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hello and welcome to the decisionwise engaging people podcast my name is Charles rogel I'll be moderating our discussion today today I'm joined by Spencer Taylor hi Charles and Kenna Brian hi Charles Spencer is a consultant here at decision wise Kenna is also an assessment consultant and today we're going to be talking about the role of tools and resources in Employee Engagement Spencer you want to kick us off and introduce our topic today absolutely it's been a really fun discussion leading up to our today's podcast uh we've kind of come up with a scenario for The Listener to consider so you're sitting at your desk working away you're happy as a lark when suddenly you feel a pressure in your chest unlike anything you've experienced before you find yourself gasping for air but you can't seem to get enough and you begin to panic everything starts to go dark a few minutes later you find yourself in an ambulance on the way to the hospital after stabilizing at the hospital a doctor comes into your room explains that your left lung collapsed while you were sitting at your desk so as terrifying as this would be ask yourself prior to this moment of this horrendous experience how often did you stop at random intervals on an average day and think I sure do appreciate my left lung that thing just gets the job done every time I inhale after this moment after having lived for just a few minutes if this actually happened to you without the you and you had no use of your left lung how often do you think you would think about how grateful you are for that long probably more than once a day at least for the next little while so it's kind of a chance to think about the parallel between overall the idea behind tools and resources in an organization uh we we tend to not notice them until they're taken away until they stop working or they're completely removed from the equation the absence of the right tools to get the work done efficiently in the way that each individual feels his best often becomes a true emergency and significantly takes away away from our ability to perform our assigned tasks so whenever we bring up the topic uh we generally our minds go toward the basics like a computer uh that works at a decent pace microphones that we're using right now it's a tool for our podcast if we didn't have these we would have a bunch of static or silence for the podcast itself so if they were removed from the equation uh it takes away our complete ability to produce a podcast so it's always fun when the internet goes down and everyone can leave early you know yeah there's an important tool right yep in fact uh just recently I watched a movie from the 9s it's called Deep Impact and in the very beginning scenes of that there's this junior astronomer he's like a high school student or something and he is looking up into the stars with his friend and they find this star that they're arguing about whether it's a certain star uh and they send the picture into the kind of the chief astronomer at the laboratory with the big telescope on the top of the mountain and they they find out that it's actually a comet that's heading for earth and it's going to destroy the planet so this up to this point in the the scene that I'm thinking of the astronomer is like he grabs a piece of pizza and he's kind of kicked back and he's he's just doing his thing and then he immediately realizes that this could be a catastrophic event because the computer has told him again this is the 90s so it's like taking a minute right right to calculate it but it's told him there could be this cataclysmic event and suddenly he needs an internet connection so he has to dial in and he's not able to connect to the internet um and so he gets in his Jeep and puts it on a floppy disc one of the old three and a half discs of this data point that he needs to get to the National Security people or whatever um and he ends up getting a crash and doesn't make it anyway but so the absence of an internet connection can potentially lead to a world ending Comet hitting the Earth yeah anyway I love it I love that example I actually have some data to back that up so here at decision wise our standard Employee Engagement survey contains some question s regarding employee satisfaction and others regarding Employee Engagement tools and resources is one of those satisfaction elements that must be in place before companies can start thinking about engagement we found that tools and resources though also transfers and correlates with engagement um our research actually found that a low score on the survey item stating I have the tools and resources I need to do my job well is actually a negative driver of Engagement um so if you're if you're wondering where you kind of fall um on that here's some percentage points for you so the survey item that says I have the tools and resources I need to do my job well I'm 76% of employees agree or strongly agree to this statement across all Industries there are some industries that do especially well those include finance and insurance and transportation and warehousing both at 79% and then utility companies at 82% and then there are some industries that score a little bit lower including manufacturing and Food Services both at 72% and then public administration at just 67% I think that's good news overall right we we talk about how this doesn't tend to show up in the bottom of the survey sometimes it's not in the top but it's but it's not one of those things a lot of organization struggle with because if it's like we Illustrated at the beginning if it's absent we tend to notice it immediately and want to go solve that I had an experience uh that uh kind of fit into that more urgent category that I think illustrates that tools and resources have to go beyond just the just the technology piece you can't in my experience I worked for a larger University as a course developer earlier in my career and my first day I was given a a nice laptop and a cubicle and basically I was told good luck I figure it out and that's that's what I did for a few months I I would have to just turn to my neighbors who were in a similar role and be like hey uh how do we log into this system and how do we like just figure it out as you go yeah it was really it was initially pretty stressful but there was one little funny story I'll share briefly uh the gal who sat