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Are You “All In”?

You hear a lot about employee engagement these days. Many companies have jumped on the Gallup bandwagon, and are administering the Gallup Q12 survey—a, you guessed it, 12-item survey that provides an overview of how engaged a company’s employees are. There are many other engagement surveys out there, both commercially available, and home grown. All of them are aimed at helping senior leaders get a feel for the level of engagement in their company, and to then create and put into place action plans to make increasing engagement company wide.

This is all well and good. But I think that savvy career builders take it on themselves to engage with their company. How? By doing three simple things: 1) Speak well of your company; 2) Commit to your company and hang in there when things get a bit rough; and 3) Do your very best every day. Engagement experts use two sets of terms to discuss these ideas: “Rave, Remain, and Reach” or “Say, Stay, and Strive.” Let’s take a look at each in a little more detail.

Rave/Say refers to speaking well about your company, spreading the news about the good things and cool things happening there. People who rave about their company speak in the first person when discussing their company—“we do this,” or “we had a really great quarter.” I get worried about a company’s culture when I meet someone and ask what they do, and get a response like, “they do this.” It’s a small thing, but telling. To demonstrate your engagement, speak about your company using the first person.

Remain/Stay refers to your willingness to hang in there and do your best to make things better—even when your company is going through some tough times. All companies go through rough periods and engaged employees stick around to help get things back on track and moving forward.

Reach/Strive refers to your willingness to go above and beyond: To solve problems, and better yet, anticipate and prevent them. Engaged employees are all in. They actively look for opportunities to contribute. My best advice here? Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Follow these three tips—rave about your company, remain with it during tough times, and reach for difficult goals—and you’ll demonstrate that you’re engaged. And more important, you’ll be on your way to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

Be thankful for all of the good in your life.