“I recommend this ebook to anyone interested in engagement.”
Benjamin Niaulin, Public Speaker

10 ESSENTIAL PILLARS OF

EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT

Jacob Shriar

Director of Customer Happiness

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1

About The Author

2

Preface

3

Introduction: The Importance of Emotional Metrics

7

Pillar One: Giving and Receiving Praise

13

Pillar Two: Giving and Receiving Feedback

19

Pillar Three: What Makes Us Happy

25

Pillar Four: Employee Wellness

36

Pillar Five: You and Your Boss

42

Pillar Six: You and Your Co-Workers

48

Pillar Seven: Personal Growth

54

Pillar Eight: Company Alignment

58

Pillar Nine: Career Satisfaction

63

Pillar Ten: Ambassadorship

66

Conclusion

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacob Shriar
Director of Customer Happiness

Jacob is the Director of Customer Happiness at
Officevibe, and is on a mission to make the world of work better. He believes that everyone deserves to love their job, and be happy, healthy, and productive at work. He's passionate about startups and company culture, and believes you should never stop learning.

1

PREFACE
Why Did I Write This Guide?
I wanted to emphasize the importance of emotional metrics, and how they affect engagement. The HR department has a real opportunity to engage workers on a deeper, more emotional level.
I want managers to be able to tell how happy and healthy their employees are. I want managers to be able to measure, optimize, and improve each of these metrics so that their employees can be as happy as possible.
Who Is This Guide For?
This guide is for HR managers, and anyone responsible for employee happiness and company culture. If you’ve wanted to measure and improve your employees’ happiness and wellness levels, this guide is for you. If you’ve ever wondered how to improve relationships between co-workers or with their managers, this guide is for you.
How To Use This Guide?
Use it as a manual to discover which metrics matter to engagement, how to measure them, and how to improve them. The goal is to become more emotionally intelligent as a leader and to make sure your employees are engaged.

2

- INTRODUCTION -

THE IMPORTANCE
OF EMOTIONAL METRICS

INTRODUCTION

The Importance of Emotional Metrics

M

etrics are an important part of any business. They help us make smarter decisions, that are factual instead of basing on

intuition. In HR, some of the more common metrics that people will track are things like cost of turnover, cost of hiring, speed of onboarding, etc.
I’d like to bucket those metrics into a group that I’ll call financial metrics. But there’s another set of metrics, that to me, are just as important if not more important: Emotional Metrics.
These are things like employee happiness, employee wellness, relationship quality with managers, etc.
I’ll go through ten emotional metrics in this guide, and try to break down why they’re important. I'll also show how you can track these things, and what to do if you see these metrics start to slip.
There is a lot of great HR software out there, but again, most of them focus exclusively on the financial metrics. There are tools to measure and monitor some of the emotional metrics I’ll talk about, but they often only track one single emotional metric.
It’s a good step in the right direction, and I’m a big believer in focusing on one thing. But it would be great if there were one tool that could monitor and measure all of these emotional metrics.
Not only that, but ideally this tool would be able to recommend actions automatically, based on the results of these metrics.

4

The Importance of Emotional Metrics

For anyone in HR that’s not already data driven, it’s time to start right now. We can no longer rely on the CEO’s gut feeling, it’s not accurate enough, and there’s no supporting evidence.
A big reason that companies don’t measure these emotional metrics as much as they do the financial metrics is because they’re harder to measure. But the truth is, they’re very important to measure because they have a huge effect on employee engagement.
If you’re smart about it, it’s not that difficult to measure.
There are a lot of “proxy questions” that you can ask to get the answers you’re looking for.
What I mean by this, is instead of asking someone how happy they are at work, you can ask questions that infer happiness.
It’s a safe assumption to say that if you’re happy at work, you probably won’t be looking around at other jobs actively, and you also probably enjoy at least a few of the people you work with.
If you ask someone a question like “how actively are you searching for a job”, and “do you have at least 2 people at work that you consider a friend”, you can get your answer.
Engaged employees are more productive; that’s been proven many times, so it’s important that as leaders, we try our best to make sure every employee is as engaged and happy as possible.

5

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

The Importance of Emotional Metrics

Here are the ten metrics that I’ll be going into more detail on in this guide. This list is in no particular order:
1.

Recognition

2.

Feedback

3.

Relationship with colleagues

4.

Relationship with managers

5.

Satisfaction

6.

Company Alignment

7.

Employee Happiness

8.

Employee Wellness

9.

Personal Growth

10. Ambassadorship

6

CHAPTER

1

- PILLAR ONE -

GIVING AND RECEIVING
PRAISE

CHAPTER 1

Giving And Receiving Praise

P

raise is one of the easiest and most important ways to engage employees. First, let’s talk a bit about receiving praise, and how that affects employee engagement. Receiving praise is biological. Let me explain how it works.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the chemical called dopamine.
It is a “high” that all humans chase, and a chemical that affects the part of the brain associated with positive emotions like joy and happiness. People often drink alcohol or do drugs to chase a dopamine high, which comes and goes, but people always want.
This is where praise gets a little tricky for employers.

According to Gallup, you should ideally be praising someone at least once a week.
This frequency might seem like a lot, but it’s important to understand how quickly the effect of dopamine wears off.
Since it wears off so quickly, employees constantly need it. Similar to a drug addict, if they don’t get that dopamine, the effects can be pretty dangerous. 8

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Giving And Receiving Praise

CHAPTER 1

Feelings of frustration, anxiety, sadness all start to consume them in their work, even if they enjoy their work.
Again, this is something that as humans, we can’t really control. We need dopamine one way or another, so if we don’t get it from our managers, maybe we’ll get it from a bottle of liquor.
It’s actually an advantage for an employer to know this, because when employees get that feeling of dopamine for a job well done, they want to do that same thing again, in order to get more dopamine, so their likelihood of doing more good work is much higher.

