Page 171 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

142 Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

departments, which will promote communication and under-
standing as well as provide departments with additional per-
spectives and ideas.
11. Partner audit. How good a partner are you to your inter-
nal and external business partners? Create a brief survey and
have team members meet with and interview your partners,
including other departments, customers, and vendors, to see
how you’re doing and how you can improve.
12. Mentor program. All employees should have mentors
one level above them from a different department. Employ-
ees and mentors should meet at least once per month for
thirty minutes. Conversations should remain confidential.
Begin by finding a mentor for yourself, and then ask others
you know in the organization to mentor your employees. This
program also shows respect to the mentors by asking them to
participate.
13. Team input. Team members and supervisors should
work together to make any major decisions in the depart-
ment, including new equipment purchases, creating the bud-
get, and hiring new team members.
14. Employee council. Create an employee council with
as heterogeneous a mix of employees as possible based on
department, position, age, ethnicity, gender, education, ten-
ure, and so forth. The council should meet monthly with
members of the executive team to share concerns, provide
input, ask questions, and make requests.
15. Blog. Incorporate department blogs on the employee
intranet. Blogs should be updated daily and provide real-time
headline news on current business issues. Employees should
also be able to post their thoughts and pose questions. The
more organizations communicate with their employees, the
more their employees will engage.