Fostering Engagement Spurs Results
Home 9 Message from the Mentor 9 Fostering Engagement Spurs Results

All organization leaders are looking to drive their companies toward more robust bottom lines, but they may not always know the way to get there. Oftentimes, the secret is much more subtle than simply selling more. Frequently, the answer lies somewhere in the realm of employee engagement. If staff members are checked out, they won’t be doing their best work. Providing the right sales training programs can have a positive effect on associates’ ability to perform at high levels and even advance within their firms.

Unlocking engagement
According to a recent survey by Gallup, only 30 percent of American employees are engaged at work, meaning that they feel passionate about their jobs and are actively striving toward moving their companies forward. Of the 70 percent of workers who aren’t fully checked in, 52 percent said that they are “not engaged” and 18 percent were what Gallup called “actively disengaged,” indicating that they are consciously undermining their organizations’ ability to achieve its goals due to their unhappiness.

Michael Lopp, a software engineering manager and author, noted on his blog that one of the most common reasons employees leave jobs is that they are bored. He explained that because this malaise sets in quietly, it often goes unnoticed or is ignored. But the longer an employee is disengaged, the more frustrated he or she is likely to become.

“I think of boredom as a clock,” Lopp said. “Every second that someone on my team is bored, a second passes on this clock. After some aggregated amount of seconds that varies for every person, they look at the time, throw up their arms and quit.”

Lopp suggested that once managers recognize these problems, they can take proactive steps toward reigniting their employees’ passion for their jobs. Lopp stated that it’s important to recognize what individual employees are hoping to achieve in the future and come up with solutions that will help them get there. Boredom can be reduced by showing staff members that what they do every day gets them one step closer to their dream careers. This includes assigning them challenging tasks and making sure they are always learning new skills.

For all businesses, ongoing educational opportunities play a key role in spurring advancement and, in the process, reducing disengagement. By giving employees access to customer service training programs, managers can enhance workers’ talents and ready them for the next step in their careers. Doing so not only provides a valuable service to sales associates, but it also helps companies improve their overall results.

You may also be interested in…

Investing in the Relationship

Investing in the Relationship

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we are all looking at the relationships that are near and dear to us in our personal lives. How do we establish and then maintain that relationship? Nice gestures, phone calls, texts, e-mails, and dinners, just to name a few. There is...

read more