Employees who say they’re not properly recognized at work, are 3 times more likely to quit in the next year.
This is a serious issue, and again, one that’s pretty simple to solve.
As a leader or manager, all you really have to do is be mindful of this, and make sure to give frequent praise and recognition.
The beauty of this, is that it’s free. Literally all you have to do is recognize someone for doing something good, and do it often. It’s more about being aware, and maybe reminding yourself of how important praise is to people.

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CHAPTER 1

Giving And Receiving Praise

Giving praise is also important, and in fact, a study from Deloitte showed that receiving praise from a co-worker is even more powerful than when it comes from a manager.
Recognition from co-workers meaning more makes a lot of sense, because your co-workers are actually with you on the day to day, and potentially understand the struggles of your job.
Another reason might also be because, as employees, we expect managers to give us praise, so it’s even more meaningful from coworkers because it’s perceived as being more authentic.
The point of what I’m saying here is that everyone in the company, managers and employees, need to be giving praise to each other very often. Let’s look at some of the research behind why giving and receiving praise is so important:
1.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number one reason people leave their jobs is because they “do not feel appreciated.” 2.

A study of over 1,700 employees conducted in 2012 by the
American Psychological Association (APA) indicated that more than half of all employees intended to search for new jobs because they felt underappreciated and undervalued.

3.

A worldwide study by Towers Watson concluded “the single highest determinant for engagement is whether or not

10

Giving And Receiving Praise

employees feel that their manager is genuinely interested in their well-being”. 4.

In a Gallup survey from a few years ago, they found that employees that receive regular recognition and praise:
•

Increase their productivity

•

Increase engagement among their colleagues

•

Are more likely to stay at their company

•

Receive higher satisfaction scores from customers

•

Have better safety records, and fewer accidents on the job 5.

According to research by Deloitte, companies with recognition programs “highly effective at improving employee engagement have 31% lower voluntary turnover than their peers with ineffective recognition programs”.

6.

In the research by Deloitte, 70% of employees reported they are recognized annually or not at all.

As a final piece of advice, remember to be very specific with your praise. Don’t just praise for the sake of praising because you think that’s what motivates employees.
It’s not the word “thank you” or “great job” that they care about, it’s the fact that when they do something great (and they secretly know

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CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

Giving And Receiving Praise

they did), they’re reinforced with positivity from someone they respect. Learn how you can measure and increase recognition in your company with Officevibe.

12

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CHAPTER

2

- PILLAR TWO -

GIVING AND RECEIVING
FEEDBACK

CHAPTER 2

Giving And Receiving Feedback

F

eedback has a lot of similarities with praise, but it’s different in that feedback is slightly more negative.

Praise is to recognize good work, whereas feedback is meant to be constructive, and to help an employee improve.
What’s important to understand about feedback, is that it’s a very delicate process, and you have to be very careful about how you deliver it.
If delivered properly, it can do wonders, and help the employee grow within an organization.

If feedback is delivered the wrong way, it can disengage an employee, and make them defensive and angry.
Here are some tips for giving feedback properly:

1. Do It In Real-Time
The best time to give someone feedback on their work is right away.
There’s no point in waiting or delaying because, as time passes, the feedback could either be viewed as meaningless or pretty insulting.

2. Practice First
If you’re planning to give someone feedback, make sure that you go over it in your head to try and make it sound as nice as possible.
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Giving And Receiving Feedback

You don’t want to go into a feedback session angry or uptight, an employee will be able to feel that emotion coming through.
Depending on how serious the feedback is, you can also practice giving the feedback on someone else to make sure it sounds okay.

3. Make It A Conversation
The smartest thing my manager ever did for me during my feedback session was ask me what I thought about my performance before giving me feedback.
Not only did this help soften the blow for whatever he was about to say, but it was a good exercise in retrospection.

4. Listen More Than You Speak
While you’re giving feedback, make sure to pause and give the recipient some time to respond to whatever you say. Also, feel free to ask them what they think or if they agree or not with what you just said. In 2009, Gallup conducted a study about employee feedback from managers, and there were some pretty interesting results.
•

Employees ignored by their manager are twice as likely to be actively disengaged compared with workers whose manager focuses on their weaknesses

•

Managers focusing on employee strengths are 30 times more likely to manage actively engaged workers

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CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Giving And Receiving Feedback

•

Managers giving little or no feedback to employees result in 4 out of ten workers being actively disengaged
Most companies have too formal of a feedback process.
Employees can’t wait until the annual review, and usually a company’s performance review process is broken and one-sided.
I want to give a great example of a

company that gets feedback sessions right.
Medium, which is an online publishing company started by the founders of Twitter, has one of the greatest feedback processes I’ve ever seen.
It’s very light, fun, and informal, but it’s effective.
It’s based on the old game Mad Libs, where you have to fill in the blank in several places within a paragraph. The point of the game is to fill in funny, nonsensical things for humor, but the way it’s applied to employee feedback at Medium is just genius.

