Pump up employee passion

Several years ago, we had a very engaged workplace at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? All cylinders were firing and our team was focused, driven, achieving results and happy. But as business continued to accelerate, we experienced some huge growing pains. And when the economy turned for the worse, I noticed fewer smiling faces in the office and a higher level of general stress.

So, back in October 2009, I made some changes in our leadership to get 1-800-GOT-JUNK? back to being a highly engaged workplace. It had been a few years since we had won some top workplace awards, and I wasn’t happy with that. My vision has always been to build a company in which people are engaged—because with engagement comes performance, loyalty, teamwork and happiness. In an engaged workplace, everyone wins, from the employees to the customers.

My plan last October was to create a highly engaged workplace again. A year later, you can feel it; we’re engaged, growing and having fun. I took these nine steps to get there:

Make engagement a priority.
If you believe in the value of employee engagement—and research supports its benefits—start by making it a priority in your organization. Ask staff what would make your company better. At 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, we have an advisory committee that consists of six people who gather facts and feelings from around the company about how we can improve morale and engagement. Their recommendations are presented to me every quarter. One caveat: if you ask for feedback, be ready to make changes—and significant ones, such as increased vacation time—to show your staff that their feedback is being taken to heart. Where you can’t make a change, be transparent and educate your team as to why.

Hire the right people.
Many disengaged workplaces are the result of the wrong people. Your latest hire might be a great person, but if she doesn’t fit with your culture, vision and values, she’s wrong for your company. Wrong fits quickly become disengaged and spread that disengagement like a virus. How do you find the right people? One of my favourite stories is from Apple founder Steve Jobs, who would show a candidate a Mac prototype to help determine whether they were a fit. If the person’s eyes lit up, that told him the candidate at least saw his vision.

Get rid of bad hires. We all make hiring mistakes, but it’s important not to let them fester. When I decided to change my leadership, the first thing I did was get the wrong people out. I had some very smart people who just didn’t align with our values or my vision, and that had to change. Short term, this created a lot of disengagement and fear in my company as people worried that they might be next. But it was a longer-term move to fix my mistakes.

Have a clear vision. A vision can engage people to believe in something bigger that they are creating as a team. A clear vision statement—what we at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? call our Painted Picture—creates clarity of purpose and alignment. Without one, a team doesn’t know what to rally around. At least once a quarter, we read the Painted Picture aloud as a team to ensure that we’re keeping it clear and alive in our minds. Our people engage in debate about it and come up with new ways to achieve it.

Empower people to lead. Give people with passion for the business clear goals and then let them do their jobs. Give them the tools they need and then get out of the way to let them take the lead. Along the way, check in to ensure that they have the support they need. I’ve always found that it helps to make it clear that it’s OK for them to make mistakes, as long as they learn and ultimately reach their goal.

Show you care about your people beyond their work.
Before you ask people to show you that they care, show them that you do. It’s often the little things that re-engage a workplace. We started to build morale and interdepartmental engagement by offering a fully paid fitness boot camp on company time. It still amazes me how many people got involved and got to know each other during this exercise. When
I saw how fired up people were that they got to work out during work time, it was clear that this was really building engagement.

Push people to engage. I challenge my team to get involved, to lead, to take risks, to make mistakes and to speak their mind. I’ve found that when the environment is superficial, real engagement isn’t happening.

 Celebrate wins. When people become engaged, it’s important to reinforce it. Celebrate the victories as they emerge and encourage your team to do the same. We recognize our successes every day at our stand-up, company-wide huddle at 10:55 am. The opening question is, “Who has good news?” Each day, someone is making progress, and it’s important to highlight those successes—even if sometimes you need to draw them out of more modest staff members.

Thank people every day. People want to be appreciated. I believe that the best way to engage someone is with heartfelt thanks. We have created a culture of peer recognition, and “thank yous” have become contagious. Whether it’s a card, kudos at the huddle or basic one-on-one thanks, gratitude goes a long way toward building team engagement, loyalty and, of course, happiness.