Employee Disengagement Video
My previous article about employee engagement has generated some amazing conversation, and for those who haven’t read the video, click over and check out some employee engagement.
One of the things that came through LOUD and CLEAR is that the video, with it’s soft pictures and cheesy piano music is pretty ineffective. If instead you focus on the words, it could prove VERY effective.
Scott shared
The “FISH!” program was a flop where I work. And they tried other programs for a while - all died! All these programs are superficial and don’t get to the root problems. And now just about everyone is disengaged and upper management don’t care so long as they make their numbers.
My thoughts? It’s very interesting to me that FISH! flopped where Scott worked…and was a HUGE hit where I work…for some. Others hate being involved, regardless of what is done. The FISH! video, like this video, was a conversation starter,
and I believe was meant to lay some groundwork for how to create a better culture at work.
Then csbmonkey weighed in with some GREAT feedback (emphasis mine):
The text is useful, the video, eh. If you want to immediately belittle your own message, use a video like this that’s dripping with shallow sentimentality. Does this really work with anyone? As soon as I heard the piano I was already down a few points in considering watching it, but I muted, and then I got to the non-verbal narrations and muted tones blurred stock photos and that was it.
You want to engage employees? Don’t treat them like the stock photos in this video. Don’t expect that they’re going to react to portray a false enthusiasm about where they work. Most people show up to where they work because they need to get paid and they will do the work the company needs them to do to get paid. Most people are NOT going to care about where they work except insofar as they will continue to get paid, and that is simply “survival” and not “success” level.
I love reading Slacker Manager, mainly because I see so many of the absolute failings my own managers engage in posted here on a regular basis. i.e. Slacker Manager just shows that my own managers don’t read something or anything LIKE slacker manager to have ideas about why their jobs are made so difficult by disaffected employees like me. (Who don’t leave because they are working toward pension plans. Leading to even more apathy. It’s pretty vicious.)
However, a video like this would probably nudge the manage in exactly the wrong direction I would want to see them go. It would draw out all of the wrong behaviors from a poor or misguided manager instead of serving as a personal impetus toward making large, sweeping necessary changes to make the employees’ jobs more interesting and thus more engaging.
csbmonkey makes some great points! If you treat your employees all the same, then you’re a crappy manager. I’m sorry you’re sticking around at your job for the pension and the paycheck. MANY are like you, and I empathize greatly with you. I was there.
What would I do? I would use this video with my other managers as a wake up folks, these are the stats, now what are we, as managers, going to do about it?
If you use this video, the FISH! philosophy video, or any other video by itself, or if you show it to your team as a “here’s why you suck” video, then you are a complete hollow shell of a manager. Instead, take the employee engagement video as facts and stats, and think about how you can actively engage folks like our friend csbmonkey…or how you can find a new job that’s less stressful for you.
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6 opinions for Employee Disengagement Video
David Zinger
Dec 30, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I appreciate the discussion on employee engagement Phil.
I have witnessed some very negative reactions of the FISH philosophy. It must fit within the culture and once again not be forced upon employees. I hate it when someone tells me to cheer up if I am having a tough time and I am not a fan of forced fun. I took my children to the Seattle Fish Market, told them the place would be wild, and the employees were having a bad day! We can all have bad days and we should all be careful of any program or initiative that our organizations apply.
I believe I offer an authentic and caring perspective on engagement at http://www.davidzinger.com. I always liked the line, it is good to have an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out!
I worry about disengaged employees, not for their lack of productivity but the impact disengagement has on their whole life. To me, engagement is about authentic connection with all inevitable ebbs and flows that occur within relationships and results.
David Zinger
Scott
Dec 30, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I agree that the FISH! philosophy shouldn’t be pushed upon anyone. It is my thinking that some individual saw what “fun” they were having and saw a way to make some quick money.
Any “philosophy” or company culture must come from the top down and must be lead by example and not mandated. Change, real change must be based on honesty, courage, leadership, and vision.
Judy
Dec 31, 2007 at 9:14 am
Hi everyone - we are thrilled that our video is creating such great conversations. We designed the video as a wake-up call to Managers. We believe that the first step to creating engaged and committed employees is awareness. Yes, awareness of the issues, challenges and dreams of every employee. It is critical that we start to look at employees as individuals rather than as a group. Every employee has goals, dreams and challenges and unless Managers get to know their people, we believe that employee engagement will remain something that companies can only strive for.
