Is the traditional approach to engagement all wrong?

[Judy McLeish]

Maybe our approach is all wrong. Maybe we are too focused on the drivers of engaging the entire employee population and are not focused on where engagement starts. I would love to hear your thoughts on our post. http://employeefactor.com/2008/06/maybe_the_traditional_approach.html

[Terrence Seamon]

For some reason, Judy, it's a bit clearer what to look for in the hiring decision ("simply hire people who are happy, like to serve people and have a song in their hearts") than it is in the promoting decision.

I wonder if, sometimes, it's because we don't have as clear a notion of the leadership qualities we need to sustain the kind of culture we desire.

Terry

[Judy McLeish]

Thanks Terry, I think you are onto something....I think we should start a discussion on this one! I will start one in a few minutes,

Judy

[Terrence Seamon]

Great Herb Kelleher story. And a key point about the importance of hiring in the engagement formula.
Terry

[Jon Ingham]

I'd also agree that organisations need to focus their engagement activities.

Leaders are one constituency.

I think talent are another. I do quite a lot of work helping organisations understand the levels of engagement specifically within their talent groups.

Generic engagement surveys generally don't help this. But if talent has been selected appropriately then talent vs simply employee engagement is going to be significantly more important.

And if everybody has different engagement drivers, then no one organisation is going to be able to engage everyone. In developing engagement activities, organisations will benefit on tailoring these to enagage the people who are their most important: their talent (and their leaders too).

[Kevin Burns-Workplace Strategist]

Judy,

Engagement, in my estimation, has been approached all wrong. As much as we may like to identify and measure levels of engagement, the results of surveys are only ever going to be in direct proportion to the honesty of the respondents. Hey, people say what they think others want to hear. And honestly, if someone is really engaged, would they have time to fill out the survey?

Engagement is simply an attitude: keeping the promise a person made when they were selected as the best choice candidate. The promise? I'll keep working if you keep paying me. People will rise to the level of expectation. Keep the expectations low and engagement will be low. Raise the expectation, offer recognition of those who rise and more will rise. The "gang" mentality exists on the positive side too. If everyone else is giving their best, why wouldn't that one last worker?

Engagement is also affected by distraction. A poor home life will distract a worker. Poor values will distract a worker. Poor feedback from bosses will distract a worker. Really, it's not that hard to figure out. Want to fix engagement? Help fix people's values, honesty and accountability and the engagement levels have to increase. Do you think engagement would slide if people had better values and accountability on the job?

[James Hayton]

I would like to follow up on a couple of points that have been made in this interesting thread. First of all, my caveat here is that no one agrees on what engagement actually is, so this is only my opinion/perspective.

1. Engagement is NOT an attitude! It is actually a set of attitudes. If you look at common measures of engagement I think you will find in them a variety of indicators of different attitudes towards work, organizations and leadership. These include commitment to the organization, satisfaction with the job and pay, trust and satisfaction with supervision, and perceptions of organizational support.

Why does this matter? Well each one of these has qualitatively different mechanisms (Kevin hints at a couple of these above) and also some different outcomes - although in common they have impact on job and 'citizenship' behaviors, absenteeism and turnover. Because each has different mechanisms, there are many ways to enhance 'engagement' and some that will be synergistic and some that will be conflicting. Do you have clarity on what is inhibiting engagement?

2. You can certainly measure attitudes accurately. Typically, those at the extreme ends of the distribution in 'true' attitude scores will be most honest.

3. In addition to managing satisfaction, commitment, trust, and social exchange, employee fit is an important antecedent, as noted by Michael Kanazawa earlier. You cannot change a person's values. You may influence their attitudes, but personality and values are basically stable. You are better off doing a good job of recruiting and selecting for fit.

cheers
James

[Bob Gately]

From what I have been reading about employee engagement I think the answer to your question may be Yes.

Employee engagement is not something employers or their employees do.

Employee engagement is something employers get in return for doing all things well.

Our experience suggests that 20% of the workforce is engaged in their jobs.

Employee surveys don’t measure employee engagement but they might measure employee satisfaction.

We cannot measure employee engagement with an employee satisfaction survey.

Employee engagement and employee satisfaction are two different things.

Employee engagement is what we get when an employee is motivated by the job and is successful in the job and is well managed by the supervisor and paid fairly by management.

Employee satisfaction is what we get when we give employees things they want whether or not they are engaged by their jobs.

If we work to satisfy our employees, we may well decrease employee engagement because we will be focusing on the wrong things.

A few things to consider...
• Good employees who are successful and managed and paid well will be engaged even if not fully satisfied.
• Good employees who are successful but not managed well or paid well will not be engaged and will not be satisfied.
• Bad employees who are unsuccessful even though they are well managed and well paid will not be engaged even if fully satisfied.

Effective management is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for creating an engaged workforce. Supervisors and managers who are not effective managers of people prevent engagement.

Employers need engaged executives, managers and supervisors if they want to create an engaged workforce.