What effect does worker engagement have on the success of our organizations and what can be done to increase it? On this show, Elaina Norlin, Professional Development Coordinator for the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries and author of The Six-Step Guide to Library Worker Engagement, talks about what it means when people are disengaged in the workplace. She shares the elements that increase the likelihood of people being truly engaged and happy in their work, which sets both workers and libraries up for success.
Transcript
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Adriane Herrick Juarez:
This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast where we talk about libraries, and leadership, and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations, and strategic insights into the profession.
What effect does worker engagement have on the success of our organizations, and what can be done to increase it? On this show Elaina Norlin, Professional Development Coordinator for the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, and author of The Six-Step Guide to Library Worker Engagement talks about what it means when people are disengaged in the workplace. She shares the elements that increase the likelihood of people being truly engaged and happy in their work, which sets both workers and libraries up for success. Enjoy the show!
Elaina, welcome to the show.
Elaina Norlin:
Thanks for having me.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: Thank you for talking with me today. You’re the author of The Six-Step Guide to Library Worker Engagement. As we begin will you share with our listeners what percent of employees are disengaged at work, and why worker engagement is important? 01:38
Elaina Norlin:
That’s a great question—usually a question people ask me all the time. I use the Gallup poll of the status of the American workforce, but it’s actually America with Canada, too. On average for the last twenty-five years workers all over the world—at least in the United States and Canada, were about 65% disengaged as a workforce in about thirty-five, but right now they think we’re closer. Gallup thinks we’re closer, to almost 67%, 68%, we’re pushing toward 68% disengaged.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: Wow, I’m really blown away by those numbers. 02:31
Elaina Norlin:
Yeah, they’re really thinking that by next year we’ll be even closer to 70%. The thing that’s interesting to note that I forgot to mention is that when they talk about disengagement it is the trendy thing that people hear now is the quiet quitting. That’s pretty much what it is.
I think a lot of times when people hear disengagement they hear people not working. It’s actually not that at all. Disengagement means that you are working. You’re doing your day-to-day job. You’re doing just enough to get by. You’re doing just enough to get the paycheck. You’re not really invested or feeling loyal to the organization itself, or expecting the company to be very loyal to you. It is a way of meaning that we just don’t feel connected, not only to the organization, but to the mission, or where they’re going.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: So as we start thinking about this, what role does hiring good leadership in our libraries play in worker engagement? 03:26
Elaina Norlin:
Actually a great deal. Not only does Gallup, or Harvard Leadership, or Great Places to Work say that people—they don’t leave their job, they leave bad management, bad supervisors, bad leadership. It is the number one reason that people leave, and it’s also the number one reason that people become disengaged.
A lot of time people think it’s just salary by itself, and it’s really not. It is leadership. The Harvard studies said over and over again, for the last ten or fifteen years, that we’re getting worse as a society at picking our leaders, the people to lead our organizations—not only at the top, but all the different layers in between as you look at our org chart. The higher, the larger, the more people that you have in the organization the more hierarchy—all of these other positions, little positions.
They say we’re not hiring the right managers about 60% to 80% of the time. Which is pretty bad. I was really shocked when they said that, but the main reason is because we don’t really evaluate our leaders for soft skills. We tend to focus on technical skills. We tend to focus on outcomes and performance and not as much on the soft skills. A lot of times when we find that we do not have good leadership it usually is because we’re not taking a hard look at some of the different soft skills that we need to make our organizations better.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: In the leadership process how does trust influence workplace culture? 05:14
Elaina Norlin:
The thing about trust is everybody always—back when I was doing all of my research on companies that people loved working for, and then companies that were literally falling apart. The number one thing that the great companies, the great organizations, the small businesses that thought they had higher engagement, higher productivity, higher diversity, equity, inclusion, also had high trust. One of the things that you have to realize about trust is that it is always on a continuum. A lot of organizations think that, Oh, once we get the trust we have it and it won’t go away. That’s not true. You could do something to someone who might have been in a high trust situation and literally their trust could plummet within a conversation, in an interaction.
You have organizations—I’ve seen, that have really, really low trust about the administration—a new administration came in and within time the trust got back to where it needed to be. It’s not like if you have low trust you never, never could get to the top, or the other way around. The main thing I always tell people to remember about trust is that it’s on a continuum, and it takes, just like marriages or people getting together—it just takes work to make sure it’s on a higher level.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: As we strive to build trust, what components of recognition and praise can help build the positive work environment? 06:42
Elaina Norlin:
The recognition and praise, where I started to—there’s actual books about it, like a whole book about recognition and praise. You guys can easily do a library search, or an Amazon search to find these books. To think about recognition and praise—it’s cheap [laughs] it doesn’t cost a lot of money to do it. When the research talks about recognition and praise it’s much more on how can we figure out strategies to make sure all the people in our organization feel valued, affected, or seen—because a lot of times, especially the larger the organization, it’s usually only a couple of people that are shining, the rest of the people are almost ignored. I think that the more you’re not in the spotlight, the more those people are usually not getting a lot of recognition.
