By Kristen Thornton, Ph.D.

June 2019

It was the beginning of a new chapter and the gorgeous Seattle weather was proof it was going to be a phenomenal day.  But when I arrived early to the office for my first day at work, I was told my boss was out for the entire day.  So I spent my first day of a new job… in an empty office… by myself… scrolling through the company’s website.  Suffice it to say, I felt neither valued nor welcomed.

            Onboarding is a critical aspect for organizations to prepare new staff members to be successful in both the performance and social components of a new role.  While often misconstrued as orientation, onboarding is a process that begins with recruitment and typically continues through the new employee’s first year on the job.  Tayla N. Bauer researches best practices for onboarding and provides Four C’s that she calls the building blocks of successful onboarding:

Compliance. Policies are outlined and explained.

Clarification. Job expectations are understood.

Culture. (In)formal norms are clarified.

Connection. Interpersonal connections are formed.

The challenge for smaller organizations is that they often do not have the resources available to create an onboarding process that addresses each of these elements.  Instead, they provide a 2-day, jam-packed orientation to fill out the necessary paperwork and check off the legal boxes.

In 2018, a Seattle-based financial management firm brought our consultants at Scontrino-Powell in to review their current approach and provide research-based recommendations.  The firm had several strengths including a strong team, a commitment to best practices, and a willingness to make changes.  After reviewing their current approach, we worked with them to make the following five changes.

1. Redesign. We revised their onboarding process to address each of the Four C’s and aligned each of the elements below to address Bauer’s recommendations.
   1. Compliance – The company still provided a two-day orientation to explain the policies and procedures, but now included a checklist for the new hire to complete over the first two weeks of the job.  This gave the new employee time to digest the information, self-manage the checklist of tasks, and still allow the company to meet legal requirements.
   1. Clarification – A key element of employee retention and job satisfaction is their supervisor.  To provide consistency across supervisor approaches, we developed supervisor guidelines to ensure that all new staff shared a common set of experiences and the supervisor had realistic expectations for the new hire’s first 90 days.
   1. Culture – To help the new hire have a place to learn the (in)formal norms of the company, we created a new role for onboarding, the Orientation Buddy.
   1. Connection – Given the small size of the organization, they made time for the new hire to meet with each staff member over the course of the first 90 days.  Prior to the new hire’s first day, a weekly meeting was put on their calendar with a different staff member each week.  The new hire and staff member had flexibility to determine what they wanted to do (e.g., grab lunch or coffee, take a walk, etc.) as long as it occurred in that week.  The Orientation Buddy supported the new hire to ensure these meetings were on track.
2. Timeline.  We worked with the leadership team to develop a clear timeline that addressed the simultaneous steps for the new hire, human resource staff, the supervisor, and the Orientation Buddy over the first 90 days.
3. Orientation Buddy.  One of the challenges in the organization was that a new hire did not have someone to go to with informal questions when they did not want to ask their supervisor (e.g., Where is the meeting at 10:00 a.m. going to be held?  May I use my phone at work?).  While a supervisor can provide this information, it can sometimes be intimidating for a new staff to ask their supervisor who participates in their 90-day review.  The Orientation Buddy would briefly check in every day with the new hire for the first two weeks and then once a week until the 90-day review.  The Orientation Buddy was not a part of the 90-day review.
4. Guidelines.  Supervisors were not sure when and how to support onboarding and setting performance expectations.  We designed a set of guidelines to clarify their role and ensure they did their best to integrate new staff members consistently.
5. Evaluation.  The organization needed a useful and quick way to receive feedback about the new onboarding process.  We developed a set of five questions that could be answered by the new hire, the supervisor, the Orientation Buddy, and the human resources staff that provided useful data.

This project was completed before the firm hired a new staff member and implemented the new process.  The revised approach allowed the staff to identify what did and did not work as well as how to improve the process for the future.  Almost a year later, the new staff member is integrated well into the organization and steadily expanding responsibilities as well as supporting their newest hire in a second round of the onboarding.

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By Kristen Thornton, Ph.D.

June 2019

            Your stomach drops and you begin the slow walk down the hallway, taking as meandering a route as possible.  You make it to the office door and mumble something to the secretary as you take a seat.  Your legs shuffle uncomfortably as you wait in the chair until the door behind you opens and you slide as inconspicuously as possible inside.  No matter how encouraging or optimistically portrayed, annual reviews inevitably feel like you’re being sent to the principal’s office. 

            In his 2017 book, Next Generation Performance Management: The Triumph of Science over Myth and Superstition, Alan Colquitt addresses decades of research that tell us the same thing: the way we persist in conducting performance management (PM) does not work.  It is time for us to listen to the data and reimagine how we conduct PM to positively impact individuals, teams, and organizations.

            The institutionalized approach to PM typically follows the following five steps:

This process emphasizes internal competition between employees, creates inaccurate ratings based on biases, and reinforces a pay-for-performance mentality with $345 billion dollars spent each year on merit-based bonuses and rewards.  This approach is ineffective and the empirical evidence to support it is feeble.  Some organizations emphasize better feedback, expecting improved outcomes if only the supervisor can provide input in a more effective manner.  Other organizations try to reduce the pain of annual reviews by simplifying the process, but this does not address the heart of the issues with PM.

            A financial management firm in North Seattle asked our consultants at Scontrino-Powell to review their PM system.  In our assessment, we discovered two critical elements.  First, they had already differentiated compensation from PM.  This is one of hardest patterns for companies to break.  Often it is assumed that pay-for-performance is the best way to motivate employees and that leverage is lost when merit-based bonuses and rewards are removed.  Instead, compensation needs to be based on fair, market-value and differentiated from performance conversations.  Bonuses should be based on collective successes by a team or the organization instead of individual rewards that pit employees against each other.  Second, the firm was following a best practice of 360-degree reviews, but the time and resources it took to conduct each year was not worth it.

We transitioned their PM process to be coaching-based and began by conducting a coaching workshop for all employees.  This helped supervisors and staff understand the process and the partnership coaching offers.  Employees and managers were now collectively responsible to set meaningful objectives that support their responsibilities and the organization’s goals.  Assessing progress was now clearly tied to a collective direction for the company and focused on the work not just the person.  Additionally, the conversations occurred monthly providing enough time for progress to be made while instilling a culture of objective-based conversations.

After our contract concluded, the company went a step further and now utilizes a software tool to track progress and align individual, team, and organization objectives.  No longer do they wait each year with anxiety to have the principal call their name.

For a 6 minute and 16 second ignite-style overview of his research, enjoy Alan Colquitt’s presentation, Performance Management: Stop Playing the Game: https://youtu.be/-ieAthxn_e4

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By Kristen Thornton, Ph.D.

June 2019

In a recent coaching conversation with a client in Seattle, I was asked how we could design a training process to help a new employee learn a critical skill and make mistakes without real-time consequences.  An important component of training is to provide hands-on learning that an employee can self-manage with enough repetition to be useful but not so much as to be monotonous. 

In this employee’s work, there was a need to know how to accurately fill out forms for both standard and specialty processes.  The forms were long and complex.  At first, the supervisor repeatedly walked the new staff member through each step, but quickly realized she needed a process that did not cause her to fall too far behind in her tasks as well.  The new hire needed a chance to practice the forms in a way that maximized learning, cultivated self-sufficiency, and could be self-directed.

The infographic below includes the training tool that the supervisor and I created for the new employee to transition from simple to complex processes.  The strategy reinforced learning over six weeks and allowed for other job responsibilities to be completed as well.  The approach was divided into three sets of two-weeks.  The first week in each set utilized the autofill tools provided by the software while the second week required the forms be completed manually.  This allowed the new employee to understand what information was available, where it was sourced, and how to recognize differences.  There were built in times for the supervisor to review the process and provide feedback.  In this way, the employee could self-direct the practice and create more intentional time to work through questions with the supervisor rather than relying on the supervisor for quick answers.

