Retaining Your Top Talent

Now that the U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of life and companies are looking to hire again, it’s important to remember that this also opens the door for existing employees to explore their options elsewhere.

The last thing you want now is to lose your top talent to competitors. But if you don’t focus on the things that are important to these employees, you may find that they will indeed leave for greener pastures.

According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, nearly one-third of employers (32 percent) report that top performers left their organizations in 2012 and 39 percent are concerned that they’ll lose top talent this year. And while two-thirds of workers stated they are generally satisfied with their jobs, one quarter said they will change jobs in 2013 or 2014.

More than 3,900 full-time workers nationwide participated in the survey that was conducted online by Harris Interactive November 2012. The survey explored which job factors are most important to today’s workers.

“What determines job satisfaction is not a one-size-fits-all, but flexibility, recognition, the ability to make a difference and yes, even special perks, can go a long way,” said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder. “Being compensated well will always be a top consideration, but we’re seeing work-life balance, telecommuting options and learning opportunities outweigh other job factors when an employee decides whether to stay with an organization.”

A better job title is not important to more than half of workers (55 percent), however, upward mobility is key to job satisfaction and employee retention. Other things more important than job title include:

• Flexible schedule – 59 percent
• Being able to make a difference – 48 percent
• Challenging work – 35 percent
• Ability to work from home – 33 percent

Not surprisingly, nearly three quarters of workers reported that salary increases are the best way to boost employee retention while 58 percent pointed to improved benefits. Other actions workers said employers should take to reduce voluntary turnover include:

• Provide flexible schedules – 51 percent
• Increase employee recognition (awards, cash prizes, company trips) – 50 percent
• Ask employees what they want and put feedback into action – 48 percent
• Increase training and learning opportunities – 35 percent

Three areas I want to focus on include flexibility, being able to make a difference, and effective managers.

Flexibility
As I’ve written about previously, the flexibility to do the work when and where people want is an important way to stimulate employee engagement.

The premise of Results Only Work Ethic or ROWE is that employees are paid for results rather than hours worked. This provides both the freedom for employees and the results for employers. ROWE is based on the assumption that employees will do more and better work when given the latitude to decide how and when it is done.

In order to do this, of course, requires that these results are closely tracked and measured. If companies can do this and also trust their employees not to take advantage of the flexibility, then they should provide an opportunity for many to work at home.

Making a Difference
When it comes to being able to make a difference, employers need to continually remind workers the importance of their individual and collective contributions. Ensure that no matter the position, every person in every company knows how their contribution leads to the success of the organization. All of us can lose sight of this the further we are from the customer or the end result of our individual efforts.

Having a boss who reminds us of the benefit of our direct contribution can mean the difference between job satisfaction and the need to look elsewhere.

Effective Managers
Another thing to keep in mind is that people are attracted to and seek jobs at companies based on their reputation. On the other hand, people leave companies because of a bad boss. Although it may not show up directly in the research due to fear of retribution, many employees choose to leave a company not because they want better compensation, but because they don’t like their boss.

This dislike could be based on many factors, but it is worth looking into before it becomes an epidemic. Many managers and directors simply never got adequate training and instruction on how to be effective at leading people.

Talented people won’t let an incompetent or unfair manager stand in their way of job satisfaction, and will move on if necessary.

Ensure that your managers and directors know how to motivate and lead people in a way that brings increased productivity without sacrificing employee engagement. This may require training, mentoring, coaching or other interventions that are vital to keeping your top talent.

Don’t let your top talent leave now that the economy is improving. Instead, determine how you can provide what your employees need to increase overall productivity while also what they want to raise employee engagement. Then they will stay.

Employees (Engaged or Disengaged) Make or Break Your Business

When companies focus first on their employees, customers are likely to be satisfied. This results in profitability, which then makes shareholders happy. Things can go very wrong if employee focus is not at the beginning of this equation.

In a new edition of Managing with a Conscience: How to Improve Performance Through Integrity, Trust, and Commitment, Frank Sonnenberg writes “companies must encourage employees to be passionate about what they do, to remain laser focused on their organization’s mission and goals, and to be obsessed with customer service excellence.”

One of the ways to measure such encouragement and focus is through employee engagement. If employee engagement is high, then you are likely encouraging and focusing on your employees. If it is low, then you are probably not.

