Employee Engagement For Dummies

Employee Engagement For Dummies

by Bob Kelleher
Released December 2013
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118725795

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Book description

The easy way to boost employee engagement

Today more than ever, companies and leaders need a road map to help them boost employee engagement levels. Employee Engagement For Dummies helps employers implement the necessary plans to create and sustain an engaging culture, allowing them to attract and retain the best people while boosting their productivity and creativity.

Employee Engagement For Dummies helps you foster employee engagement, a concept that furthers an organization's interests through ensuring that employees remain involved in, committed to, and fulfilled by their work. It covers: practical steps to boost employee engagement with your company or team; how to engage different generations of employees; the keys to reduce voluntary employee turnover; practical tools to help retain and engage your employees; processes that will boost employee retention and productivity; hiring the best fits from the start; and much more.

  • Helps you recognize and understand the impact of positive employee engagement

  • Helps you attract and retain the best employees

Employee Engagement For Dummies is for business leaders at all levels who are looking to better engage their employees and increase morale and productivity.

Table of contents

    1. Foreword
    2. Introduction
      1. About This Book
      2. Foolish Assumptions
      3. Icons Used in This Book
      4. Beyond the Book
      5. Where to Go from Here
    3. Part I: Getting Started with Employee Engagement
      1. Chapter 1: Basic Training: Employee Engagement Basics
        1. Say What? Defining Employee Engagement
          1. Engagement is not a “program”
          2. There is no “there”: Engagement is a journey, not a destination
        2. Making It Happen: Driving Engagement
        3. Pick Me! Pick Me! Picking the Right People for Engagement
        4. Measure Twice, Cut Once: Measuring and Recognizing Engagement
      2. Chapter 2: The Hard Sell: Making a Business Case for Employee Engagement
        1. What's the Big Deal? Why Employee Engagement Matters
          1. Grow your own: Cultivating customer satisfaction with employee engagement
          2. Profit margin: Driving profits with employee engagement
        2. Danger, Will Robinson! The Dangers of Disengagement
        3. Breeding Ground: Engagement Breeds Innovation (Or Is It the Other Way Around?)
        4. We Are the Champions: Finding and Developing Engagement Champions
        5. Objective Case: Setting Goals and Objectives for Your Engagement Plan
        6. On a Budget: Budgeting for Engagement
      3. Chapter 3: Engagement Gauges: Finding Your Employee Engagement Baseline.
        1. Survey Says: Conducting Employee Engagement Surveys
          1. Working with a consultant
          2. Asking the right questions
          3. Analyzing the results
          4. Communicating the results to your employees
          5. Going forward after a survey
        2. Exit Only: Conducting Exit Interviews
          1. Who to interview and who should do the asking
          2. When to conduct an exit interview
          3. What to ask
        3. Sit! Stay! Conducting Stay Interviews
          1. Who to interview and who should do the asking
          2. What to ask in a stay interview
        4. Measuring Stick: Other Engagement Barometers
          1. Assessing your training investment
          2. Tracking employee referrals
      4. Chapter 4: Motivation Nation: Engagement and Motivation
        1. Outie or Innie? Understanding Extrinsic versus Intrinsic Motivation
        2. Key Club: Identifying Key Intrinsic Motivational Drivers
        3. A No-Malarkey Hierarchy: Putting Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to Work for You
        4. A Yearn to Learn: Fostering a Learning Culture
      5. Chapter 5: Talk to Me! The Importance of Communication
        1. Mind the Gap: The Great Organizational Communication Fissure
        2. Two-Way Street: Establishing Two-Way Communication
        3. Bob the Builder: Building a Communication Protocol
        4. Tool Time: Maximizing the Various Communication Tools
          1. Face to face
          2. Phone
          3. E-mail
          4. Social media
          5. Putting it all together
        5. He Said, She Said: Resolving Conflict
          1. Identifying your conflict-management style
          2. Resolving conflict with ease
          3. Dealing with difficult people
        6. Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Communicating Change
        7. Talking It Up: Communicating Your Engagement Efforts
        8. Communication Don'ts
    4. Part II: Strategies for Driving Engagement
      1. Chapter 6: Winning Their Hearts and Minds: Driving Engagement with a Sense of Purpose.
        1. Sightseeing: Building Your Line of Sight
          1. Identifying your firm's purpose
          2. Defining your firm's values
