Surveys have found time and again that business leaders are fully aware of the benefits of highly engaged employees. They know that a high level of employee engagement has a positive impact on their bottom line and strengths the customer relationship and experience. Yet less than 1/3 of the workforce has been found to be highly engaged! If business leaders know the benefits, why aren’t more people highly engaged? Maybe it’s time to stop rehashing the benefits of engagement and start working to change the perspectives that lead to low engagement. Here are a few:
Low Engagement Perspective # 1 – There are some jobs that you just can’t get people excited about.
I’ve have heard time and time again from business leaders that not everyone can gain engagement from the work that they do. Mundane or repetitive jobs such as production workers, painters, call center workers don’t provide the opportunity to contribute to their work. These jobs are very task oriented and don’t require the employee to think very much.
High Engagement Perspective – People can be engaged in any type of job
Dan Pink talks about high engagement call centers where employees are empowered to respond to customers needs instead of following subscribed scripts. Toyota was well known for its highly engaged employees who were called upon to halt production at the slightest sign of a potential problem. Providing your staff the opportunity to be in control of their work while ensuring they achieve the desired outcome helps to achieve higher levels of engagement – no matter what type of work they do.
Low Engagement Perspective # 2 – There are some people who just can’t be engaged in their work.
Business leaders believe that there are some people who don’t want to contribute to the company and don’t want to give more than they have to. They do what they have to do to get by and don’t want to grow and learn.
High Engagement Perspective – How can we re-engage these people? What’s going on with them?
When a person is hired by a company, they are engaged and wanting to bring their all to their job. If this is not true, it comes out in the first few months of employment and should be immediately let go. Over time, things happen at work that lessens the level of engagement. Their needs are not being fulfilled by management and their level of engagement dwindles. These situations are hard and sometimes impossible to remedy. Change can come on a person by person basis if there is willingness by both parties. However, it is essential to undercover the causes for disengagement because more than likely, they have impacted others as well. This is the ultimate change that is necessary to work in order to stop the cancerous growth.
Low Engagement Perspective# 3 – We don’t need a vision or mission statement. Or, our mission and vision statement is on our website as a marketing strategy.
Many business leaders focus on the financial picture of the business and stray away from the big picture purpose of the company. Getting too focused on the bottom line can leave employees feeling insignificant and unappreciated. This has a strong negative impact on engagement levels.
High Engagement Perspective – Understanding the purpose of our company helps our employees see how they can contribute and provide meaning to others.
Codifing your corporate mission, vision and values reaps many benefits for all sizes of companies, especially in the area of employee engagement. Business leaders don’t always share their vision story with their employees. The employees never get to understand the driving motivating factor of the business – the impact it is striving to have on society. It is when a person sees how they contribute to a meaningful cause do they gain a sense of personal fulfillment. Engagement comes from gaining a sense of fulfillment from your job, having the ability to understand how your contribution supports the achievement of the corporation’s vision. This can happen with any type of work. It’s up to management to create the environment to make this happen for their employees. It’s also up to management to hire people who fit into the roles they are recruiting for.
What perspectives have you experienced that have limited employee engagement? I would love to hear from you.
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