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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
It isn't just a one time thing. Everybody needs ongoing training and development. We're all, you know, works in progress. You know, even I've been you've been leading for decades. I've been leading for decades, but I very much view myself as a work in progress,
Mike Coffey:Imperative. Bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow rate and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at good morning hr.com.
Mike Coffey:Most employers recognize the importance of engagement in retaining employees and creating a productive work environment. But today's guest says that while employers may recognize the importance of engagement, their efforts are often too hit or miss and fall short of building a culture that consistently leads to good employee engagement. Michelle is a certified HR professional with decades of experience ranging from specialist to senior leadership positions. And a decade ago, she cofounded Early HR Solutions through which she delivers strategic support to over 200 early and growth stage organizations. She's developed Early Engage, a concierge service offering small and medium sized organizations effective and affordable employee engagement and retention solutions.
Mike Coffey:Welcome to Good Morning HR, Michelle.
Michele Haugh:Hey. Thank you so much for having me, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here.
Mike Coffey:Well, I'm glad you are. So let's start with definitions. What's your working definition of employee engagement?
Michele Haugh:So I like to keep things simple for people to understand. And so when I think of employee engagement, I think of how do people show up? How do they show up every day, and how are they putting forth their effort in the work that they're doing? And we all have sort of job tasks and duties that we do, but we all know that, we also have discretionary effort.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Michele Haugh:And so when individuals are engaged, they're not just doing the tasks that are assigned to them. They're actually going above and beyond and using that discretionary effort to really, kind of rise to the occasion and really do whatever they can to help move the organization forward. And so that discretionary effort is, going to display, good employee engagement.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. You see that a lot where you see people on some of the, you know, like this some of the subreddits, like anti work and things like that, where they say, I'm just going to show up and do the bare minimum not to get fired.
Michele Haugh:That's really
Mike Coffey:low employee engagement. Right? And then you've got those employees who are bought into the organization's mission. They feel respected. They feel heard.
Mike Coffey:And they're they understand what their job contributes to the outcome and who we serve and those kinds of things. And they're looking for that extra bump, that extra thing they can do along in along the, you know, their course of the day. And And I think, you know, you can you walk into an organization, spend 10 or 15 minutes, and you can tell if these employees are engaged or not.
Michele Haugh:Yes. Absolutely.
Mike Coffey:And it probably seems self evident, but why do you think employee engagement is really that important?
Michele Haugh:Well, employee engagement is really a predictor of how well an individual and ultimately in an organization is gonna perform. And it's not only, tied directly to performance, but also retention. We know that organizations that have a high, level of churn are not able to reach organizational goals, much like an organization that doesn't have that constant revolving door. So there really is a direct correlation between, retention as well as productivity. And so it really is a truly a business issue.
Michele Haugh:It's not just a, like, rah rah, let's all have fun and, you know, get along with one another. It is a predictor of business success. Right. It's the we're not just here to sing kum predictor of business success.
Mike Coffey:Right. It's we're not just here to sing kumbaya. Right? I mean, we're here to execute the mission of the organization to make money or if you're nonprofit, to deliver service to your community, whatever it is you're trying to do. And if you're constantly in training mode, if you've got that turnover, you're losing your institutional knowledge, and you're constantly having to train people, you just aren't gonna be as effective.
Mike Coffey:If your other employees are having to pick up the slack and they're getting the work the all this extra work and the burnout, then they're gonna leave and you're just
Michele Haugh:gonna be
Mike Coffey:in a constant cycle. So so getting people who care about the you know, to the point where they understand and care about the mission of the organization, who they serve. I'm always talking about who we serve, because I think that's one of the most important things for a business to realize. And I think a lot of employees don't get that. But if you're constantly turning over, you're gonna have that problem, and you're not gonna get the productivity that you want from your employees.
Mike Coffey:So what do you see most employers get wrong about engagement?
Michele Haugh:So what I see is companies that have good intentions, and they want to do the right thing. But often, their strategy is not effective in that it may not have a consistent framework. Quite often, we I call it the spaghetti at the wall approach where they just sort of try different things, throw things out there, but there's no there's no kind of science or predictability behind it. I also sometimes call it the puzzle of hit and missed practices, where there's just sort of these random initiatives that are going on, but there's they're not using data to understand kinda where the issues lie, and they're not developing a very holistic or consistent process to really understand how it's going to add value in the organization. So, you know, we see a lot of inconsistency, and when there's inconsistency, I call it the intentions to action gap.
