Dr. Paul Marciano — a leading authority on employee engagement and retention and the author of Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT — joined us to share some practical tips for building highly engaging work culture.

Check out the video and slides below. Here are some of the highlights:

Traditional recognition programs don’t work

Traditional recognition programs destroy teamwork, decrease creativity and reduce overall motivation. The impact can be far reaching, as Dr. Marciano tells us: “Disengaged employees are the proverbial bad apples.” They can have a devastating impact on your company’s culture.

The key is to shift our focus to creating a workplace culture that fosters engagement: “We focus too much on programs to motivate employees and not on culture that sustains them.”

Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work. Try RESPECT

This is what the RESPECT model stands for:

• Recognition: make it meaningful and make sure it happens – often.
• Empowerment: create learning opportunities and identify barriers.
• Supportive feedback: be a coach by providing quick, constructive feedback – frequently.
• Partnering: command-and-control leadership isn’t as effective.
• Expectations: set them high, starting in the interview process.
• Consideration: get to know your employees, ask for their opinions, listen.
• Trust: increase autonomy, don’t micro-manage, be honest and direct.

Making RESPECT happen

Every tip from Dr. Paul shares is something you can apply today. They’re not big, complex engagement processes or retention strategies.

Given the characteristics of today’s work environments, technology can help create a culture of RESPECT, more efficiently. Dr. Marciano recommends technology “that facilitates social interaction and decreases psychological distance among employees, managers and team members.” It’s got to be intuitive and it needs to fit the way people think and live.

Watch the video

Check out the slides