To Engage, or Not to Engage

One of the constant challenges in business today is “employee engagement”, a statistical measurement of how connected, committed, and satisfied employees are in the workplace. Research has shown that there is a direct correlation between employee engagement and productivity, profitability, safety, and other metrics.

That would seem to make sense, wouldn’t it? Employees who are satisfied on the job and committed to the organization are likely to be more productive, more willing to “go the extra mile”, and more attentive to details that impact things like profitability and safety.

That being said, the challenge is not that companies don’t recognize the need to “engage” employees, they usually just don’t have the (pick your favorite response) time, budget, or resources to address the issues. In many cases the company is “just too busy” to address this critical issue “right now.”

Actually, the problem may be that the idea of employee engagement is just too broad or ill-defined to give consideration to. It’s not like a piece of capital equipment that the business needs to acquire to expand. It’s not even like hiring a new employee. It is a different kind of business problem – and, in many companies, it is considered to be an “HR issue,” not a strategic challenge.

I recently came across an interesting article from the American Management Association entitled Boosting Worker Engagement in Tough Times that made this observation:

The real problem is that many organizations just don’t know how to get started. Engagement can, after all, seem like a nebulous term that’s difficult to gauge and even more difficult to influence. But if this study showed anything, it’s that there are various practical, achievable steps for boosting engagement.

What’s the secret? Two words: culture and leadership.

Analysis of [the] survey suggests that the organizations reporting more highly engaged workers differed most from their more poorly engaged counterparts in the strategic area of actively promoting a culture of engagement. The results also suggest that one of the best ways of forging such a culture of engagement is by ensuring that organizational leaders, including immediate supervisors, are skilled in the area of engagement improvement. After all, having a good relationship between employees and immediate supervisors was recognized as a top driver of employee engagement.

One of the oft-quoted maxims of management used to be, “You can’t be a boss and be their friend.” In other words, you couldn’t build a relationship with an employee because it might compromise your objectivity (at least I think that was the idea). However, being interested in someone’s welfare and valuing their contribution to the company doesn’t require a “good buddy” friendship. It does require something much more than what most employees experience.

If your company has an employee engagement problem, I wouldn’t blame the employees. I would take a close look at your company’s managers. Have they been trained to engage (lead) your employees?