Employee engagement can best be described as the level of intellectual and emotional commitment an employee has for accomplishing the work, mission, and vision of the organization. And the level of active engagement or active disengagement can be a game changer in whether an organization succeeds or fails.

According to The Economist, 84% of senior leaders say disengaged employees are considered one of the biggest threats facing their business. However, only 12% of them reported doing anything about this problem.

Though it may be difficult to attribute costs directly to under-performance, Gallup estimated employee disengagement costs the overall US economy as much as $350 billion every year! This can break down to more than $2,200 per disengaged employee.

Just what do disengaged employees do or not do to cost companies so much and how can you identify them? Disengaged employees:

• Take more sick days and are late to work more often.
• Undermine the work of their more engaged colleagues by constantly complaining.
• Produce less. According to Gallup research, this can be $3,400 to $10,000 in annual salary.
• Miss deadlines and lose sales opportunities.
• Use cynicism, which is often passed on to other employees and customers.
• May be very talented, but leave to join another company.

In many cases, disengaged workers may need to be removed because they cannot be turned around. However, most of your employees are neither engaged nor disengaged, and this is something you can influence.

To increase employee engagement, a leader must (1) continually demonstrate integrity and trust, (2) clearly communicate their vision, and (3) encourage the inner work lives of employees.

Consistently Demonstrate Trust and Integrity
Perhaps the single most important element attributable to active employee engagement or disengagement is directly related to the level of trust within the organization. In the same way a marriage requires complete trust in order to flourish, so too do the relationships in the rest of our lives, including at work. Leaders must be honest with their employees and keep them in the loop, especially when times are tough. Showing vulnerabilities during tough times mean employees can see you more fully as a human being and just like them.  They are then more likely to want to follow your lead and do their best.

Clearly Communicate a Vision
According to Mercer’s 2002 People at Work Survey, when senior management communicated a clear vision and direction of the organization, fewer employees were dissatisfied than when senior management did not communicate its vision effectively (7% versus 39%); fewer employees said they did not feel a strong sense of commitment to the organization (6% versus 32%); and fewer employees said they were seriously thinking about leaving the organization (16% versus 40%). If your employees clearly understand where you want the organization to go, they will do their best to help get there.

Encourage Employee Inner Work Lives
As I wrote in a previous post, steady and continual progress toward goals is easily the most effective way to motivate employees. According to Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, authors of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, the best leaders focus on helping employees lead satisfying inner work lives that include consistently positive emotions, strong motivation and favorable perceptions of the organization, the work and their colleagues. Celebrating milestones and small victories can keep workers on track and motivated to continue.

By focusing on these three things you can raise employee engagement in your organization. And nothing can more directly influence your productivity and profitability, regardless of the size of your business.

Motivate Employees through Continual Progress

Actively engaged workers dramatically improve productivity and, according to a new book on the subject, the most effective way to engage employees is to help them make steady progress toward their goals.

As I wrote in a previous post, employee engagement should not be merely an HR initiative to use when morale is down. It also should not be a one-off intervention after other extrinsic incentives have been offered up.

Instead, employee engagement should be a strategic approach for driving improvement that is directly linked to achieving corporate goals and organizational change. It should lead to workers who are more emotionally attached, involved and fully committed to their organizations. This can profoundly increase productivity.

In The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, the authors determined that steady, continual progress is far and away the most effective way to motivate employees.

Their research included nearly 12,000 daily reports from 236 knowledge workers from 26 project teams in seven different companies. Each employee was asked to respond every day to the following: Briefly describe one event from today that stands out in your mind.

What the authors found from this was that the best leaders help employees lead satisfying inner work lives, which include consistently positive emotions, strong motivation, and favorable perceptions of the organization, the work and their colleagues.

“Inner work life,” write Amabile and Kramer, “is the confluence of perceptions, emotions, and motivations that individuals experience as they react to and make sense of the events of their workday. Inner work life is about emotions—positive or negative—triggered by any event at work.”

A positive inner work life can be influenced by three elements: progress in meaningful work, catalysts or events that directly help project work, and nourishers or the interpersonal events that uplift people doing the work.

Progress events include:

• Small wins
• Breakthroughs
• Forward movement
• Goal completion

Catalyst events support the work through:

• Setting clear goals
• Allowing autonomy
• Providing resources
• Providing sufficient time
• Helping with work
• Learning from problems and successes
• Allowing ideas to flow

Nourishing events support the individual and include:

• Respect
• Encouragement
• Emotional support
• Affiliation

Turns out how we feel greatly determines how well we perform. And that feeling is most heavily influenced by whether or not we are making progress toward our goals.

On the flipside are events that directly lead to a negative inner work life, which stymies engagement and productivity. Negative events include setbacks in the work, inhibitors or events that directly hinder project work, and toxins or interpersonal events that undermine the people doing the work.

And these negative events can be much more powerful than positive events, all other things being equal. They can also contribute to an increase in actively disengaged workers, who can then undermine everything we are trying to accomplish.

Today’s business environment requires a greater reliance on groups of people working collaboratively to solve increasingly more challenging problems. If the feelings we have can so dramatically impact our motivation to work effectively together and find creative solutions, then heeding this advice to engage employees is paramount to our success.

What about you? Are you actively engaged at work? Is it due to the fact that you are continually making progress as well as finding catalysts and nourishers along the way?

Engaged Employees Make all the Difference

Is employee engagement really important or is it just nice to have and something to think about once economic times improve?

The fact is companies with a high percentage of engaged employees are more profitable than those with fewer engaged workers. High engagement can improve employee retention and raise customer perceptions that directly lead to better financial performance.

Overall, most companies have about one-third of their employees fully engaged in their work. Yet recent surveys suggest that as many as four out of five workers would leave their current job if they could, but most think they would have trouble finding another one right now.

Engaged employees are those who are involved in and enthusiastic about their work. Those who are not engaged are satisfied but are not emotionally connected to their workplace and are less likely to put in extra effort. Those who are actively disengaged are emotionally disconnected from the work and workplace and jeopardize the performance of their teams. Their physical health may also be at risk.

A recent Gallup survey found that in the average big company only 33% of employees describe themselves as fully engaged in their work, 49% say they are not engaged and 18% say they are actively disengaged.

Gallup’s research found there is a strong relationship between engagement and high-performance outcomes which include customer loyalty, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism, patient safety incidents, and quality (defects). They also learned that organizations with a high percentage of engaged employees have nearly four times the earnings per share growth rate compared to organizations in the same industry with lower enagement.

In what Gallup calls world-class organizations, the ratio of engaged workers to actively disengaged workers is about 10:1. Whereas in average organizations, the ratio of engaged workers to actively disengaged workers is about 2:1.

All too often, employee engagement is viewed as an HR initiative to improve morale among employees when things aren’t going so well. These intiatives do little to raise the level of employee engagement, and sometimes they even undermine it. That’s because employee engagement is distinctively different from employee satisfaction, motivation and organizational culture.

In the best companies employee engagement is a strategic approach for driving improvement that is directly linked to achieving corporate goals and organizational change. It can lead to employees who are more emotionally attached, involved and fully commited to their organizations. And it can profoundly increase productivity.

Employee engagement should be an organization-wide effort, and so much of its execution is dependent on good managers. As I wrote about in a previous post, employees join an organization based on the reputation of the company or the quality of its products or service. But they most often leave because of their manager.

In a down economy when hiring is stagnant and organizations are trying to get the most out of the people they already have, managers can engage employees in many ways. This includes clarifying expectations, providing adequate resources, giving recognition, encouraging their professional development, helping them connect to the organization’s purpose, and measuring and discussing progress more often than once each year.

Managers who do these as part of an overall employee engagement strategy are more likely to produce high-quality work and retain employees.

At a time with high unemployment, stagnant wages and workers staying in their jobs only because they fear they cannot find something better, it is the perfect time to execute an employee engagement strategy to energize your people.

In most organizations employees are the biggest expense and, far and away, the greatest asset. Now is the time to invest in a strategy that will raise the number of fully engaged employees and increase your profitability. You’ll be glad you did both now and when the economy improves.

Statistically Significant: Effective Managers use Soft Skills

In 2009 Google, Inc. began an internal initiative called Project Oxygen in order to better understand what makes an effective Google manager.

They analyzed more than 10,000 observations about managers, including 100 variables on things like performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. They correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.

This data-driven method for improving managers was based on the premise that Google workers are different from other workers.

In the end, Project Oxygen’s statisticians came up with eight directives that separate good managers from bad managers. These include such common sense things like:

“Have a clear vision and strategy for the team.”

“Help your employees with career development.”

“Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.”

What Google found in its research is that employees most valued managers with people skills, not technical ones. Rather than being told what to do, employees want to be helped through figuring out problems for themselves.

“Although people are always looking for the next new thing in leadership,” says D. Scott DeRue, a management professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. “Google’s data suggest that not much has changed in terms of what makes for an effective leader.”

According to a recent article in the The New York Times, Google’s “people operations” group, led by Laszlo Bock, “found that technical expertise—the ability, say, to write computer code in your sleep—ranked dead last” among the list of Google’s eight main habits of effective managers.

Bock admitted they had assumed managers needed to have deep technical knowledge in order to effectively manage other engineers. Turns out this is the least important of the top eight qualities.

Project Oxygen discovered that two of the most important things managers can do is make time for their people and be consistent. It turns out these two things are more important than doing all of the other things.

This is not unique to Google, of course. Today’s workers need to connect with their teams and especially their immediate supervisors. It’s not that we are especially insecure and need constant feedback on what we do, but we are often isolated from the end product or bigger picture and it’s hard to know whether or not we’re doing a good job and whether we matter.

Connecting with the people who work for you and giving feedback more often than an annual performance review can be a powerful motivator.

Research suggests that employees join a company due to its reputation and they leave a company primarily due to their manager. Google’s data confirmed that managers have a much greater impact on employees’ performance and how they feel about their job than any other factor.

Soft skills, the very things that are so difficult to quantify and aren’t easily recognizable on resumes, really do make a difference in how people manage others.

As I wrote in a previous post with regard to what employees say they want from their managers, the first three are all in the category of soft skills. These are:

1. Full appreciation for work done
2. Feeling ‘part’ of things
3. Sympathetic help on personal issues

Many managers reading this may find these are not at all consistent with their own employees who surely want more tangible things like good wages, job security and promotions. But these results have been consistent over the last thirty years.

Google has grown incredibly fast since its founding in 1998. They expertly navigated this growth by hiring smart technical people and let them figure out how best to get things done. Now they need to shift the focus on replicating the people skills of their most effective managers so they can continue this growth.

Social Networks Bottom-line Benefits Require Employee Focus

Companies embracing social networks both internally and externally appear to be achieving bottom-line benefits, but this requires more than technology. It also means empowering employees at every level to make decisions and provide them with more flexibility in how to solve problems.

According to recent findings by McKinsey & Company, a new class of company is emerging that uses collaborative Web 2.0 technologies (wikis, blogs, social networks, mash-ups, etc.) intensively to connect the internal efforts of employees and extend an organization’s reach to customers, partners and suppliers.

The McKinsey worldwide survey of 3,249 executives across a range of regions, industries and functional areas found that two-thirds of respondents use Web 2.0 technologies in their organizations and the results are paying off. The survey asked respondents about their patterns of Web 2.0 use, the measurable business benefits they derived from it and the organizational impact of Web technologies.

More than two-thirds (69%) reported that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.

This is great news for businesses and their shareholders as well as the economy as a whole. The widespread use of Twitter and Facebook is beginning to look like more than a passing fad, but as a valid way to leverage business opportunities. Blogging can now be used to reach customers more directly and establish stronger relationships.

This is also good for a company’s ability to increase productivity, innovate more and increase employee engagement. According to the survey, the internal organizational impact included increased information sharing, less hierarchical information flows and collaboration across organizational silos.

Those businesses who embrace Web 2.0 technologies both internally and externally deploy talent more flexibly to deal with problems and allow employees lower in the corporate hierarchy to make decisions.

Implementing any new technology in an organization requires employee training to use it, but in the case of Web 2.0, there is also a need to alter corporate culture behaviorally. Just because there is a wiki, doesn’t mean people will contribute to it. Blogging without guidelines, support and incentives won’t necessarily lead to greater usage.

Social networking requires truly embracing the social to be successful and this may very well change the way employees interact inside the organization. Information won’t flow more freely because of technology alone. It also requires a cultural shift in the way employees interact with each other that is based upon mutual respect and trust.

Perhaps this is what separates the 3% of companies included in the McKinsey survey who are considered fully networked—those that have embraced Web 2.0 technologies both internally and externally. They are realizing the most benefits because they have focused their efforts on the cultural aspects as well as the technology.

To realize the bottom-line benefits of Web 2.0, organizations need to focus on the behavior accompanying it. This means empowering employees and giving them greater flexibility to do their jobs.

How is Web 2.0 technology being adopted in your company? Is it just the latest business strategy or is it fully embraced and supported with a focus on shifting the corporate culture so that it can be successful?

Thriving in the Knowledge Economy

The American K-12 public education system is failing to keep up with our counterparts around the world. There is much blame to pass around and despite governmental programs like “No Child Left Behind,” many challenges have yet to be addressed.

Recent documentary films such as “Waiting for Superman” and “Race to Nowhere” are helping to bring this concern front and center, but it may take no short of a revolution to change how we currently educate our children.

And if American-educated students fail to meet the grade, this likely means they will not have the knowledge and skills to compete for twenty-first-century jobs. This is a huge concern.

Tony Wagner, a Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.

Wagner’s thesis revolves around “Seven Survival skills”—the core competencies he sees as necessary for success both in college and in the twenty-first-century workforce. These seven survival skills are:

1. problem solving and critical thinking
2. collaboration across networks
3. adaptability
4. initiative
5. effective oral and written communication
6. analyzing information
7. developing curiosity and imagination

In this knowledge economy it should also be clear that organizations need to prepare existing workers to meet today’s challenges. Many have focused on recruiting workers with critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and these are the things many colleges and universities focus on in their curriculum.

But what about the other skills not easily measured with academic tests? These include such straight-forward things as the ability to collaborate and effectively communicate as well as the more esoteric “developing curiosity and imagination.” If these are also essential skills that will enable workers to succeed in the new economy, how can they be developed with current employees?

Many in today’s workforce not only need assistance in learning these skills, but the organizations they work for must also encourage their use. If a company truly wants their employees to collaborate more, they must encourage teams to work together more cooperatively rather than compete with each other for projects and promotions.

Excellent written and oral communication skills are so often requested by employers and documented on resumes by prospective employees that there should be no problem. But, of course, there is. Improving written communication skills beyond text messaging and cryptic tweeting will only continue to be of concern.

Organizations who truly want their workers to take initiative must back it up with incentives (financial and otherwise) to reward this behavior. How often is the phrase “it’s better to beg for forgiveness, than ask for permission” heard around your office?

And if the company wants a worker to develop his or her curiosity and imagination, then the company must accept that there will be missteps, mistakes, and bad decisions along the way. Individual and organizational learning is the likely output and encouraging it can lead to the innovative thinking necessary to compete.

To thrive in the knowledge economy, organizations must have workers capable of critical thinking and problem-solving. They must have employees who effectively communicate, collaborate across networks, analyze information and are adaptable. They also need each employee to take individual initiative and develop their curiosity and imagination.

As with any employee improvement strategy, this requires management to back up their words with deeds. This means providing the training, support, learning, and incentives that truly promote the development of all these essential skills.

How well do employees in your organization problem-solve, effectively communicate and collaborate? If not very well, are there programs in place to address them?

5 Things Managers Should Say to Employees

With nearly ten percent unemployment, it may seem ludicrous that a manager needs to say anything nice to employees these days. But you might consider the upside of treating your people well in hard times as well as good times.

In an earlier post, I wrote about things an employee should say to his or her boss. This provoked some harsh feedback because many readers may have thought I was referring to an employer as opposed to an immediate supervisor or manager. The immediate supervisor is someone who very likely also has a boss and therefore knows what it’s like to be in your shoes.

Unfortunately, there is a great divide between what employees want versus what their bosses think they want. And this has been consistent for a long time.

A survey on the discrepancy between what employees want versus what managers think employees want was conducted in 1946 by Foreman Facts, from the Labor Relations Institute of NY. This study was replicated with similar results by Ken Kovach (1980); Valerie Wilson, Achievers International (1988); Bob Nelson, Blanchard Training & Development (1991); and Sheryl & Don Grimme, GHR Training Solutions (1997-2001).

What Employees Say They Want (in order)
1. Full appreciation for work done
2. Feeling ‘part’ of things
3. Sympathetic help on personal issues
4. Job security
5. Good wages
6. Interesting work
7. Promotion/growth opportunities
8. Personal loyalty to workers
9. Good working conditions
10. Tactful discipline

What Managers Think Employees Want (in order)
1. Good wages
2. Job security
3. Promotion/growth opportunities
4. Good working conditions
5. Interesting work
6. Personal loyalty to workers
7. Tactful discipline
8. Full appreciation for work done
9. Sympathetic help on personal issues
10. Feeling ‘part’ of things.

If you just look at the top three things that employees say they want from their managers, you can see that these are at the bottom of what managers think employees want.

As someone who has worked in both for-profit and non-profit organizations, it always amazed me how little businesses use praise in the way it is often used in non-profits. A genuine “thank you” or “nice job on that project” can truly make someone’s day and often make an employee feel more satisfied and productive in his or her job.

Managers often forget that what motivates them are the same things that motivate their people. Employees want to be recognized and appreciated. They want to be treated humanely. And they want to be integral to the organization. Bottom line: it’s not always about the money.

Here are five things a manager should say to employees:

1. “How can I help?” Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard developed the Situational Leadership Model on the importance of providing a combination of direction and support depending on where the employee is at a given time and position. Ask your employees what they need from you to perform their best.
2. “Great job on . . .” Use specificity to make your praise authentic and meaningful. Everyone craves appreciation and receiving it can be more powerful in motivating an employee than just about anything else.
3. “You seem particularly happy/sad/irritated . . .” Insert something genuine here to show you are paying attention to feelings. Say it in a way that communicates you are concerned and then really listen for understanding.
4. “I want your input on . . .” This can make an employee feel engaged and appreciated in the organization like nothing else. But don’t say it unless you mean it and will consider what they say.
5. “Thank you.” These two words are never used enough in the workplace. Using them more often is not simply for common courtesy, but as a way of connecting and showing appreciation for a job well done.

Employees and managers are more stressed than ever, working faster and with fewer resources. And lots of managers mistakenly think they are too busy to give praise, show appreciation, or truly connect with their employees.

But the best managers—ones who are able to effectively direct and support employees, recognize and appreciate them when appropriate, and remain sensitive to their emotional needs—are likely to get the most out of their people and thereby increase their own value to the organization.

What about you? Does this ring true for you who manage other people? As an employee, would you be more satisfied, motivated, and productive if you heard these things from your boss?

Seven Things You Should Say to Your Boss

Working for someone else can be challenging no matter how good the boss may be. Nurturing this relationship can be important for your immediate job satisfaction as well as keep advancement opportunities front and center.

With this in mind, there are many things you should never say to your boss. For example, “this is not my job, it’s not my problem, or it can’t be done.” These will only aggravate your boss and demonstrate that you are not a team player and cannot be trusted to get the work completed.

Building a positive relationship with your boss can be vital to your general well being but, like any relationship, it takes time and energy.

Every manager or supervisor is likely to appreciate certain qualities in an employee. These include having credibility, being solution-oriented, being a good team player, being a good listener, and—if there is such a thing where you work—following the chain of command.

“The relationship with your boss is a partnership,” says Jane Boucher, author of How To Love The Job You Hate: Job Satisfaction for the 21st Century. “It takes effort to build the relationship and nurture it. You have to communicate well, avoid confrontations, and resolve differences in a positive way.”

It’s important to learn your boss’s concerns and goals. Try to fully understand the problems and pressures he or she confronts on a daily basis. Listen carefully to what your boss says and doesn’t say. And know when it’s wise for you not to say anything.

“You can lessen the chance that your boss will make bad decisions that adversely affect you and your career by managing your relationship with the boss,” Boucher says. “Keep the boss informed about what’s going on at work and never forget the pressure your boss is under. Honesty and reliability will win the hearts of most bosses.”

So what are specific ways you can maintain a positive working relationship with your boss? I have seven suggestions for things you should say to your boss.

1. “I’d like to discuss priorities.” All of us at one time or another get overwhelmed with responsibilities, and sorting through what is most important is something our boss should help us with. More than likely, it is good just to check in to be sure what we think is most important is also most important for the boss.
   
2. “I’d like your opinion.” All of us have an opinion and are typically proud to give it. In the case of a boss, this can be especially helpful as this person is likely to have a perspective different than yours. Be genuinely interested in this opinion whether you choose to accept and implement it or not.
   
3. “Here’s something I really appreciate about you.” Supervisors and middle managers get lots of complaints, but very few compliments. Unless you work for an absolutely terrible boss, he or she probably has some positive qualities. Express your appreciation for these, but only if you are truly sincere.
4. “I’ve got some bad news and a potential solution.” Employees are typically closer to the work and therefore spot impending trouble before managers do. Be proactive and give your boss a heads up about a problem as well as a potential solution. This will make you a more highly valued employee.
   
5. “How am I doing? What can I improve upon?” Don’t wait for your annual review to find out your boss’s opinion on how you’re doing. Initiate an occasional feedback discussion to learn how your performance is perceived as well as how and where you can further improve.
   
6. “How can I help?” Everyone needs assistance at times and this includes your boss. He or she may be unable or unwilling to ask given your other priorities, but when you see that you might be able and willing to lend a hand, be sure to ask how.
   
7. “Thank you.” This could be for any number of things, such as guidance, patience, support, or the overall flexibility in how you get your job done. Whatever it is, be sure to let your boss know that you appreciate what he or she has done for you.

Speaking with your boss regularly can go a long way towards maintaining a positive relationship. By breaking the habit of simply going over the same job-related tasks and functions, and delving into more personal areas, you can create greater familiarity and closeness. This can make your immediate work environment more enjoyable and it may further your career opportunities

Should Fun be Mandated at Work?

Fun activities in the workplace can often improve employee engagement. When these are mandated or poorly concocted, however, the fun can actually be counterproductive and reduce overall morale.

Some companies have used fun activities as a way to recruit new employees. It is used to increase customer engagement and even to help leverage social media opportunities. But is this fun really effective if it is mandated rather than grown more spontaneously?

Some examples of the fun activities I’m speaking of include:

• TD Bank, the American arm of Canada’s Toronto Dominion, has a “Wow!” department that sends out teams in costumes to “surprise and delight” successful workers.

• Google offers employees volleyball courts, roller hockey and bicycle paths to encourage hanging out longer in the workplace.
• The London branch of Red Bull recently installed a slide in its office.

• Acclaris, an IT company, has a “chief fun officer.”

• Twitter claims one of its core values as creating “fun and a little weirdness.”

• Zappos encourages workers to form noisy conga lines and then single out an individual colleague for praise, whereupon the person must wear a silly hat for a week.

What is it about fun that makes it necessary for employers to create it for us? Is this due to much of the younger workforce having had so many structured fun activities as children: heavily scheduled playdates by helicopter mothers, overly supervised slumber parties, too little downtime between extracurricular activities?

Encouraging employees to have fun while at work is all well and good, but this shouldn’t be a requirement. And what that fun looks like should not be decided by public relations or human resources departments in isolation of rank and file employees.

There are many ways employees can find more joy in their work. The most basic are not so much fun and games, as they are simply more supportive of the workers.

Fostering an environment where people feel empowered to do their best work should be executed long before efforts on creating fun. These can include such sensible things as:

Safe Environment – Ensure that every employee feels physically and emotionally safe to execute his or her job function. If employees are more concerned about their personal safety, they are not going to be able to enjoy any fun activities.

Open Communication – Provide the opportunity for every employee to feel free to speak with others throughout the organization. Keep an open door policy so that all ideas and concerns—both positive and not so positive can be heard.

Meaningful Values – Netflix includes nine behaviors and skills that they value in all employees: judgment, communication, impact, curiosity, innovation, courage, passion, honesty, selflessness. Working around people that embody these nine values would trump all fun activities for me.

Team Building – Provide opportunities where people can bond on topics outside the work they do. This can often be loads of fun with extremely powerful benefit of building trust and teamwork.

Advancement Opportunities – Ensure there is a career path for every employee so that expectations can be met and incentives exist to encourage moving up in the organization.

Flex Time – Perhaps the most fun employees can have is in first ensuring that their personal lives and families are taken into consideration. This could ultimately mean that an employee does not want to have fun at work if it means additional time away from his or her family.

These things will certainly help employees feel more joy in the workplace, which can result in higher employee engagement. They are also likely to improve productivity and that’s the kind of fun we could all use in this economy.