Learn More Engagement
I have found employability, value, and maintenance are foundational to employee engagement. Providing value, and being employable means your work counts - it's meaningful to your boss and company. This leads naturally to wanting to engage in work, which in turn leads to greater employability. Talking about these relationships with employees will foster this beneficial cycle. In contrast, tools such as engagement dashboards can be detrimental to engagement because they place an impersonal barrier between managers and their employees. I have found such symbols of engagement merely delay the inevitable direct communications about employees quitting, or worse, retiring in place, enjoying the company's benefits and a salary, but not contributing to the bottom line.
Below are some anecdotal stories regarding employability, value, and maintenance that might trigger your own experiences and serve to tee up forthright conversations with employees, or a boss. These stories are illustrative, but based on real situations.
Employability:
As a manager I had an opportunity to help an employee feel better about his salary. I talked about employability at his grade level, value he provides to the company, and the maintenance he requires. In his case, maintenance was mainly his salary. Let's say he received $600 a day, but the company paid out maybe $700-$800 a day, covering FICA taxes, benefits, 401K match, cost of offices, etc. So the value he adds every day needs to be higher, and directly tied to the products and services our customers are paying for. After all, one could buy a new dishwasher or TV every day for that outlay. I asked him to describe what he did yesterday that was worth $800 to a customer. This led to a rich discussion about value, pay, advancement, relevance of his work, and in the end he felt more desirous of being employed and having his work count.
Value:
I heard this story from a SVP speaking at a large conference: Two employees hired on the same day, with the same education and same basic performance reviews were vying for a promotion after 4 yrs with a Los Angeles law office. I'll call them Anna and Sarah. Anna got the promotion over Sarah, and Sarah walked into her boss' office to question why. The boss asked Sarah "could you go down to the LA Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax and find out the price of oranges?" Sarah did so, and reported oranges were going for 59 cents a pound. The boss thanked her and asked her to sit down, and called in Anna, asked her "could you go down to the LA Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax and find out the price of oranges?" Anna returned, saying Valencia oranges are 59 cents a pound, Navels are 69 cents a pound, there's a 10% discount with purchases over 5 lbs, and the market is open daily from 9:00am to 5:30pm. The boss thanked Anna, excused her, then turned to Sarah and said this extra value beyond the basic ask is why Anna got the promotion. Anna was more employable at a higher level because of this extra value she added.
As a manager I was afforded an opportunity to sign award certificates for employees who exude exemplary behavior. My employee responsible for the award program printed the certificates, as I would expect, and mailed them to me to sign (he lived in a different part of the country). What I didn't expect, however, was to receive a self addressed postage paid return box along with the certificates stacked for signature, a simple list of steps needed to complete the award cycle, with my signature step highlighted, and all the steps that followed. As a manager, I was delighted because my employee made my job easier and also gave me confidence he had a handle on all the steps to complete. This added great value to me and made me think of the employee as a keeper - more employable.
Today, as an employee submitting a work product to a client, I try to draft an email written from his perspective, which he may use in passing the product on to his customer. He recently commented how much this unexpected help made his day because it saved him time. Even "little" things can add value to your boss, freeing up his time so he can add value elsewhere. I do this "extra" work because I want to add value and remain in the employ of this client.
Maintenance:
As a manager, I've had to hound employees to sign time cards and complete required training. I've had to deal with drama in the workplace and resolve personal disputes, sometimes involving HR. While we're all human, and some drama is expected, it represented additional work for me, reducing my ability to add value for my manager. In work products, I've had to catch simple spelling mistakes, rounding errors on tabulated financials, and mis-titled charts, causing me to question the accuracy of the rest of the content. This sort of maintenance dilutes value, making such employees, and me, less employable.
As an employee, I was asked to fill in at the last moment to deliver a speech for my manager. I agreed, and on my own I figured out the needs of the venue and audience and delivered a speech that was well received. I never bugged my manager about it - just got it done. My manager received very positive feedback, making her look good (value). This example of providing high value for low maintenance, helped me be very employable for that manager. In a contrasting example, I once caused trouble for a manager to address with their boss, more than I appreciated, and value offset it. In retrospect, I believe it drove my employability down to the point I had to change jobs and log a lesson learned for myself!
Summary:
Talk genuinely with employees (and managers) about employability, value, and maintenance. Even if someone is not high value, if their maintenance is low (or zero) their employability is high (or infinite). When they know how best to add value, and have their work count, they feel more like part of the organization's fabric and become more engaged. When we are engaged our work quality and output goes up.