I always say: the shelvers; the cleaning staff; people who are cataloging, processing materials; they’re the foundation—they’re the backbone of our organization; people working on circulation; Ask Us at the front desk. Those are people who are there every day, but they’re not going on international trips and writing books and grants, things like that, where they’re not getting all the accolades. But, a healthy organization is figuring out a way to see everyone in the organization where everybody feels that they are valued.
The techniques they use to do that is all the way from checking in with each department— that’s where the question about good management comes in. But, you could stress things where you could go to your different departments and ask how people like to be recognized and praised, because it’s not all one-size-fits-all, right? Some people want to be—you could say it in front of a large group of people. I remember when I used to do it—I would write letters, a thank you note to them, because they liked the written word. Some of them just wanted me to come into their office and just say, Hey, I saw that and this is—I think you’re doing a great job, just a nice reminder.
Check in to see how people want to be acknowledged. How do they want to be seen? And being seen—the final thing about it is not when they’re going above and beyond, it’s just catching something that they’re doing on a day-to-day basis, that’s moving in the direction you want to be in. Just taking a few minutes out to acknowledge that makes a world of difference.
I always tell people when I used to be a director I used to write little thank you cards to my staff about things I saw, and just send them randomly to people. One time I went into one of the offices, and they had all of my thank you note cards all over the office. They said they read them when they were having a bad day. It was like a little pick-me-up.
I think you forget as a director, or as a manager, or as a supervisor how much power you have over not only decreasing morale, but increasing morale. I always say recognition of morale is cheap, and once you get into the spirit of it it really makes a difference.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: I like what you’re saying about checking in and customizing recognition to individual preferences. You even talk about customizing feedback by eliminating formal performance review processes in favor of one-on-one conversations and continuous feedback. Can you tell us about that? 10:14
Elaina Norlin:
That wasn’t my thought when I first started the research. I didn’t think too much about it. I didn’t realize until I started interviewing people who left the profession, and people who were disenchanted, or about to leave the profession—almost everybody I talked to had a bad experience with the performance evaluation. You just never really realize, especially when you’re not communicating, and talking to your direct reports only a couple times a year—then you give them the evaluation that it means so much to the person, right? Just to get something that was lukewarm balanced with, Here’s the five things you’re doing right, but here’s six things you’re doing wrong—is not making them feel like the recognition and praise value is being seen.
Talking to organizations that transform—really work through their low morale, they all said that they restructured their performance evaluation to do much more engagement with their direct reports throughout the year. The evaluation is more about a celebration of everything that they accomplished. They’re much more aware—not goal setting that might change, but more about where as you, as you’re evolving to the best person you can be at work, where do we feel like we need to support you more in order for you to blossom as that person? When I heard that, it logically made sense to me. I had never—that was not how we had to do our evaluations, but the people who said they did that, just like the recognition and praise said, It’s cheap and it really works.
I had one guy who said that his evaluation was to show people little things that they were doing that they didn’t know he observed. Then he would write about what he thought they would be doing the next year. They didn’t say that was what they wanted to do, but he said, That’s what I can see them doing. He said ten times out of ten what he saw them doing, they became that more. He said something in my interview I always tell people in my workshops that always stuck with me, he said, I expect the best out of my staff. I expect them to be the best people they can be and that’s who they are.
I always thought about my managers when I was a regional manager, who were like, Oh, these crazy staff, and I’m so mad at them and dah, dah, dah, dah. I realized that they didn’t expect that much from their staff and they were getting exactly what they were expecting. His stating, I expect them to be great. He was getting exactly what he expected. That was a real aha moment for me when it came to evaluation.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: So given all this, what are the secrets for creating high performance and inclusive teams? 13:38
Elaina Norlin:
Really it is—and it sounds easier than it is, right? But I always tell people that if you just break down all of the noise that goes around it, it really is that people want to come into the organization and not just for pay. Pay is important. Moving up, moving within the profession is very important, but for the most part people want to do their best in the organization. They want to be seen for who they are as their own individual. I always say that people come into the organization—and they’re all different, not just in skin tone, but some are procrastinators, some like to get things done on time, some people are perfectionists, some people are not, some people are idea people, some are not. All of them—everybody’s different. The approach works differently. They bring real unique strengths to the organization.
