April 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 43

community, and a healthier community means lower health care costs, and
lower health care costs put cash back
in the participants' pockets, and that
cash could be invested back into the
community (including at your agency).
You know that. The employee
knows that too. But, in order to maximize the impact of her accomplishments, the employee needs to know
how to frame her accomplishment that
way....She needs to know she should
frame her accomplishments that way.
And YOU need to teach her how.
Why, you ask? It's a mind-shift that
will make your employees more engaged, make your job easier, and begin
to change the perception of the community from passive entitlement to actively defending the essential nature of
what you and your agency provide.
More-Engaged Employees
People like to feel that they make a difference. When they know what they
are doing has meaning and impact,
they are more engaged. When they are
more engaged, they are more productive. As stated in the Ivey Business Journal (www.iveybusiness journal.com/
topics/the-workplace/what-engages-employees-the-most-or-the-ten-csof-employee-engagement), " Engaged
employees believe that they can make
a difference in the organizations they
work for. Confidence in the knowledge,
skills, and abilities that people possess-
in both themselves and others-is a
powerful predictor of behavior and subsequent performance. "
Make Your Job Easier
Some managers (not you, of course)
may say, " That's a nice benefit that
the employees get to feel better about
what they do, but how does that help
me? " Engagement isn't a perk; it's a
business imperative. Helping your

employees frame what they are doing
in terms of impact helps them feel
engaged through the less-engaging
tasks. According to a recent Harvard
study (http://content.healthaffairs.
org/content/29/2/304),
" medical
costs fall about $3.27 for every dollar
spent on wellness programs. " So the
$20,000 being used to develop and execute those programs would equate to
$65,000 in reduced medical costs for
the community. The red tape of the
program approval process, the registration paperwork, dealing with diffi-

Engagement isn't a
perk; it's a business
imperative.
cult patrons-it's hard to get really excited about those parts of the classes
your employee is putting together. Tying those activities to the impact they
could have will give them the scope
and enthusiasm they need to remain
engaged (and more productive) even
through the mundane tasks.
Okay, you might say, I get how a
more productive employee makes my
life easier, but can we really measure
" more productive? " There are different ways to measure productivity. An
obvious way (and one that frequently comes up around budget time) is
money. A case study from the New
Century Financial Corporation on the
significance of employee engagement,
included in the Ivey Business Journal
study cited above, found that " those
not engaged generated 23 percent less
revenue than their engaged counterparts. " Engaging your employees by
training them to think in terms of impact versus merely output " does not
merely correlate with bottom-line results-it drives results. "

Change Community Perception
Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't feel
like you were always defending the
value of parks and recreation to your
elected officials? Knowing that it looks
self-serving because this is your job,
after all (of course you think it's essential), wouldn't you love to see people
from your community beat you to the
microphone to tell your mayor that the
$20,000 he wants to cut for those four
nutrition programs saved the community $65,000 in health care costs? Your
employees may spend more waking
hours at work than they do anywhere
else, but they are still a part of the community they serve, and when they are
not at work, they are at the grocery
store, the movie theater, or the park,
and they engage with that community
on a social level. So when they meet
someone new and they are asked what
they do for a living, they might say, " I
work for Fairmont Park & Rec. " And
they might get the response " Oh, that's
cool, " and the conversation ends. Or
they might say, " I help create healthier
lifestyles for people and save money in
health care costs while doing it. " That
response will surely spark a conversation that has an impact on the listener
who will never think of parks and recreation the same way again.
By helping your employees learn to
think in terms of impact, you've helped
them be more engaged and productive.
You have improved your agency's performance and perhaps the bottom line.
You have turned your employees into
ambassadors for the impact parks and
recreation has on the community, and
you have passively evangelized to the
community, challenging them to think
about parks and recreation in terms of
impact as well.
Lauren Yost is NRPA's Vice President of
Operations (lyost@nrpa.org).

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April 2013 - Parks & Recreation

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