Here are two radically different approaches to employee engagement:
If your culture revolves around “clocking hours, tight schedules and achieving deadlines,” maybe you need to “gamify your workplace.”
Gamification turns work tasks into games where the employee gets real-time feedback (“scores”) that give them something to accomplish or improve against. If you play video games, think “achievement unlocked!” You’ve probably experienced gamification: Have you noticed that when you sign up for a web service or download an app, it will track your setup progress? “3 of 10 items accomplished to set up your new profile!”
Why would you bother gamifying? Proponents argue that gamification keeps work from being tedious. And it ensures employees aren’t skeptical about being evaluated in a way that is heavy on favoritism and light on transparency.
Scoreboards play a part in the 4 Disciplines of Execution, something the podcast has covered in several episodes (YouTube – Spotify – Apple – PodBean).
Here’s another method: the liberal arts.
This article from a Harvard professor talks about the advantages of combining STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with the liberal arts. Apparently the best technology CEOs have come from liberal arts backgrounds. I’ve shared before that Google has studied this: Its best hires come with human “soft skills,” not STEM skills. (That’s part of what the liberal arts are for—to help students be more human.)
The reason I’m thinking about turning back to the liberal arts is that one of my car dealership clients landed a good tech in 2018. Good techs are hard to come by. On his toolbox? Charles Dickens. He is keeping alive his artistic appreciation and bringing it to his workplace as a high-performing employee.
Later he was made foreman.
Stick around to hear more about the liberal arts (why do we call them liberal?). Meanwhile, what does your team need more of? A scoreboard? Or a book club?
(Kidding about the book club.)
(Kind of.)