Engage Your Employees...Especially Now

I'm a big fan of the books authored by Leigh Branham.  He recently shared his findings from his latest book, "Re-Engage: How America's Best Places To Work Inspire Extra Effort In Extraordinary Times."

What he found after studying 10,000 employers is that the senior leaders at the best performing companies during these tough economic times are doing these three things to maximize engagement with their employees:

1. Developing a clear and credible plan for, and path to, success
2. Making sure the plan is clearly communicated from top to bottom
3. Seeking and welcoming every idea for making the plan a reality and delivering more value (e.g. big and small improvements, new ideas and suggestions for innovation.)

Without these actions and in the absence of communication from management, Branham says employees create their own information, which is often worse than the reality.

The three things one should do may see like common sense and may appear easy to do, but it's surprising how few companies have leaders who follow-through with all three.  So, it's good to be reminded of what is working for the best companies during this challenging economy.

And, speaking of best companies, Branham told me that Best Buy has received more than 900 cost-cutting and revenue-producing ideas from its employees via its employee social media site called Blue-Shirt Nation.  What a great way to make it easy for employees to submit ideas.

Re-Engage is co-authored by Branham and Mark Hirschfeld and the authors worked with Quantum Workplace on the research for the book.