Eyeworld Daily News

EW SHOW DAILY 18 ASOA News Monday, April 16, 2018 by Liz Hillman EyeWorld Staff Writer 1. Hire and onboard intentional- ly. Ask behavior-based interview questions during the interview process, looking not just at skills and experience but fit and per- sonality as well. Stop prioritizing speed of filling a "bare spot in the garden" over fit. Also have things ready for a new employee on day one. Mr. Mull recommended that new employees have a detailed schedule for every moment that the person is onsite for the first 2 weeks. 2. Share the information needed to do the job. If you want employees to buy in to what you're doing and why, they need clear feedback about what they're doing well and what you want them to change. Feedback can be the most crucial skill any leader can develop. 3. Care about the person inside the employee. People have lives out- side of work, and sometimes the things that happen in our lives outside of work affect our work. 4. Manage individually. Every single one of your employees has talent, skills, and gifts; the ques- tion is do they get to use them in their jobs. Are you looking for the talent each individual brings and giving them the opportunities to use those talents at work? 5. Solicit ideas, opinions, and chal- lenges. Having influence and a certain amount of autonomy over one's day-to-day life is a funda- mental human need. If you have to tell, tell, but also ask. What are your thoughts? What are your concerns? How would you handle this situation? 6. Foster group cohesion and team spirit. Create opportunities at work for members of the team to get to know each other beyond the tasks of their jobs. 7. Connect to a powerful purpose. Give employees a cause so worthy of their time, attention, and effort that they can't help but care and try. Mr. Mull left attendees with the challenge to go back to their prac- tices and identify and connect back to their "powerful purpose." Help employees see their jobs beyond the tasks and responsibilities that they perform and connect to the overar- ching purpose of the practice and what it is trying to accomplish. EW going through the minimum, task-oriented. Malnourished flowers might need to be watered, fertilized, or given light, or they might even need to be moved to a different flower bed. Actively disengaged em- ployees are weeds; they are disrup- tive, toxic, negative, and create and thrive on drama. Weeds have to be pulled, Mr. Mull said. Mr. Mull went on to say he un- derstands there might be a variety of reasons why a weed, or disengaged employee, might not have been "pulled" earlier, but emphasized the importance of doing so in order to allow the practice to thrive because, as he put it, weeds spread. "The best predictor of future performance is past performance," he said. National data shows that 33% of the U.S. workforce is engaged, 50% is not engaged, and 17% is disen- gaged. Engaged employees, Mr. Mull continued, have fewer accidents and errors, stay with the organization, and save in costs. To maintain engaged employees or convert not engaged employees into full engagement, Mr. Mull described the strategies that leader- ship has to put in place to create the conditions for engagement. a deep dive into the psychology of motivation and what moves people to action in the workplace. The answer: You don't. So you can stop trying. "Your obligation for motiva- tion doesn't change, but how we go about it does," Mr. Mull said. "Motivation isn't something you do to someone. You cannot reach inside one of your employees and flip a switch and ignite a drive to perform. … Motivation is something people experience when the conditions are right. Our job as leaders is to go into the workplace and create those conditions." Before providing his tips for creating conditions for employees to thrive, Mr. Mull, using a gar- dening analogy, first explained the three different types of employees: engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged. Engaged employees are the thriving flowers in the garden, Mr. Mull explained. They take initiative, are problem solvers, are resilient, and positive. To get thriving flowers, however, their conditions have to be nurtured with water, fertilizer, and light. Unengaged employees are malnourished plants; as employees they are daydreamers, uninspired, Creating conditions for employees to thrive starts at the top A SOA held a second general session that gave attendees the motivation and tools they need to encourage employees to reach a higher level of performance. Joe Mull, Elizabeth, Pennsyl- vania, a speaker and trainer who teaches leaders how to be better bosses, previously worked as the head of Learning & Development for Physician Services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Sun- day morning, he spoke to attendees about "Motivating Healthcare Teams in an Era of Change, More Work, and Fewer Resources." "The evidence is clear that en- gaged teams only come from leaders and bosses that know how to create an environment in the workplace that gives employees the reason to care," Mr. Mull said. But leaders, he continued, often struggle with how to influence their employees. The most common question he gets is "How do I mo- tivate people?" In order to answer that question, Mr. Mull said he did ASOA second general session motivates attendees to create an atmosphere of engagement Mr. Mull shares tips for creating conditions for engaged employees to thrive.

• Cover