across the cubical wall from me her name was Laura and I I never found a way to ask her a question without making her jump out of her skin like I could tap on the wall and she would jump out of her skin I could go way back from my desk be like Laura she would jump out of her skin and I would go around the corner and try to approach her where she can see me coming and anyway so it seems like a tangent but it actually applies I think in the sense that I took away her ability to use her tools and resources effectively because I kept interrupting her with my own questions because of the absence of tools and resources on my end so uh so it can it can uh snowball pretty quickly when one person is missing a certain tool or resource because people in general are resourceful and they're going to figure it out uh but that often is to the detriment of someone else's ability to be productive yeah and I've seen this more um kind of localized in organiz ation so most employees agree with the statement but then when you dive into different departments or locations you'll see variations in results from this question it could be technology um I know we worked with one client where they did uh they're in Waste Management specifically uh uh uh servicing porta potties and the the people the drivers that had the new nice trucks scored really high but if you had an old truck you were scoring low and so they they were rolling out a new Fleet of vehicles trucks for their drivers but if you were kind of lower on the totem pole or you know last on the list you rated that question lower interesting yeah that's interesting shows the relativity of perceived tool or resource someone's got a nice shiny truck I got to drive the old one yeah you feel picked on all sudden right yeah I think something else that's interesting as we've talked about tools and resources in the discussion leading up to this podcast is that we found that no one element of the work experience is completely isolated um there are overlaps and for example we've seen um tools and resources often connects with the engagement factor of autonomy and I was thinking about a few companies that I've heard stories about that have those tools and resources and have given their employees autonomy so I wanted to give a few examples so the Ritz Carlton you know famous for their customer service stories they have a large discretionary budget for each employee in fact it's $2,000 per employee per guest um that their employees can use to spend to help improve the customer experience Spencer did you have a story about the RZ Carlton that you had heard about yeah absolutely I love them as a as a shining example of an organization that does it right again I I I'm grateful that you brought up the autonomy because it does highlight that no element of satisfaction or engagement that we tend to talk about and measure uh stands by itself you know there's always some type of intersection and the one that I had thought about was there was a bartender that worked at the Ritz Carlton and he overheard an older couple who was enjoying dinner in the bar talk about their disappointment of not being able to enjoy the following evening's meal on the beach because the husband was in a wheelchair and so he used his discretionary fund to arrange a temporary ramp be built over the sand to get this gentleman out to the sand to have a nice dinner with his spouse so something really small yeah most organizations would just be like well that's not my problem or whatever you know it just tends to be the the way of thinking about that it's totally outside the lane of a bartender to go do that and yet I'm sure when they wanted to come back they didn't hesitate to stay at that location because of the great experience oh for sure it's amazing what the autonomy and the right tools and resources can do um another example is the grocery store chain Trader Joe's their employees can open any product to allow their customers to try if the customers are unsure if they want to buy it or not they're allowed to open the product and um there are multiple customer service stories of Trader Joe's one of my favorites is about an elderly man in Pennsylvania and his he was snowed in and um his daughter was concerned that he wouldn't have enough food to make it through because nobody knew when the snow was going to stop and so she called the local Trader Joe's and had had tried with you know to no avail to find any grocery deliveries in the area and Trader Joe's does not normally deliver groceries but in this instance they they packed up a bunch of groceries and and found a way to deliver these groceries to that Snowden elderly man and um awesome awesome example of that and then the last one is zapo their employees have the freedom to send thank you cards gift baskets get well soon flowers um on a phone call if they employees hear a baby crying there's been examples of them sending baby blankets and shoes and so just incredible what the right kind of autonomy as a tool and resource can do terrific I love that and I was just thinking of another example um sometimes a a resource and this may be a little bit of a stretch I don't know we'll see uh but is a policy like I know an organization I've worked with recently changed their time off policy to have unlimited time off and yet the way they're policing that has made it so it's really not unlimited and there's some scrutiny behind whether it's being used properly and some of this so I think it just shows that we can come up with a a resource that's intangible like a new policy that has really good intent behind it but the communication around that again this is one of those places that intersects with much more than just the tool or resource or policy itself and allows us to either have a really healthy environment where you have autonomy to flex and and spend and and utilize things to the benefit of the customer that gets to be told on a podcast somewhere eventually that's pretty cool right that these organizations you've shared have done this enough that it has permeated widely and people probably have heard about some of the similar stories from these specific organizations who have done it right uh so anyway I just think it's interesting to try to build off of that whether it's a smaller organization or a global company like some of these that you've you've talked about no definitely so I think that you know as as