement

Hiring a Business Growth Speaker:
10 Good Questions to Ask

About this episode: 

Understanding how to develop a loyal, diligent, and high-performing team is a key leadership skill… and yet, all the stats point to the same thing: Employees have become disengaged from their work in record numbers. If this is true at your shop… who’s running your company? 😳

Take an hour to explore this important business growth lever with new insights and practical ideas:

•  Why is engaging employees so hard? (Or is it “so hard”?)

• Are we doing something wrong? And how can we do better?

• What are the tools and techniques that leaders can use to build engagement throughout their team - and what is the business impact?

Part 1

Part 2

Topics Discussed (with timestamps)

• 01:11 What should we really be considering when it comes to “employee engagement”?

• 04:22 “Employee satisfaction” vs “employee engagement” vs “employee wellness”: Any thoughts on the evolution of the language we use to describe how we evaluate employees?

• 07:10 Is “employee engagement” evaluated at the group level ie. the whole team, or is it at the individual employee level?

• 10:01 What does “enjoying” time at the office mean?

• 14:24 Engaged employees vs non engaged; high performing vs non high performing employees: Every employee engagement and corporate culture study says the same thing: only about 35% of employees are engaged. Around half are not engaged, and about 20% percent are actively disengaged and dead weight. If these are the stats across the board at more or less all companies, could it be that this is a normal distribution of personalities in the population? Is 100% engagement possible? Is it really true that “if only” managers pulled the right levers, then employees will become high performers?

• 20:10 Is it actually hard to get rid of an employee or is it more a question of money?

• 22:29 Any examples of companies that measure more than performance?

• 24:51 Can someone be motivated at work if they feel they aren’t being paid enough?

• 30:00 For leaders who feel they aren’t getting 100% from their employees, how do they know they have done enough to support, motivate, incentivize that employee vs the issue being the employee…

• 01:21 How does an eager motivated capable resourceful person end up checked out, burned out, and disengaged? According to the JDR model (Job-Demands-Resources model) of engagement, the more resources an employee has, the more engaged they are. It’s when there aren’t the resources to balance the workload and stress load that we see frustration, burn out, etc. Do you have thoughts on the JDR model, or perhaps your own perspective on how to keep engagement high?

• 06:51 All studies show that our time outside of work hours – when we are not “working” impacts our ability to engage at work just as much as our time at work. This means if we, as managers, can make the personal lives of our employees better, they will perform better at work. This is a really powerful tool for managers: if you can’t easily improve the situation at work, you can turn your “effort points” to your employee’s personal life and results will be a higher performing employee. Thoughts?

• 12:40 Making the business case for association and not-for-profit budgets to include line items for employee engagement investments such as training, retreats, etc.

• 17:01 What can organizations do to allow their employees the space to recommit and move that engagement flywheel? Is it to have stay interviews? A team meeting? What would you suggest?

• 21:55 Employee engagement in heavily regulated industries

• 25:02 Surveys: How to use the tool properly to engage (and not turn off) employees?

• 29:41 Why do employees become disengaged, and what can we do about it?

Tariffs & Your Business: How should we react?

Who's Running Your Company: 
Achieving High Employee Engagement

About this episode: 

Understanding how to develop a loyal, diligent, and high-performing team is a key leadership skill… and yet, all the stats point to the same thing: Employees have become disengaged from their work in record numbers. If this is true at your shop… who’s running your company? 😳

Take an hour to explore this important business growth lever with new insights and practical ideas:

• Why is engaging employees so hard? (Or is it “so hard”?)

• Are we doing something wrong? And how can we do better?

• What are the tools and techniques that leaders can use to build engagement throughout their team - and what is the business impact?

Part 1

Topics Discussed (with timestamps)

• 01:11 What should we really be considering when it comes to “employee engagement”?

• 04:22 “Employee satisfaction” vs “employee engagement” vs “employee wellness”: Any thoughts on the evolution of the language we use to describe how we evaluate employees?

• 07:10 Is “employee engagement” evaluated at the group level ie. the whole team, or is it at the individual employee level?

• 10:01 What does “enjoying” time at the office mean?

• 14:24 Engaged employees vs non engaged; high performing vs non high performing employees: Every employee engagement and corporate culture study says the same thing: only about 35% of employees are engaged. Around half are not engaged, and about 20% percent are actively disengaged and dead weight. If these are the stats across the board at more or less all companies, could it be that this is a normal distribution of personalities in the population? Is 100% engagement possible? Is it really true that “if only” managers pulled the right levers, then employees will become high performers?

• 20:10 Is it actually hard to get rid of an employee or is it more a question of money?

• 22:29 Any examples of companies that measure more than performance?

• 24:51 Can someone be motivated at work if they feel they aren’t being paid enough?

• 30:00 For leaders who feel they aren’t getting 100% from their employees, how do they know they have done enough to support, motivate, incentivize that employee vs the issue being the employee…

Part 2

Topics Discussed (with timestamps)

• 01:21 How does an eager motivated capable resourceful person end up checked out, burned out, and disengaged? According to the JDR model (Job-Demands-Resources model) of engagement, the more resources an employee has, the more engaged they are. It’s when there aren’t the resources to balance the workload and stress load that we see frustration, burn out, etc. Do you have thoughts on the JDR model, or perhaps your own perspective on how to keep engagement high?

• 06:51 All studies show that our time outside of work hours – when we are not “working” impacts our ability to engage at work just as much as our time at work. This means if we, as managers, can make the personal lives of our employees better, they will perform better at work. This is a really powerful tool for managers: if you can’t easily improve the situation at work, you can turn your “effort points” to your employee’s personal life and results will be a higher performing employee. Thoughts?

• 12:40 Making the business case for association and not-for-profit budgets to include line items for employee engagement investments such as training, retreats, etc.

• 17:01 What can organizations do to allow their employees the space to recommit and move that engagement flywheel? Is it to have stay interviews? A team meeting? What would you suggest?

• 21:55 Employee engagement in heavily regulated industries

• 25:02 Surveys: How to use the tool properly to engage (and not turn off) employees?

• 29:41 Why do employees become disengaged, and what can we do about it?

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Build key skills in your team (and your leadership), develop competitive advantage, alignment, and growth.

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We've helped 100+ organizations accelerate their growth or solve their most challenging problems, and we can help you.  

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(Professional Development)

Align your team on strategy and execution best practices with all hands virtual or in-person workshops.

Offsite, onsite or virtual – take the time to work on your business to regroup, align, and kickoff your next phase of growth.

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Motivate your team, launch an initiative, and deliver a strong message... all aligned with your priorities.

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