5 Easy-to-Follow Steps to Bring Out the Best in Your Employees Discover a different way of thinking when trying to level up your employee management skills.

In today's competitive business landscape, it's more important than ever for organizations to have a strategic and proactive approach to developing their human resources. Some organizations can afford an internal HR pro, and some are better off using an external HR partner. HR is responsible for everything from recruiting and hiring new employees to developing and retaining top talent for short and long-term strategic goals.

But what if the HR leader or partner could do even more? What if they could create a workplace culture and experience that is collaborative and supportive, develops employees and curates a positive and energetic workplace experience and culture that builds on the strengths of the individual and, subsequently, the teams?

A strength-based approach focuses on developing employees to their fullest potential and improving organizational performance. That's where appreciative inquiry comes in.

Appreciative inquiry is a strengths-based approach to organizational development that focuses on identifying and building on an organization's and its employees' positive aspects. It's a powerful model that supports creating a workplace experience focusing on developing employees' strengths — which helps build loyalty and improve performance.

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The Benefits of Curating a Healthy and Productive Workplace

Here are four benefits of applying the appreciative inquiry framework to developing employees:

1. Increased employee engagement: Employees who feel appreciated and valued are likelier to be engaged in their work. This can lead to increased productivity, creativity and innovation.
2. Reduced turnover: Employees engaged and happy in their jobs will likely stay in the organization. Retaining employees lowers turnover rates and saves the company money on recruiting and training costs.
3. Improved morale: A positive workplace culture can boost morale and create a sense of community among employees. This can lead to increased job satisfaction and a more productive workforce.
4. Enhanced organizational performance: When employees are engaged, productive and happy, the business benefits. This can increase profits, improve customer service and build a stronger brand reputation.

Appreciative inquiry is a powerful tool to help create a workplace where employees are engaged, productive and happy.

Consider using appreciative inquiry if you're looking for ways to improve your business's human resource function. It's a powerful tool that can help you create a workplace that is both collaborative and supportive. Applying the 4D approach, appreciative inquiry probes the employee or situation using questions that fall into four categories; "discover questions" gather information; "dream questions" identify future-state ideals; "design questions" probe about a person's actions; and "destiny questions" help carve out the path to get there.

How to begin and develop a foundation for success

How do you begin? Running around asking positive open-ended information-seeking questions needs more structure. Here are a few valuable and practical suggestions for implementing an appreciative inquiry approach with your employees:

1. Identify the business's strengths. What does the business do really well? What are the employees proud of? Take a deeper dive and discover your employee's strengths and create a skills inventory. Not sure how to do this? Start with something simple like a SWOT analysis. An appreciative inquiry question might ask the following discovery question, "What strengths do we believe the business brings to current and future initiatives?"
2. Develop a skills inventory. You can use a tool like Clifton Strengths to inventory employee strengths. Most important is developing an honest baseline of what the business is excellent at and where its employees shine so you can build upon those areas. An appreciative inquiry question might ask a discovery question like, "What strengths do you regularly use in your work with us?"
3. Kick it up a notch. Once you've identified the strengths, build on them to take performance to the next level. Develop layers of impactful habits that lead to ideal behavior change. There is an excellent book about the powerful impact of developing and building small habits called Atomic Habits by James Clear. Connect employees' strengths to habit stacking. An appreciative inquiry question might ask a dream question like, "What strengths do you believe you can build on to help achieve our improvement goals?"
4. Collaborate and innovate. Involve employees in the process. Appreciative inquiry is most effective when it is done collaboratively. Invite input from employees at all levels of the organization. Employees are seeking more than a paycheck; they want purpose, social connection and recognition for their part in creating success. An appreciative inquiry question might ask the following dream question, "What might a bright future for our team look like?"
5. Appreciative coaching. A business struggles with investing the time to coach those in supervision positions (team leader, supervisor, manager, director, etc.). It's not for lack of talking about it; it's more about the reality that everyone appears to battle between the ideal schedule, fitting personnel development activities and the pressure to get the work done. This approach focuses on strengths and building on those strengths. An appreciative inquiry question might ask the following discovery question, "What are some of your strengths and how have they helped you accomplish a task or goal?"
6. Grace and space. Be patient, give grace and allow space. It takes time to create a positive workplace culture. Don't expect to see results overnight. Change takes time. People are a result of years of experience and subconscious conditioning. To rewire connections — or in other words, create new habits — will take time. Here's the deal: The brain is always learning, so we can choose to take an active role in creating learning opportunities or sit back and let nature take its course. The latter will likely get in the way of an employee's growth and development. An appreciative inquiry question might ask the following destiny question, "What is a simple way you can begin, what mindset will best serve you and which strength will you use?"

Wrapping up

Appreciative inquiry is a powerful tool that can help you create a workplace that is both collaborative and supportive. If you're looking for ways to improve your business's employee engagement and performance, consider using appreciative inquiry to transform mindsets, build better behaviors and achieve improved performance. It is a simple reset of how you think about and approach, pulling out the best in your employees and curating a collaborative and supportive workplace experience.

When HR or leaders use appreciative inquiry, they can play a crucial role in developing the workforce's full potential and contributing to the business's success. It's a win-win for everyone involved.