More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Samuel Johnson once wrote, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”
Every human being that works has to know that what they do matters to another human being.
people deserve to like their jobs, and that it's up to managers to make that possible.
a company deserves to have its employees care about the business and do their best to make it successful.
Anonymity People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known.
Irrelevance Everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone.
Immeasurement Employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves.
The benefits to an organization that can build a culture of engagement—and the issues that prevent us from realizing those benefits—are worth exploring before outlining an employee engagement program: increased productivity, greater retention and lower costs, and cultural differentiation.
Increased Productivity Employees who find fulfillment in their jobs are going to work with more enthusiasm, passion, and attention to quality than their counterparts who do not, mostly because they develop a sense of ownership and pride in what they are doing.
Greater Retention and Lower Costs Simply stated, employees hang onto fulfilling jobs as long as they can, mostly because they know that their chances of finding another are relatively slim.
Cultural differentiation, however, is more valuable than it's ever been, because it requires courage and discipline more than creativity or intelligence.
In order to be the kind of leader who demonstrates genuine interest in employees and who can help people discover the relevance of their work, a person must have a level of personal confidence and emotional vulnerability.
Anonymity It is immensely more difficult to decide to leave an organization or a team (or a family for that matter) when you feel that others on the team know and understand you as an individual.
a direct supervisor needs to take a genuine, personal interest in an employee in order to increase that employee's engagement and satisfaction.
what may be illegal when selecting a candidate is actually a basic form of human kindness once someone has been hired.
To manage another human being effectively requires some degree of empathy and curiosity about why that person gets out of bed in the morning, what is on their mind, and how you can contribute to them becoming a better person.
Human beings need to be needed, and they need to be reminded of this pretty much every day. They need to know that they are helping others, not merely serving themselves.
managers must help their employees understand that their work has a meaningful impact on them.
If managers cannot see beyond what their employees are doing and help them understand who they are helping and how they are making a difference, then those jobs are bound to be miserable.
one of the most important things that managers must do is help employees see why their work matters to someone.
great employees don't want their success to depend on the subjective views or opinions of another human being.
Employees who can measure their own progress or contribution are going to develop a greater sense of personal responsibility and engagement than those who cannot.
The key to establishing effective measures for a job lies in identifying those areas that an employee can directly influence, and then ensuring that the specific measurements are connected to the person or people they are meant to serve.