The other two major components in this process are the two lists developed throughout the six weeks.  The first was a “log of catches” that collated the errors and the steps taken to correct each one.  While the list may be useful as a reference for resolution strategies, the greater purpose was to capture the learning in order to identify an error in the future and know how to resolve it.  The second list was a “simpler life” checklist.  This resource identified tips and tricks to improve the employee’s efficiency and effectiveness.

Over time, the employee built confidence and knew how identify errors as well as correct them.  While practice may not always make perfect, it certainly does improve our accuracy. 

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By Jevon K. Powell, Ph.D.

November 29 2019

An executive’s role is often described as a lonely journey, which is why they often hire a coach to help work through a challenge or to develop professionally.  Being a coach can be a similarly isolating experience, so we meet to discuss new research or best practices.  Recently, however, I was meeting with a group of coaches in Seattle and was appalled by what I heard: “When my conversations with a client start to lag, I just dive in and start to tell stories.”  As heads nodded around the room, the coach went on to share how nervous he felt and asked, “What happens if we run out of things to talk about?”

I sat there dumbfounded.  I have never met a manager who has run out of problems to solve.  Have you?  Nor have I ever (true confession) solved all their problems for them, dusted off my hands, and said, “That’s done.  Now what?”  Let’s be clear, a coach is not an entertainer who needs to jump in any time there is a lull in the conversation.  There is always something to talk about in executive coaching conversations.  The key is to establish a partnership at the beginning of coaching and agree that you both bring material to your conversations.  The executive brings questions, problems, and issues.  The coach brings perspective, tools, and advice.

For about five years I have been coaching a Chief Financial Officer for a Seattle-area educational institution.  Every time I worry that we have exhausted my advice or expertise, she brings some new challenge to the coaching conversation.  We talk about it, find a new perspective or approach, and tie it back to her original learning goals.  She is a good partner in our coaching relationship who brings out the best in me. 

Part of the reason we are so successful is that at the outset of our coaching engagement, we started with a mutual understanding of what we needed from each other.  We discussed her needs and what she wanted from the coaching.  I shared my expectations and explained that there are three things that allow me to be an effective coach.  I expect that a client…

1. Is non-defensive and open to learning.
2. Does their homework.
3. Brings grist to the coaching mill.

For over 20 years, I have used this exact framing and it has been critical to building a strong relationship with each client.  We emphasized the importance of both bringing material to the coaching sessions because coaching happens in conversations.  And the best conversations are two-way.  While it is easily taken for granted or overlooked, establishing the shared responsibility for learning is critical.  If the manager only brings content, then I am just a listening ear and do not provide value.  If only I bring content, then we likely miss the actual issues that we need to address.

            Our conversations focus on what is truly needed.  Sometimes we stop conversations because we have covered enough territory.  Perhaps the executive has reached saturation or it is time to switch from talking to implementation.  This is when I ask, “Is that enough for today?”  I don’t fill the rest of the time with stories.  I don’t entertain.  We work together and when the coaching conversation reaches a natural conclusion, we stop.  We’ll still have plenty to talk about next time.

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Background:

The Goldendale, WA aluminum smelter closed after a number of different companies tried to make the plant profitable.  The closure put 600 people out of work.  Later that year an entrepreneur purchased the plant with a vision of creating a culture of ownership where all employees would be committed to the success of the company.

Former plant employees welcomed the re-opening of the plant.  The company was the preferred employer in the area offering year round work and high wages.

The new owners wanted employees and their union to have a better way to get their ideas before plant management.  They announced an open door policy.  They solicited employee suggestions.  They invited employees to share their ideas with their supervisors.  They asked union leadership for their help.  And nothing significant happened.

Plant management invited the Steelworker’s union president and union council to a meeting to explore ways in which all employees could have a way to use their creativity to contribute to the success of the company.  They knew that other companies across America were successfully involving their employee.  They just didn’t know how to do this at Columbia Aluminum.

