Engagement is an emotional connection to your job/cause/mission and an enthusiasm for your work.

Not sure?

Which side of the fence do you sit on the following statements?

Signs of Engagement  vs  Signs of Disengagement

• Jump out of bed on Monday morning VS. Dread Sunday evenings because you have to work the next day
• Losing track of time at work VS. Watching your desk clock tick until 5pm
• Offering more to help your coworkers VS. Doing as little as possible without getting fired
• Fun to be around VS. Misery looking for a companion

If you are checking out the RackerTalent.com site looking for a new career, may I offer you some pointers about finding a job you will be ENGAGED in?  While this isn’t the complete list (not sure that exists!) of necessities to be truly engaged, here are some of the fundamentals:

1. Have a passion for the purpose! You need to care about the purpose behind the company being in business. With a little research you can find out why and how companies make money.   Many companies, like Rackspace, Southwest Airlines and Zappos, make their intentions known in the way they do business.  You can feel the purpose when interacting with people who work there.   If there is a misalignment between “why” and “how” the company makes money and your belief system, it will wear on you and eventually make you miserable.
2. Be yourself. If you love meeting new people and building relationships, do not apply for a role where you have to silence your naturally “social-self” to be successful.  Instead, look for roles that will require you to be social on a daily basis.   The most thrilling positions are those that will require you to use your talents to reach a goal, everyday.   At Rackspace, we call our innate talents “Strengths” and they are what we look for in every candidate.  We want to hire YOU, not you trying to be someone else.
3. Make friends at work. You spend more time with your co-workers each week than you spend with your family or friends.  Meet as many of your future co-workers as you can.   During the interview process, request to meet the people that you will work closely with.  (At Rackspace, you don’t have to ask…..the interview team will be made of those people.)

May your career be filled with happiness and fulfillment in 2011!

Kathy Kersten joined the Rackspace family in 2006. As the Racker Engagement Manager, she is passionate about creating a workplace in which Rackers find meaning and fulfillment in their work. Her favorite part of her job is working with Rackspace teams to leverage their talents to be more productive and engaged employees.

In her spare time, Kathy enjoys sewing, reading and volunteering. She is a member of Rack Gives Back and currently serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for The Rackspace Foundation. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

Connect with Kathy on Twitter by clicking here!

About 6 months into the job, life at Rackspace became more hectic for me and I realized that the “awesomeness” of the Rack goes much deeper than the surface benefits.

In that period, we were growing at a rate that is still hard to fathom and I was able to learn exactly what it meant to be a RACKER.  Whether it meant staying late to help a customer set up their environment or mentoring a new teammate on our processes, the people that work at this company are Fanatical about serving others.

Many times, I was on the receiving end of Fanatical Support, when my teammates would help me in a time of need.  My favorite memories of that time were when we accomplished the impossible to help a customer move their site that was “down” at another company and get their business running again.  The thrill of winning and coming through for a customer is a big part of what drives us.

Fanatical Support is a true experience and I feel so blessed to work among more than 3,000 Rackers that are passionate about serving others.  Even after almost 5 years of being a Racker, I still look forward to coming to work every day.

Kathy Kersten joined the Rackspace family in 2006. As the Racker Engagement Manager, she is passionate about creating a workplace in which Rackers find meaning and fulfillment in their work. Her favorite part of her job is working with Rackspace teams to leverage their talents to be more productive and engaged employees.

In her spare time, Kathy enjoys sewing, reading and volunteering. She is a member of Rack Gives Back and currently serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for The Rackspace Foundation. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

Connect with Kathy on Twitter by clicking here!

The award is a special one for us.  For starters, they are in San Antonio… this is obviously important.

Better yet, the way they derive their results is based solely on employee opinion surveys administered by a third party.  We were very pleased with the internal engagements scores!

Per the article:

“The Business Journal did not subjectively choose the 47 companies that are being honored.  Companies listed in this special section were evaluated in a rigorous, statistics-based program conducted by Kansas-based research partner Quantum Workplace”

On June 3^rd, we attended the awards ceremony with a variety of Rackers.  Mama Karla accepted the award for us.  In addition, we had Straight Jacket winners (more on that in the near future), Rackers who were recently recognized for living our CORE Values and members of our leadership team.  It was an exciting moment for us!

This is the third year in a row that we have been recognized by SABJ.

Congrats to all you Rackers for making this a Fanatical® place to work!

Ok, maybe it wouldn’t have killed me, but it took me to the edge of insanity.  What was the project?  I had to plan a special event.

So, truth be known, I’m a pretty darn good special event planner.  I meticulously cover all of the event details:  budgeting, picking dates, managing vendors, communicating to the attendees and coordinating every detail.

From my perspective, it feels more like this:  If they come to this event and they don’t have fun, it is my fault.  I wake up at 3am every morning the month prior the event, worrying about the possibility of technical problems and other uncontrollable possibilities.  Even though others would consider my skills worthy, special event planning is one of my weaknesses.

Why?  Simply because it weakens me.  It drains my time, energy, and performance.  In our strengths-based culture, we define a weakness as something that gets in your way of your productivity and your success.

Full disclosure and Transparency is a Core Value…so, let me give it to you straight.  There will always be points in our careers when we can’t say,  “I don’t enjoy doing that….so I’m not going to do it.”  Even in a strengths-based culture, you are sometimes asked to step outside your comfortable “strengths zone” to fill a gap for the sake of the business.   This is when you have to find a way to manage around your weakness.

According to Marcus Buckingham, one way to manage around a weakness is to “find a partner who loves what you loathe”.   And lucky for me, I found a partner in Brenda Monasterio (Racker since 2009).  I was swimming (almost drowning) in all of the minute details, and she instantaneously brought organization and structure to the chaos.

Brenda is a natural event planner.   When something unexpected happens (and it always does during a special event), she takes a licking and keeps on ticking.  She actually gets a buzz off of producing any type of event, big or small.  Event Planning is her Strength!

With her help, I was able to complete my project with success.  I learned the value of admitting my weakness, asking for help and having an awesome partner step in and naturally bring order to the chaos.  Thanks, Brenda!

So, the next time you find yourself in a situation where you are dedicating time and efforts to a weak area, consider finding someone that balances you out.

Photo Credit, SuperFantastic

You were born with a unique set of talents that have helped you achieve success throughout your life. These were the activities that you learned easily, enjoyed doing and experienced success in.

Over the years, you sharpened your talents by adding knowledge, practice and experience.

These talents are now your STRENGTHS and they are what make you, well, uniquely you.

Rackspace, a strengths-based company, wants to know: What you were made to do?

Our philosophy is to focus on what Rackers do well, and put them in positions that allow them to play to their strengths the majority of the time.  We have found (and Gallup research shows) that employees that are engaged in their work are more productive, less likely to leave the organization and maintain better safety records than their less engaged colleagues.  Engaged Rackers volunteer their best for our customers and that’s what we call Fanatical Support!

Brilliant, engaged colleagues are a lot more fun to be around, too!

To maintain our strengths-based culture, we give every Racker the Gallup StrengthsFinder Assessment.    You can find Rackers’ strengths posted on their cubicles and we use it in our Racker lingo.  We have Gallup Strengths Performance Coaches on staff to help you learn about your talents and the talents of your teammates.

So, we want to know:  What you were made to do?