          3. Identifying your organization's vision
          4. Building your strategic plan
          5. Promoting your purpose, values, and vision
        2. Be Responsible! Engaging Employees through Corporate Social Responsibility
      2. Chapter 7: People Who Lead People: Engaging Employees through Leadership.
        1. Vice Versus: Management Versus Leadership
        2. The Big 12: Identifying 12 Leadership-Based Engagement Drivers
        3. Top It Off: Leadership Starts at the Top
        4. Purple People Leader: Identifying the Behaviors and Traits of Engaged Leaders
        5. Here Comes the Train Again: Training Managers to Become Engaged Leaders
        6. Put Me In, Coach! Coaching for Engagement
          1. A quick guide to coaching
          2. Using the GROW model
        7. Do This, Not That: Identifying Leadership Best Practices
          1. I feel you, man
          2. Offering a hand up
          3. You're not the boss of me!
          4. Recognize, recognize, recognize
      3. Chapter 8: Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: Driving Engagement across Generations.
        1. Boom Baby: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Baby Boomers
          1. Attracting and hiring Boomers
          2. Training Boomers
          3. Engaging Boomers
          4. Rewarding Boomers
        2. X Marks the Spot: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Generation X
          1. Attracting and hiring Generation X
          2. Training Generation X
          3. Engaging Generation X
          4. Rewarding Generation X
        3. Y Ask Y: Attracting, Training, Engaging, and Rewarding Generation Y
          1. Attracting and hiring Generation Y
          2. Training Generation Y
          3. Engaging Generation Y
          4. Rewarding Generation Y
        4. Putting It All Together
      4. Chapter 9: Go, Team! Driving Engagement through Team Development
        1. Yay, Team: Identifying Characteristics of an Engaged Team
        2. Stormin’ Norman: Exploring Tuckman's Stages
          1. The forming stage
          2. The storming stage
          3. The norming stage
          4. The performing stage
          5. Putting it all together
        3. From a Distance: Leading Teams from Afar
        4. Team Player: Exploring Team-Building Activities
          1. Running a successful team-building activity
          2. Tackling common challenges
          3. Looking at effective team-building activities
        5. Hit Me with Your Best Shot: Conducting a High-Impact Team Workshop
      5. Chapter 10: Brandy, You're a Fine Girl: Driving Engagement through Branding.
        1. Better Relate than Never: Understanding How Branding and Engagement Relate
        2. Hello, My Name Is _____: Defining Who You Are
        3. Talking It Up: Communicating Your Employment Brand
          1. Branding internally
          2. Branding externally
        4. Tri-Angle: Understanding Tri-Branding
          1. Enlisting your employees as brand ambassadors
          2. Making sure your customers sing your praises
          3. Leveraging other stakeholders in your tri-branding efforts
      6. Chapter 11: Game On! Driving Engagement with Gamification
        1. Paging Mr. Webster: Defining Gamification
        2. But What Does It Do? Understanding What Gamification Does
        3. Get with the Program! Developing a Gamification Program
          1. Pinpointing your business objectives
          2. Identifying desired behaviors
          3. Choosing rewards
          4. Selecting game mechanics
    5. Part III: Selecting the Right Employees to Increase Engagement
      1. Chapter 12: You're Hired! Hiring for Engagement.
        1. Trait Up: Pinpointing Key Behaviors and Traits
        2. Good, Better, Best: Using the BEST Approach for Job Selection and Advancement
          1. Assembling the BEST job description
          2. Looking at a sample BEST characteristics matrix
        3. Mix and Match: The Importance of Diversity
        4. Heads or Tails: Hiring from the Outside or Promoting from Within
          1. Identifying investment employees
          2. Spotting performers
          3. Recognizing potentials
          4. Identifying transition employees
        5. What Newspaper Ad? Leveraging Social Media
          1. Exploring LinkedIn
          2. Using Facebook for recruitment
          3. Connecting with potential recruits on Twitter
          4. Using YouTube to find prospective employees
        6. Making the Sale: Selling Yourself to Prospective Employees
      2. Chapter 13: Why Do You Want to Work Here? Interviewing Job Candidates.
        1. Best in Show: Interviewing the BEST Way
          1. Step 1: Develop your BEST profile
          2. Step 2: Develop your interview questions
          3. Step 3: Conduct preliminary phone interviews
          4. Step 4: Prepare for the face-to-face interview
          5. Step 5: Hold the face-to-face interview
          6. Step 6: Collect input from your selection team
          7. Step 7: Check references
          8. Step 8: Extend an offer of employment
