First Cut Communications, LLC

Employee Engagement.

Did you know only 30% of US employees are considered to be engaged employees?

One of the most interesting aspects of being in the communications business is that we are privy to the good, the bad, and the ugly. We like to visit with our clients and get to know them, their products or services, and their target audience. We feel this helps us craft a superior message for onboarding, union avoidance, or any of our other services.

One of the more challenging tasks a manager has is supervising a team of employees and ensuring they are all engaged. You have to make sure they’re happy, work together towards the same goal, and feel a since of satisfaction with their job. The more engaged the employees, the more productive and efficient they are. A small group of highly engaged and satisfied employees working together towards a common goal can accomplish great things.

We were fortunate to see that kind of productive engagement in action recently when we created an orientation video for a recycling company. The company is smaller than its competitors, yet it has a similar output. Why? The workforce is treated with respect. The company provides benefits of a much larger company. And it has incredible employee retention. The owner attributes the success to overall employee morale.

A good way of ensuring that employees are engaged and morale is high is to have regular staff meetings. They don’t have to be long. In fact, in our experience with companies across the country, we’ve noticed the meetings that are short, mandatory and conducted daily are the most effective. Having employees just stand in a circle while following a prescribed agenda lets everyone know what’s expected of them performance-wise by the end of that day. There’s also time allotted to review past performances and quickly discuss ways to improve as a group (sometimes assigning people to review a situation and report back). Those few minutes provide a great way to create a "team" environment, get everyone’s participation, bring everyone back onto the same page, and even hold one another accountable to their job duties. It’s also a great way to get feedback and encourage the flow of creative ideas from the team that might otherwise be overlooked.

As always, don’t forget to communicate to your people. They appreciate it, and it pays off.

Sincerely,

Matt French

P.S. A few more reasons to work on having engaged employees:

Gallup found that engaged employees generate:

- 12% higher profitability
- 12% higher customer satisfaction
- 18% greater productivity
- 27% less absenteeism
- 51% less employee turnover
- 62% fewer accidents

First Cut Communications, LLC
706-882-5581