Plant management and union leadership created a labor management committee with two goals:

1.  Learn about employee involvement and employee engagement

2.  Investigate what other organizations in the United States were doing to create a culture of involvement and engagement.

3.  Design an involvement/engagement process that would work at their plant.

The seventeen member labor management committee was divided into four teams that travelled to numerous manufacturing sites across North America.  They asked questions, they observed, they took copious notes.

The team members returned to the plant and spent almost two months reviewing what they had seen and deciding which approaches would work at their plant.

Their employee involvement/engagement design was elegant in its simplicity.  It included the following components:

• Plant wide steering committee to guide the effort
• Steering committee sponsored task forces that cut across department lines
• Individual supervisors led improvement teams composed of their employees
• Managers and supervisors participated in five days of training
• Problem solving team members participated in twenty hours of training
• Facilitators were selected from the existing workforce
• Facilitators supported all problem solving teams
• Problem solving teams met weekly
• Took most team  a dozen meetings to identify solutions
• Solutions presented to the steering committee

The results were startling:

• Over 60% of employees actively engaged on problem solving teams within 24 months after launch
• Labor-management cooperation improved dramatically
• There were many improvements in production methods, safety, waste reduction
• Productivity improved 6% during the first year after rollout
• Return on Investment (ROI) for the costs involved in designing and rolling out the process during the first year was over 1,000%
• Product quality was higher than competitors

The process was a resounding success.  To take involvement to the next level the owner of the plant created an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) so that all employees could share in the gains.  Over the next few years the ESOP purchased 100% of the plant.

The high degree of employee involvement resulted in a much higher degree of employee engagement than anyone could have anticipated.

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The company asked us to help them to design a more effective employee selection process.  Our first task was to team up with their human resources manager to conduct detailed job analyses for each position.  We assembled teams of subject matter experts plus one supervisor for each of the positions.  Almost a full day was spent looking at each job.  We asked the following types of questions:

• What knowledge, skills, and abilities are required to do the job?
• What tasks are performed every day?
• Which tasks are performed only weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually?
• What sets apart superior employee performance from so-so performance?
• How important is each task for success on the job?
• What are the physical demands of the job, e.g., standing, stooping, lifting, etc.?

The answers to these and other questions helped us create a 120-item job analysis questionnaire which was given to about 30 employees and a handful of supervisors.  We then designed a science-based selection process using some of the following components:

• Scoring guide for screening applications and resumes
• Job related paper and pencil test
• Physical ability test
• Behaviorally based interview with structured questions and a scoring guide

At the end of one year this selection process resulted in significantly lower turnover, decreased absenteeism, and decreased on-the-job accidents for new hires.  As a result of these positive impacts, the company also improved its selection process for six other positions, including first-line supervisor, electrician, production manager, sales staff, and senior accountant.

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Start with Good Employee Engagement Survey Questions

The old caution of “Garbage in, garbage out” is particularly appropriate with surveys. We must ask good questions if we want useful data. The following is an of example a good employee engagement survey question: “Do you have the resources you need to do your work?” This question works because it is actionable. Low scores tell managers to take steps to make the right resources available to employees.

Another good survey question is, “The information I need to do my work is easily accessible.” This item is useful because low scores tell managers to ensure information is not merely available, it is also easy to find and use.

Feedback from questions like these is actionable because it can highlight knowledge management and information technology problems that affect employee engagement. For example, at one of our clients, the managers often ask employees to answer questions by doing queries in a 40-year old computer system. Many of the employees are younger than the legacy computer system, which seems designed to frustrate people, not help them. In cases like these, one solution would be to modernize the computer software. The new system would pay for itself in a few years. But the boost in employee engagement could be even more valuable in terms of better productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee retention.