Michele Haugh:So the intentions are good, but the actions, just don't always align, and there creates a gap. So, you know, companies may declare their commitment to having a positive culture, like we care, you know, maybe they have a meeting and they they really kind of, you know, share how important, their culture is, but then they struggle to translate those intentions into meaningful actions. So then what happens is what's promised versus what's practiced, it's not aligned. And then the result is a lack of trust, a lack of commitment, and then ultimately, a lack of employee engagement.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure you've seen it. The HR leader or the CEO or the COO, somebody goes to a conference. And they're talking to their peers, hear a presentation, they come back all fired up. We gotta get a foosball table or we gotta do whatever.
Michele Haugh:Employee of the month award.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. Yeah. And then they they don't they said they implement it and don't have a plan for how do we measure this is even effective. And then it gets adopted or it doesn't. It kind of rolls by the wayside, and then we're in the same ditch we've been in.
Mike Coffey:And then somebody goes to another conference, and here comes another set of ideas. And it's it's it's not, you know, like you said, systemic. What so what do you think a systemic approach to engagement really looks like?
Michele Haugh:So predictability and you show up and you do the same things over and over, it reduces ambiguity, and it increases trust and respect. So if you say you're going to focus on you know, we're gonna become more of a training organization. We care about your professional development, and you start off by offering some training or professional development, and that just, again, kind of fizzles out, people are gonna be like, yeah. Right. We don't really trust this.
Michele Haugh:But if you show up and and consistently offer those training opportunities or maybe it's your DEI strategy. You claim that you are a very inclusive, you know, organization. You really strive to, have belonging, but then the efforts of that fall short and there isn't a consistent focus, then people think it's just lip service. So, you know, that predictability is really, really critical. And once you have that predictability, then people will be more confident in what the company is doing, and they'll start saying, you know what?
Michele Haugh:I I will invest my time and my energy in these company initiatives because they're they're really meaning what they are saying. And, the likelihood of their engagement, of contributing, and a commitment for the long haul will be there. But you kinda have to show up, and and and it's kind of like parenting, you know, where you kinda have to say the same thing over and over, and initially, you're gonna get that you might there might not be that buy in, but eventually, people, you know, if it's parenting your kids, get it. Like, oh, they really do mean what they say because they're doing it on a consistent basis. So
Mike Coffey:Yeah. I think there's that tendency to roll your eyes. Here it comes. Here comes another initiative, and you've gotta pound on it and keep going over and over and over time. And it's it is so critical.
Mike Coffey:Like, especially if you say we're gonna build an empathetic environment or we're gonna build an inclusive environment that not just for the sake of being warm and fuzzy, but because we really do believe that if our employees can live their lives with some and have the flexibility to live their lives and still show up and do their jobs, that that's gonna build an environment that is really you know, build success, then the leadership, the top leadership has to do it. And I, you know, I see in a lot of organizations where the HR is driving this or maybe a division head and one of the silos is really driving it. But when it's not seen from the very top of leadership. And so when your CEO, your COO begins to, you know, say, you know, hey, we've got, you know, when when employees are sick, you know, they're calling in sick too much. We need to crack down.
Mike Coffey:They, you know, you need to, you know, sometimes you have to play injured and things like that, then then then employees know. Okay. Well, at the very top, they don't really care about this. And I may be a little insulated, but I'm not gonna commit to this company because of it.
Michele Haugh:Right.
Mike Coffey:And all of that builds into culture. And I guess we, you know, every organization, whether it's intentional or not, has a culture. Right? And when we're really consistent, that starts to change behavior. Right?
Mike Coffey:And that's what drives culture.
Michele Haugh:Absolutely. And leadership behaviors is really where things start. So you could have an HR department or a culture team within your organization that is doing all has all these great programs and initiatives. But if there's toxicity or a lack of trust with your senior most leaders, those efforts are going to fall flat. And so that's why one of the things that we really, are big proponents of is to do an employee engagement survey on a regular basis and to be transparent with the results and the findings and to own it, to own those results.
Michele Haugh:And, you know, if they're not great, still have ownership and say, you know what? They're not great, but you know what? We're gonna do what we can to move it forward. And it's not gonna happen overnight, but we're committed to this. And so just having that transparency and that accountability, can really do wonders, for, you know, really getting people to have that buy in and develop start developing that trust if it's not already there.
