Employee Engagement and LEAN Culture
In 2023, only 33% of employees in the U.S. were engaged in their work and workplace, according to a recently conducted Gallup poll. This poll also estimates that the lack of employee engagement costs approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity nationally.
At the same time, many organizations are embracing the LEAN Manufacturing Model, a central tenet of which is to eliminate waste. For manufacturing organizations, the largest opportunity to eliminate waste and to facilitate improvement is to increase the engagement of employees.
What defines a disengaged employee?
A disengaged employee feels detached from their employer, doesn’t clearly know their role in the organization, and often simply feels like there isn’t another person at work who cares about them as a person.
Evaluating and improving the process of leadership in an organization will help to improve employee engagement.
Here are some everyday considerations for leaders at all levels of a company:
Focus Shift:
How much value do we place on developing and growing our employees as people? If we place more value on this, would this help to “bake-in” high product quality and a culture of continuous improvement?
Command and Control versus Supportive Leadership:
Is my job as a leader to tell people what to do? Or is my job to be there to support them and enable them to work in an environment that is conducive to their success and growth?
Evaluation of success and failure:
How much do I value “breaking through” to employees with thoughtful questions about the work they do? Do I value these moments enough in terms of success? How do I handle situations where employees fail? Do I simply place the blame, or do I embrace the failure as an opportunity for the company to learn and for improvements to be made?
Location of Leadership: Where do leaders spend their time?
Could I improve the engagement of employees if I spent more shoulder-to-shoulder time with them, particularly in the company processes where the most value is added to the product?
Role Clarity:
Do employees understand what’s expected of them? If they don’t, how do they define success and improvement in terms of their employment?
Especially in the post-Covid era, companies have often endured an extreme level of employee turnover and changes in employee roles. It’s an excellent time to reevaluate the effectiveness of your organization’s leadership at all levels, and to commit to improving the engagement level of employees.
It’s time to ask:
how much do we value the growth of our employees, and could we improve our product, services, and culture if we valued it more?
June 13th, 2024
Written by:
Rob Ahern
Valley Contax Operations Director