Use Survey Questions that Lead to Action

We found a set of survey questions online that are good because they lead to action. The 9 Questions that Should Be in Every Employee Engagement Survey offers a short list of useful items covering important dimensions in engagement surveys. We like the items because they point to specific areas for managers to focus on. For example, the first question is “Do you understand the strategic goals of the broader organization?” If scores are low on this item, managers have work to do. They could…

• Revise the mission and vision statements to make them clear and compelling
• Examine how high level goals are cascaded down to departments or divisions
• Improve performance appraisal systems so that individual efforts are tied to strategic goals
• Explore opportunities for cross-training
• And so on…

In his online article for Harvard Business Review titled A Primer on Measuring Employee Engagement, Ryan Fuller argues in favor of measuring actual versus self-perceived engagement. Instead of asking employees how willing they are to put in extra effort to get the job done, Fuller suggests asking employees to indicate the “amount of work that occurs outside of normal business hours.” This can be a useful indicator of “discretionary effort.”

Again, the question becomes what do you do with the results?

Examples of How to Use Employee Engagement Survey Results

In the example about discretionary effort, it might be that managers look at incentive programs such as gainsharing. Gainsharing plans provide financial incentives for employees to cut costs, solve problems, and hit performance targets. As organizational performance improves, employees share in the financial gains. These programs have been effective in supporting employees who go the extra mile. Managers could also look at performance evaluation systems to gauge how well the organization rewards extra work.

Another place to look is at the employee recognition programs. Such programs range from formal (Employee of the Month posters) to informal (thank you notes from the boss). However, there is a tipping point with this example, so beware of going so far that employees lose their work/life balance.

The bottom line is that using the survey results to make changes in your organization requires effective problem solving. Leaders must do what they can to get to the heart of the matter, and then look for creative solutions that will engage and inspire employees. For more on this, see How Leaders Can Enhance Employee Engagement.

Effective Practices in Using Employee Engagement Survey Results

Let’s assume for now that your employee engagement survey uses actionable items, or that it measures actual instead of perceived engagement. The question remains: What do you do once you have the results of a survey? Here are some rules of thumb and examples about putting survey results to use.

1. First, if you do not plan to use the survey results to make changes in your organization, don’t do the survey. Asking employees for their opinions and then ignoring their feedback is practically guaranteed to lower morale.
2. Second, before you launch your survey, have your action plan ready. Don’t make the mistake of conducing the survey, and then scrambling to pull teams together to review the results and do something with them. For example, use the steps outlined in this section of our blog post for a plan framework, then fill in the details based on the needs of your organization.
3. Review and understand your results. This can include prioritizing your efforts. The table below is a simple way of doing this. For example, your survey might have a dimension on team effectiveness, or an item such as, “Does your team help you to complete your work?” Low scores suggest this area is a moderate priority. However, if your organization relies heavily on teams to get work done, and you also see customer satisfaction going down, the business impact might be high, making this area a high priority. The result is that you would want to pay close attention to improving the health and performance of your teams.
4. Share the results with your leadership team. Facilitate discussions for problem solving, root cause analysis, and identifying key areas for action. Focus your efforts on one or two high-priority changes that affect most of the organization. For example, one client of ours discovered that employees felt uninvolved in decisions that affected them. Even worse, decisions seemed to take forever, resulting in missed opportunities. The leadership team realized they were not clear in how they laid out decision making processes and responsibilities. We suggested they read Who Has the D?, by Rogers and Blenko. By focusing on one important area, the leaders improved both decision making and employee engagement.
5. Share the results with the rest of the organization. Departments or units can also do root cause analysis, solve problems, and offer solutions. We recommend focusing on just one improvement opportunity per unit or department. Another client of ours is working on internal communications, so we took them through an exercise designed to highlight communication problems and identify improvement opportunities. Their trust scores on their surveys went up significantly as a result of their work, and organization performance followed. Again, the point is that they focused on one area, rather than spreading themselves too thin trying to fix several problems at once.
6. Document action plans to hold yourselves accountable. We have seen hundreds of action plans in our years of consulting, and the best are almost always captured on one page or one white board. One example is the “Ready, Doing, Done” approach described in Jim Benson’s work on Personal Kanban. Another example is the “quad chart” approach used widely in companies and government organizations.
7. Monitor progress and adjust your plan accordingly. We often recommend the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle introduced by Deming, as a way to continuously improve and learn. With one client, the managers determined they needed better training for their supervisors. After bringing in one trainer, the supervisors revolted, saying the trainer was out of touch with their work. Management responded quickly, found a new and better qualified trainer, and things went smoothly from there. As you apply this approach to your action planning, remember that data gathering is crucial and positions you and your leadership team to quickly respond to new information.