I always find that the director is almost like the conductor of how to figure out all of these different people who are there. How can we put them together—harmoniously help people move forward? I think a lot of times we get bogged down because we expect people often to be similar—similar this, follow this line, here’s this policy, do it our way. Do it my way. I think a lot of times we get away from just the beauty of the diversity of thought that we have within the organization.
The organizations that I’ve seen where people are genuinely happy feel that their individual skills, talents, and abilities are being appreciated and seen. It’s not any more than that. They feel like my organization has my back, and therefore I have the organization’s back.
We say, Oh, yeah that seems easy, but it’s not. That where, as we were saying earlier, that’s where picking the right managers that are empathetic—that have some of those other soft skills, understanding. Understanding how to motivate when people are feeling that bad and blue. There’s a lot of things to me about leadership that need to be in place that will help move it forward.
I also would say that we need to look at our organizations on how people move up, because I do think that in most organizations the only way you can move up and get more money is to manage people. I feel strongly, even more strongly than I did when I started my research, that everybody’s not good at that. Just like I’m not a good cataloguer. I’m not really good with the details. I’m much more of a people person. I’m not a technical services person. That’s my gift, but that doesn’t mean that if someone’s not good with people that they’re not bringing a really unique, special talent to the organization.
Sometimes I really hate that that’s the only way to move up. That is sometimes what people think, I don’t like people. I really don’t want to be a manager, but this is the only way for me to move up in the organization, feed my family, whatever it is. I feel like we need to have that conversation. Is there a way that we can creatively figure out other avenues for people to be in leadership that doesn’t require them to have to manage people? I think you can be a leader without that. I really do think having avenues for people who are really, really great, but the people stuff isn’t their jam can still thrive.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: Is there anything else you’d like to share? 17:31
Elaina Norlin:
I’ve been to a lot of organizations this year that are not doing so well. There’s burn out. There’s different things. Just like your question before, I can’t stress it more and more—we really do need to invest in good leadership in the forefront. It’s harder to hire people and then we’re going to pour in all this money to make people who they’re not. Just like your question about how important leadership is, it is monumentally important. We can’t take it lightly. Investing some more time to figure out what we want makes a world of difference.
Sometimes when I do consultant work, I’ll have the library itself write down the qualities and traits of the best boss they ever had in their entire life. When you see what they’re looking for then it goes like, Look at your job description. How are you going to get from your job description to this wonderful person that you just put in this trait box? And, building the connection between the technical skills and the soft skills is really how we’re going to have to move forward—can’t keep doing the same things and expect different results.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: Do you have any favorite management, or leadership books and resources, and why? 18:55
Elaina Norlin:
I actually like Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last. His stuff is really, really good. He has a lot of common sense that I think is really good. I also suggest for people—there’s an organization called, Great Place to Work. They are the research arm to the Fortune top places to work, the top diversity places to work, the top millennial places to work. They’re the ones who do the research arm of it. You can sign up for their webinars and their studies, and actually hear the stories of people who are doing well. I think that positive energy and starting to look at some of those articles about when things are working well is nice. It’s free to sign up, so I would suggest people sign up and just start to get the message there.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #10: Elaina, in closing what do libraries mean to you, personally? 20:01
Elaina Norlin:
It’s interesting. I am a library mutt in the sense that I have been an academic librarian, I’ve worked in the public library, special libraries. I’ve worked for IMLS. I’ve worked for OCLC. I now work for another consortium. I have done it all, and I always—I did a keynote a long time ago, and I always say that regardless of all the different things I’ve done in my career I am a librarian. If anybody asks me, even though I haven’t practiced being a librarian in a long time—I am a librarian.
I feel that I am proud of the profession. I enjoy the flexibility. I tell people, stuck in a rut? Don’t be stuck in a rut. [laughs] There’s a big library world out there and there’s so many different things that you can do. I’ve always been really curious. There’s so much that is out there that you don’t have to—if you don’t like academia you could do something else. If you don’t like this, you can go and do something else. It’s been really good to me. I’ve traveled the world. I met librarians all over the world. It’s just—I always am proud to be a librarian.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #11: Elaina, thank you for talking with me today about worker engagement. Given that research shows worker disengagement to be high across all workplaces this is an important topic for the people who serve in libraries, and libraries themselves. Our workers are the foundation for all that is possible in our organizations. You’ve given us excellent ways to challenge ourselves to support and engage our most important asset, the people we work with. I really appreciate you talking with me today about this. It’s been great. 21:30
Elaina Norlin:
Thank you. It was wonderful.
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership Podcast. This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. For more episodes tune into LibraryLeadershipPodcast.com where you can now subscribe to get episodes delivered right into your email inbox. Our producer is Nathan Sinclair Vineyard. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
We would like to thank the Park City Library for their dedicated support of this show. The opinions expressed on this show are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of Library Leadership Podcast, or our sponsors.