Making Employee Engagement Personal with Mary Miller

An engaged workforce keeps the company moving forward, and keeping employees engaged in their job is a challenge companies have faced for decades. Our most recent podcast with Mary Miller, CEO of Jancoa Janitorial Services, discussed the concept of the issue of focusing on happiness that leads to success and how this has cascaded in her flourishing company. Mary is also the author of the best-selling book Changing Direction, which talks mainly about optimism and how this has helped her in life and some of the employee engagement strategies she has implemented at Jancoa.

Golden handcuffs are the trend of today. Organizations keep employees from looking for employment elsewhere through predominately compensation-based approaches. This retention approach, however, does not equate to an engaged workforce, and when employees are disinterested, it affects their performance and the company overall as a result.

Mary talked about the culture of caring. When the company cares for its employees and their families the focus shifts from tasks to results. When the company provides their employees with the tools to be successful, including helping them connect to programs and agencies to make their future better even if that means that the employee may go down a different road in the future – employees thrive. Companies want to retain team members who want to be there. When employees are engaged in their work and are able to become efficient workers, the customers are happy. Engaged employees that care about their work, take care of the customers. The end result is a win-win-win situation for all parties – company, employees, and customers. However, applying this to other companies would be a challenge as it would have to start from the top – the CEO or the Board – and that this is not something that you just “plug and play.”

Take care of your employees, and the employees will take care of your customers. This is true employee engagement. Listen to the full podcast to see how companies can benefit from nurturing their employees holistically. By developing this culture of caring in the workplace, we bring the “humanity” to the work place. Employees will be aware that they are contributing to a mission and that they are not just another person doing a certain job. These will all boil down to the company’s success. Be an agent of change in your team.

We would like to thank Mary for her time and enthusiasm. We encourage everyone to get a copy of her book Changing Direction and to check out their company’s website at jancoa.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at @mary_dreams.

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