16

Giving And Receiving Feedback

Here is an example feedback form that they use:

I can count on Gabe for ____________.
He is viewed within Medium as ____________. He directs his energy toward ____________, and does so with ____________ effectiveness.
At his best, Gabe is ____________, ____________, and ____________.
His strengths include ____________ and ____________.
When things aren’t going well, he does/is ____________ and
____________.
Some areas for growth include ____________ and ____________.
He could operate on a whole new level if he were to ____________.
In the next six months, I’d like to see him explore possibilities in
____________ and ____________, and stretch his skills in
____________.
Specifically, I’d recommend he connect with ____________ or try
____________.
What’s an example of when he totally crushed it?
What’s an example of a situation he didn’t handle well?
If he were an animal, he would be a ________ because ________.
[metaphors can be informative + lighten things up]

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CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Giving And Receiving Feedback

One last thing I’ll say about feedback is that now that you understand a bit more about how to properly give feedback, you can keep these things in mind when you’re receiving it.
Remember to be calm, open, and patient. Let whatever someone is saying to you sink in before you start reacting, and be willing to ask follow-up questions to clarify what they mean.
Feedback is meant to help you get better, so while at first it might come across as insulting, they’re telling it to you for your own good.

Learn how you can measure and increase feedback in your company with Officevibe.

18

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CHAPTER

3

- PILLAR THREE -

WHAT MAKES US HAPPY

CHAPTER 3

What Makes Us Happy

A

n employee’s happiness level is one of the most important things to be measuring.

It’s obvious that if an employee is happy at work, they’ll be much more engaged and productive.
It also makes sense then that if an employee is happy outside of work, that will translate into them being happier at work. The same is true if the employee is unhappy outside of work.
It’s a bit tricky though, because, as an employer, there are limits to how personal you can get with an employee.
Regardless, it’s important that you check in and make sure that they are happy both outside of work, and at work.
A group of researchers in the UK says that they have found a link between happiness and productivity at work. They say that happy employees are 12% more productive.
As a leader, it’s important to learn more about positive psychology, and understand the science behind what makes us happy.
Martin Seligman, who essentially invented positive psychology, gave a very famous TED talk about 3 different kinds of happiness lifestyles:

NATURAL

The Pleasant Life

The Engagement Life

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The Meaningful Life

What Makes Us Happy

CHAPTER 3

Probably the most interesting part of his talk is when he says that the pleasure lifestyle doesn’t lead to long lasting happiness.

Real happiness comes from finding meaning in what you do.
Here are a few ways to be happier, backed by science.

1. Surround Yourself With Happiness
A study done by BMJ group found that surrounding yourself with happiness will make you more happy.
It’s all about creating that positive energy. The trick is to have close relationships with people since it’s been linked to us living longer.

2. Exercise
One study found that exercise is the most effective mood-regulating behavior, because when you exercise, your body releases endorphins.
The key here is regularly exercising, and not necessarily the intensity or length of the workout itself. If you can make it a habit, and work it into your daily life, that will be the most effective.

3. Accept Failure
If you learn from your mistakes, then it’s okay to make them, research has shown that being able to accept failure, and learn how to deal with it will make you happier in the long run.
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CHAPTER 3

What Makes Us Happy

As we make progress through a project or task, that’s what makes us happy, but along the way, you will hit many bumps and fail. It’s important to be able to embrace failure.

4. Think Positively
Research has shown that simply by thinking positive thoughts, we can become happier. Thinking positively is also known as the law of attraction and was popularized with the book The Secret.
The research shows that by just thinking positively, we can improve our happiness.
According to one study, if we can learn to appreciate the little things in life, and focus on them, we can make ourselves happier.

5. Laugh Out Loud
What happens is, when we laugh, a chemical is released in the brain that makes us happier. When we laugh a lot, we can trick our body into thinking that this is a continuous feeling.
The same way that regularly exercising helps us to be happier, regularly laughing has been shown to have similar effects, according to one study.

6. Meditate
Meditation has been shown to rewire your brain to improve your sense of self and lead to increased happiness.

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What Makes Us Happy

7. Buy A Gift For Someone Else
There’s an incredible book that talks all about this; it’s called Happy
Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, and in it people around the world reported being happier when they spent money on others.
In fact, if you spend the money on someone you actually care about, you can increase your happiness even more, according to one study.

8. Find A Work BFF
Humans are social creatures, and a great way to make yourself happier at work is to have a best friend.
A study done at the London school of economics found that socializing with colleagues is the only thing proven to make you as happy than when you’re not at work.
Similarly, Gallup found that if you have a best friend at your work, you’re much more motivated and productive.

Ways To Measure Employee Happiness
Measuring employee happiness is an important part of understanding how engaged your employees are. Here are two ways I would recommend measuring employee happiness.
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CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

What Makes Us Happy

1. Niko Niko Calendar
The Niko Niko calendar is originally a tool used in agile project management to measure the success of a project.
NikoNiko means “smiley” in Japanese, and the way it is used in agile is to track the mood of a project.
It’s a pretty smart idea. Each day, employees put a sticker on a calendar to show how they are progressing with their tasks.
Traditionally, in agile projects, you measure the number of features completed, but with the Niko Niko calendar, the project manager will look at the mood of the team.
If things are going well, then you would expect everyone to say that they are happy, whereas if things are going poorly, you would expect to see sad faces.
Instead of using this in a project management setting, use it to gage the happiness level of your employees.

2. Self-Reporting
Self-reporting is the most common way to measure someone’s happiness. Have employees report how they’re feeling on a daily or weekly basis, and then measure that over time to find patterns and trends.
Tools like TINYpulse or any employee engagement survey will let you collect that information.

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CHAPTER 3

What Makes Us Happy

Learn how you can measure and increase happiness in your company with Officevibe.

25

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CHAPTER

4

- PILLAR FOUR -

EMPLOYEE WELLNESS

CHAPTER 4

Employee Wellness

E

mployee wellness is an important metric to be tracking.

