Author: Kylee Stone

Kylee Stone supports the professional services team as a CX intern and psychology SME. She leverages her innate creativity with extensive background in psychology to support client experience and organizational functions. Kylee is completing her master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational psychology at the University of Missouri Science and Technology emphasizing in Applied workplace psychology and Statistical Methods.

Chasing Goals When Motivation Is Low

Given how the world is functioning today due to COVID-19, staying motivated enough to chase goals is a problem everyone is facing in some scale or another. You may set out with the best of intentions, but with unexpected emergencies, new initiatives, negative news all across the world and competing priorities for your time and attention, it can be challenging to stay on track towards your long-term goals.

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3 Factors To Remember When Setting Employee Goals

Goal setting is one of the most important aspects of employee performance management. But do you think that employee goals are effective enough for your organization to achieve success? Well, goals give us a sense of direction and motivation but they do not always lead to success because of not being effectively set.

If you are planning on improving your company culture and increase your team’s productivity using employee goals, then OKRs are the best way to do it!

Objectives and key results (OKR) is a popular goal management framework that evolved over time. You can set goals, oversee them and track employee progress using OKRs.

OKRs help you understand the following things about your goal and its results:

  1. Clear Idea – OKRs give you a proper understanding of what you are planning to achieve.
  2. Concentrate – OKRs help you focus on the right aspect of the goal. It shows you the right direction and makes you ask yourself constantly if doing something brings you closer to accomplishing your goal.
  3. Collaborate – With cascadable/ shared OKRs, employees can collaborate with each other and work on different key results for the same objective. So OKRs also drive team work.

Also Read: How Can Setting Employee Goals Help Your Organization?

We have understood why using OKRs for goal setting is important but the question still remains, how to set strong and effective goals for your team? To help you answer this question, remember these three factors.

Directional Objective

As a manager, it is quite challenging to think from the perspective of each team member and come up with an objective. Understand if the objective actually gives you a proper understanding of what you should do. An objective tells you what you should do and a key result tells you how to do it. It is important for your employee objective to be directional.

Ideally, you should be able to modify goals in the long run. Because, in the process of achieving a goal, the employee and manager might suddenly find that the objective of the goal needs to change. Or that they might need to add other objectives to the goal.

SMART

An OKR cannot be long and confusing. Make sure that the OKRs of your employees are simple, brief and direct. Always remember to give the objective shorter time span. Having long-term goals can be helpful but not as much as having smaller goals which are bound to time.

It is very important to have OKRs that are measurable over time. Being able to measure your OKRs helps you find out if you have reached your goal or not. Measuring unquantified objectives is subjective and your employees should opt to have a one on one meeting with their managers to understand their progress on unquantifiable objectives.

Align

One of the most important questions that you should answer is that if the employee OKR is contributing to organizational OKRs.

All goals cannot be tied to team goals and the organization, that is true. However, when setting a goal for an employee, it is important to remember that as much as possible, a goal should contribute towards the overall team and organization goals. If a goal is not directly contributing to a team or the organization’s success, it should at least account for an employee’s personal development. If the goal is not even helping the employee improve professionally, then the goal shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Employees should align their team OKRs as well as their individual OKRs to the organizational OKRs as well as their department goals.

 

Engagedly is offering a suite of products part of its Remote Work Toolkit free to any organisation, until Sept 30th, 2020. 

The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

Get in touch with us to know more about the free remote working tool-kit. 

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The Delicate Art Of Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is the process of resolving a dispute or disagreement between two or more people by involving a third-party to help reach an agreement. Conflicts at the workplace are very common. If these are not resolved on time, they can result in a very toxic workplace culture. 

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Tips for conducting 360 degree feedback

360 degree feedback, also sometimes referred to as multirater feedback, is a process where everyone the employee has worked with provides feedback for the employee. In this process, feedback is not only collected from the managers but several stakeholders such as direct reports, peers, senior leadership, customers, vendors, etc. It presents an overall clear picture of an employee’s performance, behavioural skills, and competency.  

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Why You Need An Employee Engagement Software

Have you ever wondered what is the impact of poor employee engagement? After all, it is not the sole reason for why organisations continue to keep running. Because employees are one of the greatest assets of a company and employee engagement does play a big role in keeping organisations running smoothly.

