What is “Employalty?”

Hi, everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors, where We Build Better Contractors.

This week, I want to talk about what is Employalty. That's a new word, new word for me. This comes from a book written by a man named Joe Mull, M-U-L-L, and it's called, Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work. And we are in a new age of work, aren't we? Since the pandemic of 2020. Before I get started, don't forget Boot Camp. Denver, August. Contact Charlotte for more information. Send your high potential people, employalty.

They'll want to know you're investing in their futures. And what about this is important to you? Golly, we're all competing at a breakneck pace to make sure we have the right people on our buses. We talk about this all the time. Construction is a people business, and you've got to have the right people on your team if you want to have a great construction company and a great life. Okay? So, Mull asks a great, great, great question. "Where does commitment at work come from?" And he boils it down to three things. The ideal job. The ideal job is defined by the employee. Meaningful work, and the third thing is a great boss. So, let's take those in order, shall we?

The ideal job. To your employees, to me, to you, to anyone, your job is just another puzzle piece. I know it seems for those of us that are passionate about our businesses, it seems like it's bigger than that, but it's really just a puzzle piece that has to fit precisely in place because you've got... In my case, I've got a wife, I've got kids, I've got social commitments. I want to stay fit and play tennis and do those kinds of things. I want to have leisure, I want to be healthy, and I want to go to the doctor and get regular checkups and all that kind of stuff. Your job has to fit into all the other pieces of your life. I want to get some sleep at night, all those things. And he defines the ideal job. Again, this is defined by the individual as the right workload, the right flexibility, and of course, the right compensation. If somebody offered you10 cents an hour, you'd turn it down, but if somebody offered you a million dollars an hour, you'd probably accept it not even knowing what the job is, maybe.

The second thing, meaningful work. What does that mean? He talked about the handful of experiences that an employee will experiences. And there's that word again, experience. We talked about the experience economy in the context of how to translate these wonderful experiences to your customers, but what about translating wonderful experiences to your employees, right? The experience of being at work, how can you make that more special? He talked about mission in particular. If you don't have a well-crafted, well-thought-out mission statement, how can an employee look at his or her personal mission and hold it up to your template and kind of examine it from both sides if you don't have a mission? If you really haven't chewed that down to the bone and come up with a compelling mission that causes people to want to get out of bed in the morning, you're cutting yourself short in terms of inspiring people the way you want to at work.

He said that "In addition to mission, they want to feel valued and appreciated, and they want to work in a way," he didn't use this term, "but they want to work in a way that unleashes their unique abilities." Unique ability, you've heard me talk about it before, Dan Sullivan term. It means when somebody is in their sweet spot, they're in their comfort, not comfort zone. They're in the zone where they're productive, they're happy, they're challenged. The more they do those tasks, the better they get out of them. They don't get tired of doing those particular things. That's when people are in their unique ability.

The third thing, great boss. He said that... This is a quote from a Gallup survey. "The team leader alone accounts for 70% of the variance in a team's engagement." Now, I don't know how he defines team or engagement, but 70% of the variance in a team's engagement. Holy moly, that is just shocking. I mean, I should have worked harder being a good boss a long time ago, right? We all should have if we knew. But now, how does he define better bosses? "Better bosses, they demonstrate that they're caring, competent, they're visible, they support their employees, they're humble, they are approachable, and finally, they're vulnerable." That's how he defines being a good boss in today's workplace.

He says, "If you have the ideal job, meaningful work, and great bosses, you'll have employalty," employee loyalty, I guess. And he says, "The results will be retention, reputation, and revenue." What do you think? We'd like to hear from you in the comments. Does this term employalty, does that make sense to you? And what do you think of the three ingredients when it comes to having the right people, having the right people on your bus, in the right seats on the bus?

This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors, where We Build Better Contractors.