Wheel of Employee Engagement - areas cycleThis is the fourth of five posts on The Wheel of Employee Engagement. In The Wheel of Employee Engagement: An Introduction, we discussed how to create your own Wheel of Employee. In the previous posts, we began looking at each of the identified areas of disengagement and explored some suggestions for improving our ratings in the Employee – Manager Relationship and in Recognition & Rewards. Remember, our goal is to align all areas along the same rating beginning with “Average.”

 

 

Using our Wheel of Employee Engagement example above, the third area of disengagement we will review is “Growth & Development.”

 

Wheel of Employee Engagement - combined with spidergraph

 

In our example, we rated ourselves as “Average” in the Growth & Development area. Since this area is already at our baseline, we would want to start by identifying another area where we rated ourselves as “No Focus” or “Below Average” before considering how we can move into the “Above Average” category.

 

Wheel of Employee Engagement - Growth and Development segment labeled

 

Regardless of where you rated yourself, let’s consider some suggestions to attain each of the ratings.

 

Average

  • Talk with your employees to learn what they want in terms of growth and development.
  • Utilize the Company’s formal performance management system.
  • Encourage the use of and participation in a mentoring program.
  • Be familiar with the Company’s Learning Management System, know if employees are utilizing it and be familiar with the topics taken.
  • Promote instructor led training when available for its learning and networking opportunities.
  • Recommend online training (internal and external) to employees.
  • Offer employees stretch roles/opportunities and support them.
  • Enable Buddy programs for new hires/recent promotes.
  • Endorse participation in Company special interest groups and/or volunteer opportunities
  • Seize recognition and reward opportunities.

 

Above Average

  • Sincere in wanting to help your employees grow and develop.
  • Discuss performance on an ongoing basis – immediate and consistent.
  • Help focus on productivity
  • Bring in speakers (internal and external) for educational and informational topics.
  • Serve as a role model through your own development activities.
  • Create a customized development plan with each employee.
  • Delegate important tasks to employees.
  • Offer cross-training opportunities to learn skills of complementary positions
  • Encourage employee enrollment in professional associations or organizations.
  • Allow employees to attend conferences and industry events.
  • Support the use of LinkedIn and other social media sites to build connections and demonstrate expertise.
  • Utilize assessments to identify employee strengths and build on them.

 

Superior

Note: While it may be possible to attain this level, there will be times when further work will be needed, i.e., new employees, reorganizations, business challenges, etc.  Focusing on growth & development opportunities is an ongoing process.

  • Give employees the opportunity to teach others.
  • Provide access to a Coach that can work one-on-one with an employee.
  • Offer access to financial and retirement advisors.
  • Send employees to media training.
  • Encourage employees to identify and participate in public speaking opportunities.
  • Reimburse/ provide scholarships for higher education courses/programs.

 

 

The items listed above are meant to provide you with a starting point as you consider ways to improve your category ratings. They are not meant to be comprehensive.

 

What are your thoughts on these suggestions? What would you include/exclude from each rating?

In the next post, we’ll look at ways to improve the fourth area of disengagement: Opportunity for Advancement. Until then, revisit some previous posts to learn more about helping employees grow and develop.

 

 

Let’s Engage!

I’m Agent in Engagement Simpson…Gregory F Simpson.

I’m excited about this opportunity to connect with fellow “Agents.” Subscribe to the RSS Feed to receive the latest updates and/or register to comment on posts.

GFS site photoYou can follow me @agtinengagement.
Email me at g…@a…t.com.
Learn more about me at www.gregoryfsimpson.com.

 

 

P.S.  First time here? Welcome to the Agent In Engagement site. Thanks for taking the time to stop by!  I hope you’ll explore the rest of the site. Let me know what employee engagement topics interest you.

Other recent Agent in Engagement articles by Gregory F Simpson: