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Is Team Building a Waste of Money?

Is Team Building a Waste of Money? | Arc Integrated

At Arc Integrated, we’re often asked whether team building is just a drain on resources. The truth? It can be—if it’s not approached with strategic intent. As leaders in enhancing team dynamics and organizational culture, we’ve seen what works and what doesn’t over the last decade. Today, we’re thrilled to share five tested strategies that ensure your team building investment pays off.

1. Connect Team Building to Its True Purpose

Let’s be honest: a lot of team building events are just plain fun. But what’s often missing is a connection to the deeper ‘why’. Why are we here? What are we aiming to improve? The secret sauce is linking these activities directly to enhancing performance—be it through better communication, problem-solving skills, or productivity. It’s about making the event meaningful by tying it to real organizational outcomes.

2. Focus on Performance, Not Just Fun

We all like to have fun, but if that’s all there is, then we’re missing the mark. Team building should be about more than just good times; it should be about getting better at what we do. It’s crucial that these events are seen not just as a break from work, but as a driver of workplace excellence. This shift in perspective can change how team members value these experiences. 

For an in-depth exploration of strategic event planning, check out this insightful article from Harvard Business Review.

3. Leadership Buy-In is Crucial

Nothing undermines a team building event faster than leaders who aren’t on board. If leaders don’t believe in the process, neither will their teams. Leaders need to be engaged and must articulate the value of these activities. They must show up, not just physically, but with genuine enthusiasm for the growth these opportunities are designed to foster.

4. Choose the Right Participants

A common mistake is not being selective about who attends. Team building can backfire if you’re including people who perhaps no longer fit well within the team or the organization’s future direction. It’s about being strategic with invitations, ensuring that every participant is poised to contribute to and gain from the experience.

5. Integrate Company Values into the Activities

Lastly, aligning team building with your company’s values can dramatically increase its impact. If collaboration is a cornerstone of your company culture, choose activities that enhance this skill. This alignment helps team members live out company values in a tangible, impactful way, making the abstract concrete.

So, is team building a waste of money? It certainly can be—without the right strategies. But armed with these insights, you can transform it from a mere expense to a vital investment in your team’s and organization’s future.

Curious about more ways to enhance your leadership and team dynamics? Dive deeper with us at Arc Integrated. Check out our resources, or get in touch to discuss how we can tailor our expertise to your needs: www.arcintegrated.com

As always if you have any questions or concerns you can schedule a time to connect.

Be well,

Michael

Resources:

Learn more about Arc Integrated:

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5 Strategies for Leaders to Enhance Workplace Wellness and Mental Health

5 Strategies for Leaders to Enhance Workplace Wellness and Mental Health

In today’s fast-paced corporate environment, maintaining employee wellness and mental health is not just beneficial; it’s imperative. At Arc Integrated, we’ve gathered insights directly from our clients—leaders like you who strive to uplift their team’s performance and culture. In this blog post, we’ll delve into five actionable strategies that can immediately enhance wellness and mental health in your workplace.

1. Normalize Mental Health through Core Values

One effective strategy is to align mental health initiatives with your organization’s core values. For instance, if one of your core values is care, you can emphasize this by promoting wellness as a crucial aspect of caring for your employees. This approach not only supports your employees but also enhances their performance by creating a nurturing and supportive environment.

2. Reduce Counterproductive Demands

Excessive work hours can significantly deteriorate mental health and overall wellness. As leaders, it’s crucial to identify and eliminate unspoken demands that may contribute to such stress. By reassessing these expectations, you can foster a more balanced and productive work environment.

Research has consistently shown the stark impacts of overworking on mental health, with notable gender differences. A follow-up to the renowned Whitehall study conducted a prospective cohort study of 2,960 middle-aged full-time workers, including 2,248 men and 712 women. The findings were alarming: female workers logging more than 55 hours per week exhibited a 267% increase in depression symptoms and a 284% increase in anxiety symptoms, compared to those working standard hours (35–40 hours per week). This highlights the critical need for tailored strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of long working hours, particularly among women. For more detailed findings, refer to this study: Long Working Hours and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression: a 5-Year Follow-up of the Whitehall II Study

3. Promote Health, Not Just Manage Illness

Shift the focus from managing illness to promoting health. Simple initiatives like providing healthy food options, encouraging physical movement, or facilitating mindfulness and meditation can make a substantial difference. By promoting healthy habits, you contribute to a more vibrant, energetic, and healthier workplace.

Additionally, it’s encouraging to see that these efforts are being embraced by employees. According to a 2023 study by ResumeLab, 71% of employees have taken advantage of mental health support offered by their employer. This statistic highlights the importance and effectiveness of proactive health promotion in the workplace, demonstrating that when employers provide these resources, employees are likely to engage and benefit from them.

4. Create Challenge and Incentive Programs

Organizing health-related challenges and incentives, such as hydration challenges, meditation, or fitness events, can significantly boost engagement and community spirit within your team. These initiatives not only promote health but also foster a sense of camaraderie and collective effort.

5. Build a Supportive Community

Isolation can lead to significant mental health challenges. Creating opportunities for employees to connect, whether through interest-based groups, offsite events, or company retreats, can enhance the sense of belonging and support among team members.

Implementing these strategies can lead to a more supportive, engaged, and healthy workplace. By normalizing mental health discussions, reducing harmful demands, focusing on overall health, initiating wellness challenges, and fostering community, leaders can significantly improve their team’s mental health and wellness.

If you found this article helpful and want to learn more about the topic you can watch the video version of 5 Leadership Strategies to Enhance Workplace Wellness.

As always if you have any questions or concerns you can schedule a time to connect.

Be well,

Michael

Resources:

Learn more about Arc Integrated:

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How to Lead Extraordinary Meetings

How to Lead Extraordinary Meetings | Arc Integrated

Nothing speaks to creating peak performing cultures more than making sure, as a leader, you are able to generate effective, and productive meetings. 

In this article, we will be sharing five tips on how you can lead extraordinary meetings. This is important to get a good grasp of because according to MIT, the average executive spends 23 hours a week in meetings.

Tip #1: Open With Connection (Use Tools When Needed) 

There’s an old phrase that says connection before content which is a very important aspect of conducting great meetings. This phrase, in regards to meetings, is all about setting up connectivity between the participants before diving into the agenda for that particular meeting.

If creating that connection before starting your meetings is something that as a leader you struggle with, or don’t know how to do, my recommendation is to take advantage of the many tools that are available. 

A really good tool that we recommend is The CHANGES Cards. This is a card deck full of questions based on seven different themes of our lived experience. You can use these cards to ask and answer some questions regarding different team members as a way to create a greater connection within the group. This immediate and quick connection that is generated between different individuals creates a much smoother experience during meetings. This is due to the fact that it enables others to be:

  • Creative
  • Vulnerable
  • Communicative

Tip #2: Have An Agenda With Tight Boundaries

Having an agenda before going into a meeting seems like an extremely obvious thing to do for most leaders. Still, the problem with most meeting agendas that we often see is that there are no tight boundaries associated with them.

A really good way around this is to set a timer on your phone. You can do this by setting up time intervals within each topic. So if the timer is set up for 15 minutes, when the time is up, regardless of where you are in the conversation, you move on to the next topic.

One of the biggest issues in these meetings is not only that there are no boundaries in place, but they are also not being enforced. I can promise you that when they are, more positive things will come out of the meetings and that more will be getting accomplished.

Tip #3: Have Good Recipes

I was recently looking at a book that I had recommended for a client called Principles by Ray Dalio. It goes into detail about principles (or recipes) for living. I strongly believe that these principles, when taken into the sphere of meetings, are no different.

For example: Did well, learn, and do differently is a principle that you can use to debrief an incident. If there is a challenge that your team faces (with a customer, vendor, client, etc.) you as a leader should conduct a debrief with the three ingredients to the recipe mentioned above.

  • You should look at what was done well
  • Follow that with what was learned from it
  • Finally what should be committed to doing differently for the future

Using this recipe is a really important tool to have as a leader because it will increase meeting productivity, engagement, and overall team wellbeing. This connectivity is crucial to an organization’s success because research shows that employee engagement has been defined as an emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization.

Tip #4: Make The Meeting Relevant for All in Attendance

Many of us have been in meetings that didn’t actually require us to be there and it doesn’t feel good at all. Surprisingly, this is actually a very common aspect in many meetings. Taking it even a step further, time spent in meetings (especially bad meetings), can increase employee stress, fatigue, and perceived workload.

The way to solve the issue of feeling like an hour was just robbed from their day, is to ensure that whoever you are inviting has some purpose for being in the meeting. This could mean that they have:

  • Information to share
  • Data to collect
  • Relevant action items

Everyone attending the meeting should be there for a reason and not because it seems like the thing to do to fill their schedule. This ultimately will reduce resentment in company culture.

Tip #5: End The Meeting With Appreciation

Our final tip on how to lead extraordinary meetings is to end every meeting with appreciation. This is a simple, yet very underutilized tool that I think every leader should learn to incorporate. 

The simple way to think about this is to ask a question to the group to share their thoughts on what they believed was a moment, person, or idea that emerged in the meeting that they would like to appreciate. What this does is allows a little bit of psychological priming so that when they leave the meeting, it makes everyone feel like it was advantageous to them in some aspect. This is done by highlighting:

  • Opportunity
  • Strength
  • Learning

I really believe that ending on a good note and making sure others feel that the meeting was valuable is a critical aspect of a successful meeting. 

If you found this article helpful and want to learn more about the topic you can watch the video version of 5 Tips to Lead Extraordinary meetings.

As always if you have any questions or concerns you can schedule a time to connect.

Be well,

Michael

Resources:

Learn more about Arc Integrated:

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The Best Listener at Work

How to Become a Better Listener at Work | Arc Integrated

You may wonder why being a good listener at work is really valuable.  However, if you experiment with improving your workplace listening skills, you will see changes.   In the fast past, high demand jobs so many of us have, really good listening may be something of a novelty.  This may because of the ever-impending deadlines, the many distractions we have or the workplace stress.  If you commit to being the best listener at work, you may notice that some of these challenges shift.

So how might listening skills impact your work place experience?  Well, consider your experience now.  How well do you feel heard at work?  What do you notice about people how are really present with you when communicating vs. those that are anxious to move to the next “to do”?  I would imagine that when someone is really present with you that it is easier to talk to them, you may feel more connected or more at ease. What if you were that person for everyone else?  How might this impact your workplace experience if people knew that when they spoke to you, that they could count on you to really pay attention?

Particularly if you are a leader, really good listening skills go a long way.   Being able to connect, understand and communicate effectively with your employees is a crucial component of an effective leader.   According to a study in The Journal of Occupational Health, it was found that… “psychological stress reactions were lower in subordinates who worked under supervisors with high listening skill, while no statistically difference was observed among older subordinates.” 

So if we know that our listening skills have an impact on our overall work stress, it seems like a great advantage for us to actively improve these skills.  Below you’ll find three tips to improve your listening skills

1.) Offer more clarity

Repeating something back to someone in the way that you heard it will help to reduce miscommunication.  Repeating a statement also offers the opportunity for this person to add additional clarification if necessary.  This way of “active listening” ensures that this person is being understood correctly and shows them that you are paying attention.

2.) Focus

Sometimes we can get caught up in how we are going to respond to something.  Thinking of what to say next reduces our ability to listen to what someone is saying.  Attending to what someone is saying without focusing on how to respond will create stronger communication.  Remain focused on the present moment and really digesting what it is that someone is communicating. 

3.) Breath

Often times at the workplace we are moving a million miles a minute, which reduces our ability to take in information in any given moment.  Taking a few moments to breath as you speak with someone will help you to be more present and process what they are saying more effectively.  Before you speak or when you are feeling overwhelmed, stop and take a deep breath.  This may sound trivial but can do wonders for not only stress but your ability to communicate and listen effectively. 

After you’ve had the opportunity to put these behaviors to the test, I would invite you to make a comment below.   I would suggest that in order to notice results you may have to practice one or all three for at least four times a week for three weeks.   After you’ve practiced, consider answering the following questions –

How did they work if they did at all? 

What did you learn?  

How long did you practice each new behavior?  

Best,

Michael

P.S. If you want to learn more about how to improve your listening skills at work, in order increase influence, engagement and build effective relationships, we can help.  Schedule a free consult today to see if are a fit to work together

 

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Beat the Post Vacation Slump!

How to beat the post-vacation slump | arc integrated

It’s that time of year.  You may have recently returned from a trip, visiting relatives, vacationing with friends, or maybe just enjoying a few days off.  However your holidays were spent, I hope they were rejuvenating and enjoyable.  Getting back to the grind can be a challenge.  I’ve certainly experienced it and I know many friends, family, and clients have too.  Today I want to talk about how to beat the post-vacation slump!

Whether the holidays were filled with fun, laughter, and excitement or anxiety, busyness, and overwhelm, coming back to a routine may be tough.   Below you’ll find some strategies about how to get back to being at the top of your game in work and in life, in addition to some tips for the next time you go on vacation.

Be Clear 

Personal Life – This is the time for New Year’s Resolutions, woohoo! The truth is that the majority of them don’t stick.  According to some data, only 8% of people accomplish their New Year’s Resolutions.  However, there are many strategies on how to improve the likelihood of change that lasts.  I would argue that part of the reason people don’t accomplish their resolution is that there is not enough clarity around the goal.  In order to get back in work mode and also work towards new goals you have, consider outlining the details in order to build clarity.  This could mean creating a yearlong vision and then working it backward to a six-month goal, a three-month goal, and eventually an action step you can take today!

Work-Life – Meetings often are less productive after many people have been out of their routine or away from work.   You may see less productivity in the meetings outside of work too.  To remedy this, set clear expectations for what the meeting will review and accomplish and do not veer away from this objective.  Make sure there are clear action steps for all members of the meetings you attend.

Stay Focused

Personal Life – In order to stay focused on our personal goals and re-engaging in our routines post-break, there needs to be some way to stay motivated.  Build focus through keeping reminders that are visible and related to your goal.  Alternatively, creating a writing practice that explores the reason for working towards this goal can help to stay motivated and focused.  Also, creating accountability in some way may be helpful in building focus.  Accountability could be created through working through a goal with someone else or hiring a coach to help explore what is holding you back.

Work-Life – Lack of focus at work often shows up in the context of getting tasks accomplished or having a productive meeting.  Often times meetings set out with many things to accomplish and by the end have not completed their intended outcome.  Stay focused on what is most important and do not add too much to the meeting, always expect that things may take longer than anticipated.  Have no more than three main objectives per day that are on your “must complete” list.

Action Items, Expectations, and Deadlines

Personal Life – Reaching goals is all about combing process and product.  It’s great to read self-help books, follow thought leaders, or engage in the philosophical debate about mindset, intention, and positivity.   The next step is combing all of this wonderful theory with small steps in the right direction.  Keep in mind that these steps can be small, but should be consistent.  Keeping after deadlines and continuing with actions items after exploring ideas will lead to progress.

Work-Life – The same issues exist in the work world when we have meetings or discussions around an idea.  Ideas often need to be translated.  People feel that meetings are a waste of time when there is no clear outcome, objective, or “to do” item.  Always be clear about expectations for all attendees.  Have attendees commit to their particular action item as well as deadline so everyone is clear on each person’s objective.

Keep your Routine in Check

Personal Life – Having some kind of routine in your personal life will do wonders for your mood, clarity, energy, and productivity.  The holidays are an easy time to get thrown out of a routine, whether is exercise, eating healthy or a daily practice, it’s a challenging time of year to keep up with our best intentions.  Here is a great resource from The Model Health Show about holding onto a good routine, even during the busiest time of year

Work-Life – Getting back into a routine is easier to do with work when it isn’t totally avoided during a break. This certainly doesn’t mean you have to be checking email every day or doing work on vacation….that is definitely not recommended.  But keeping sleeping to a minimum may be helpful when it’s time to get back to work. Also, reading while on vacation may help to keep your mind active and productive so that it may be easier to re-engage when it’s time.

Push Yourself!

Personal Life – I hold the firm belief that we are much more capable than we often give ourselves credit for, in every sense.  Care to experiment with this idea?  Try pushing yourself past the invisible finish line that you’ve set for yourself.  Go to the extra class, read the extra chapter, do another set, run the extra mile, take the risk in a relationship. Make a consistent effort to go past your comfort zone, you’ll be surprised what you learn.

Work-Life – The same concept of going past where we think we are capable of applies to work.  Consider how much you get done in the typical day and see if you can double it.  No, I don’t recommend working 16 hours instead of eight.  Working more efficiently and pushing past some of the self-set boundaries is a better (and healthier) experiment to try.  Consider how much time you spend during the average day being distracted by non-work-related issues or work that doesn’t necessarily make you more productive but makes you busier.   Evaluate how to be the most productive version of yourself and push out any limiting beliefs that may have held you back previously regarding how much you could accomplish in a day.

Re-Evaluate

Personal Life – This time of year is a great time for downsizing, clearing out, resetting, cleansing, and letting go.  What has been serving you this last year and what no longer helps you to become the best version of yourself?  You can pose this question to any facet of your personal life from your relationships to your diet to how you spend your time.  Evaluating the different aspects of your personal life allows you to set clearer goals and intentions for the year ahead and also helps to come back stronger from time off.

Work-Life – Is the job you’re in the one you want to be in? Taking the time to evaluate how much you are really committed to the work you are doing can be a helpful way to not only improve your re-engagement post-vacation but also help you make changes to your current situation.  If you are certain the work you’re in is for you, great!  Take the opportunity to evaluate how you will make this coming year a better one than the previous.  If you determine that your purpose is elsewhere, come up with an exit strategy. Outline your strengths, objectives, and timelines.  This will help make the rest of your time in your current position not seem as daunting.

*Challenge of the week*

Pick one of the strategies above and take action!  Just one.  After you’ve experimented for one week, come back and leave a comment below and share what you learned. Let’s help each other make significant changes this year!

All the best,

Michael

P.S. If you are curious to learn more about personal development, workplace challenges, interpersonal dynamics, goal achievement, and a wide variety of other topics, sign up today! www.www.arcintegrated.com/newsletter.  It’s totally free.

You’ll also receive a FREE tip sheet with Five Strategies to Build Motivation!

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Productivity, Napping and Dinners at Midnight

 

Productivity, Napping and Dinners at Midnight

Productivity, Napping and Dinners at Midnight

When I was in college I did a summer abroad trip to Spain.  I traveled, learned about a totally unfamiliar culture and learned to speak more Spanish in three months than I had in three years of class. This was one of my favorite memories from college.  There are many stories to tell, but the one that I was recently reminded of is the difference in scheduling there.  The cultural difference is significant and views productivity from a different lens in some areas.   For those that have not been to Spain, a typical day, (at least for a college student in 2004) looked like this –

  1. Wake up at 7am, wake lethargic roommate up, have some light breakfast and start the walk to school. This walk was 1.5 miles one way, a great way to start the day!  School 8am-12pm or so.
  2. Break around noon, walk back to the house, lunch and then Siesta! Siesta translates to ‘rest’ or “nap”, more or less.  This is the time when the majority of activity slows down for a few hours and people just relax or sometimes actually take a nap.  It’s wonderful!
  3. Wake up around 3pm, walk back to school and have class from 4pm – 7pm or so.
  4. The rest of the evenings were spent socializing and often would result in dinner sometimes not until 10pm or later, then more socializing and bed around midnight…..sometimes much later.

Reminiscing this week had me wondering about what this schedule may do to one’s productivity? Here are a few of the pieces I discovered in searching through some data/research –

  • Napping helps you be more alert

According The National Sleep Foundation who references a study done by NASA on sleepy military pilots, it was found that a 40 minute nap improved performance by 34% and alertness by 100%.   However, be mindful that the time of day, personal disposition and length of nap may increase or decrease its effectiveness.  It may be best to experiment with napping in order to find the right fit.

Whether it is napping, relaxing, going for a walk or finding some other way to decompress, there is value in taking a break. Having regular breaks in your day can help you to mentally, emotionally and physically re-charge, allowing you to be more effective with your time working.

There is building research available to show that napping can improve long term memory and task performance.

  • Having a mid-day break is controversial

According to an article in the NY Times, there is some mixed research about how productive Spain is based on the schedule of including the daily siesta.  While some research shows productivity is low, other research shows that Spain is more productive than many other European countries.   There is currently some push to move to a more regular schedule, which some of the country already embraces.

So why bring up this idea of the Siesta and productivity?  I think it is an interesting example of how our lifestyle and culture impacts our experience.   Certainly implementing the siesta in our western culture wouldn’t really fit, given the demands and cultural scheduling that we already have in place here.  However, we do have the option of implementing other ways to improve self-care.

One of the most consistent topics that come up with both groups and individuals that I work with, is the idea of a self-care practice.  Practices look different for everyone but common themes include exercise, meditation, time with loved ones or a variety of other hobbies.

There may be some controversy about including a long nap in the middle of the day.  But, there is certainly strong evidence to show that when we take time to take care of ourselves our productivity, relationships, happiness and health improves.    If you are interested in testing this out, consider answering one or both of these questions –

 

What can you commit to for 10 minutes every day for the next two weeks that will help you to slow down, reduce stress or improve your ability to be present?

 

What is one thing you can take out of your life for the next two weeks that you know distracts you?

 

Thanks!

Michael

P.S. If you are curious to learn more about personal development, workplace challenges, interpersonal dynamics, goal achievement and a wide variety of other topics, sign up today! www.www.arcintegrated.com/newsletter.  It’s totally free.

You’ll also receive a FREE tip sheet with Five Strategies to Build Motivation!

 

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Expressing Your Anger at Work

 

Expressing Your Anger at Work

Expressing Your Anger at Work

Getting frustrated at work is common.  However, how you express it or don’t, may greatly influence the environment that you’re in, as well as future opportunity.  While expressing your anger at work may be generally frowned upon, there are certainly strategies that will help with this process.  Consider these three tips below when expressing your anger at work.

  1. Timing is important – Remember that when you are anger this may not be the time to resolve an issue. However, coming back to a situation after decompressing and letting the parties involved know how it impacted you will allow you to be a better communicator and express the importance of the situation, improving the likelihood of resolution.
  2. Understand what helps you decompress – Having an understanding of what kinds of strategies are most effective for you in reducing anger is important.  This may be walking, exercise, writing, listening to music or a wide variety of other things.  Taking the time to explore what works best will benefit you in the long run and give you the chance to effectively express and reduce anger instead of letting it become a problem.
  3. Remember the context – This is a very important component. Even though telling someone exactly how you feel may seem like the best idea at the time, the context may suggest otherwise.  Being mindful of how and where you are expressing anger, if at all, may be a very important factor to consider.

The better question to ask may be how to reduce anger in general.  Understanding how to control our feelings may be beneficial in many different environments. Having the ability to respond to events rather than react, may serve us well.  If we know how to control our sense of reactivity then we may respond in a more appropriate way. Understanding ourselves, how we respond/react and triggers that we have, may involve some self-exploration.

Interestingly, the expression of anger may be totally culturally contextual anyway.  In our culture we tend to look at the expression of anger to be generally unfavorable.  In other cultures expression of anger may actually be of health benefit.  In a study by The Association for Psychological Science, they found that expression of anger in Japanese culture was associated with better biological health.  This suggests that anger isn’t necessarily positive or negative but the meaning that it is applied to it may impact the results of its expression.

This idea of exploring our anger to identify what kind of meaning we apply to it may give us another reason for self-exploration.   Certainly the negative or positive consequences of expressing anger are still being studied.  In the meantime, we do know that improving our understanding of self and how we respond and react can have a great impact on our work and home environments.

 

Thanks,

Michael

 

If you are curious to learn more about personal development, workplace challenges, interpersonal dynamics, goal achievement and a wide variety of other topics, sign up today! www.www.arcintegrated.com/newsletter.  It’s totally free.

You’ll also receive a FREE tip sheet with Five Strategies to Build Motivation!

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The Human Side of Business

The Human Side of Business - Arc Integrated

The Human Side of Business – Arc Integrated

In a featured article within Askmen.com titled Ways Relationships are like Business we explored the human side of business.   The idea of businesses having more to do with people, relationships, connection and communication is a cornerstone of the work we do at Arc Integrated.

 

Please see three ideas below on how relationships are like business.

 

If you skipped ahead and are curious about the three ideas, here they are –

1.) Don’t be desperate

2.) Slow and steady wins the race

3.) Mind the focus

You’ll have to watch the video for how to apply these ideas.

We are curious about your experience with the dynamic of relationships and business.  As a spring board for comments, consider answering any of these three questions below –

 

How have you seen the human side of the business you are involved in impact the success or struggle of that business?

What other examples can you provide regarding the commonalities between business and relationships?

What is one thing you would change about the interpersonal dynamics of your workplace?

Thanks,

Michael

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Inspiration and Engagement in the Workplace

Inspiration and Engagement in the Workplace

Inspiration and Engagement in the Workplace

I recently wrote an article for a website called inspiremetoday.com.  This article answered the question –

“If you only had 500 words to share, what wisdom would you want to pass on to humanity”

Of course this is a complicated question, but fun to answer.  My answer consisted of ways to build inspiration, courage, congruence etc.  I wondered though, how does one hold on to inspiration?  I want to take this opportunity to discuss not only how to hold inspiration but particularly how to hold inspiration and engagement in the workplace, where most of us spend the majority of our time.

Inspiration is hard to hold on to sometimes.  However, this should be of primary concern to companies.  Here are three tips identifying why it may be beneficial to inspire employees and encourage employee engagement –

  • Employee turnover is expensive, unproductive and challenging.  Keeping employees engaged and enthusiastic about their work will reduce employee turnover and ultimately reduce costs and lost productivity for the company.
  • Most employees report that one of the most desired components of a positive work experience is being appreciated. One way to show appreciation for employees is making sure they are engaged in what they are doing, thus improving employee experience and reducing likelihood of turnover
  • Understanding the match between the company’s values and employee’s values is important.  If this is unclear, consider bringing in consultants or coaches that can evaluate and mediate this discussion.

So this may pose the question – how does a company get leadership to buy into this importance of employee engagement?

Companies can encourage leadership to understand the importance of employee engagement through modeling it. This means that HR and executive leaders should feel engaged in their work so that they can experience the value of what they will be teaching to other leaders in the company.

If leaders are experiencing a congruence between the values of the company and their own values, this will certainly inspire employees in the workplace.   This does seem relatively intuitive in nature, that if values match then positive outcomes will result. However, now there is a building mountain of evidence to support the importance of engagement, value alignment and inspired employees, as it relates to the successful business.

For example, according to Towers Watson, companies with a  highly engaged workforce improved operating income by 19.2% over a 12 month period while companies with lower engagement saw a 32.7% decrease in operating income.

However, according to a study by Accenture, less than 50% of chief financial officers appear to understand the return on investment in human capital.   Even though this may be changing, continued awareness is important.  For additional evidence regarding the value of addressing engagement and other human dynamic issues, here is an extensive list of studies pointing to the value of improving employee engagement, culture and satisfaction.

How is your current level of engagement in your work?

What would it take to inspire you?

Best,

Michael

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