In this post, we have shared specific examples of things you can do to improve employee engagement in your organization using surveys. The good news is that there is almost always something you can change or improve to boost engagement. The challenge lies in choosing from a long list of potential action items. Watch for upcoming blog posts on our website where we continue to explore specific actions you can take based upon your survey results. Or just give us a call. We are here to help leaders engage and inspire their employees.

References

Benson, J., & Barry, T. D. (2011). Personal Kanban: Mapping Work/Navigating Life. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Deming, W.E. (1994). The New Economics: For Industry, Government, Education. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

Fuller, Ryan. (2014). A Primer on Employee Engagement. Harvard Business Review.

Rogers, P., & Blenko, M. (January 2006). Who Has the D?: How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance. Harvard Business Review.

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Effective Strategy

To avoid scenarios like the one described above, Leinwand describes two characteristics that help organizations implement their strategies:

1. Strategy must be defined in terms of execution – it is developed and implemented with execution in mind.
2. Strategy must live in an organization’s day-to-day operations – it should not sit in a binder collecting dust in the corner of management’s bookshelf.

When developing strategy, Leinwald notes that it should be defined in what a company and its people do. For example, IKEA’s strategy to make affordable furniture guided almost all of their cost-cutting decisions, from product design and supply-chain management (i.e., empowering designers and using flat packaging) to the layout of their stores (i.e., using customers to do some of the functions that staff would normally do). Companies that do poorly with their strategy often shift their focus toward comparing themselves against benchmarks and best practices.  Although external benchmarks and best practices can be helpful, they should never be a substitute for good strategy.

Effective Execution

When it comes to execution, Leinwand notes that “capabilities are the glue that connect strategy to execution.” Some organizations have dozens of capabilities and competencies. The danger is that they spread their resources too thin, get little return on investment, and lose opportunities to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Instead, organizations should focus on the few capabilities that really matter, and focus talent and resources towards strengthening those capabilities. Culture is also an important factor in executing strategy. Culture enables an organization’s capabilities to work across functions. But be wary of spending too much energy trying to change culture. Focus instead on leveraging those attributes of culture that align with strategy.

Taking Action

In summary, organizations would be well-served by bridging the gap between those who identify strategic objectives and those who implement them. To narrow the gap, organizations can take the following actions:

• Ensure that strategic plans and objectives are developed and conveyed in terms of execution (think SMART goals). In other words, it should describe what the company and employees do.
• Take a narrow view when it comes to competencies. This means identifying the few core competencies that are critical for executing strategy and using those as a compass for workforce planning and talent management activities. This “lean and mean” focus can help organizations excel in the areas that are most relevant for the company’s overall mission.
• Make strategy a day-to-day experience.   Every employee, team, supervisor, and manager should have a clear understanding of the organization’s strategy and specific objectives. Not only that, they should also understand how their work contributes to those objectives.
• Assess alignment. Executing on strategy requires strong alignment between an organization’s processes (e.g., metrics, development, management, structure, etc.) and its strategy. This can be a challenging exercise, but fortunately there are valid tools like the Line-of-Sight assessment that can help organizations get back on track by assessing whether or not specific processes and practices support the execution of strategy.

– Scontrino-Powell, Inc.

