Showing Employees You Care - Work From Home Edition

The beginning of true engagement with your team starts with deeply caring for them. The new restrictions of working from home make that even more challenging.

In this episode, Paul Simkins talks about some innovative ways you can show your employees you care.

The link for the FREE Stanford Ergonomic Training video is https://vimeo.com/402352338
You can get a copy of Paul's eBook 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care and Not Break the Bank by emailing him at paul@BoldlyLead.com.

We also have the first installment of a recipe segment we are calling "You Can Grill That?". Paul talks about some ways to grill different kinds of fruit in this first installment. You can find the recipes, and many more, on the Smoke and Ash Facebook group or by emailing TLToolbox@BoldlyLead.com.

You can join the discussions at our Podcast Facebook group here.
You can learn more about Paul Simkins on his website.

We happily work with Buzzsprout for our podcast. See how they can help you and get a $20 Amazon Gift Card after you pay your second invoice!

Transcript

Producer : 0:00

The Tech Leader's Toolbox podcast is brought to you by Paul Simkins and the Boldly LEAD program, focusing on helping tech leaders like you, and the frustration of low performing teams, and losing excellent employees, so they can increase productivity by 50%, go home on time, and sleep better at nights.

Paul Simkins : 0:23

Hello, and welcome to the Tech Leader's Toolbox. I'm Paul Simkins. And we're here because how you lead today determines how your team succeeds tomorrow. And I want to remind you, as always, that you are definitely a leader, because leadership is all about influence. And the good leaders know that in order to continue to increase their influence, they have to work on improving how they lead, and they grow by a commitment to become better each and every day. You're part of the foundation of employee engagement. is learning to truly, authentically care for your people? Well, today we're going to be talking about some ways you can do that in the current work from home environment under the current restrictions of COVID-19 that we're still going through right now. So are you ready? Let's go. You know, in one of the early episodes of the podcast, I shared a simple system for you about how to increase engagement and retention and performance within your team. And the reason I share that is because what I've seen and heard over the years as a corporate trainer and manager, see managers complaining all the time about how unproductive their employees were, how they were simply clock punchers, and unfortunately, there's lots of data to back that up. In fact, Gallup poll continues to show year after year, that the numbers of employees within organizations that are disengaged in the workplace hovers between 65 and 70%. So again, over half of the employees in the workplace are disengaged within that workplace either actively or passively disengaged. And the funny thing is, that includes the managers to that is a problem. And in a lot of organizations, turnover tends to be very high as a result of all this. Many managers over the years have just accepted turnover, high turnover as a cost of doing business. And it costs people billions of dollars a years this disengagement in the high turnover, costing organizations billions of dollars a year. But the thing is, is that it doesn't have to be that way. high turnover is not just a cost of doing business. It is something that can both be measured, and it can be mitigated. You can correct it engagement can be mitigated. All of these things can be addressed. Now, the same managers who complain about their disengaged employees and all that, they also complain a lot about lamenting the modern employee saying that the modern employee is is too self absorbed. They're too lazy, they're dishonest, they're disloyal. The truth is that they are none of those things. And if you see these signs in your team members, I would remind you, they didn't get there in a vacuum. Nobody just wakes up in the morning and says today I'm going to be disengaged in the workplace today. I'm going to see the minimum that I can get by with today, I'm going to see how much I can frustrate my boss. Nobody does that. Nobody really does that. I mean, think about it. Do you do that? Do you get up in the morning and go, I want to say how ticked off I can make everybody else. If you do that, I if you really do do that, I urge you to seek therapy. But people don't generally do that. So if they don't go into the equation, thinking about how can I take people off? Why are they that way? There's something else. Usually it's a cause and effect. Usually