        2. Kick Ask: Asking the Right Questions
        3. Assessing the Candidate's Responses
          1. Weighting questions
          2. Rating answers
          3. Scoring candidates
      3. Chapter 14: All Aboard! Onboarding Techniques to Foster Engagement.
        1. What's the Big Deal, Anyway? The Importance of Onboarding
        2. Brain Swap: Considering Things from the New Employee's Point of View
        3. The Final Countdown: Preparing for a New Employee
          1. What to do before day one
          2. What to do on day one
          3. What to do during week one
        4. Great Expectations: Performance Management and Onboarding
    6. Part IV: Measuring and Recognizing Engagement
      1. Chapter 15: Measure Up: Measuring Performance and Engagement.
        1. Score! Building a Balanced Scorecard to Measure an Organization's Performance
          1. Designing an effective balanced scorecard
          2. Maintaining your balanced scorecard
          3. Communicating results
        2. Take It Personally: Measuring Individual Performance
        3. Team Player: Measuring Team Performance
        4. Measure by Measure: Measuring Employee Engagement
          1. Key metrics for measuring employee engagement
          2. Assessing your team's level of engagement
      2. Chapter 16: Goal! Setting Performance Goals and Conducting Performance Appraisals.
        1. Get Smart: Establishing SMART Performance Goals
        2. Don't Be a Tool: Retooling the Performance Appraisal Process
          1. Building an employee development plan
          2. Conducting 360 assessments
          3. Collecting “more of, same as, less of” feedback
        3. The Secret of Your Succession: Building Succession into Performance Appraisal
          1. Identifying successors
          2. The great disconnect
          3. Leadership development
      3. Chapter 17: You Win! Rewards and Recognition.
        1. The Rewards of Rewarding: Understanding Rewards
          1. Designing a total rewards strategy
          2. Developing your compensation strategy
          3. Avoiding reward pitfalls
        2. Rec Center: Recognizing Employees
          1. Building a recognition program
          2. Setting a recognition budget
          3. Recognition ideas and best practices
          4. Providing positive feedback
          5. Building a celebratory culture
      4. Chapter 18: Help Me! Helping Struggling Employees.
        1. Copping an Attitude: Aptitude- Versus Attitude-Based Disengagement
          1. Determining whether the disengagement comes down to aptitude or attitude
          2. Looking at the reasons for aptitude- and attitude-based disengagement
          3. Plotting employees using the aptitude/attitude matrix
        2. Throw Me a Line! Helping Underperforming Employees
        3. You're Fired! A Word on Firing
    7. Part V: The Part of Tens
      1. Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Engage New Hires
        1. Start Before the First Day
        2. Make the New Hire Feel Welcome on Day One
        3. Load ‘Em Up with Swag
        4. Give the New Hire a Welcome Tour
        5. Stop Making Snoozer Introductions
        6. Recognize That Cliques Exist — Even in the Business World
        7. Introduce New Hires to the C Levels
        8. Take the Mystery Out of It (and Stay More Productive Yourself)
        9. Have New Hires Meet with Key People in the First Month
        10. Set Goals for New Hires
      2. Chapter 20: Ten (Or So) Additional Employee Engagement Resources
        1. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink
        2. Investing in People: Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives, by Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau
        3. Gallup's State of the American Workplace Report
        4. The Employee Engagement Group
        5. 1501 Ways to Reward Employees, by Bob Nelson
        6. How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
        7. Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell
        8. Who's Sinking Your Boat, by The Employee Engagement Group
        9. The University of Windsor Employee Engagement & Development Website
        10. Love ’Em or Lose ’Em: Getting Good People to Stay, by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans
        11. Business Gamification For Dummies by Kris Duggan and Kate Shoup
      3. Chapter 21: Ten Ways Engaged Employees Help Your Bottom Line
        1. It's All About the Effort, Baby!
        2. Voluntary Turnover Is Expensive
        3. I'm Really Not That Sick!
        4. The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line
        5. A Happy Customer Is a Returning Customer
        6. Innovate or Perish
        7. Hey, Want to Work for My Company?
        8. “I'll Volunteer”
        9. Doing Well by Doing Good
        10. Can You Expand Your Margins?
    8. About the Authors
    9. Cheat Sheet
    10. More Dummies Products

Product information

  • Title: Employee Engagement For Dummies
  • Author(s): Bob Kelleher
  • Release date: December 2013
  • Publisher(s): For Dummies
  • ISBN: 9781118725795