Pub. 1 2019 Issue 2

when people are disengaged not just from work but from life. He presents a good argument for making your business a cooperative instead of the more traditional hierarchical arrange- ment we expect to see in businesses. It’s worth reading. However you want to decide on the company’s objectives, though, you need objectives for the entire orga- nization, and you also need to ask people to work toward making those objectives a reality. They probably won’t cooperate unless they see why cooperation is to their benefit, so think through that part of it as well. Gallup identified the following best practices that can improve employ- ee engagement: • Engagement isn’t something to think about once a year and then forget. Make it something your dealership is always in- volved in improving. • You need some ideas about what to do that will be effective. Search the internet for “best practices for improving employee engagement.” The results will give you many different ideas for action. You are in the best posi- tion to decide what ideas would work for you, but it’s a good idea to be aware of what other com- panies, even in other industries, are doing. For example, you should check out what Google is doing to engage its employees. Whether you open up the deci- sion making or not, you do need to ask your employees what they want to see in order to be more engaged with their work. • Use the feedback you get from employees and make a plan. • Take a baseline measurement before implementing plans. You can decide how far ahead you want to look, but three years is a good number: long enough for big changes, but short enough to keep actions and milestones realistic. • Look at tactical elements that im- prove performance. Always favor concrete actions over abstract ideas. “Provide in-house daycare” is better than “provide support to parents who are employees.” Accountability and Trust There are distinct differences in how baby boomers and millennials approach work. In fact, the baby boomer approach and the millennial approach can be exact opposites. What really matters is getting the work done and not so much how the work gets done. Your strategy, therefore, should be doing your best to avoid letting people di- vide into age-based camps. How can you accomplish that goal? It almost certainly won’t happen by accident. One good strategy is to pay more attention to accountability than to methods. If an approach works, and it is legal and ethical, why should anyone care about the specifics? The baby boomers probably have better interper- sonal communication skills. The millennials are certainly going to be better when it comes to dig- ital communication. You want all the skill sets you can find. Think broadly and find a way to accom - modate everyone’s strengths. Your attitude will go a long way toward creating the right kind of culture, but you should also encourage people to compro- mise and to learn from each other. The way management makes decisions should make it clear that employees can trust the organization to be fair about accountability. The Advantage of Being Diverse Family dealerships are not alone in being multigenerational. The general population is in the same situation. As a result, troubleshooting problems becomes more effective if it takes advantage of generation- al diversity because that diver- sity makes for better solutions. When you have projects, the smart approach is to involve representatives from each gen- eration. Approaching a problem from multiple perspectives is more likely to produce solutions that are comprehensive. After all, millennials offer efficiency and creativity in their work, but those qualities pair well with the high-quality, detail-oriented work of baby boomers. continued from page 15 16 Issue 2 2019