"Business and human endeavors are systems... We tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system and wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.” - Peter Senge
Research on the subject as well as our experience as people working with people tells us that when employees are engaged in the work they do, they do more of it, better. They are more creative, more resilient, more collaborative, healthier, happier, more committed to the organization, their coworkers, customers, and less distracted by the day to day ‘working with other people’ nonsense that consumes the time and energy of those unfortunates that fall into the Gallup defined categories of “not fully engaged” or “actively disengaged”. The logic of it all is fairly elementary- when something matters to us at work we are willing to give more of ourselves to it and as a result – effort, relationships, retention, resilience and every other measurable personal and business outcome improves.
Unfortunately, the Lexapro soaked elephant in every meeting room, lunchroom, office, construction site, and operations floor in the country is, when it comes to our jobs, not much seems to matter to us. In fact, finding new ways to care less at work may be what engages us most. Recent surveys on employee engagement tell us that a full 85% of employees in the US are either not fully engaged (67%) or are actively disengaged (18%). You know the names and faces. Statistically speaking you more than likely ARE one of the names and faces.
Tomorrow at lunch time when you meander into the cafeteria to warm up two slices of last night’s 'Papa WhoevertheF's' pizza, as you and Glenn from finance (displaying his signature, ‘suck it’ attitude towards botulism as he munches on his 7 day old sweet and sour chicken) begin to regale one another with tales of the corporate hypocrisy supported by 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand ‘verifiable’ examples of the organization talking one talk while walking another walk in egregious contrast to the company’s well-manicured, highly touted, wholly meaningless corporate values- shush Glenn for a second (he won’t mind- he’s from finance).
Look around at the lunching masses. Consider the magnitude and implications of this reality. Nearly 7 of every 10 employees in your line of sight slip into and out of giving even a slight damn throughout the day with the deftness and agility of an Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast. Almost 2 out of 10 patently and unashamedly would be hard pressed to find a way to care less than they do about the work, the company, the customer, you… even if they were paid to… and they kind of are.
Employee engagement can be a cornerstone for success, continuous improvement, innovation, and can be a competitive advantage creating sustainable, generational excellence for a company in the process. For too many organizations however, ‘figuring out’ employee engagement is akin to solving a Navier-Stokes type equation- confoundingly complex, frustrating, maddening, and increasingly unsolvable the harder they work at it. One of the many problems with us humans is that when we can’t answer a tough question -we often change the question or answer an easier one instead without noticing the substitution and typically, without anyone else noticing.
Nobel Prize winning psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman calls this an intuitive heuristic. If this concept is new to you, you’ll start immediately noticing how frequently you and everyone around you relies on this unconscious parlor trick to get through the day (watch your kids closely). Unfortunately for the 135M employees across the country, this is the approach that a majority of organizations have taken to the question of employee engagement.
Employment engagement low? Give em’ a T-shirt or a baseball hat with the company logo on it. How about a donut day or maybe a company picnic? Maybe schedule a rousing speech from the CEO about how the biggest asset the organization has is its employees. Things really bad? Let’s bump up pay a bit.
While none of these gestures are inherently bad (for sure we can all agree that donuts are definitely good) and company leaders are typically well intentioned in devising these temporary pacifiers– none are the answer to the question of how to improve employee engagement. These are what another psychologist (see the trend here?), Fredrick Herzberg (Two-Factor theory) would call work hygiene factors. Although hygiene factors (ex. pay, fringe benefits, vacation, job security, work conditions, donuts and hats etc.), if not properly attended, can result in job dissatisfaction - offering these quick-to-tarnish baubles does not motivate or engage employees in their work. So, if a donut doesn’t do it, what in the hell does then?
Employee engagement is not some HR contrived, corporate double-speak, warm, fuzzy, sociopolitical, ‘nice to have’ – it’s a game changer. Gallup estimates the annual cost of employee disengagement to be almost $8T globally with $500B of that attributed to the US. Smart people tell us that the total cost of a disengaged employee is 34% of their yearly salary. At the same time, organizations reporting high engagement are 21% more profitable and 17% more productive. Highly engaged organizations also enjoy attrition rates almost 60% lower than their disengaged competitors. When we consider the cost (20-50% of the position’s annual salary) to replace lost potential along with the residual effects on quality, production, culture, and the morale and engagement of remaining employees it’s easy to see how we get to $500B in engagement related losses each year.
So, again, what can organizations and business leaders at all levels do to harness the tremendous untapped potential of employee engagement to the advantage of workers and companies while creating a truly proprietary, sustainable, competitive advantage ?
Simple (not in the least).
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Make employee engagement a top priority for the organization.
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Read the room (or find someone else who can).
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Answer the question. ( avoid the intuitive heuristic.)
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Be patient but persistent.
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Seek employee feedback and use it.
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Be accountable to the people you’re making decisions for.
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Remember, as much as you’d like it to be, this isn’t about you.
All of this is easy to remember using this simple acronym… MRABSBR. (just kidding)
Just like Ma’s Sunday sauce, employee engagement isn’t just about Googling 'Olive Garden's Taste of Italy Marinara Sauce' buying the ingredients, finding a pot, a pan, and a heat source then following the recipe. Ask any ma- they don't have recipes (and they for damn sure aren't looking for the Olive Garden's advice on the subject). Ma's sauce is about the inherent selflessness and service mindset that comes from caring more about someone else than you do about yourself. It's about love. Ma’s sauce is uniquely ‘Ma’s Sauce’ because of all the stuff she doesn’t write down because she doesn't even realize she's doing it. It's the stuff she leaves out when she passes the recipe on to her daughter-in-law. Like Ma’s Sauce, the recipe for employee engagement cannot simply be Googled and passed from company to company or even department to department within a company and retain its goodness. Employee engagement requires that companies and leaders care more about someone else than they do about themselves- an increasingly rare trait in our increasingly sociopathic corporate environments where the facade of caring and the learned and well-practiced yet completely vapid gestures that accompany it are all too frequently accepted as a substitute for the real thing... like Olive Garden's "Taste of Italy Marinara Sauce".
Stop back in the upcoming weeks. We’ll dive deeper into MRABSBR (is that right?) and talk through why these considerations are so important, how they work together to better position leaders, teams and organizations to respond to the enormous question and even more enormous opportunity that is employee engagement.