There are a lot of reasons why having healthy employees makes sense for your business, like lower absenteeism, and higher energy levels which will lead to more productivity.
There are a lot of easy and simple ways to increase employee wellness, but one of the best things you can do is educate yourself.
Managers and leaders need to be educated, and every employee should be educated on what the best things you can do to increase your wellness are.
The more educated everyone is, the better we can all be at making sure that all of us are as healthy as possible.

The real secret to becoming healthier is about building better habits into your life.
When you’re building better habits, or trying to get rid of bad ones, one of the most important things you need is a good support system.
Your co-workers can be that support system.
From a high level, there are three things that you need to think about when trying to increase employee wellness.
I’ll go through each of them, and talk about simple ways you can implement these into your company.
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Employee Wellness

CHAPTER 4

The first one is about eating healthier. Healthy eating is more important than exercising, and this is where education plays a huge role. If we know what’s good for us, and what’s not so good, we can start to make smarter decisions.
The second one is about exercising, and moving more in general. Most office jobs require us to sit all day, which is terrible for us, and is doing an immense amount of damage.
The third one, and this is probably the hardest one of the three, is to manage stress.
Stress does a lot of damage to your body, and we often deal with stress at work. Whether it’s because of our boss, a client or both, stress is abundant in the workplace.

We need to find ways to deal with and manage the stress for our well-being.

Eating Healthier
We all need to start eating better. We need to learn what food is doing to our body, and how it affects our energy levels.

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CHAPTER 4

Employee Wellness

There are two foods that are very common in our society that are so bad for us and the environment. The first one is bread, and the second one is meat.
Very hard to cut both of these out of your diet completely, but you should cut down on these foods as much as possible. •

Bread is high in carbs and spikes sugar levels very quickly

•

Bread contains a lot of gluten, a protein that has glue-like properties, and damages the wall of the digestive tract, causing pain, bloating, and fatigue

•

Bread contains phytic acid, which is a molecule that binds minerals like calcium, iron, and zinc, and prevents them being properly absorbed

•

Bread has very little nutrients to begin with, and things like gluten and phytic acid reduce the absorption

•

“Whole” wheat bread isn’t good for you; it’s just less bad than white bread

Meat is also not good. Not only is meat not good for you, but it’s horrible for the environment.

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Employee Wellness

There are two big reasons why you should think about cutting out meat: 1. There are a lot of antibiotics in meat
Look at this statistic:
Out of all the antibiotics sold in the United States each year, 80 percent are used in agriculture, primarily to fatten animals and protect them from the conditions in which they are raised.

2. Meat uses a lot of water
Meat-eaters consume the equivalent of about 5,000 liters of water a day compared to the 1,000-2,000 liters used by people on vegetarian diets in developing countries.
Did you know that in California today, you may save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you would by not showering for six entire months?
So what should you be eating instead?
Things like nuts, seeds, berries, fruits, vegetables, anything natural.
Here are a few ideas.
1.

Garlic
Garlic has lots of antibacterial, and antiviral benefits, and also has important anti-cancer properties.

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CHAPTER 4

Employee Wellness

2.

Kale
It’s sometimes called “the new beef” or “the queen of greens”, or
“the nutritional powerhouse,” because it’s low in calories, high in fiber, and has zero fat. It’s also high in iron, vitamin K, A, and C, and is filled with powerful antioxidants. It’s a true superfood.

3.

Onions
Onions can lower blood levels of cholesterol, and can also help increase bone density. It has important anti-inflammatory benefits and has been shown to lower the risk of many cancers.

4.

Avocados
Avocados are one of the best foods for heart health. They help prevent inflammation and also has many anti-cancer benefits.

5.

Beets
Beets are a great source of iron, and guards against cancer. They are very low calorie and are considered a fiber food. They might even help you lose weight.

6.

Cabbage
Some of the health benefits include cancer prevention, an excellent source of Vitamin C, high in manganese, and has antiinflammatory nutrients. It also helps support the digestive tract.

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Employee Wellness

7.

CHAPTER 4

Almonds
Almonds lower your cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. 8.

Quinoa
One of the most protein-rich foods. It has almost twice as much fiber as most other grains.

9.

Maca
Maca is rich in Vitamin B vitamins, Vitamin C and E. It provides plenty of Zinc, Iron, Magnesium, and amino acids. Many athletes take Maca for peak performance.

Getting More Exercise
Like I mentioned earlier, most office jobs don’t allow for much movement, so it’s up to us to make that extra effort to move more.

Just getting up every 30 minutes for a quick walk can make all the difference.
Seriously, sitting is killing you, and has even been called “the new smoking”. We weren’t meant to live like this. Humans are meant to be nomadic, and move around.

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CHAPTER 4

Employee Wellness

Look at some of these very scary statistics on the effects of sitting all day: 1.

People who sit for the majority of their day have a 54% greater risk of dying from a heart attack.

2.

According to a survey, if you sit for more than 4 hours a day, you’re much more likely to suffer chronic ailments like heart disease and diabetes.

3.

A study done in 2011 found that every hour of TV people watched after the age of 25 was linked to 22 minutes taken off from their life expectancy.

4.

People who sit less have a lower risk of kidney disease.

5.

Men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars (as passengers or as drivers) had a 64% greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less.

6.

Sitting increases risk of death up to 40%

The trick to fix all of this is to obviously sit less.
So, some things you can do to improve are:
1.

Walking Meetings
According to research at Stanford University, people are more creative when they’re walking. Another study out of Germany

33

Employee Wellness

found that your short-term memory improved when you’re walking. 2.

