by Jason Young on February 8, 2010

The Gallup Organization created a survey several years ago to measure employee engagement. I thought this tool might help as you build and grow your team. These questions are great to ask, especially with those of you that have Gen Y team members.
Question 1: Do you know what is expected of you at work?
Question 2: Do you have the right materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
Question 3: At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
Question 4: In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
Question 5: Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
Question 6: Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
Question 7: At work, do your opinions seem to count?
Question 8: Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
Question 9: Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
Question 10: Do you have a best friend at work?
Question 11: In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
Question 12: In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
by Jason Young on February 8, 2010

We all have made job transitions on some level during our lives.
What are good choices to make in your first 90 days at a new job?
I have entered a new workplace before and made healthy choices, but I have also made unhealthy choices. They both have consequences.
Michael Watkins helped me by laying out seven elements for successful transitions:
- Organize to learn: figure out what you most need to learn, from whom, and how you can best learn it.
- Establish A-list priorities: identify a few vital goals and pursue them relentlessly.
- Define strategic intent: develop and communicate a compelling mission and vision for what the organization will become.
- Build the leadership team: define your assessment criteria and evaluate the team you inherited.
- Lay the organizational foundation for success: identify the most important supporting changes you need to make in the structure, processes, and key talent bases of the organization.
- Secure early wins: build personal credibility and energize people by identifying centers of gravity and organizing the right set of initiatives where you can get some early successes.
- Create supportive alliances: understand who needs to champion your successes by identifying how the organization really works and who has influence.
*One element I might add inside “create supportive alliances” is to make champions out of others. People are not there just to serve our initiatives. Help meet each other’s needs. This is one area I found rewarding when I eventually learned how to do it.