Mike Coffey:So you mentioned employee engagement surveys, and and that's something I've really been interested in. We do them, regularly at my firm. What do you like to see in an employee engagement survey? You know, we always include an NPS score. Would you recommend this place to your colleagues and people you care about?
Mike Coffey:But then we ask other questions. What kind of things do you like to see in an engagement score?
Michele Haugh:So we are actually certified administrators of a survey that we really love. It's called, the company is called Spark, and the survey is actually, called hashtag be heard, so that employees are heard. And what we love about that survey is, 1st and foremost, it is, IO certified. So, an industrial and organizational psychologist has validated this, evaluation or not evaluation survey, and it has been tested for validity. So that's
Mike Coffey:give us what it's gonna measure what we think it's gonna measure and
Michele Haugh:it's gonna It is. It's not just a Google form that the HR department put together. No, you know, no fault of, you know, people that have good intentions and do that, but it's important to have a valid study, I believe. And number 2 is what we love about SPARC is it is completely confidential, and it's it's run by a third party. So that's why we are certified to administer the surveys, and there's many other people that have gone through that certification process.
Michele Haugh:But it allows us to administer the survey. And, truly, once we up upload the data, even us as an administrator, I cannot see what Susie Smith said or Tim Jones. Everything is confidential. Now we can run reports on demographics, like, what does the marketing department think? How does finance compare to operations?
Michele Haugh:But if there is not at least 5 people in that demographic group, it will not disclose the the data for that group, again, because of the confidentiality. And the reason we think confidentiality is so important is, again, it's gonna increase the validity of the results. If people are worried about thinking, you know, what they're saying and, you know, is this going to be tied back to them? The chances of them being really, really candid are going to be much less than if you have a a service like Spark that offers a tool that's completely confidential. So we use that regularly.
Michele Haugh:I actually just met with a client this morning. We're launching 1, on Wednesday for them. We did 1 a year ago, and what's helpful too is because it's it's got that validity, we're gonna be able to look at the results from last year and compare them to where they are this year. And, you know, we're really excited to see, you know, have they moved the needle from last year when they, you know, got some, you know, okay results, but definitely had some room for, improvement.
Mike Coffey:What in an employer sir engagement survey? What's a good response rate? Because I've seen employers really hammer to get a 100 percent and that and that really kind of concerns me sometimes that if employees have to go through if you have to really beat them down to tell you that they're happy at work, even if they tell you they're happy at work, it may not be the case. So what do you think a good response rate is for that?
Michele Haugh:So, typically, I would like to see at least 85 or more percent of people participating. I think if it's less, I do worry that there are some outliers that may have some you know, they could be just sort of middle of the road. What I worry is, are those disengaged people? Are we not hearing from them? And so I feel like if you get at least 85%, you really have a decent pool of individuals.
Michele Haugh:I do know some companies, in fact, this company that we are launching the survey for, Wednesday, they they did like a contest about getting an extra day of PTO, and I will tell you, you know, they said if they get a I forget if it was a 95% or higher, everybody got an extra day of PTO, and boy, they I think we had, like, 99%, participation. So sometimes those incentives do work, but I would say, like I said, 85 or above, I'm usually pretty happy with.
Mike Coffey:And how often do you think you need to administer those? I mean, this this client you just used an example, did it a year ago, and they're doing it again. Is once a year enough, or do we need to trend it on shorter intervals?
Michele Haugh:So some people like to do them twice a year. What we don't want is, you know, survey fatigue.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Michele Haugh:But the nice thing about the spark survey is it's pretty fast and easy. It takes about 10 minutes to complete. So I would say, you know, it really depends on the organization. Let's say you're an organization that's pretty stable. You have a high engagement rate, and, you know, you're not you don't have a lot of turnover.
Michele Haugh:You don't have turnover in your leadership. You know, I would say once a year is probably gonna be just fine. But for organizations that are going through rapid growth, rapid change, maybe they've just gone through an acquisition or they've had a change in leadership, I would say doing something more frequently would benefit that organization just because you've gotta keep a pulse on how things are going. Now some of our clients also do pulse surveys. In fact, one of the software applications that we use internally and some of our clients use is called 155, and it sends out a poll survey once a week.