Take All Phone Calls Standing Up
There are two main benefits I see with this one.
Besides sitting less, you can walk around, use your hands, and be more animated on the phone. And also, you can shorten the time it takes and avoid idle chit-chat.

3.

Buy A Stand Up Desk
Stand up desks don’t have to be expensive depending on how you do it, but they’re a great way to avoid sitting all day.
Ideally, if you can afford one of the desks that adjust, that will allow you to stand for a few hours, and sit for a few hours, depending on how you’re feeling.

4.

Measure And Optimize
Invest in tools like Jawbone and Fitbit to measure your health, and use the data to make improvements in your life.
Remember, you can’t improve what you can’t measure.

Managing Your Stress
Too much stress can lead to employee burnout.

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Employee Wellness

Employee burnout can have huge

CHAPTER 4

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negative effects on your company, both financially and emotionally.
Stress is natural, and we’ll never be able to completely remove stress from our lives, and some people say that a bit of stress is a good thing, because it shows passion and dedication.
Either way, we should all try and learn how to manage our stress.
Things like exercise and eating properly help, because they help regulate our moods, which play a big factor in how susceptible we are to stress.

Another thing you can do to manage your stress is meditate.
Meditation has amazing benefits when it comes to managing stress.
Mindful meditation helps control the part of the part that’s responsible for emotions, helping us manage our stress better. It’s also been found to decrease cortisol, which is a stress hormone.
While you’re meditating, deep breathing helps relax the body and lower the heart rate, which ultimately lowers your stress level.
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CHAPTER 4

Employee Wellness

Another great thing you really need to do is take more downtime.
Every employer should be actively encouraging a healthy work-life balance. Remember that downtime is not only an important way to reduce stress, but it will make you more productive, because taking downtime is how to brain learns.
What’s important to understand about downtime, is that what matters more than anything is how you use your downtime.
An amazing study found that university employees who reported thinking negatively about their work were even more exhausted when they came back to work.

Learn how you can measure and increase employee wellness in your company with Officevibe.

36

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CHAPTER

5

- PILLAR FIVE -

YOU AND YOUR BOSS

CHAPTER 5

You And Your Boss

S

eventy-five percent of people that quit their jobs, quit their bosses. This number should be pretty telling at what matters to an employee, and how easily an employee can be disengaged.
Your relationship with your direct manager or a boss can have a huge effect on your health.
According to a study at the Stress Institute in Stockholm, they found that “

employees who had managers who were incompetent, inconsiderate, secretive and uncommunicative, were 60% more likely to suffer a heart attack or other life-threatening cardiac

”

condition.

It’s so important that managers understand what to do make an employee happy and engaged and that they actively work on it.
In recent years, we’ve seen a shift in how managers view their employees, and how employees should be treated.

Traditionally, employees were treated as numbers on a sheet, and leaders didn’t care about their personal lives, and they kept work and personal relationships separate.
This isn’t the case anymore.

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You And Your Boss

CHAPTER 5

Smart leaders understand that now it takes a certain level of connection, and a certain level of interest in helping employees grow as people.
More and more, employees personal lives are spilling over into their professional lives, and they are starting to blend more than ever.

Employee engagement and having happy, productive employees comes down to treating people with respect.
In order to be able to treat your employees with respect, you need to be able to understand them, what they’re going through, and what’s on their minds.
One of the most important skills that a leader can have is empathy.
A study conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership found that empathy is positively related to job performance.
The study found that managers who show more empathy toward employees are viewed as better performers by their bosses.
Empathy is something that can be learned and is something that all managers should practice.

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You And Your Boss

When managers are more empathetic, they have a better understanding of their employees and can motivate them more because they’re more connected with them.
Google, famously found out what it takes to be a great manager by analyzing data from hundreds of their employee surveys about managers. Google called this Project Oxygen, and is one of the most data-driven answers on what it takes to be a great boss.
At first, when they started this project, they had gotten rid of managers altogether.
Since Google is a very autonomous company to begin with, they wondered if managers were doing more harm than good, and so they for rid of all of them.
What they ended up finding out, was that managers do matter, but they have to be good.
Bad managers cause harm, while good managers help employees grow. By looking at all of their data, Google was able to come up with 8 traits that make a great leader.
1.

They are a good coach

2.

They empower their team and don’t micromanage

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You And Your Boss

3.

They express a genuine interest for team members’ success and personal well-being

4.

They are productive and results-orientated

5.

They are good communicators

6.

They help with career development

7.

They have a clear vision for the team

8.

They have the necessary technical skills that help advise the team

In addition to the eight behaviors they have identified for a good manager, they also narrowed down on the top 3 causes for why managers are struggling in their role:
1.

They had a tough transition (e.g. suddenly promoted, hired from outside with little training)

2.

They lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development

3.

They spend too little time on managing and communicating.

Google now uses this data to help struggling managers, and reward top managers.

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You And Your Boss

From their Think With Google page:

“

We regularly survey employees about their managers, and then use that information to publicly recognize the best managers and enlist them as teachers and role models for the next year.
The worst managers receive intense coaching and support, which helps 75 percent of them get better within a quarter.

”

The key to remember here is that it’s a relationship.
You can use a lot of the tips and best practices from a romantic relationship to understand how you can have a better relationship with your manager.
It’s a two-way street, meaning both parties have to be equally committed to making it work.
It needs to be based on trust, and the relationship should grow stronger over time, through frequent feedback and coaching sessions.

Learn how you can measure and increase relationships with managers in your company with Officevibe.