In order to better understand employee engagement, one must first understand what it is to be engaged.

Also read: Choosing The Right Talent Management Software For Your Company

An engaged employee is someone who is active within the organisation, not just in terms of showing up every day, but being visibly seen and recognised for the work and effort they put in. On the other hand, disengaged employees are employees who may be present physically, but mentally, they are not focused on the work.

The number of engaged employees within an organisation can determine how vibrant and successful it is. The number of disengaged employees can highlight serious workplace dysfunction, poor work culture or possibly even a lack of clarity when it comes to roles and skills.

But before we get into fixing poor employee engagement, let us take a look at what employee disengagement does to other employees. The emotions and actions of one can and do have an impact on other employees. The seriousness of it might differ from person to person, but it is worth keeping this proverb in mind, one rotten apple can quickly spoil the bunch.

Impacts Morale & Disrupts Workplace Harmony

Nobody is immune to bad vibes or workplace dysfunction. It’s not always possible to drown out employees who might drop by to chat and instead end up launching into a litany of complaints. Nor is it possible to stop engaging with people simply cause they are disengaged. What can one do if the person who is disengaged happens to be their team-mate or manager? The advice to avoid interacting with them is simply not feasible.

Engaged employees can make an organisation hum. Disengaged employees can throw a spanner in the works. When the harmony in a workplace is disrupted, an employee’s output and productivity can drastically decrease. Employees cannot focus on the work at hand and that in turn has an effect on an organisation’s overall productivity.

When employee engagement gets ignored, employees who are adjacently affected will continue to work until they can no longer manage, and then they will move on. It’s wrong to expect employees to keep adjusting to the quirks of others when no attempt is being made to fix it.

Also Read: Create A Positive Work Culture For Your Employees

The Organisation Stagnates

Engaged employees are constantly innovating and coming up with new ways for the company to move ahead. Disengaged employees do the exact opposite. They are completely cut off from their’s organisation’s values and objectives and have nothing of value to offer. When there are no new ideas or innovations on the horizon, an organisation stagnates and falls behind. It might be worth noting that not all employees start off as disengaged. In fact, some of them might have even been rockstar employees before. However, along the way, something changed. Perhaps they are unhappy with the way the organisation is developing. Or maybe they feel like they are not valued like they were before. It is important to discern the reasons for poor employee engagement before taking precautionary wide-sweeping measures.

Cost Increases While Return Decreases

This is a side-effect of organisation stagnation and disrupted workplaces. Disengaged employees are costly. Not only do they tend to be a drain on a company’s time and resources, but they might also be responsible for driving away other engaged employees. Attrition does cost organisations money. Because significant costs are incurred every time you hire an employee, train them and get them on board, only for them to leave because the organisation culture wasn’t palatable to them. Or because they found it difficult to work with employees who are obstructive or unenthusiastic. Unlike engaged employees who are invested in not only their careers but even the well-being of the company, disengaged employees do not care. They have no interest in the company and they are content to put in the least possible effort, therefore seriously impacting an organisation’s performance.

Employee Engagement Software Can Help

Really good employee engagement software can take what is already there and enhance it further. It is important to note that employee engagement software is highly successful when a workplace has a culture that actively fosters employee participation, employee satisfaction, and employee engagement. It is not a cure-all for an organisation that is already suffering from poor levels of employee engagement. In fact, once an organisation overhauls its practices regarding engagement and motivation, employee engagement software can be tapped into to sustain the momentum.

Employee Engagement Software Benefits

  • With employee engagement software, in addition to employees participating in the day-to-day activities, peer recognition is also possible. Having a peer thank you for the information you provided, a creative solution, or handling a problem he or she was struggling with, is also a great way to build engagement and see the company as “ours” to improve rather than as a place to go to work
  • Such software also makes it easier for managers to give and receive feedback and recognise employees publicly, is an act which is effective at bolstering employee engagement
  • Employees can also log in to their own personal account to receive and provide feedback, recognition or even browse training programs to find the ones they want to take

In conclusion, employee engagement software can really help improve workplace climate, but only if the organisation in question has a culture of employee engagement or is working towards creating a culture of engagement and wants to improve it.

