Page 66 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

What Separates the Best from the Rest? C53

for our efforts to read, categorize, and analyze these candid
comments. On reflection, it has been a little like hanging
out at America’s “electronic watercooler.” (For additional in-
formation about the rigorous approach we took in analyzing
and categorizing anecdotal comments in relationship to the
overall employee engagement scores, see Appendix A on our
Web site, www.re-engagebook.com.)

We have been privileged to view the thinking and, more impor-
tant, the feelings of employees in thousands of companies across the
United States and, in particular, those recognized as Best Places to
Work. This research has allowed us to clearly visualize what it’s like to
work in these environments, assess the state of morale in various work
groups, or simply appreciate how excited an employee can be in going
the extra mile to help a coworker or serve a customer.

: WHAT OUR ANALYSIS REVEALED: SIX UNIVERSAL
ENGAGEMENT DRIVERS

As we analyzed the data, a series of themes or elements began to
emerge, along with a narrative so clear and compelling that we mar-
veled at its logic, at how simple and intuitive it seemed. It is a story
in six parts, each an important building block of a highly engaged
workplace culture. We will tell that story in the next six chapters, each
revealing the dynamics and interplay of six Universal Engagement
Drivers (Figure 3.1). They are:
1

: Caring, competent, and engaging senior leaders. The bot-
tleneck is never at the bottom. Employee engagement starts
with a senior leadership team that truly cares about employ-
ees, is committed to creating a great place to work, and is
trusted by employees to lead them to future success.
: Effective managers who keep employees aligned and en-
gaged. Senior leaders can’t do it alone. They need competent