Articles

Employee Engagement – What It Is And How To Indentify Its Absence

Employee engagement is very much ‘issue du jour’ for many HR and L&D executives.  CEOs also like its publicity vibe because it looks and feels good – who wouldn’t want to claim their workforce is engaged?

Unusually for management fads it’s also is a powerfully effective component in creating a long term successful, profitable and happy working environment. There is definitely something in Employee Engagement.

Some of the identified benefits from high employee engagement include;

• Improved customer service levels
• Lower staff turnover
• Increased  productivity
• Less required managerial oversight
• Higher morale
• Less waste

If we get behind the rhetoric, let’s look more closely at what it is, firstly with some definitions.

Gallup has also distilled the issues into a set of questions called the Gallup 12.

Predaptive’s working definition of Employee engagement is:

"...when an individual freely gives their emotional commitment and energy to the pursuit of achieving the organisation’s purpose..."

To make that workable it’s predicated on some assumptions;

• How well defined and communicated is the organisations primary purpose?
• How compelling and inclusive is that purpose?
• Do managers know how to unlock and mobilise peoples’ emotional commitment and energy?
• Has the organisation clearly answered the ‘what’s in it for me’ question (at a higher than transactional level) for everybody?

One way to quickly get to the heart of the engagement question is to look at the opposite organisational traits that indicate engagement is weak, lost or non-existent.

• Strikes. A pretty obvious example of a breakdown in trust and common purpose
• People ripping off the company in some way, stealing time & company resources, Monday/Friday absences, clock watching etc.
• Transactional psychological contracts, only doing something in negotiation for something back, which suits the individual
• Low ownership of issues, people avoiding taking responsibility and seeking to blame others.
• High levels of disseminated cynicism
• An adversarial, command and control management style
• Over managed and under led organisations

In a major UK study on Employee Engagement, MacLeod came up with 4 major themes:

1. Develop a clear story of where the organisation is going and how it will get there
2. Develop engaging managers who focus employees, treat them not as human resources but as human beings and who coach, stretch and develop their people
3. Develop an employee voice that is heard and acted on
4. Demonstrate integrity such that stated values match observed behaviours                                

Predaptive are currently working on several employee engagement projects; if you would like to learn more or talk over your own engagement experiences please contact: 

Claudine McClean
T: 01789 734333
E: claudinem@predaptive.com