If you want to know how Engagedly can help in Employee Engagement, request for a live demo and talk to our experts!

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Are You Unintentionally Destroying Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is one of the most important aspects of current HR. Though most managers understand the importance of keeping their employees engaged and satisfied with their work, sometimes they tend to unintentionally destroy employee engagement.

Do you want to re-evaluate your practices to check if you’re accidentally destroying employee engagement at your workplace? Here are a few signs to look out for:

Your Goals Are Unrealistic:

Goals shouldn’t be very easy to attain because they won’t let the true potential show. But also remember not to make them so unrealistic that they intimidate your employees.

Before setting goals and deadlines, think how these goals affect your organisation and work culture. If not, these goals instead of motivating your employees and promoting employee engagement, kills employee morale.

Also read: Rethinking Employee Rewards and Recognition

You Rarely Share Feedback:

One of the very common reasons for employee disengagement is that they aren’t satisfied with the amount of feedback they receive. As a manager, you should find a way to talk to your employees about their performance and give them enough feedback and time to improve.

Good Work Remains Unappreciated: 

Imagine that you were given a really challenging task and you took a lot of effort and risk to complete it on time. After you complete the work, your boss takes all the credit and doesn’t even bother to give you a little appreciation.

Would you give your maximum efforts again on any other task? Now you know how that feels, don’t you? Appreciate and recognise your employees when they meet your expectations. A simple act of appreciation goes a long way.

Also read: Tips For Inspiring Your Team And Driving Employee Engagement

You Point Out Only Mistakes:

Like mentioned above, employees make mistakes, but they also complete their given tasks. You can’t only focus on the mistakes they make and ignore their accomplishments. You don’t have to focus only on their mistakes and taunt them always.

All you can do as a manager is, to talk about the mistake and help them correct it if possible.

You Shy Away From Fulfilling Promises:

Promising something to your employees and not keeping those promises, makes you lose your personal credibility.

When you promise something to your employees they take it as a done deal. Be sure that you can keep a promise before making it. By saying this, we do not mean that you lie to your employees; it is just that, you should be sure of your ability to keep the promise you make. If you constantly fail to keep your promises, your staff may completely lose respect for you.

You Rarely Interact With Your Team:

When you are a manager, you can’t just be an emotionless, command-giving robot in the office. Communicate with your employees and understand their problems. Talk to them about their work, your work, or anything.

When you don’t communicate your ideas with your employees, they can never reach your expectations. If you want to see your organisational goals met, then get started.

You Play Favourites:

As a human, you might enjoy working with a few people and it is completely normal. But, when you are a manager, you’ve got different responsibilities and different people working as a team under you.

You can’t respond differently to different people for the same behaviour because of your personal preferences. If you do, it creates a really unfair workplace environment.

 

Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with Employee Engagement and motivation? Schedule a live demo and talk with our experts!

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This Study Says That You Should Hire More Female Leaders

According to Women In Workplace 2019 study by McKinsey & Company, the overall representation of women in the C-suite is far from parity. About 1 in 5 C-suite executives is a woman—and only 1 in 25 C-suite executives is a woman of colour.

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Tips For Inspiring Your Team And Driving Employee Engagement

Why is it so important to keep employees motivated at workplace? Employees spend about 70% of their day’s time at work and if their workplace isn’t able to inspire them enough, they cannot contribute to organizational success.

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Is Employee Feedback Really Just A Waste Of Time?

You recently got promoted as a manager, and you find out that one of your direct reports’ performance isn’t upto the mark. You talk to the HR about the process to convey the same to the direct report, the HR suggests you to document their performance and convey it to them through it.

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How to Build a High-Performing Organisational Culture

Every organisation strives towards cultivating a high performing work culture. When employee retention is low and they leave after lodging multiple complaints, it’s a sign you need to look deeper into your company’s culture.

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Understanding and Handling Employee Complaints

Imagine you’re the HR manager of an organisation and have already had a stressful day at work. An employee, who has been trying to reach out to you since morning, finally walks up to you and reports of harassment from a colleague.

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