Page 246 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

The Never-Ending Source of Engagement C233

1. Observe the contribution. If you are too busy or preoccupied with your
“own work” to observe and recognize your direct reports, then you are
not fulfilling your responsibilities as a manager. Like the best athletic
coaches, engaging managers spend time daily in directly observing
employees’ performance and in paying attention to indirect perfor-
mance indicators so they are prepared to give informed feedback no
later than it is needed.

2. Thank the employee for the specific contribution. Engaging managers never
have to worry about coming across as insincere, because they express
appreciation for something specific the employee has done. They don’t
just say, “Good job today.” They say, “I noticed you stayed late two
hours last night to get the proposal done, and I wanted you to know I
appreciate that.”

3. Describe what the contribution meant to the team and organization as a whole. In
other words, how did the business benefit? Many employees fail to see
the big picture about the daily value they contribute to the enterprise.
Engaging managers “walk the employees downstream” to help them
understand the full magnitude of their contributions. Example: “Be-
cause you offered to stay late and get the report done, we didn’t have
to call in a temp to do it or call the client to reschedule the presenta-
tion.”

4. Acknowledge the employee’s contribution as soon as possible. Engaging manag-
ers realize that the time to say thanks is right after the employee’s
contribution has occurred. With the passage of time the engaging
power of the moment is lost or dissipated.

5. Get to know the employee well enough to be able to tailor the acknowledgment of
the contribution. Engaging managers know that thanking employees for
some specific contribution is the mainstay method for recognition.
But they also know that personalizing the recognition adds even more
engagement power. That’s why the best managers go to the trouble to
learn in advance how different employees like to be recognized. Some