Frustrated employees represent 20% or more of the total workforce, leading to a major loss in performance, talent and revenue. Frustration wears down motivated, dedicated employees who really care about their jobs but can’t get the organizational support they need to get things done. Focused on making contributions, these employees often hide their frustration, leaving managers in the dark about their discontent. “Frustrated employees really want to succeed in their role, but become aggravated by organizational barriers or a lack of resources,” says Mark Royal, Senior Consultant at Hay Group and co-author of the new book The Enemy of Engagement. “Managers must ask the right questions and address the issue promptly, or risk losing top talent who care deeply about the organization.” Royal’s co-author and colleague, Tom Agnew, says that frustration isn’t just an employee issue, it’s an organizational issue, adding that “Managers must listen for clues and serve as the voice for frustrated employees.” For more information on The Enemy of Engagement, contact Andrea Friedman at 212-584-5476 or Andrea@blisspr.com

240 pp. Cost: $16.22

Measuring the success of a business is not as simple as saying: ‘happy employees equal happy customers.’ Happy employees can also be lazy employees. A person taking tickets at a movie theater may be happy, but it may be because he or she gets to sit around on a comfortable chair while drinking free soft drinks and eating free popcorn. Many people might be happy if their employers paid them for what is merely time spent drinking soda, eating popcorn and collecting ticket stubs.

For the above saying to be true, companies should be looking at levels of engagement as the measuring stick. We know that emotionally engaged employees feel like they are doing something valuable for their organizations and that their efforts will make a difference. Customers know when they are talking to emotionally engaged employees. The positive feelings that the employees have about their jobs and employers influence the level of service they give to customers. When these positive experiences continue to happen, then customers become engaged, and they become advocates for the company’s products and services.

While movie theaters may be an easy target when it comes to pointing out the signs of disengaged employees, it’s certainly not exclusive to this business. Employees across all industries have a major impact on customer loyalty and engagement. The mantra of ‘happy employees equal happy customers’ is real, and companies should seek emotionally engaged employees because it will be these employees who help create emotionally engaged customers.

This is the spillover effect.

Allegiance .

Every year numerous business books and magazine articles are written about collaboration in the workplace. It’s hard not to be in favor of collaboration, but why do some organizations do it so well and other fail at it? Is it the company culture that makes a difference or perhaps the skills of those who endeavor to collaborate? Could it be the tools used to collaborate?

Take a moment and make a list of the tools that your organization currently uses to foster collaboration among coworkers. It’s a bit challenging for many businesses because collaboration is viewed as a pathway to a result rather than a result itself. Many people think of collaboration in terms of a process to be managed rather than a set of tools to be engaged. Thus, you might say that brainstorming sessions, conference calls and company strategy retreats are among your current methods of collaboration. You might even argue that the telephone and the office copy machine facilitate collaboration. Indeed, these may be effective methods for your company, and they may lead to desirable results, but what if the process of collaboration itself became a highly valued product?

Is it possible or even advisable to get your customers and prospective customers to engage in some form of collaboration that will benefit your company? The answer is yes, but the concept can be a bit counterintuitive. After all, imagine what kinds of things your customers could say about you if you were to enable that conversation through one or more social media tools that allow them to interact with and influence one another. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. Ask yourself this, however: Do you gain more by sponsoring or at least endorsing this kind of conversation than you do by running from it? Excerpted from The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success, by Lon Safko and David K. Brake. John Wiley & Sons. 2009.

John Wiley & Sons. 840 pp.

“Why is customer loyalty and engagement important? The biggest reason is that customer engagement is the only metric that impacts other metrics typically measured by a company. As one industry expert noted, When customer engagement slides, so do a great many other outcomes, including future sales, growth and profit. Obviously, engaged customers are the best customers for a company to have. Eight of ten executives believe their company loses sales each year because of failure to create engaged customers, and 80% say that engaged customers are critical because they recommend products or services.”

Excerpted from ‘Capitalizing on Voice of Customer,’ Published by Allegiance

Allegiance . 185 pp.