According to Gallup 70% of the American workforce is disengaged.  Which means when we look around we likely have many of these disengaged employees that work for us.

This is important because disengaged employees are people who do the absolute minimum to keep their job and they put forth no discretionary effort.  And if they are really disengaged, they are actively working against their employers.

Boil that down a step further and we quickly realize that we are paying people to hurt our businesses. In a time where competition is fierce and we are seeing companies fail because of their inability to innovate, we really need discretionary effort.

If showing employees that we care about them means we can get them to stop working against us and put forth more effort towards performing their job and if focusing on culture can translate into treating our customers better and looking for innovative ways to accomplish work, then that is a game-changer and totally worth the effort.

So where to start?

How do we find out what matters to our employees?

We start by asking them.  Think about what you are willing to do, put together a quick survey and ask them.  Leave space for them to give you a couple of ideas too.  Hint:  Do not ask them if they would like beer at the office, if you are not willing to have beer at the office.  This is disingenuous and will just make them more disgruntled.

Nicole Ringle, Founder + President of Culture Advisors – www.cultureadvisors.com