When assessing engagement related to teamwork, below are a couple of questions found on a employee engagement survey:
For employees, there should be clear, objective goals. At Intertech, for performance management, we use Dale Carnegie Key Result Areas (KRAs) but any method that’s forward facing and objective works.
What do great managers have in common? They focus on the employee’s strengths:
Here are a couple of my favorite teamwork quotes:
Engagement starts with hiring.
Finally, look for ways to connect your team with technology. Below are a few favorites:
Intertech landed in the #7 spot in The Business Journal’s Top 25 Software Development Firms. My thanks to our dedicated, hardworking team members and our loyal customers for making us possible.
Below are a couple of questions that an employee would be asked about how they fit in the big picture:
The biggest way a leader misses the mark is tying the individual into the overall mission and goals for the organization’s success.
For mission and goals, as a leader, if we can’t explain how an employee fits into the big picture, we can’t expect them to!
Ditto on values… if we can’t succinctly say our values, we can’t our people to!
If you don’t have values firmly defined, Google “Jim Collins Martian Exercise” and use that as a plan to define your organization’s values.
For values to work, they need to be integrated into the fabric of the firm. Here are a few ideas we implement at Intertech to weave values into our day-to-day operations:
How do you get everyone on the same page with a goal for the company? Consider a theme! A theme is something company-wide. It could be around hiring, creating content, or whatever is needed to move the organization forward. Below are some thoughts on creating a theme:
Last month, I delivered a conference keynote. My talk was on engagement. For the 400+ attendees, I started by sharing what engagement means and finished with the eight areas of engagement and shared specific, actionable ideas to increase engagement.
Employee engagement results in a few major things… employees who advocate and promote your organization, who do more than the job requires, and who stay.
When you see the “Best” or “Great” places to work lists in magazines or newspapers, they are based on engagement. Engagement surveys are measured by:
For an engaging job, this is what employees look for:
For a manager that drives high engagement, they don’t focus on weakness:
Engagement results in more productivity, profit, safety and less absenteeism:
Minnesota’s low temperatures and high taxes don’t make our state the easiest place to do business. Yet, our world-class workforce has made Minnesota a hub for innovation and economic growth. While I think we can and should do more to address other barriers to growth (at least the tax climate), we should start by preserving our biggest advantage—the quality of our people—which is threatened by rhetoric and policies that discourage international students from attending our colleges and universities.
The fact is nearly 70% of Twin Cities college graduates stay in the metropolitan area after graduation. As our current population continues to age, Minnesota businesses need access to talented people from around the world to keep pace.
Unfortunately, instead of looking for ways to attract the world’s best and brightest, the president obsesses about building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out immigrants. It’s not surprising that many top foreign-born students are choosing to skip the U.S. of their own accord—with negative consequences for our economy, particularly our engineering and technology sectors. I’m referring to international students at U.S. colleges and universities who used to come here in record numbers to study STEM subjects.
In 2018, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities ranked 21st of all leading institutions in the country hosting international students, with 7,212 international students. That number has decreased to 5,500 international students today. This distressing higher education trend is happening nationwide.
Why are the world’s brightest students skipping the U.S.?
“Many schools attributed the trend to problems with student visa delays and denials, as well as the U.S. social and political climate and student decisions to enroll outside the United States,” reported the Washington Post (11/13/18). With some education leaders noting, “Trump’s advocacy of immigration restrictions, travel bans and a U.S.-Mexico border wall is not helping the nation compete for academic talent in the global market.”
As foreign-born students say “no thanks” to what they perceive as a hostile United States, many are saying “yes” to higher education institutions in Canada and Australia. Their gain is our loss.
These are deeply disturbing trends to owners of IT consulting firms like me. We compete on a global basis and losing access to some of the world’s most talented science and technology students and professionals is a major blow.
And you should be worried too. Not only do these foreign-born students help grow the U.S. IT industry—IT workers represent about 2.9 percent of the U.S. workforce says the U.S. Census Bureau—but when they stay and start new businesses they create good jobs for people born in the U.S.
There’s another worrisome side effect of this growing trend: the loss of millions of dollars in tuition payments at American colleges and universities, including our own U of M. Since foreign-born students pay higher rates than U.S. students, their tuition dollars are vital to keeping costs lower for students here. If current trends continue, the next state budget might need to include funding support for struggling state colleges and universities.
Leaders in Washington appear to live in a U.S.-centric bubble these days, but here in Minnesota (and the rest of the country) it’s one highly competitive global economy. We need to do everything possible to make foreign-born students feel welcome at our colleges and universities.
