As a business owner, how would you describe your workforce: enthusiastic or miserable?

In a recent study, Gallup found that employees in the United States reached their highest level of engagement in 20 years with 35% of U.S. workers reporting that they are “highly involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.”[1] Sounds like a great workforce, right?

But a disengaged workforce is toxic to a company’s culture and productivity. In the previously mentioned study, Gallup also found that 52% of the workforce is “not engaged.” These are workers who are “psychologically unattached to their work and company and who put time, but not energy or passion, into their work.”

Worse yet, 13% of the workforce reported feeling “actively disengaged,” meaning they “have miserable work experiences and spread their unhappiness to their colleagues.”

No business owner wants a workforce to feel “psychologically unattached,” much less “miserable.” So how can you make sure your workforce remains in the 35% of engaged workers?

Recognize the Gap

Most of our clients are small to mid-size businesses who are growing quickly. As we work with clients, a few frustrations surface repeatedly:

  • Business owners want to:
    • Delegate well
    • Improve systems to allow the company to become self-managing
    • Free up their time to focus on revenue-generating activities
    • Improve employee engagement
  • Team members want:
    • More autonomy
    • To be fully delegated to and trusted to do their work
    • To have higher-income opportunities

But business owners and team members often fail to achieve these ideals because of the following roadblocks:

  • Ineffective delegation, whether it is micro-management or struggling to complete tasks
  • Not working in your own unique strengths
  • Not understanding how others take action or solve problems differently
  • Lack of clarity in business goals or how team members contribute to those goals
  • Overall disengagement among team members

How to Bridge the Gap

At IBA, we developed a program called The Teamwork Optimizer Solution to bridge this gap. Over 10 months, this program focuses on two key workforce characteristics: engaged employees and effective teamwork. We kickstart the program with a team-wide on-site workshop. This sets the tone for the remaining 10 months as we uncover instinctive strengths, likely points of conflict, and actual frustrations. Then, we work together to develop a workable action plan.

The key to this program is engaging well with the entire team. This is not a top-down program where the leader decides on all of the changes and tells everyone else what to do. To truly engage your team, you must give them a seat at the table.

To learn more about how The Teamwork Optimizer Solution can transform your team dynamics and productivity, contact us at illuminateba.com or team@illuminateba.com.