Work with your people
Ranger is a firm believer that your interaction with employees and the opportunities you provide for them to interact with each other can make a big difference in the success or failure of your business.
“This younger generation, and I’m saying younger because I’m 52, they want more out of life than just going and getting a job,” Ranger says. “They want more than just hitting a clock and sitting at a desk and punching numbers and then leaving at the end of the day. They love having community with Facebook and texting. That’s fulfilling needs I think the employer of today needs to know and understand and provide for.”
It’s that sense of community and belonging that many employees are searching for with their work lives. They want to feel like they matter in the company’s pursuit of growth.
It’s why Ranger puts more stock in employee engagement than employee satisfaction.
“Employee engagement touches on different categories of how people feel about their jobs,” Ranger says. “How do they see their organization? Is it innovative? Is it sensitive to a person’s needs? Does it give me opportunity? Does it take an interest in me so that I can develop and grow? Does it listen to what I have to say?”
When it comes time for TriMedx to do strategy planning each November, group sessions are a vital part of the process. Make time each year to get away from the day-to-day and think about where your company is going.
“We said, ‘This is what we’re doing today. These are our metrics today, and this is where we’re trying to get to by 2010. Let’s brainstorm on what we need to do this year to make that happen,’” Ranger says. “All the groups go out into their little breakout sessions and develop these concepts and ideas. We bring them back and report them out as a team.”
By asking your employees for input about the direction of your organization, you give them a stake in the game.
“We facilitate through the common themes
a
nd arrive at anywhere from eight to 10 objectives for the year,” Ranger says. “They were their ideas. If I just sit back and decide what they are going to be, people are going to say, ‘Those are Greg’s ideas.’ Seeing that vision and transparency from (the employee) to the company being successful is huge.
“We feed back to the employees what the objectives are that we have landed on. They get nurtured and put into a charter. They get a person assigned to lead that project; that person builds a project team.”
The plans are published in a booklet that goes out to everyone in the company and lays out the strategic plan for the year ahead. It’s the follow-through on new ideas that are generated that is the key to gaining support.
“We used to see these ideas and projects end up running into more than a year to get done sometimes,” Ranger says. “The improvements have been that everybody sees them, everybody knows them and everybody knows what we’re trying to get done during the year.”
People want to feel like they are working on something fresh and new.
“People get excited by that stuff,” Ranger says. “They want to be part of something that is on the edge and creating and not just competing.”
When goals are accomplished, the sense of wanting to belong only grows.
“By being able to constantly put back in front of people these goals that you hear today that you may look at and go, ‘Wow, we can’t do that,’” Ranger says. “But if you’re going back and saying, ‘Remember when we said we’re going to do this? This is what it is today.’ Bringing that information forward of what we’ve accomplished and being able to demonstrate how you delivered what you said you were going to do, that begins to give people confidence.”
How to reach: TriMedx, (877) 874-6339 or www.trimedx.com