you listeners are thinking about your employees and your companies I there's a few questions to consider so you might consider you know what tools and resources do your employees need um or what tools and resources could help your employees do their job well and then thinking about your employees do your employees feel like they have the tools and resources they need great I love that and again it's it's a I think it's important too to acknowledge that in asking there's an implicit commitment to fix it if the answer is no I don't or tools and resources I have are insufficient the organization itself is saying hey we're going to we're going to make that right um anyway yeah so that that's important and then I I think with all that we've talked about up to this point as we get toward the end here thinking through some potential action steps again if you're a if you're a leader any type of management role listening to this you're thinking through okay what's the soat factor what do I go from here some possible actions the first one we came up with was to actively evaluate how well tools and resources are working again partially by just coming out and asking the question uh human nature is to settle into a comfort zone and and continue to use an old tool just because it's comfortable it's been the standard for many years uh for example if I just loved Windows 95 or Windows Windows 98 and I was still trying to use that just because I loved it I would basically not be able to do my job because it just doesn't work anymore so being active in uh pursuing better tools that's interesting to add to that I seen like um Millennials especially are very open to adopt new technologies and want to use new technologies and just thinking of the adaptation of new tools like um teams or slack or something like that normally the manager somewhat resistant to it and then but the younger generation is used to using it and finds it as a great collaborative collaborative device and so as a manager you have to be willing to kind of flex a bit in terms of what your people find most efficient in terms of working together and adopt new technologies as well don't don't get stuck in your Windows 95 mentality and let your employees suffer I like that Y no yeah I love that that actually goes right along with our uh next action step we came up with is to actually assign someone to be the custodian almost of a specific tool that would be essential for the job and like Charles was saying this is especially important for Technology based tools um so you could invite that custodian to keep an eye on the industry uh for that tool and then formally evaluate whether the tool is the best you know at least every six months perhaps even quarterly and and keep a track on those Trends another Point as far as the overall employee experience a place where there's overlap is thinking about onboarding programs again back to my uh my experience of just being given basically a computer and a cubicle giving more than just that thinking through the tools and resources someone has provided in their initial days and weeks that extends Beyond just the tangible obvious tools and that can include the tool of good relationships and some of these other things that uh represent additional points of intersection with other aspects of employee satisfaction and overall engagement so I think it's important to evaluate holistically uh the experience new employees are having because you want them to be ambassadors for your brand whether you're a non profit a huge corporation something in between uh it's important to have complete buyin from your people and giving them the right tools is vital to that absolutely to wrap up what final words would you like to add Spencer yeah you know I we we touched on this briefly earlier but tools and resources is one of those areas that it's really easy to overlook because it's not as exciting as talking about or it doesn't feel as powerful necessarily is talking about some of these hotter topics like diversity equity and inclusion that's something a lot of our clients are talking about in today's environment and it's important to talk about it emotional intelligence overall engagement these tend to be kind of spicier so to speak like they're just more interesting topics we're passionate about here at decision wise each of these including tools and resources we've tried to illustrate the last few minutes that uh this element this tools and resources component of employee satisfaction and and even where it integrates with some of the engagement pieces it must be addressed in order to lay a groundwork for a very highly engaged High productive uh highly productive team uh and ultimately creating that optimal employee experience that's a great point one thing I'll add is um you know as a manager one of your responsibilities is to help support your team and help them to feel like you have their back and you're kind of fighting for the tools and resources that they need and so you know as you're doing that remind them or at least show them that how you know over the past six months we've made these updates or done these made these changes or these improvements so so they see that yeah this is a place that's kind of thriving and progressing as opposed to just being stuck with the same old things year after year I that's a great Point Charles and I think it t for me it brought back this story you shared about the trucks um just communicating how a certain tool will be rolled out and here's the criteria of of who gets a new truck and who doesn't yet or whatever and again that's a point of intersection with one of the bigger challenges organizations face which is communication top down and communication across departments the subject of that communication could be the tool or resource so again another point where it's it's this holistic series of components that tie into the overall experience definitely Ken anything you want to add yeah um you know I think just in summary Charles you can't really build a good home on a bad foundation and I would submit that you can't really build an Engaged employee Workforce without good employee satisfaction elements like tools and resources that we've talked about excellent well everyone thanks for joining us today we look forward to having you join us on a future podcast and thanks Spencer and Kenneth for your input today thank you Char thanks Charles