Michele Haugh:And it's literally once one question, Mike. It says, how are you feeling this week at work? And you say, it's 1 to 5, and that's it. It's like within a nanosecond, you can click, you know, how you're feeling. And, that's just another way of just checking in.
Michele Haugh:But, again, I think it does depend on the organization, how much change is going on, how much churn there is, and some of those other factors.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning. HR is brought to you by Imperative. Bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been pre approved for 1 half hour of recertification credit.
Mike Coffey:To obtain the recertification information visit goodmorninghr.com and click on research credits, then select episode 154 and enter the keyword consistency. That's c0n s I s t e n c y. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit or you just wanna learn something, I'm hosting a webinar on July 11th entitled the ethical and practical considerations on the use of AI in human resources. We'll talk about the history of artificial intelligence, the way we use it every day without realizing it, and how generative AI like chat gpt can bring value and risk to the organization. We'll also consider ethical issues employers face as they implement AI.
Mike Coffey:This free webinar is preapproved for an hour of recertification credit from both HRCI and SHRM, and you can register at imperativeinfo.com slash webinars. And now back to my conversation with Michelle One of the things that I mean, I I'm embarrassed to admit that even I in the past have been guilty of is we get these results back from surveys. And there are some things that we could do, but they don't get priority. And so we do the next survey come around and you get the same set of responses. And you're like, oh, crap.
Mike Coffey:That's something I could fix 6 months ago when we did our last survey and it sat there. So, and I think it probably, if it's consistent begins to undermine your credibility when you're asking those surveys. So talk about, you know, how do we respond to this data?
Michele Haugh:So one of the things that we do is we put together an action plan. So we, first of all, we encourage the company that they've gotta share the results. So and, again, you don't have to go into every little detail or every little comment, but what we do is we identify what are the top five strengths that the organization has, and then what are the top five areas of opportunity that they have, and we share those very candidly with the organization. And then we have an action plan. Now one of the things that we typically do as part of that action plan is we usually host focus groups, because there's usually something in the survey that we might need more information on.
Michele Haugh:And that, allows us to dig in a little deeper to better understand why a particular area got rated low. We never wanna make an assumption, because if you make an assumption and you fix something that doesn't need to be fixed or you fix the wrong thing, again, that's where that intentions are really good, but the actions aren't aligned, and that's where that misalignments come. So we love, doing a couple focus groups. It allows us to dig in deeper, to ask some questions, to really understand what was meant by that score, what whatever that may be, whether it's on, you know, I know sometimes we've we've seen results. In fact, one company we we did a survey for was very male dominated.
Michele Haugh:It was a tech company, and there was very few women. Well, the women, when we narrowed down on the demographics, we saw that they ranked psychological safety very low, where the men in the organization ranked very high. And so that caused us to pull a focus group of the women together to really understand what it was that was causing that low psychological safety because that was a significant And so you encourage
Mike Coffey:And so you encourage a pretty high level of transparency with what the results were even if it might be embarrassing for leadership to say this is where we are. But to get our current state and so everybody recognizes this is where we are, and then management and leadership needs to communicate, I guess, where we wanna go.
Michele Haugh:Yes. Yes. And to have that ongoing feedback of like, okay, We did the focus groups. Here's what we learned in the focus groups. Here's what we're gonna be doing going forward.
Michele Haugh:Now we never recommend, like, let's say, you know, the the entire organization had pretty good scores, but like the marketing department had really, really low scores. We're not gonna necessarily expect that that gets shared transparently with the entire organization. We're not trying to set anyone up for embarrassment or shame or what have you. But what we wanna do is have that accountability, and having a level of transparency really drives that accountability. You know, I think the worst thing you can do is to do a survey, not share the results, not follow-up on the action items, because that's where the distrust is going to be, you know, come from.
Mike Coffey:And so, you know, every organization has values, whether they recognize them when they're on the wall on a poster. And in my values presentation, I I made it last week at a conference. I talk about 3 kinds of values, the actual values, the way things really get done in the organization, what we really incentivize and reward, and then aspirational values, which, you know, we would like to get there. This is where we we really want to change the way the organization thinks about things, and we wanna move towards that. And then just the feel good ones, just the ones you know, we're gonna do whatever the hell we want to, but we're gonna put up on the poster something that looks really good when we have visitors.
