Employee engagement is an incredibly important part of running a successful, profitable business.
Happy, engaged staff are more productive, take fewer sick days and lower staff turnover. But driving employee engagement doesn’t come easy. In the UK, only half of all employees are engaged.
Given that the cost of a disengaged employee can be anywhere between £3000 and £10,000 a year, it should be a priority for any company. And that means making sure that your business leaders know how to motivate and boost morale.
When looking to attract and retain the best talent into your company, workplace culture is worth investing in, as are leaders who know how to build that positive culture.
Facilities Management can be a high pressure, stressful environment, and so making sure that teams are motivated and happy on a day to day basis really impact your outcomes and your bottom line.
Here are 4 qualities that you can look for in every executive appointment to help identify if they are the kind of motivating leader who will be good for morale:
1. Social Cues
If you’re looking to hire a new executive, it’s important to observe how they interact with the wider team. Have a meet and greet session, or set up some informal chats with some of the teams they’ll be engaged with. see how they handle social cues.
Do they listen attentively when they’re chatting with team members? It can be as simple as making eye contact, laughing along with jokes, encouraging everyone to participate in conversations, good timekeeping. A motivating leader will go out of their way to put others at ease.
Their body language and ability to engage with employees at every level will tell you a lot about their ability to motivate, boost morale, and keep staff engagement high.
2. Delivering Feedback
It’s highly likely that your executive is going to need to give feedback to team members quite regularly. And what’s more, they’re likely to be feeding back to managers, who in turn will be feeding back to their teams. That means the manner in which they deliver that feedback has the potential to influence how it is passed on.
As part of the interview process, set up a question about the way they would deliver negative feedback in certain situations. Negative feedback should only be delivered in private, but soon after the incident, rather than left until an annual or mid-year review, so listen carefully to your candidate’s answers to make sure they way they deliver feedback isn’t harmful to morale.
3. Getting Personal
There’s a lot you can glean from the early interview rounds when it comes to the EQ of your candidate. Morale boosting and motivating leaders are usually great at paying attention and remembering personal details. Look out for those details – if they remember people’s names, or ask about details that have been mentioned in previous conversations.
The ability to pick up on those details and use them to make connections with people can be a useful indication that your candidate is a good listener, and will be able to relate to their team members.
4. Authentic empathy
Certainly the most difficult to assess during an interview process, but one to look out for, especially in those early months. There are certain behaviours that display a high level of empathy.
Empathetic leaders don’t jump to conclusions – they make room for people to have bad days. When someone is off their game, they dig a little deeper to find out what might be going on under the surface.
They also make an effort to check their own unconcious biases. They work hard to approach all people as individuals, accepting their experiences as valid, even when they’re different from their own.
They make space for all people to contribute, understanding that people express themselves differently. Some are able to contribute in meetings, while others need more time to reflect and will prefer to contribute later.
A motivating leader will demonstrate these kinds of behaviours in their day to day interations, so be paying attention for them!
