Article for February

To successfully engage workers, follow golden rule

By Lilia Borlongan-Alvarez
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:31:00 02/27/2011
Filed Under: Employers, Employees, business

MANILA, Philippines—Low productivity. Employees making too many mistakes. Grumbling. Complaining. Absenteeism. Tardiness. Voluntary terminations.

These are signs employers should watch out for, especially if they intend to retain talent and highly motivated employees.

When people cease to function as a team, or when they quit interacting with their managers and their co-workers, or show a “don’t care” attitude, it is indicative of low employee engagement, writes Paul Harvey, in a web article titled “The Rules of Engagement: How to Empower Employees so They’ll Exceed Expectations.” The article was published by Smart Business Network, a leading publisher of management journals in the United States.

Recognition

Harvey advises employers to follow (and may we dare say “interiorize”) the very simple philosophy behind the Golden Rule: treat people the way you would like to be treated.

“You know what makes you feel good, what makes you feel bad, and what makes you work,” Harvey says.

Asked how employers can truly engage their employees, Harvey says the one thing that stands out is that employees want recognition more than money.

Recognizing and rewarding employees for work well done demonstrate management’s care and concern for workers.

“They want to know that you see and appreciate what they do. People want to go home with a good feeling that they have really accomplished something,” he says.

As one motivational speaker has said: “Appreciation and recognition play the role calories play in the nutrition of the human body.”

Know your workers

In successful employee engagement, there are three things managers should know—the names and spellings of every employee, their shift and pay rate, and enough about them to start a conversation.

“Managers should listen to their employees and let them know they have an interest in them. Sometimes we’re so busy talking, we forget to listen. It is easy to have this interaction and it buys you the engagement your company needs to survive,” Harvey says.

One tactic leading to empowered and engaged employees, Harvey suggests, is putting up suggestion boxes where employees earn money for giving a suggestion.

“Managers, supervisors and employers can start each day with a huddle—talking about birthdays, anniversaries and the like. Then each manager goes back to his or her group and they have a huddle, so it trickles down,” he says.

Tools they need

Harvey says beyond the little things, people need a sense of belonging.

“Maybe it’s on the social committee or an audit team. They should also be given all the tools they need—not just the physical tools such as computers. It’s also subjective things like good working conditions, training and retraining, and a pleasant environment,” he recommends. “If you go to bat for them and get these things, they’re going to remember that when you ask them to do something which is not in their job description.”

Reference: http://business.inquirer.net/money/topstories/view/20110227-322570/To-successfully-engage-workers-follow-golden-rule

Reaction:

When read only once, this article does not give much input about Economics, it talks about Employee engangement where in an employee who is fully involved and enthusiastic about his or her work, acts on the company's best interest. The article basically gives tips about how to make your employees happy and satisfied with your work and it tells us that  good communication between managers and employees gives better results in Employee engangement than just by increasing their pay. So we ask, because money is not so much involved, why would I pick this article for Economics?

As defined in our reference, "Economics Principles" written by N. Gregory Mankiw, Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources. While not so much direct, I believe the article does in a way, talk about economics.

To further elaborate, let's put it this way:

Of course, employees are people who work to earn a living, in terms of Economics, they are considered the labor force. Labor includes limited time and of course the effort put forth by the employees to produce goods. And then there is the firm, an organization that produces, consumes and distributes goods and services, which is a sort of society.

In a way, I can relate the both of them by thinking of the firm as a society who is trying to produce more even though they have scarce resources. They are trying to be efficient enough to gain their goals, which is in this case, the maximization of profit.

To me, this article is related to economics, because society in general is also trying to improve its production by giving tips on how to improve employees performance. This particular article gives good tips too, and it reminded me of a fact that I had forgotten when I'm studying the subject. When I study economics, I usually put myself in a belief that people do things for money or to be able to consume more, while this belief still holds true and makes studying simple, I had forgotten the fact that it is not the only driving force of a very important resource which is Labor. When studying economics, I tend to forget that humans are creatures that respond to job satisfaction and especially recognition and this article reminded me of that. While I cannot very much relate to the article as I am not yet working, I can indeed attest to what it says. As a student, when I get feedback, especially those that are good, I tend to enjoy studying and work even harder.

I think I've not given much input regarding the article, however, I chose this article because, thankfully, it reminded me that we humans work for different reason and not just for money and consumption and before the term ends too! What good timing!