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CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER

6

- PILLAR SIX -

YOU AND
YOUR CO-WORKERS

CHAPTER 6

You And Your Co-Workers

H

uman beings are social. It makes sense that they would want to be social at work, and be friends with the people they are

spending so much time with.
Too often, managers will discourage this type of social interaction, and view it as a distraction from work, when in fact, it’s making employees more productive.
After years of research, Gallup found that to measure employee engagement, you only need to ask 12 questions.
They call this their Q12 survey.
One of the questions on there is “do you have a best friend at work”, there’s a reason for this.
They understand the importance of having someone they consider a best friend at work.
Gallup found that employees who report having a best friend at work were: •

43% more likely to report having received praise or recognition for their work in the last seven days.

•

37% more likely to report that someone at work encourages their development. •

35% more likely to report co-worker commitment to quality.

•

28% more likely to report that in the last six months, someone at work has talked to them about their progress.
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You And Your Co-Workers

•

27% more likely to report that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important.

•

27% more likely to report that their opinions seem to count at work. •

21% more likely to report that at work, they can do what they do best every day.

A doctoral thesis by researcher Helen Stockhult found

“

social relationships between colleagues are at the root of an employee’s willingness to take on responsibilities beyond their formal job description

”

There was a study done at the University of Wharton that showed that if you help someone for 10-30 minutes per day, you actually feel
LESS time constrained, which seems completely counter-intuitive at first, but then when you think about it, it might make sense.
Helping someone makes you feel more confident, and more capable of doing things.
Here are a few ways that you can become closer with your coworkers.
All of these ideas don’t cost anything, and might be very obvious, but it’s important to be reminded of them.

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You And Your Co-Workers

1.

Spend More Time With Them
Eat lunch with your colleagues, take a coffee break with them, just spend some time with them.
You can also try talking to them about non-work related things, and see if you have anything in common (I bet you will).

2.

Be Friendly
Being friendly is something that I (unfortunately) don’t see enough of.
It’s important to say good morning, goodbye, ask co-workers how their day is going, etc.
Studies have shown that feeling ignored at work is even worse than being bullied and has incredible effects on engagement levels. You want to work with happy, productive people, so make sure to include them in your day.

3.

Attack Problems Head On
It’s very possible that there’s a co-worker that’s getting under your skin, or you just don’t like for whatever reason.
A common response to that would be to ignore them, to avoid any confrontation.

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You And Your Co-Workers

It’s important to deal with that issue right away, to avoid any negativity. Try and talk to a co-worker and figure out what’s going on, and how you can fix it.
4.

Don’t Judge
With millennials about to make up most of the workforce very soon, they are the most diverse group of workers in the history of employment.
It’s important to let go of any preconceived notions you may have about any race, religion or sex, and understand that everyone brings value to the organization.
Their diverse backgrounds help you understand how to market or sell to that community, so their insight is very valuable.

5.

Praise Each Other
Research from Deloitte found that praise means more when it comes from your colleagues rather than your co-workers rather than your manager.
This makes sense, since they’re closer to the work.
Your colleagues have a better understanding of what you’re doing on the day to day, so the praise is realer when it comes from them.
Similar to the relationship with your manager, this relationship is built on a foundation of trust and mutual respect.

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You And Your Co-Workers

You’re a family, working together to achieve a common goal.
Three’s no time or place for any ignorance or any corporate politics; everyone should be thinking with the mindset of collaboration instead of competition.
This is especially true for millennials, but everyone feels this way.

Learn how you can measure and increase relationships between colleagues in your company with Officevibe.

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CHAPTER

7

- PILLAR SEVEN -

PERSONAL GROWTH

CHAPTER 7

Personal Growth

P

ersonal growth is an important emotional metric to be measuring, for the simple reason that it’s what actually motivates

people to do better work.
Made famous in Dan Pink’s TED talk called The Puzzle of Motivation, and his book Drive, autonomy, mastery, and purpose are what count to an employee.

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the three key ingredients to personal growth.
Let’s go through each of them quickly, and then I’ll talk about how you can measure and improve this.

Autonomy
Autonomy is incredibly important for our drive and motivation. We need to feel a sense of ownership in our work, and we need to feel like we’ve made decisions around what we do and how we do it.

Mastery
Mastery is mastering whatever skill you have for your work. So if you’re a graphic designer, the goal is to become the most skilled, most knowledgeable graphic designer out there. This need for expertise in whatever field you’re in is a huge motivator for everyone.

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Personal Growth

Purpose
Employees need to feel a higher purpose, and stronger connection with their work and their company. They need to feel as if they’re doing something that’s bigger than them, and that they are serving a higher purpose.

The Science Behind Personal Growth
There is a lot of science behind why this is important, and how this leads to measurable results.
In a study done at California State University, the researchers wanted to test autonomy at work, and how it affected motivation. They split people into two groups and gave them both a relatively hard and difficult task.
In one group, for the next task they could work on, they were given a difficult but interesting task, and in the second group’s next task, they were given an easy but boring task.
The people who worked on the more interesting task performed better, despite it being harder, and them being more tired.
The researchers also found that in the third task they would work on, the group that did the interesting task performed better. So that good energy followed them even into further tasks.
A 2014 study by Deloitte found that an organizational focus on purpose leads to higher levels of confidence among employees and managers, and drives business growth.

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Personal Growth

Also, according to a 2010 Burson-Marsteller/IMD Corporate Purpose
Impact study, a strong and well-communicated company purpose can contribute up to 17% improvements in financial performance.

