Ep 69 | Igniting Stellar Employee Relations: Drawing Inspiration from Dan Pink and More
Sep 15, 2023
Dana Dowdell
Imagine having the secret ingredients to brew remarkable employee relations and invigorate your workplace! That's exactly what we're discussing in this fascinating session, drawing inspiration from the influential insights of Dan Pink, renowned for his compelling TED Talk on team motivation as well as his many books. We dissect his three fundamentals for engagement: autonomy, mastery, and purpose, underscoring their significance in building constructive employee rapport. Dana challenges us all to be better leaders and provides tangible ways to do it. When is the last time you truly and uniquely, thanked an employee beyond saying good job?
Imagine having the secret ingredients to brew remarkable employee relations and invigorate your workplace! That's exactly what we're discussing in this fascinating session, drawing inspiration from the influential insights of Dan Pink, renowned for his compelling TED Talk on team motivation as well as his many books. We dissect his three fundamentals for engagement: autonomy, mastery, and purpose, underscoring their significance in building constructive employee rapport. Dana challenges us all to be better leaders and provides tangible ways to do it. When is the last time you truly and uniquely, thanked an employee beyond saying good job?
This episode is brought to you by the Essential Skills for Supervisors training offered by Boss Consulting HR. If you're a new supervisor or a green supervisor or you just feel like you need to refine your skills, it's a great training for you. It's offered online and we cover all of the basics of onboarding, performance management, having difficult conversations, interviewing, compliance everything that you need to know to be a better manager. So if you're interested in checking out the training, we have one coming up soon and if you head on over to https://www. bossconsultinghr/training. com , you can sign up for our next session. Welcome back to another episode of Quirky HR. I am sending you a solo episode today and I was thinking back to our most listened to episode on this podcast and it goes all the way to the beginning when we first started Quirky HR, and it's episode eight, which is employee relations basics with Georgie Co-miner. And I think that that topic of employee relations and how do you keep people engaged, how do you keep people happy, how do you make sure that your team knows that you appreciate them, are all things that I think there's a lot of opinions about and there's a lot of misinformation. I will say about it. You see, those memes of pizza parties and how that will fix employee relations, and that's not always the case. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what we see in our consulting capacity that really is foundational for positive employee relations.
Dana Dowdell:
I'm sure I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I'm a huge fan of Dan Pink and his TED Talk from probably 15 or 20 years ago, where he talks about different ways to motivate your team. He comes up with three things that are essential for engagement and motivation. Those three things are autonomy the ability to have some control over what their day looks like, what their schedule looks like, what projects they focus on. The second is mastery, which is the ability to really become an expert at something, to throw yourself headfirst into whatever it is you're doing and to become a master at it. And then the third thing is purpose, and so that's the feel good part of why we work and that's the emotional connection to what you do.
Dana Dowdell:
And I remember watching the Dan Pink TED Talk when I was in college in my HR management introductory course, and it just resonated so deeply with me and it's something that I actually use in teaching now. So I think if you've ever taken a college course with me. You know that I show that in almost every course because it is it's just a really simple and foundational way to look at employee relations motivation, engagement and so I wanted to start by mentioning that, because I think it's important to have a common thread through your employee relations strategies, and Dan Pink's theories are so simple, they're not complicated, they're not complex, and if you just can remember them and keep them as foundational pillars to your strategy, you can get employee relations right. So I have three essentials for employee relations, and I want us to forget everything we've read about employee relations and everything that we know and kind of go elementary with it, because it's really not complicated. It's really really not complicated. But in my opinion, there's three things that are essential for incredible employee relations, which essentially means a fantastic and incredible employee experience. So the first thing is a high level of executive presence, and this is kind of a buzzword that I'm seeing on LinkedIn and you know HR themed TikToks, and I think it's a great concept and a thing that we should dive more into.
Dana Dowdell:
But when I talk about executive presence, I'm talking about boots on the ground, management. So we work with small businesses in my consulting business, and so we don't work with larger companies or firms. But even in small businesses, something that I am constantly hearing from employees is that they don't see their top leaders the president, vice president, executive director, whatever the title is. They are not present in the day to day function of the operations, and if you sit in a position like that, you may be thinking well, I have so much going on and I don't have time to walk the office floor or hold a town hall with my employees. Sure, I understand you have a very big job leading the company and driving its success forward, but I think you need to make time and it really does not take a lot of effort.
Dana Dowdell:
It can be as simple as when you come in to work for the day, instead of heading straight up to your office, walk the floor, say good morning to people. It just kind of takes away the veil and mystery of executive leadership and it shows your team that you have an active interest and an active presence in what they're doing and it becomes a blessing. It changes the tone when you show up for holiday parties. It's not, you know, oh my God, the president's here. It's, oh, hey, that's Joe. It's so great to see him here and I hear it time and time again where, like you know, the staff will think that they don't hear from the management at all or they hear from the president at all. And so really being intentional about showing up and having visibility and having that boots on the ground style of leadership can make a huge impact in your employees' experience. And I will say I think this goes for HR leaders as well we often can find ourselves being reactive. You know, we sit in our offices, we have so much to do. There's always something, some compliance related matter that we're dealing with. But if you can have a boots on the ground approach or an executive presence approach where you are actively getting in front of your employees, they see you as accessible, they see you as approachable and they it dramatically will improve their employee experience.
