“I’m not going to participate in this unless it benefits me, my staff, or my program.”

Hopefully this is more of an unconscious sentiment rather than a spoken statement among your employees, but it exemplifies one of the problems you encounter with siloed information. When departments don’t talk to each other, they all develop independently of each other, and when called to come together it often results in chaos. Fisman and Sullivan talk about this in terms of several failed military actions--it led to dire consequences and contributed to the deaths of enlisted persons on more than one occasion.

The consequences of lack of communication between departments most of the time leads to inefficient processes, frustration, and--surprise!--worker disengagement. Staff are run down when they have the same conversations with different departments over and over and feel like they don’t get anywhere, or develop a product or project and are met with a stone wall when they need input from another department. Many staff feel like giving up, resorting to outputting the bare minimum, because to work cross-functionally seems more trouble than it’s worth.

So what’s the solution? How do you get departments with disparate goals to cooperate with each other, when most of the time, it feels unpleasant to them?


Take the example of the community mental health center (CMHC). Therapists graduate with newly minted degrees, eager to fulfill their mission of helping others, one person at a time. They seek work in a CMHC, thankful for a set schedule, staff that will handle billing, and all the other benefits that don’t come with private practice. They see their goal as helping their caseload, and some never see past those 20-40 people. If you asked, they might be able to tell you what the mission statement of the organization is.

The therapist performs well and is promoted. Even if we’re dealing with the Peter Principle, the staff member is usually an adequate manager and now sees their mission as helping those on the caseloads of their supervisees. They can tell you the mission statement of the organization, and may be able to tell you the specific outcomes that they hope the clients in the programs they supervise achieve.

But, these are both reactive stances. They perform their work well unless there is a disruption: perhaps one that comes in the form of another department (grantwriting? development? training?) seeking to collaborate with them. Staff are most likely to consider the request to collaborate as a disruption, because they view it in the context of a distraction from their regular work. So even if the “disruption” is something that will actually benefit the manager, staff, and his or her program, they may unwittingly make collaboration difficult if they do not understand the purpose of it.

So, how do we address these systemic issues?

1. Each department should have a thorough understanding of how their work relates to the goal of the overall organization.  
If your staff is only focused on those “customers” whom they impact directly, they will not be able to adjust if their customer base changes (as it often does). They should understand that they have both internal and external customers, and that their work impacts both. Again, the therapist example:
1. I help my clients. (This is the most basic understanding of one’s mission).
2. I work in a program that helps a specific group of people.
3. My program lives in an agency that helps a community of people.
4. (...And if you want to take it further--and these are your future leaders--) My agency changes lives, impacts the community, and advocates for improved quality of life for those who need it.

This systemic thinking should be baseline. Cross-functional workgroups should be the norm, and they should include both production staff as well as support staff. That way, when an opportunity for collaboration emerges, this stance will have paved the way, instead of quashing the project before it gets off the ground.

2. Each department should understand how other departments’ work relate to the goal of the overall organization.
I’m referring to empathy here, which therapists (to continue our example) should use daily when working with their clients. They should use these skills to also understand what other aspects of the organization keep it functioning. If program staff do not understand what development staff does, they may ignore them when they come knocking. However, if Grant Reporting staff present a data collection protocol that requires the program staff to implement, staff who are organizationally focused instead of individually focused will more readily cooperate.

Balanced scorecard is an incredibly helpful resource that can help align staff goals and performance with organizational goals and performance. It’s more of a performance oriented tool, but we all know that performance expectations can also be compelling (particularly if they make sense to the worker--as balanced scorecard does, since it places the worker’s goals in line with agency goals).

If departments are encouraged to adopt a “We’re all in this together” attitude, collaboration will happen more efficiently. Understanding and empathy will go a long way toward breaking down the tiring, burnout-inducing processes that often weigh us down.