there is something that triggers those kinds of behaviors. So you have to look at how they got there. And to be honest, if you're a leader, you have to ask what role you played in getting them there. You may not have been totally directly responsible, but as a leader it's either a problem you caused, or a problem you didn't address properly. Now, this is further heightened by the fact that again, another Gallup poll that they continue to do your after year shows that about 50% of employees who leave a company leave because of the boss. So think about that. There was a saying, I learned years ago, and I've shared this on earlier podcast. And it's that leaders create all the problems. And leaders are also the only ones who can solve those problems. So if you want to avoid being the boss, that gets left, you have to learn to care for your employees. Because when you care for your employees, remember that's part of that formula, we share. And the firt when I first launched the podcast, you have to care for them because when you care for them, you can connect with them better. When you connect with them, you can communicate authentically and clearly with them. And then you can increase your influence with them. And when you have a positive influence with your employees, they're going to be more engaged in the workplace. And it all flows from that. Now I published years ago, I poached publish an E book that I used to share with a lot of people called 15 innovative ways to show employees you care and not break the bank. And it's been very well received and and I've used it for years. And if you'd like a copy of it, just email me at Paul at boldly lead.com send me an email and I will gladly send you a copy of that ebook. Again. It's called 15 innovative ways to show employees you care and not break the bank. Now that thing is, is that when I wrote that book that was again a few years ago, and most of the solutions in it require really that you have in person contact to be able to carry them out. But there are some that that still carry on. And so especially now with our work from home restrictions that were on because of COVID-19, and all that, and it looks like it's going to go on for a while, most organizations are talking about not relaxing that anytime soon, some are considering letting the employees do maybe a day at the office and then the rest of the time working from home. So we're still going to be in this environment. So again, going back to that saying leaders cause all the problems. Leaders are also the only ones who can solve those problems. So let's see if we can solve this one. So if we're Still in this situation where ourselves and our employees are still primarily working from home? What are some ways that we can care for our people with minimal expense? You know, not spending a whole bunch of money sending limos or things like that. But what can we do that's, that's going to be effective, that's going to keep everybody engaged because it's, again, when they're not there in person, this is even more of a challenge. And you know that because you get on a zoom meeting, and half the people are, you know, busy doing something else and not really paying attention. So how can we keep them engaged? How can we keep them engaged in what's going on in our workplace? Now, I'm going to throw some ideas at you, but I don't want you to think about I'm giving you the total solution here. What I'm hoping to do with this is really spark your mind, spark your imagination. You may look at one of these and go well, I don't know if I can do that. But you know, what I can do is I can do that. And that's fine. This is meant to get you started to get you started about thinking about solutions. You may take some of these and apply them straight up as I'm giving them to you. And that's great too. But keep in mind, this is not the be all, be all and end all. So here's a couple of things to think about. So first of all, think about ergonomics. Think about devices and equipment to help keep them from getting repetitive stress injuries. It happens. Stanford University, for example, actually offers a free online training video on work from home and ergonomics. I have I'll put a link in the show notes and you'll be able to pull that up. And that's something your employees can actually take again for free. take that class on workplace ergonomics. So here's the thing here's where ergonomics come in. And ergonomics is similar. How you sit how you sit at your workplace. And this is going to be a challenge for a lot of people because at home, they may not have an actual home office. I've mentioned before. For some of them, it means that as soon as the breakfast is done having the kids clear the table and