Measuring And Improving
The simplest, and arguably most accurate way of measuring all of this is to ask your employees what they think. Do they have enough autonomy? Are they improving their skills? Do they understand the bigger purpose behind what they’re doing?
This can all be done using an informal survey, but it’s important to collect this information to know where you stand.
These three things, especially purpose, have been proven to be what motivates and drives people to do good work.
If these things are low, it’s important that as an organization, you’re working on improving all of this.
Here is what you need to do to improve this.
1.

Give Them More Autonomy
Even if it’s perceived autonomy, employees need to feel that sense of ownership, like they made that decision.
You can give employees autonomy by letting them choose what to work on, or encouraging side projects to give them that sense of control.

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Personal Growth

Also, remember not to micromanage employees. It’s okay to offer help and support, but give them the freedom they deserve.
2.

Help Them Master Skills
Having an employee master skills makes sense for the company as well, because you’ll have an incredibly skilled employee.
You should be encouraging them to take classes online or other workshops to improve their skills and expand their knowledge.
Improving your craft and learning new skills for your job is an important factor for motivation.

3.

Remind Them Of The Purpose
Employees need to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. It can be pretty demotivating to think that what you’re doing for your work doesn't matter and is meaningless. Make sure that you explain to your employees the bigger picture behind what they do. For example, if you’re working for a pharmaceutical company, instead of being a company that makes pills, remind your employees that you’re saving lives, or helping to fix some problem. It’s important to continuously remind them, because it’s something that can often be forgotten as employees get busy with their work.
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Personal Growth

The more you remind them of it, the more they’ll feel a connection to the company and a sense of pride for what they do. Once they feel that sense of pride, their performance and productivity will go up, which is great for your company.

Learn how you can measure and increase personal growth in your company with Officevibe.

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CHAPTER

8

CORE
VALUES

- PILLAR EIGHT -

COMPANY ALIGNMENT

CHAPTER 8

Company Alignment

A

company’s core values serves as the guide for everything else.

Everything becomes much clearer when you have your core values defined. Also, hiring for culture fit becomes so much easier, because you have all of your “requirements” written down already.
As an employee, when joining a new company, if you align yourself with the company’s core values, meaning you share similar values, that is the definition of a good culture fit.
A company in Chicago called Tasty Catering has built a culture that relies heavily on their core values to drive decision-making. By focusing so heavily on their core values, the staff has developed characteristics like respect and autonomy. As a result, employees found a way to cut food costs by remarkable margins, and grew sales by 10% and profit 142% in a single year.

GOAL

GOAL

The vision and mission of the company become much clearer, and all of the employees are now working towards one aligned, unified goal.

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Company Alignment

If you don’t have any of your core values defined yet, it’s not that big of a deal.
Zappos, who is a leader in company culture, only created their core values after about 6 or 7 years. In a way, this is better, since now you have a better understanding of your business and the people in it.
You can use that knowledge to craft core values that are relevant to your company.
There are three important things to consider when talking about how to measure and improve what I’ll call “company knowledge.”
1.

Core Values Knowledge
This might seem obvious, but it’s important that all of the employees know both the core values and the mission of the company. Often, employees don’t know what the mission is, and so they’re lost, which is a huge issue, because they need to be able to relate to and align themselves with these values.

2.

Core Values Alignment
It’s one thing to know the core values of the company, and it’s a completely different thing to be able to align yourself with those values. If you’re able to align yourself with these values, believe in them, and live them even outside of work, then you’ll have a true connection to your company.
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CHAPTER 8

Company Alignment

3.

Company History Knowledge
It’s important for employees to understand the history of the company they’re working for.
How did it all start? Is the story inspiring? These types of things will help employees understand the purpose and vision, and the core values will make more sense if they understand the history behind why they’re doing it.
The employees will have more of an attachment to the company if they know the whole story. If an employee joins many years after its founding, they don’t have the same appreciation as some of the employees that have been there longer.

The main thing to think about when trying to measure and improve this is to tell your story.
There is no such thing as too much communication, and the more that your employees know and live the core values, the more aligned and focused everyone will be.

Learn how you can measure and increase company alignment in your company with Officevibe.

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CHAPTER

9

- PILLAR NINE -

CAREER SATISFACTION

CHAPTER 9

Career Satisfaction

W

hen talking about career satisfaction, what I mean is how satisfied are you with your work in general.

This goes beyond salary and benefits; this is the kind of thing like are you being challenged enough? Do you like the environment you work in? Do you have all of the right tools to help you do your job? etc.
Once you pay someone fairly enough, so that money is off the table, these are the types of things that will continue to motivate an employee. Let me go one by one, and explain what I believe is how you measure career satisfaction.
1.

Salary And Benefits
You need to be paying your employees appropriately for the amount of work they do. Otherwise they will feel as if they are getting cheated. This is what’s known as equity theory, and it says that an employee need to feel as if the exchange is equal for both parties. So many companies are offering up amazing benefits in the hopes of attracting top talent to their company, so it is becoming more competitive than ever.
If you can’t afford to compete with all of the perks that companies offer, you can potentially make up for it in equity.
Once an employee is invested in the company (financially and emotionally), they’ll be much more committed the organization’s goals. 60

Career Satisfaction

If you’re not okay with giving up equity, and still can’t afford certain perks, you can get creative, and offer things that don’t cost money, like flexible schedules, lots of autonomy, etc..
2.