Mike Coffey:How do when we're talking about employee engagement and building culture, how do our values really affect that?
Michele Haugh:Yeah. So that that's a great question, Mike. You know, one of the things, in fact, you and I were at that, conference and we actually talked about this. This is one of the things I chatted about was the importance of tying in the values to every part of the, employee experience, if possible, and looking at it very objectively as far as, okay, here's what our values are. How do they translate to every single aspect of our engagement with our employees.
Michele Haugh:Everything from how are we, attracting candidates, how are we onboarding them, How are we rewarding them or recognizing them? How are we holding people accountable? You know, if you have these values and you're not holding people accountable to them
Mike Coffey:They're not really values then. Right?
Michele Haugh:They're they're not. Right? So if you say that, you know, we we really value integrity, and then you, you know, you have a a a tough decision to make and it's not made with integrity and your employees see that, they're gonna be like, that's just writing on the wall. That's not we're not standing by what our company values are. But if you're tying it into all aspects of the employee experience, then, again, you're gonna have that buy in and people are gonna start, exuding those, you know, behaviors that uphold the company values.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. I'm always pushing that values be part of your performance management review system. Yeah. Because, I mean, how often is it that we have to really terminate an employee's employment because they can't do the job? It's almost always some sort of behavior.
Mike Coffey:And it may not be bad behavior, but it may be the wrong behavior. They value different things. Or, you know and you you mentioned that kind of cognitive dissonance between what we say our values are and what we're actually doing. And I always go back to the the and every time I talk about it in a in a group, everybody nods their head of HR people. Because I talk about that salesperson who we say our our company value is teamwork?
Mike Coffey:We work as a team. You know, we work with you know, one of our respects is or one of our values is always work as one with compassion and respect. But then you've got that salesperson who is a lone wolf. He will stab you in the back. He'll make commitments that operations can't support.
Mike Coffey:Just whatever he has to do to close a sale. But he brings in the revenue, so we're gonna promote him or we're gonna continue to let him behave that way, and we're gonna incentivize him with commissions, regardless of how he lives our values out. And I think when everybody sees that, they say, oh, that's how you really get ahead in this organization. So that value of working as a team doesn't really hold any water.
Michele Haugh:Yep. Exactly. Yeah. You've gotta be able to live them out. And if you can't live them out, then perhaps you've gotta change your values.
Michele Haugh:Right? And, you know, redefine what exactly they are.
Mike Coffey:And so, you know, you've talked about good intentions, and I think the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And and I think we have good intentions often, but managers and employees tend to follow the rule of inertia. You know, what we've been doing, you know, at the same speed, is what we're going to do in the future unless we really have an incentive to change. So as we wrap up, how do you change leadership behavior? Because I think that's the most important because I think employees will follow that.
Mike Coffey:But how do you change that leadership behavior over time?
Michele Haugh:So one of the easy things that I try to do is is make it operational. If you make something operational, typically, it's gonna happen. So if you start if you say you're going to do something and you you plan it and it's on the calendar, then guess what? You're gonna do it. If you don't and you just talk about it, then it never happens.
Michele Haugh:And all of a sudden, you blink your eyes. You're halfway through the year and you're like, oh gosh. I guess we never really did do those things that we said we were going to do. So one of the things that I really feel strongly about is building a 12 month roadmap and doing it well in advance. Like, so for example, if somebody is looking to do something different in 2025, now is the time, June, to start planning that for 2025 and putting that road block road map together instead of waiting until you're in the moment being like, so what are we gonna do next month, or what should we do in the next couple months?
Michele Haugh:Because then it just doesn't happen. But if you always are planning well in advance, then chances are things are going to happen. But from a behavior standpoint, I also think it's so critical that, you know, managers are not born leaders, and they need support and they need training. And so we are very, very big proponents of giving leaders not just a onetime course, because, you know, the retention of information is very short, but it's gotta be ongoing, and they need that ongoing support. And so that's why, you know, with our early engaged service, that's one of the the strong services that that we, aspire to to provide is that ongoing training and development because it isn't just a one time thing.
Michele Haugh:Leaders, everybody needs ongoing training and development. We're all, you know, works in progress, you know, even I've been you've been leading for decades. I've been leading for decades, but I very much view myself as a work in progress, and I I will be forever, because people change, organizations change, you know, we change. There's just always things to, you know, improve and develop on.