the dining table is their workplace for the day, that's going to cause a lot of economic problems, it's going to cause a lot of repetitive stress injuries. And that's going to be a problem for you that's going to affect productivity. So think about some ways in which you can help mitigate that. This might be this is going to require a little bit of investment probably. But again, as I mentioned, that Stanford University training program that's going to teach some things about posture about taking frequent breaks, where they will stand up and move and things like that. But there's other things you can do again, even if it's just investing in an external keyboard a laptop platform so they can raise up the screen. So it's more at eye level, so that they're not having to turn their heads down all the time in order to see the screen, because again, that will cause a lot of problems. Think about if you if you're feeling generous, what about a platform for the laptop that can be raised up and down so they can stand up part of the time they can sit down part of the time. And again, that's going to help resolve a lot of those problems as well. And it's a minimal investment, those kinds of little platforms, you can get them fairly cheap. And that's a great solution. But think about ergonomics, think about educating your employees on posture and everything. Think about giving them a few things that may help them employ better ergonomics in their work from home environment. Another thing to think about is working to connect with team members and their loved ones. Now there's a lot of ideas that can go around This and again, the ones I'm going to give you here are just to spark your imagination. I know there are some organizations that actually do a cocktail hour on Friday afternoon, everybody can go get their favorite drink, alcoholic or whatever. And they all just sit around and chat on a zoom call. Totally free. They don't talk about work. They just talk and chat and socialize. And you can do that, if not to a lot of people's tastes, they don't really care for that. But if that works out with your team and your team's culture and climate, that's perfectly fine. Think about maybe doing I know some organizations do trivia time at lunch. So during the lunch break, get everybody away. Again, you don't talk about work. Everybody gets something they want to eat, and you throw trivia questions out that they can respond to think about this with again a great way because a lot of times a lot of places now The kids are taking school from home. They're not even going into school building right now. So you've got parents who are having to deal with the kids being around all day to day the kids being in school, and they're having to work and it's all having to be done in the same environment. Think about how you can engage with the family by having a storytime. Somebody who is good at reading and telling stories, have them read stories that the kids can listen to, on a zoom call. And the parents can listen to and let me tell you, when you engage when you show that you care for not just the employee, but the employees family, that makes a lot of difference to people. They want you to care about what they care about. That's important to them. Now one of the solutions, this is another solution. When The solutions I talked about in the, in the ebook is having covered dish dinners together, where everybody brings a covered dish dinner from their, from their background from their heritage. And so you get a lot of different tastes of cultures and ethnic dishes and so forth. And that's great if you can all get together and do that in person. But when you can't do that, what about setting up a recipe share? Most organizations are using some kind of system where there can be ongoing chats and forums and discussions. Think about using something like that and creating a recipe share where again, employees can share favorite recipes with each other. And so everybody gets a little taste again of each other's background and culture and what they like and what they don't like. Another great solution is setting up a virtual mentor mentee program. Where again, normally the mentors would be meeting in person here they're going to meet by, they can do by telephone or by a chat or, or again by a one on one zoom call. But you get those mentor mentee relationships going and you want to maintain that. So you're going to do that virtually instead of in person. If you're worried about employees having a lot of issues where again, the stress and everything else is getting to them. Don't forget to encourage the employees to make use of the EA EAP program that you have. Almost every organization has one. Take advantage of it, you're