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Time to Take a Look Back

By Karen Schmidt

So, here we are … one month into 2009. The festive season is behind us. The long summer January holidays have ended (for Rotarians and their families who live in the Southern Hemisphere), and everyone is back to work. 

Right now is a good time to take a look at what happened . . . . the highs and the lows, the planned and the unexpected, the wins and the losses of last year.

We often go through this process from a personal point of view, and whilst we certainly do look at it from a business perspective as well, this year I want you to take a new look at the year that was … from the point of view of employee engagement.

This article is actually not really an article, but a series of questions that I think smart managers should be asking themselves to help them review the progress made last year.

These questions do not necessarily have a right or wrong answer. They are questions for you to contemplate over a few days, rather than try to answer them all on the spot.

• What staffing challenges did we face last year?

• How well did we handle them?

• What was the best strategy we used to engage people last year?

• Why did it work?

• What can we do to improve it this year?

• What was the least successful strategy we tried?

• Why did it fail?

• What did we learn from the experience?

• What percentage of my team is fully engaged?

• In the ideal world, who would I like to see depart?

• Did we lose anyone last year we really wanted to keep?

• Did we hire anyone last year we really shouldn't have hired?

• Which sections of the organization are engaged

• Which sections of the organization are disengaged?

• Which managers are engaged?

• Which managers are disengaged?

• Which manager's need to develop better skills to help them engage their team?

• What input did employees have in helping us improve the organization?

• What is our plan for the 2009?

• What will impact on our ability to implement that plan?

The world economic climate places added pressures on employers everywhere.

In order to deal with the challenges ahead, effective engagement with employees, leading to better productivity, is vital.

Please consider the series of questions in the context of your own business.

About the author: Karen Schmidt, of Let's Grow, is the re-engagement expert who is on a mission to refresh, reignite and re-engage teams for success. Her contact email address is enquiries@letsgrow.com.au