🔒How To: Create opportunities that keep employees engaged

People often ask how my 27-year career in the military influences my work in human resources and training in a credit union. Some expect a caricature of a hard-knock military officer barking out commands to keep people in line. But the reality is my career revealed a truth as valid in business as it is in the military: effective leaders create opportunities that motivate and engage members of a team to be successful.

As leaders within their companies, HR managers are responsible for myriad administrative functions that, while important, should come second to creating a workplace where employees feel they are part of a team and where their contributions are recognized. Moreover, empirical research from Gallup and other authorities continues to support the conclusion that companies with an engaged workforce regularly outperform their competitors.

By incorporating these strategies into your business, HR managers can begin to capitalize on the potential financial and cultural gains of a fully engaged workforce:

• Know your team: When I joined Maine Savings after nearly 30 years in military service, I spent three weeks on the teller line working side-by-side with frontline employees, where many businesses experience the heaviest turnover.

• Measure it: In business, success is usually measured in dollars. Assessing employee engagement over time is no less important for HR managers to demonstrate progress and ROI. Key performance indicators include customers' feedback, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage and absenteeism.

• Tap employees in the recruiting process: Current employees are among your best recruiters. They already know the demands of the position and, more importantly, they want co-workers who share their core values and work ethic.

• Provide opportunities for personal growth: Challenging employees to learn new skills or take on new responsibilities can be seen as a vote of confidence in their place on the team. But there needs to be a balance between challenging employees and overwhelming them.

• Be honest: Employees respect open and candid communication about their work. Feedback should be transparent yet delivered in a respectful manner. Management should be quick to follow up with constructive ways to address areas for improvement.

• Offer a competitive benefits: Salaries and benefits aren't everything, but the realities of life cannot be ignored. Health benefits have deep meaning to individuals and families. Having a broad array of options and good quality providers will help to prevent employees from feeling under-compensated and looking elsewhere for opportunities.

• Encourage wellness: Holistic wellness programs can be a valuable tool for uniting employees who share similar health and financial goals.

• Assess processes and systems: Processes often flow horizontally across divisions, not vertically within a division. This leads to transition points where inefficiencies often lurk. One of the most powerful ways to grow engagement is by removing roadblocks through improved training and technology to create robust workflow that can withstand the unpredictability of daily operations.

• Follow the Golden Rule: Treat others the way they want to be treated. In the military, decisions often must be made without input from all parties involved, but that shouldn't be the case in business. Management has a duty to gather feedback before making a decision that will impact others. Including employees in that process will make for smoother implementation.

Robert Carmichael is a 27-year Army veteran, retired brigadier general and Bucksport native. He serves as SVP of human resources, training, IT and facilities at Maine Savings Federal Credit Union in Hampden. He can be reached at rcarmichael@mainesavings.com