Workload Satisfaction
This is a bit of a tricky one, and you can’t afford to overdo it, or under do it.
For a worker to be satisfied, they have to work on tasks that are slightly challenging. If they’re too hard, then the employee will become disengaged out of fear of not knowing what to do.
If a task is too easy, they’ll also become disengaged because of how bored they are. Humans also have a genuine interest in
Mastery, and growing their knowledge, so they’re not afraid of working on a task that’s challenging, but again, it can’t be too challenging. Dan Pink calls this a Goldilocks task, and several experts have called this Flow.
What they’re referring to, is a state of mind where you lose yourself in what you’re doing. I’m sure everyone has experienced this before, where you don’t even realize how long you’ve been working on whatever you're working on, because you’re so engaged in the work.
The best advice I can give for this, is to have open and honest communication, so that an employee can say if their work is too easy for them, or if they’re finding it too hard.

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Career Satisfaction

3.

Clarity Of Expectations
This is a mistake that way too many companies make.
You know the expression about not assuming? Don’t assume that an employee understands what you as a manager expects from them. You need to be constantly communicating this.
This lack of communication will surely lead to problems, either the manager will be disappointed or the employee will be confused, or both, but either way, this is something that needs to be avoided.
Frequent feedback is very important, and there is no such thing as too much communication.
Remind employees over and over again about what is expected from them in their current role. Once they know, everyone can agree on goals to achieve, and you can discuss how you’ll achieve them. 4.

Enablement
Not having the right tools to do your job can have an effect on you engagement level.
If you want to ensure maximum productivity, invest in the proper equipment for your employees, it will make their jobs easier, and make them better at what they do.
I once worked for a company where the designers wanted to work with Mac computers, and they were used to working on
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Career Satisfaction

those machines, as that’s what they had at home. At the office though, there were only PC’s, and the designers would complain about how much longer each task took them.
This naturally made them less happy than if they were able to work on a Mac.
I understand that, of course, every employee can’t have the fanciest equipment and the nicest office, but within reason, it makes sense to enable your employees to be their best.
5.

Work Environment
Is your office too noisy? Too cold? Too hot?
People need to be comfortable in their work environment for them to be engaged and productive.
Open offices are all the rage these days, but when you need some quiet time to concentrate, they can be pretty distracting.
If an employee is constantly complaining about the office environment, one idea might be to let them work from home.
Remote workers have been shown to be more engaged and more productive.

Learn how you can measure and increase satisfaction in your company with Officevibe.

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CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER

10

- PILLAR TEN -

AMBASSADORSHIP

CHAPTER 10

Ambassadorship

A

re your employees brand ambassadors?

Would they promote your company for you when they go home after work? How many employees do you have that would promote your company? If it’s a lot of them, then it’s safe to assume that you’re doing something right.
This is often referred to as the Net Promoter Score.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is originally a customer service tool.
The way it works, is you ask a customer a simple question: “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend?” Scores 6 or lower are known as detractors, 6-8 are known as neutral, and 8-10 are known as promoters.
To get your score, you take the number of promoters, minus the number of detractors, and divide by the total number of answers.
Any score over 50% is considered excellent.
In product management, it’s the best way to know if your product is good, because the theory is if someone is willing to recommend your product to a friend, then they actually like it.
Instead of using it for customer service, use it to gage how employees feel about your company.

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Ambassadorship

Ask them: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend working here?” Another question you could ask, would be “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our products/services?”
The beauty of asking your employees this question instead of your customers is that your employees hold your company to a higher standard, so they’ll be tougher (but more honest) with you.
If you wanted to ask your employees one question to see if they enjoyed working at your company, and were engaged, this is the one.
You should also ask employees this question over time, to see if your scores are improving. This question is so great, because it’s very direct and to the point; there should be no ambiguity here, and your score will tell you if you’ve got a problem.
One of the most important parts of this is to follow up with this question. You should be doing this both with your customers and your employees, but again, your employees hold your company to a higher standard, and has a better idea of what goes on behind the scenes.
Make sure to follow up with “why” to get some great qualitative feedback. No matter what their response is, find out why they chose that number, and learn from that.
I also like the idea of using “proxy questions” in this context, to see if an employee would be a true brand ambassador. For example, if an employee has a t-shirt with the company logo on it, would they ever wear it outside of work? If they say yes, that’s a subtle way of showing pride for your company.
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Ambassadorship

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CHAPTER 10

CONCLUSION
Companies can no longer afford to pay an employee a check and leave them alone. Employees want to be engaged on a deeper level, and feel an emotional attachment to a company.
Companies that want to be serious about company culture and employee engagement will be measuring and monitoring these types of metrics over time, and will be optimizing and improving all the time.
It’s not enough to measure things like time to hire and cost per hire; those things won’t matter so much in the future, because those are less important than true drivers of engagement.
There has been a ton of research in recent years about the neuroscience behind all of these emotions.
There is a lot of research showing that if employees are happier, they’ll be more productive, if managers are more empathetic, they’re perceived better, and achieve higher results.
Managers should learn how to lead with emotional intelligence and increase their emotional intelligence.
If you’re a manager reading this, please sign up for this free online course called Inspiring Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence.
Your company should be conducting employee engagement surveys that are measuring these things regularly.

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It could be once a month, asking 5-10 questions that will measure a mix of these metrics, so two questions on happiness, two questions on relationship with their manager, etc.
If you’re looking to increase your happiness, or looking for a great course to recommend to your employees, The Science of Happiness taught by UC Berkeley is an incredible course.
Your company should be conducting employee engagement surveys that are measuring these things regularly. It could be once a month, asking 5-10 questions that will measure a mix of these metrics, so two questions on happiness, two questions on relationship with their manager, etc.

Measure & improve employee engagement within your company in just
5 minutes per month with Officevibe.

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