(From The Washington Post) -- As a federal leader, you no doubt have a lot on your plate, and it may be tempting to shrug off employee complaints about their jobs and organization. But the bottom line is that job satisfaction drives employee engagement and ultimately leads to better performance.

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings provide a benchmark to measure employee attitudes, to identify signs of trouble and to prompt you to find ways to better manage your most important asset — your employees.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) put together a list of cost-effective “quick wins” that their managers can use to help them improve employee satisfaction and commitment. DOT developed the list after studying what leaders were doing at their component agencies that had maintained high Best Places to Work scores or that showed year-to-year improvement.

To help boost the morale and job satisfaction of your employees, here‘s some tips from the DOT playbook:

• Drop by employee meetings. To help better understand how your team is accomplishing the agency’s mission, consider stopping by group meetings. Ask participants what they are discussing and offer any insights that you may have. Two minutes of comments from you may save weeks of discussion and false starts. And by observing how your employees interact, you may be able to identify future leaders.

• Listen to your employees. As a federal manager, consider holding listening sessions with your employees on a regular basis. This will give you valuable insights into their perspective. Following these sessions, share with your team the issues or behaviors that you will personally seek to improve upon.

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