Cultivating an “EE Thumb” for Growing Employee Engagement in Your Organization

During this time of year in Ohio and many other areas throughout the country, gardening enthusiasts are busy planning their gardens. Gardening enthusiasts use the term “green thumb” to describe a person who is a gardening expert. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines this term as “an unusual ability to make plants grow”. As leaders and managers of our organizations, we can learn from the gardening pros and apply those same concepts to growing employee engagement in our business. We can develop an "EE Thumb".

The economic recession has taken its toll on employee engagement in many firms. Merit increases and bonuses have been suspended.  Budgets have been severely reduced. Employees are feeling the strain and pressure to perform. Today, many leaders are asking what they can do to re-energize, empower, and super-charge their teams.


What can we learn from gardening pros?

1. Gardeners focus on selecting the right plot. Leaders should assess their business model to determine: a. whether they are in the right business or not, and b. identify additional opportunities to expand their business.


2. Gardeners audit the soil. Leaders need to assess their processes, people and technology to ensure they are creating an environment that fosters growth in people and ideas.


3. Gardeners create a plan and they work the plan. If leaders wish to fully engage their employees, it is critical that they create a plan. Success requires planning, patience and persistence. Employees crave recognition and praise.


4. Gardeners ensure their garden receives a sufficient mixture of sun and rain. Leaders should celebrate company successes and dedicate sufficient time to learn from mistakes and failures so the company can continue its forward movement. Leaders need to create a positive environment in which employees are encouraged to grow and learn from problems.


5. Gardeners dedicate time for weeding. As leaders, it is critical that we routinely monitor engagement and search for opportunities to weed out destructive processes, procedures or negativity in the firm.


By developing a game plan and implementing systematic processes, leaders indeed will develop an EE-Thumb for growing employee engagement in their firms.

Chrissann Ruehle is Co-Founder of Black Lab Ventures, LLC. A human resources management consulting firm, Black Lab Ventures specializes in providing organizational development, onboading, training and development, health and wellness solutions, in addition to our Black Lab Culture Branding services for businesses. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.blacklabventures.com/ or feel free to call us at 513-443-2365.

Are You Listening To Your Customers?

The holidays have come and gone. Many people are returning to their business routines. January is a good timeframe to review/refine your goals and objectives for the upcoming year. Establishing and maintaining customer loyalty is a key area of focus for businesses; especially since many companies suffered financial setbacks in 2009.

What’s the value in actively listening to your customers?

Implementing this initiative often requires a change in your company’s culture. In order to shift the mindset and approach for relating to your customers, the senior management team needs to be engaged and visibly demonstrate their commitment to this initiative. This approach offers several key values to the firm including:

1. Enables you to develop a long term partnership with your customer.

2. Empowers your firm to transition from being a vendor that provides basic services or products, to a true business partner in helping position your customer to take advantage of future opportunities.

3. Enhances your knowledge of your customer’s business and creates a channel for generating new product and service ideas.

Reasons companies don’t activity listen to their customers.

There are a number of reasons why firms don’t actively seek out ideas and feedback from their customers. I travel frequently for business and interact with a variety of service providers such as airlines, rental car companies, hotels and restaurants. Based on my experience, here are some observations:

1. The service provider behaves in an arrogant manner during customer interactions. In the background, there is an attitude of “We are the experts and possess all knowledge about our service. Therefore, our customers cannot add value to our offerings because they don’t understand our products to the same degree that we do”. Or more a more ominous reason…”As a customer, you don’t really have a choice. You must accept our service as it is.”

2. The firm believes they do not have the resources to effectively implement this new product or service.

3. Employees assert this is the way we do things here at our company. Our success has worked in the past and it will work for us in the future.

Companies that provide high quality, customer-centric interactions stand out in a crowded marketplace and garner loyalty from frequent customers, such as myself.