Employee Engagement: Incentives in the Non-profit Setting

One of the assumptions that Fisman and Sullivan make in The ORG make is that “you need deep pockets to play the game.” This may work for Google or Facebook, but how do non-profits, who are generally not of deep pockets, effectively “play the game”? The authors are referring to recruiting and maintaining talent. Even in the non-profit field, competition happens. In a community mental health center, therapists leave one agency for another very similar one, because of some perceived benefit. A promotion maybe, but it could also just be better health insurance, more vacation days, or a shorter commute.

So how do you, as a non-profit, incentivize the work of your staff when you have limited resources? You can’t offer a gourmet chef, like Google, or on-site massage therapy, like eHarmony. (Or could you...let me know, I might be interested...). Factors that influence employment engagement often include finding meaning in one’s work, clarity in expectations and communication, support, and recognition or appreciation for one’s work. These are the same regardless of what resources an organization is able to offer...so it doesn’t matter what goodies you can offer; if your staff does not feel engaged, they won’t stay.

How do you increase employee engagement? First: gather data about engagement at your organization.
1. Find out if you are maintaining your staffing levels.
If you don’t keep track of how many hires and terminations are happening in different departments, you won’t know whether or not you have an engagement problem. See if there are any benchmarks for your field or area, and compare yourself with other organizations that are similar to you.
You can also determine if there are fluctuations monthly or quarterly, or by department. If any patterns start to emerge, you can investigate if they might be related to a common cause--low morale, departure of key staff that might cause others to follow, or other issues related to disengagement. An organizational consultant can help you analyze trends in your data.

2. Explore the reasons that staff leave.
You may not get the exact truth; employees may want to maintain relationships and not burn bridges.  You have to carefully word your exit interview survey so that staff feel comfortable being open and honest about the problems they may have perceived with their working conditions. Try to ask specific questions; staff will often choose “personal reasons” rather than “dissatisfaction.” Compare the two examples below:

1. Why did you leave your current position?
A. Relocating
B. Accepted other job
C. Pay
D. Management
E. Working conditions
F. Going back to school
G. Retirement

2. Why did you leave your current position?
A. Personal reasons
B. Dissatisfaction with Management
C. Dissatisfaction with Pay
D. Dissatisfaction with Working Conditions

Which of the two would you find more palatable, if you were to fill out an exit interview questionnaire? You are likely to get more honest, non-defensive answers with the first one. See also how items A, B, F, and G in Question 1 all fall under “Personal”? And C, D, and E in Question 1 correspond with B, C, and D in Question 2, but you may feel more comfortable marking items in the first question and not in the second, all because of how the question is framed. Again, this is an area where a consultant can help develop a survey that meets your unique needs.

3. Respond to your data.
From your analysis you should know now where your problems are, and what specific issues your staff feel disengaged about. A PDSA cycle can be useful here (Plan-Do-Study-Act): Plan where and how you will intervene, Do your intervention, Study the effect it had, and Adjust accordingly.

Plan: What strategies will you implement incentives, raise morale, or otherwise  increase employee engagement? Where will you implement them? For how long? Who will be responsible?

Do: Implement your changes. Document reactions to them.

Study: Examine the impact of your changes. Do you see improvements? Is there less turnover? Are fewer employees reporting dissatisfaction upon exit interviews? (You may also want to look for indicators of engagement with your current staff rather than just the ones that are leaving; this will be the topic of an upcoming post.)

Act: Respond to what you learned. If your intervention was successful, roll it out to the rest of the organization. If there are areas that can still be improved, adjust your interventions to address them.

There can only be benefits to investing in finding out what makes your staff tick. Even if you’re not rolling in start-up money, you can offer positive, rewarding experiences to your staff. If they find their work rewarding and important, if they feel aligned with your mission--and can express how the work they do relates directly to that mission--they will be more likely to consider their workplace an environment in which they feel they are one of many making a difference for those they serve.

Look for more posts in this series on Employee Engagement.