paying for it anyway. Encourage your employees to take advantage of it because it's going to help them get over that hump. Now, I mentioned again, a lot some of the solutions in the book don't really work for this work for home environment. But there are still some that do and I wanted to share a few of those with you as well. Think about making an income employee's birthday, a paid day off. And again, that's something that even when you resume bringing everybody back in the office, you can still maintain that. making their birthday a paid day off. I mean, most of them don't want to be there on their birthday anyway. Also think about still engaging in your one on ones. This is very important. Weekly one on ones with every single member of your team. That is so critical. No excuses here. Get it done. one on ones, each week with every employee and spin the time, throw a question and listen. If you spend most of the time in the one on one talking, you're not going to get what you want out of this. Listen and let them Talk because nothing shows love, respect and esteem more than a listening ear. Another solution, get to know their favorite snack food or drink and surprise them with home delivery. If you got to employ like you know just love Starbucks, they come in the office when they were coming in the office they were coming in the office every day with a Starbucks cup in their hand. Find out what that drink is they normally order use Uber Eats or something like that and have it delivered to them in the morning. You don't have to do it every morning just once in a while my tree sent them off in your way to better yet, if you know what the family likes to snack on, send a family pack to the home where everybody can snack on it. Now, how important Is that I want to tell you a quick story about this. This is one of my favorite stories is a woman named Linda Kaplan failor, CEO of a big advertising company and, and she's written several books. And she tells this story about years ago when she wanted to get an appointment with Warren Buffett. And, and she was trying for a long, long time to get this appointment for for a couple years trying to get an appointment with Warren Buffett. And finally the opportunity came and when she when they made the appointment, they told her you're only going to get 15 minutes with him. That's it hard and fast. 15 minutes he's gonna chase you out. Well, she took the time to do some research on him and found out that Warren Buffett loved Cherry Coke. So when Linda Kaplan Thaler shows up for her appointment with Warren Buffett After she shakes his hand, the next thing she does is reach into her purse and pull out a can of cherry coke and places it down on the table. And she was able to spend two hours with Warren Buffett that day because she found out what he liked. And she showed regard and esteem for something he liked. So don't take this snack food thing lightly. It makes a difference to people. Think also about spotlighting employees accomplishments whether they're work related or not. If you know for example, that an employee is really big one of their big causes is autism and they just they remarked how they were going to go on an autism walkie you could say, hey, did y'all hear you know tell everybody all the other employees in your weekly meeting or something? Hey, you know, March just completed the option. Isn't walking she raised $4,000 is that terrific, everybody? congratulate March. This is great. You know, hey Paulinho Paul and his wife, Sherry, you know, did you know that they've adopted three kids from the foster care system isn't that wonderful? Think about those kinds of things, celebrating their accomplishments, whether they're work related or not. And finally, also think about giving them flex time, especially since they're working at home right now. And because most of them also going to have the kids in there, give them that flex time where you're not going to demand that they are available every minute of every hour during standard business hours. Because it's going to be an impossible situation for them to meet. Don't put that extra pressure on them. Focus more on the productivity on the work getting done, than on when it gets done and on their availability. So these are just some things to do. And again, This is just a spark you get creative with it, try things if they fail, you'll find out quickly if they failed and try something else. But the main thing is, is focus on caring enough about your employees to want to try ways to reach them and keep them engaged. And if you do that, then you could avoid being the boss that gets left. And instead, you will be the boss that they really, really want to work for. We'll be back in a moment.

