Ep. 223: Sarah Rubenstein - Boosting Employee Engagement: Strategies for Success

Discover the secrets to unlocking employee engagement in this eye-opening episode of the Count Me In Podcast. Join us as we welcome Sarah Rubenstein, Chief Accounting Officer at Clearway Energy, as she shares valuable insights into employee engagement, strategies to transform disengaged employees, and the importance of creating inclusive communities within the workplace. Don't miss this chance to learn how to maximize productivity and employee satisfaction in your organization!

Connect with Sarah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-rubenstein-a724632/

Full Episode Transcript:
Adam:            Welcome back to Count Me In. In today's episode, we're thrilled to have Sarah Rubenstein, Chief Accounting Officer at Clearway Energy. With us to discuss the crucial role that employee engagement plays in an organization's success. 

Sarah brings her extensive experience in cultivating positive work environments to the table. Offering valuable advice on identifying disengaged employees, implementing effective strategies to boost engagement, and the benefits of fostering an inclusive, collaborative workspace. Stay tuned as we uncover the keys to unlocking a happy, productive, and thriving work environment.

Adam:            Well, Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the Count Me In podcast, today. We're really excited to have you on, and today we're going to be talking about employee engagement and all that that encompasses. And maybe to start off, maybe, you can start by defining what is employee engagement to you.

Sarah:            Sure, to me, employee engagement is how positive people feel about their work, and we measure that in a lot of different ways. But, really, I'm lucky, the company that I work at, we survey our employees every year, regarding employee engagement. And we ask some really good questions that were developed by very smart people at Harvard, and Yale, and Stanford, that tell us how engaged people are. 

And, so, we're able to evaluate, and a lot of the questions relate to things like management, leadership, integrity, work-life balance, workload, allocation, autonomy, and things like that. And all of those factors really tell us how engaged our employees are.

Adam:            That's interesting, and when you mention engaged, a lot of times when you see discussions about employee engagement. You see engaged employees versus disengaged employees. And, so, maybe we can start by talking about that a little bit. Because you have your engaged employees, and you can usually tell who those are. But the disengaged maybe a little harder to see, or maybe not so hard, depending on what they're not doing, I should say.

Sarah:            Yes, sure, and the first indication we have, that some employees are not engaged, is that they don't answer the surveys. So we don't get 100% participation. So that tells us that some people feel like maybe their voice won't be heard, even if they answer. And those people, usually, just have a negative outlook, maybe, on what type of work they're doing or their future within the company. 

And, so, a lot of times, you lose the engagement when people feel like there's no career development path for them, or the work that they're doing isn't valuable, or they're not being told that the work that they're doing is valuable.

Adam:            And that can be very difficult for an employee, especially, when you don't feel like you can't move up in an organization. How do you take somebody who is disengaged and try to get them to be engaged?

Sarah:            That's a great question, and, especially, when you don't have a development path for a person, it is really challenging. And, so, what we try to do is we try to provide a lot of personal and professional development opportunities. And we talk to our employees about how those types of opportunities can help them develop themselves. Whether for this particular company and role or just in general for their career. So we try to offer them opportunities to learn and also to, maybe, work in an area that isn't related to their job. 

So we try to look for things we call stretch assignments. Where there might be an opportunity in another group, where someone needs help with a special project, and that might give that individual the opportunity to learn new skills that they can put on their resume, even if it doesn't give them direct path to promotion. So we try to demonstrate what we can offer the employee, even if it isn't upward mobility, and that maybe we can't keep them forever, but we can keep them a little bit longer, and that helps us overall.

Adam:            Yes, because it shows that you care and that you're engaging with them, even though they seem to be disengaged. And, so, it encourages them, even if there is no upper mobility at that moment.

Sarah:            Right, because everyone is looking for some type of personal development, even if they don't see a future for themselves at that company. So we try to offer something for everyone. If you don't see yourself as a leader at this company, that's okay, we'll work with you on how you can make yourself a better employee and a better person. So that, at least, we can keep you around, and have you feel happy to be working at the company for the time being.

Adam:            Mh-hmm, that makes a lot of sense. So maybe we can focus a little bit on what are some benefits, to organizations, to creating an engaging environment?

Sarah:            I haven't read all of the studies, but there are numerous studies that show that engaged employees are better employees, they're more productive. Of course, we know that hiring new employees, and training them, and getting them up to speed is very expensive and time-consuming. And, so, it benefits us to take the time to develop programs to promote employee engagement. Because, overall, we end up with better productivity and just a better workforce.

Adam:            I mean, that makes a lot of sense to want to have a better workforce, especially, when they're engaged. And, so, maybe, we can talk a little bit about what do you need to look for, especially, when your team is not engaged. Are there certain signs that you can look for? Obviously, you mentioned you can tell people are not engaged when they're not taking a survey. But then what are other signs that you can look for, within your team, if you can talk a little bit about that?

Sarah:            Yes, no problem, I think, there are  a couple of different signs that I look for. Generally, I look for people who aren't participating in the conversations, who don't speak up in meetings. People who have been doing the same work for an extended period of time. 

And, of course, you look for the signs of people who are not responsive. They're taking a ...