Resources:

• To learn more about cross-functional alignment, read our article here.
• Listen to the HBR interview with Paul Leinwand here.
• Great article on the Five Keys to Strategy Execution by Paul Niven here.
• If you are interested in conducting a Line-of-Sight assessment in your team or organization, Contact Us for a conversation.

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We came across a book that describes how to handle important yet difficult conversations and liked it so much that we decided to share the information on our blog.  We hope you find it useful too.

A crucial conversation can be defined as any conversation that…

• has high stakes
• is emotionally charged
• has multiple perspectives

These characteristics are embedded in many common processes and practices, including performance evaluations, team meetings, informal feedback, decision-making, and more.  To perform better in emotionally-charged situations, consider the seven points below.  These points are based on the book Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (Patterson, McMillan, & Switzler, 2002).  They are particularly relevant for managers and leads.

1.  Recognize your motives

First we must recognize our own motivation and intentions.  Start with the end point in mind and ask yourself:

• What do I want for me?  (keeping peace, blaming, saving face, etc. are not good starting points)
• What do I really want for the other person?
• What do I want for the relationship/team/organization?

2.  Be on the lookout for warning signs

When people feel unsafe in a conversation they tend to display one of two defense mechanisms:

Avoid:  masking emotions, maintaining silence, withdrawing from the conversation

Attack:  dominating the conversation, interrupting the speaker, and escalating to name-calling and attacking

Before recognizing how other people react under stress, look at your own style by asking yourself:

• Which category do I move towards in stressful situations?
• What can I do when I recognize my own pattern during a crucial conversation?  (take a time-out!)

3.  Recognize your own biases

When we fall into our patterns (avoid or attack), we begin to justify our behavior and make attribution errors.  Therefore, it is important to recognize our own bias in regard to:

Your own part:  Avoid playing the victim.  Look for your own role in the situation – even if you can’t identify it, it’s still important to try.

Their part:  Avoid making the other person the villain.  Think of reasons that a rational person may do that behavior.  Think back and see if there were any times that you displayed similar behavior.  You probably have at one point or another.  Knowing this can help you put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

Sometimes you won’t be able to comprehend their story – if that’s the case, it’s important to simply recognize that you don’t know.  Then before jumping to conclusions, your job is to learn their story.

4.  Create safe conditions for the conversation

Now that you’ve identified your objectives and recognized your own defense mechanism and biases, you are ready to begin the conversation.  At the onset, your first priority should be creating a safe environment.  You can do this by establishing the following:

Shared purpose:  Communicate that you care about their goals, interests, and values.  The goal is to make sure they understand that both parties are working toward a common outcome.  Note that shared purpose can also be established at the end of the conversation by collaborating with the other person to identify follow-up actions.

• I care about your experience as a ______, and I know we both want that experience to be as positive as it can be.

Mutual respect:  Communicate that you care about the person him/herself.   The goal is to make sure that the other person knows that you care about and respect them as an individual.

• Your success is important to me too.

5.  S-T-A-T-E your perspective

Once you’ve established a shared purpose and a sense of mutual respect, the other person will be more ready to hear what you have to say.  Use the following acronym to “STATE” your perspective while maintaining a safe environment:

• S:  Share what you know by stating the facts (your observations, examples of behavior, etc.)
• T:  Tell them why it matters – go beyond the facts to your conclusions (why you’re concerned, why you care)
• A:  Ask for their perspective (what are their facts, what are their intentions, what do they want?)
• T:  Talk tentatively (recognize that your observations are likely to be incomplete, communicate your own style of avoiding or attacking, build safe conditions)
• E:  Encourage opposing views and allow others to challenge your facts (play devil’s advocate, allow for disagreement and recognize that any feelings are valid)

6.  Explore their side of the story

Help the other person explore their own story by engaging in the following actions:

• Ask questions:  Ask for their facts and story
• Mirror:  When you see their feelings, recognize them (“You seem frustrated”)
• Paraphrase:  Display active listening by paraphrasing important statements

 7.  Move towards action

Once both stories are communicated, your goal is to collaboratively move towards action that will help the other person address the behavior.  The most important things to consider in this stage include:

• Collaborate:  Work together to brainstorm ideas and actions.  Invite the other person to set goals with your input, and involve them as much as possible in identifying actions and deciding which ones to take.
• Document:  Don’t rely on fickle memory – document the decisions and actions that are the outcome of the meeting.
• Follow-through:  Follow up and hold the other party accountable.