Producer : 21:37

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Paul Simkins : 22:05

All right, so this is the part where again, I always like to share an outdoor cooking recipe because I love outdoor cooking I do all kinds of outdoor cooking, cooking over an open fire cooking with Dutch ovens. I have a grill, I have a smoker, so anything I can cook outdoors any time, I'm all for it. And a lot of time you know a lot of the recipes I've shared, they're pretty normal recipes. But there's a lot of times where you know people think just in terms of grilling meat, and maybe certain types of vegetables like corn or something on a grill. But there's a lot more you can do on a grill as well. And so I'm going to share with you today this is going to be the first on several that I will share over time that I'm calling you can grill that and this is the you can grill that fruit addition. So I'm Talk about some fruits that you can put on the grill or on the smoker. And you're going to really, really enjoy it. Here first thing is think about citrus fruits, oranges, lemons and limes, slice them up, cut them into slices or quarter them up. And if you really want to treat dip them lightly and sugar before you put them on the grill. So again, you're gonna put them on the grill till the grill till the sugar caramelizes and grill marks appear. And then you can take those carbs that carmelized fruit and you could eat it straight up but what is really great for is if like you're going to be having a party and serving sangria, throw that grilled fruit into the sangria into other fruit drinks, or if you're grilling fish or chicken. Use that grilled fish with grilled fruit with the fish or chicken dishes and you'll really like it. peaches are great for grilling, either, you're just basically going to cut them in half and remove the pit. You can play some face down on the grill and cook them. I like to put them in the smoker and I'll smoke them for about an hour putting them as far away from the heat sources I can get that nice smoky flavor into them. We actually have a recipe that was shared on the Tech Leader's Toolbox one time for grilled peaches and poundcake. And that recipe is out on the smokin ash Facebook group where I share all the recipes for this show. So again, if you want to come out and join us on Facebook, the smoking ash Facebook group, we have all these recipes out there. And do you have a recipe out there for grilled peaches and poundcake that is absolutely delicious. sinfully delicious. The smoked peaches, I'll take my smoked peaches and I'll either make a peach cobbler or else I'll make a peach crumb pie. And this is actually a recipe I got off at Emeril Lagasse, peach crumb pie with homemade cinnamon ice cream and all just so good. Watermelon, believe it or not watermelon you can grill II take your watermelon cut it into sticks about three inches long by one inch by one inch and then put a skewer on it, sprinkle a little salt on it put it on the grill. And then once the grill marks appear and it's carmelized a bit, basically serve them on the sticks and make a dipping sauce on the side using plain yogurt and season at either with tahini sauce, or with cinnamon and nutmeg and are just so good that spiciness with the salty and then the creaminess of the yogurt and then the the juiciness of the watermelon really good. Pineapple is great for this take your pineapple rings, sprinkle them with cinnamon and nutmeg and put them on the grill until they get heated through and grill marks. here and again you can serve that as a side or just eat them straight up. And again what it does is it really makes a lot of that sugar inside of the fruit carmelize and just really heightens it. And it's a nice contrast with the cinnamon nutmeg. Now here's one this is a popular thing now is jackfruit and jackfruit is great on the grill a lot of vegans like to use jackfruit because the meat because of the consistency of the meat is similar to like pulled pork. So when you cook it, you can actually make like pulled jackfruit dishes and all but this is just a simpler way to do it. You're gonna cut the jackfruit and there's all kinds of instructions out there on the internet about how to cut up jackfruit you want to cut it well all you have is the yellow meat. That's the stuff we want to eat and cut that meat into two inch wide slices. sprinkle it with ginger and nutmeg or all spice so either nutmeg or all spice not both. And then drizzle honey on it and put it on the grill. So while the side with the honey on it is on the face down on the grill cooking, sprinkle your spices and drizzle your honey on the other side. And again, grill it till both sides are well browned for this because it's such a thick hearty meat in the jackfruit. You want both sides to be well browned, and you can eat it like that and it's delicious or even you might be able to shred it up a bit. And finally, here's a treat your kids will love this. We used to call them banana boats. Take bananas, and with a peel still on you're going to take your knife and cut a inch and a half slit down the inside curve of the banana. And then kind of you know, push it open on a little bit. Stick Marsh stick mini marshmallows in there. And you can put different kinds of candy like I liked Put those red Hots the cinnamon candy in there. Chocolate chips are great in there, any kind of similar candies and treats. And then once you stick all that in there, wrap the banana and foil and either place it on the grill or place it directly on hot coals for several minutes, remove it, let it cool. Then unwrap the foil from it. And then just take a spoon and just dig in there to that and dig all that out and eat it and it is just so good. So again, that's some of the things you can do things you can go Can you really grill that fruit? Yes, you can. And it is absolutely delicious. All right, so today we talked about showing employees you can work from home edition, and hopefully had some ideas there that you're going to be able to apply in order to create a better create a better environment in this work from home and keep your employees engaged. So I want to remind you again, if you want more about the recipes and all that come on out to our Smoke and Ash Facebook group and join us out there. But also, we have a Facebook group for the podcast called the Tech Leader's Toolbox. We extend the conversations out there. And also, if you have questions about what we talked about or just questions in general about employee engagement or about leadership, you can come out there to the Tech Leader's Toolbox, Facebook group, and ask your questions out there. And of course, if you have anything you'd like us to talk about on the show, or just questions for me directly, just send me an email at tltoolbox@boldlylead.com. Now, finally, if you are listening to our podcast on an app, I want to encourage you please to give us a favorable review. Give us a five star review and give us favorable ratings, because that's going to help other people find this as well. Well, that's all we have for this week. Until next week. Go on out and be the leader. You were meant to be. Transcribed by https://otter.ai