Mike Coffey:And I I think, you know, that's almost a drinking game on this podcast. I talk it comes up almost every conversation that somebody's really good as an as accountant or as an accounts receivable. So we'll make them the the leader over the accounts receivable organization, and we just throw them in there assuming they're gonna know how to manage people and lead people. And those are completely different skill sets. And it doesn't matter if it's accounting, IT, operations, whatever it is, even HR, you know, and and people think, oh, HR people, they know how to do they don't know.
Mike Coffey:HR people don't know. You know, they got into HR because they like people. And and then you get into having to manage people, and that'll make you hate people. So, you know, people have to you know? And so we have to give them that training.
Mike Coffey:And I think and I talk a little bit more about what y'all do with early engage and how that works because that training to that frontline supervisor is so key.
Michele Haugh:Yeah. So what we do is we offer, you know, I talked about that 12 month, road road map, and that's exactly what we do is we have consistent training and development every single month. So if if individuals are subscribers to our service, they're gonna be able to offer their employees both personal and professional development. And we also do a lot with driving cultural awareness because we know that creating a, culture of belonging, it's important for, companies to recognize different cultures, different holidays, celebrations, things like that. And we also know that small companies just don't have the bandwidth, and sometimes they don't have the know how, and they usually don't have the budget to be able to focus, internally on all of those things.
Michele Haugh:And so that's why we provide those to those small companies so that they can have a look and feel like a bigger company with the focus on those, initiatives. And then we also support organizations with those employee engagement surveys and, also some customized content when they, you know, if they are looking for kind of more of a customized training solution and development solution.
Mike Coffey:And one other thing you say you mentioned strategic planning and and having a strategy. And I think that's one of the mistakes a lot of us make and and business owners make even as we're talking about the strategy for the coming year. We get together. We look at our year end review. And in this 1, 2 day strategy session, we're gonna make a whole plan for the whole year.
Mike Coffey:And we really it's half baked often. We set our goals, and then 3 months in, we're like, yeah. That really wasn't the right goal for the year. And so I I love what you said about now is, you know, we're in June, July, and we're looking forward to the coming year. You know, we're 6 months into this year.
Mike Coffey:What's working? What's not? Let's have a quarterly meeting to sit down and and think about that and then say, okay. As we look if we accomplish our goals this year and no and we assume those are the right goals, what does next year look like? And what we what do we need to be thinking about?
Mike Coffey:What information do we need to be gathering so that in 6 months, we can take the next step and we're not starting from step 1 scratch, in in January, February.
Michele Haugh:Yeah. Exactly. I mean, let's say you just say, you know what? In 2025, we're gonna do an employee engagement survey, and we're gonna do it in April. Boom.
Michele Haugh:It's scheduled. You start working, and then you work back. So we all know how to run operations. We all know how to run businesses, and it and if you employ if you approach employee engagement in an operational way, you will actually do the things that are necessary to drive that consistency. But if you just do it sort of hodge podge as you think of it, it just doesn't happen.
Michele Haugh:It falls to the bottom of the priority list because, we all get busy. So, you know, the companies that we know that have this dialed in, they have those things programmed in. And so that's why, like, our engaged plus service has 3 customized workshops in a 12 month period. So when we onboard a client, we're like, okay, let's look at the next 12 months, and let's pick those topics and get those scheduled now, and then it's done. And then they know they've at least offered their employees 3 meaningful sessions, and then they've also got those monthly sessions that we offer that are open to anyone.
Michele Haugh:You know, we also say, okay. When are we gonna do your employee engagement survey? We get that booked. And so just having those rhythms, it's amazing that when you plan things, they will happen. It's kind of like, you know, when you put a date on the calendar with your significant other, it happens.
Michele Haugh:If it doesn't, it probably you just get busy and it doesn't happen. So
Mike Coffey:So build that consistency in to Yes. Build your culture. Well, that's kinda been the theme today. And that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for joining me, Michelle. I really enjoyed it.
Michele Haugh:Oh, thank you. I it's my favorite topic, and I love talking about it. So really appreciate you having me today.
Mike Coffey:And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr.com. We're also on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, and don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast. Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com. And thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, keeps the trains running on time.
Mike Coffey:And I'm Mike Coffey as always. Don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally personally or professionally. I'll see you next week. And until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.