Dana Dowdell:
Okay, the second tip, or foundational pillar, let's say, is to have simple and thoughtful but personal forms of recognition. Sometimes, when you have those larger employee relations events like anniversaries or summer or holiday parties, et cetera, it can become expected in a way, so they lose their intrinsic value to your employees. And we see this time and time again. It's oh, what's happening for the holiday party. It becomes an expectation versus a really thoughtful way of recognizing people. And so, with that in mind, if you take a step back and break it down to brass tacks, right, what's a simple way that you can let someone know that you appreciate them?
Dana Dowdell:
A handwritten note Thank you and I don't just mean you know, thank you for coming into work today. Thank them for something specific that they did that contributed to your bottom line or that contributed to your vision, mission, values, goals as a company. Get very specific in how you show appreciation to them, because that is something that they can attach to. If they're just being told thank you for showing up today, that's a basic expectation. But if you say thank you so much for being so quick and responding to that customer's need, or thank you so much for all the work that you did on getting me that report, it was really helpful and essential because of this. Being specific can make the world a difference.
Dana Dowdell:
I'm a big fan of thank you notes. I don't think that I do them enough. I admit it. I am not necessarily walking the walk in this and I probably can do better, but I think it's a great thing to take a step back and really get simple with it. It does not have to be complicated. It does not have to be complex. It also does not have to be expensive. A simple thank you, thank you note, a handwritten note, can go a really long way when you are trying to recognize your employees.
Dana Dowdell:
Okay and last but definitely not least, is creating intentional times to connect. As a leader and I stand strongly and firmly behind this you are responsible for creating the space for connection, for time to speak to your employee and check in with them and see how their day is going, see how their time is going. That responsibility does not fall on the shoulders of human resources. Some HR departments will do one-on-ones with team members, but as a manager, if you have direct reports, you are entirely responsible for creating this space. It requires a mindset shift. You have to go from well, they'll come to me if they have a problem to I'm going to create the avenue for us to connect so that if there is a problem, I know about it before it gets too big or too problematic or too heavy for them to handle. Do not expect your team to come to you. Get ahead of it. Be proactive. That is part of being a strategic leader is to be proactive.
Dana Dowdell:
Some ways to do this would be to do monthly or quarterly one-on-ones with your team. Obviously, this depends on how large of a team that you have. If you have a large team, maybe it's twice a year that you do it, instead of four times a year or monthly. There's no perfect formula to this. The key is that you're making it happen. They can be in person, they can be virtual, you can go into it with a specific agenda or specific questions that you have for them, or you can just be free-flowing Some things to focus on in the conversation.
Dana Dowdell:
Let's say you have a one-on-one with someone and it's kind of radio silent and you're not sure where the conversation is going. You can ask them what are their career goals with the company, what have they enjoyed the most about the last month of their work, what tasks have they really found enjoyment in or what tasks were they really challenged in. You can ask them what's happening for them in the next six to 12 months and what they need to be supported more in work. You can inquire what's getting them excited about their workload or about their future at work. These are all things that check in to the intrinsic contribution and value that someone can give and receive at work.
Dana Dowdell:
Another great question that I think is important for every leader to ask their team is what do you need from me to support you better? Don't ask, do you need anything from me, because that's a yes or no question If you've worked in HR. We are not big fans of yes or no questions. We want open-ended questions. So, asking them, what do you need from me to feel supported, or how can I support you better? What this does is it communicates to your team member that you are invested and engaged in being better yourself. If there's something that they need from you, it's a great opportunity for them to share it. But again, as the leader, as the manager, you are responsible for creating the safe space to do so.
Dana Dowdell:
I think that's another part of this is it should be intentional. Everything you want to do as a leader should be intentional and thoughtful. So don't just pull somebody off the manufacturing floor without them knowing and surprise them. Let them know what's happening, give them time to plan and prepare. Make sure they know what will be happening in these meetings so that they're not surprised, and that will create that one-on-one, that connection, to be a much more valuable connection, had you just surprised them. So that's it.
Dana Dowdell:
Those are my three essential pillars for employee relations, and know that it takes practice. It takes time to get comfortable in doing these things, it takes time for you to see the payoff on them, but they're worth it and they will have an incredible impact on your organization. So with that, I leave you with those three items, but I would love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out and let us know what you do in your organization for employee relations that you feel has a big impact. You can find us on Quirky HR podcast, on Facebook and on Instagram, and I want to thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Quirky HR, and we'll catch you next time.