Managers want their employees to engage. Managers want to witness, to support, and to increase employee engagement. They know that engagement stimulates success results, however they define those results.

The point: managers can and should employee greater questioning actions.

Here are three actions that work better to stimulate employee engagement:

Ask Questions That Support
Employees can see their manager either as a supervisor or as a supporter. The supervisor sees that the employee does the work assigned. The supporter assists the employee in doing the work with greater skill, motivation, and eagerness to do it better. (That does not mean the supportive manager takes a share of the employee's work or makes that work any easier.)

A supportive manager asks lots of questions because the questions demonstrate concern for the employee and the employee's engagement. The questions build and expand the positive relationship between the two. These can be such questions as:

• What is working well for you? How can we extend that to other areas of your responsibility?
• What ideas do you have that might improve our processes and procedures regarding…..?
• How can we strengthen the interface with (other team, other department, customers…)?

Those three sample questions are just samples. The questions you are already hearing in your mind are the type questions you should begin to use — more and more — with your employees.

Ask Questions That Fulfill
All employee engagement surveys — beginning with the Gallup Q12 — reveal that the employee's sense of being valued, being cared about by her manager is a critical "engagement factor." The questions you ask and how you ask them can clearly demonstrate how much you value your employee and the concern you have for her above and beyond the work she performs.

These questions show your awareness that the employee has a mind, has opinions, has ideas…and that you respect them. These questions ask the employee to share them with you.

These are also what we might call "human interest" questions. Without probing into the employee's personal life, you may wish to ask about birthdays and anniversaries, about kids and parents, about community activities. The more you show you care, the more the employee cares about engaging in his work.

Demonstrate Appreciation of Answers
Questions that work do not stand alone. They are complemented by the employee's valuable answers. You owe it to the employee (and to her engagement) to demonstrate appreciation of her answers. Here are 5 sure-fire ways to let the employee know you ask questions because you want answers you will value:

1. Listen through the entire answer without interrupting or cutting it short.
2. Pause thoughtfully (and sincerely) to let the answer register in your mind.
3. Provide a comment about receiving an answer before you comment about the content of the answer. For example, "Thank you for sharing that." or "I'm glad to hear you tell me that."
4. Demonstrate that you've listened to the answer by including "answer bits" in your response. For instance, "What you say about late deliveries to the Wilson account makes sense…"
5. Ask more questions. By moving the conversation farther and deeper you extend the employee's sense of her value to you, to her work, to the company.

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