To learn more about crucial conversations, check out the links and references below.  

• BOOK.  Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
• ARTICLE.  When Feedback Attacks!  (When, How, and Why Feedback Can Hurt Performance)
• ARTICLE.  Face-to-Face Communication:  Why it Still Matters
• ARTICLE.  How to Get Along at Work
• RESOURCE.  Psychology Today Articles on Crucial Conversations

Reference:

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2002). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. McGraw-Hill.

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What is Job Satisfaction and Why Does It Matter?

Job satisfaction is the pleasurable emotional state that results from positive appraisals of one’s job and work-related experiences (Locke, 1976). In other words, it is the good feeling we have when we are satisfied with our current work situation. Given that we spend almost half of our lives at work, the importance of this construct cannot be understated.

Research shows that job satisfaction contributes to a number of outcomes that are important for both organizations and their employees. While the relationship between job satisfaction and various outcomes is complex and multi-faceted, there is no question about its value and importance for personal and organizational flourishing.

For example, individuals who are satisfied with their job report greater psychological well-being, physical health, commitment, and life satisfaction (Spector, 1997). For organizations, job satisfaction is significantly related to customer satisfaction and loyalty, productivity, performance, turnover, organizational citizenship behavior, and workplace safety (Judge et al., 2001; Harter et al., 2002). In fact, job satisfaction predicts performance equally as well as selection criteria such as conscientiousness and structured interviews (Judge et al., 2001). This suggests that it is important for organizations to not only hire the right person, but to ensure that they remain satisfied throughout their tenure.

Key Drivers of Job Satisfaction According to SHRM’s National Survey

SHRM’s 2015 Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey identified the top ten contributors to employee job satisfaction. By focusing on these factors, you can have a positive and measurable impact on your employees’ levels of job satisfaction. The top ten factors that contribute most to job satisfaction are:

1. Respectful treatment of staff at all levels in the organization

2. Trust between employees and senior management

3. Overall benefits (paid time off, healthcare, flex-time, family plans)

4. Overall compensation (competitive pay, base rate, opportunities for variable pay, stock options)

5. Job security

6. Relationship with immediate supervisor

7. Opportunities to apply your skills and abilities

8. Ideas are respected by immediate supervisor

9. Organization’s financial stability

10. Performance is recognized by management

While some of these things may be outside of your control (e.g., compensation and benefits packages), these results show that supervisors and managers play a huge role in promoting job satisfaction.  By developing a supportive relationship with their employees, individual leaders can have a direct influence on a majority of the factors that promote satisfaction.

The bottom line is that by developing trusting and respectful relationships with staff, managers can promote job satisfaction, contribute to the effectiveness of their organization, and boost the health and well-being of their staff. If you would like the consultants at Scontrino-Powell to help you with this, hit the button to the right (or click here) and drop us a line.

Related Articles

• How to Improve Job Satisfaction
• Does Happiness Matter at Work?
• Does Employee Satisfaction Make a Difference?
• Supervisor Support:  A Key Ingredient in Effective Leadership

References

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 268–279.

Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K. (2001). The job satisfaction job performance relationship: a qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 376–407.

Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Chicago: Rand-McNally.

Society for Human Resource Management (2015). Employee job satisfaction and engagement: Optimizing organizational culture for success. Retrieved from www.shrm.org.

Spector, P. (1997). Job satisfaction: Application, assessment, causes, and consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

The post Top 10 Factors that Promote Job Satisfaction appeared first on Scontrino-Powell Corporate Trainers & Consultants.