Thanks again for all of the feedback and discussion.
Judy McLeish, Employee Factor
csbmonkey
Dec 31, 2007 at 9:51 am
Wow, Phil, imagine my surprise loading up the site this morning and there’s yesterday’s coffee fueled post. :)
I am one of those types of employees (and I need to emphasize that I am not someone’s “report” - that’s an awful piece of slang than needs to get tossed out the window as soon as possible) that would love to be engaged in what I do, and in large part I create a lot of my own engagement at work. I am not, however, necessarily enthusiastic about what I do or where I work, but I do make efforts to make my own job easier and to provide effectual and timely service to my clients.
To grab an example from where I work: I work in an IT group supporting nearly 1,000 people, and yet we have no knowledge base in our department except for the people who have been there over the years. There are four of us who have been there over four years, and the other eight are all less than two years (that is mostly indicative of how fast the department has grown). Each new employee coming in is having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to learning about who we support. We are still simply emailing notifications about important technical issues to each other, and we all know how well that works in today’s barrage of emails. Many of us desperate want a knowledge base that works.
So we made one at a cost of zero. A computer being sent to surplus but still a good machine, Ubuntu linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and MediaWiki took about 30 minutes to throw together during a lunch break. Within two weeks of implementation there were 50 articles just by word of mouth of us testing it out. Within a month it was shut down at the request of the managers as soon as it was discovered and we were routed into using Sharepoint for this purpose.
I was desperate to have a knowledge base (I still am, to telegraph ahead where this story ends up) and I also wanted my managers to be aware that THAT was what I wanted, not just that I wanted a particular tool (the wiki, in this case). My entire incentive plan for 2006-2007 fiscal year was to get Sharepoint used by my co-workers as a knowledge base. Unfortunately, Sharepoint simply isn’t made for that. It is document collaboration software, not database software. it has good points, many I love, but it simply can not function as a knowledge base. The technicians loved the wiki because it was fast to learn, fast to respond, required no login, fast to search (the Sharepoint service we were required to used resided on a Windows 2000 server, and the search feature was permanently disabled, killing any options to search the knowledge base).
For nearly a year I hammered away at learning the best ways to use Sharepoint for a knowledge base, and I came up with some clever ways to use it. I learned to appreciate what it can do. But the eleven other technicians I work with hated it. Slow, no search, laborious to create entries in, documentation required opening not only Sharepoint but other Office applications, create wait times from when you KNOW something until when you could ENTER what you know, etc.
Despite my very frank report to my managers about why Sharepoint can not work for this purpose, in large part the feedback from my managers is that the employees are not enthusiastic about a knowledge base! The technology and not the need is leading them, and since we HAVE Sharepoint already they want us to use it, even though no one will. Entirely the wrong message was taken away from them from my year of Sharepoint efforts.
My co-workers desperate want a knowledge base, but we want something to fill the need.
For myself, I have a knowledge base in the form of the amazing TiddlyWiki. Everything about the Unit I support is fully documented in a 275KB HTML file that any web browser can open. I can tag entries, search to knowledge base in seconds. I receive IMs from my other co-workers all day asking me knowledge base questions. My last year’s worth of IM logs are mostly these types of questions. I am engaged fullly in something I like at work, yet I can not every talk about it with my managers because they are engaged in their own agendas to the point that they are being blinded to other possibilities.
If I could communicate any message to my managers that I would really want them to understand it would be this: embrace what your employees ARE enthusiastic about. You may not understand it initially, but if it can benefit your employees and your customers (numerous studies show that service desk knowledge bases are incredibly beneficial to customers), try to understand it it. You don’t have to embrace it, but at least let it survive and watch where it goes. You might be surprised to learn that the employees want to make things better for themselves and thus make things better for everyone around them in all directions.
Phil Gerbyshak
Jan 1, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Wow, you all make some excellent additional points. Thank you very much. So much to think about!
And csbmonkey: As a manager, I have to apologize for your manager’s behavior. Makes me VERY sad to read. Yikes!
Employee Disengagement Video [ Slacker Manager ]
Jun 7, 2008 at 7:50 pm
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