What is Engagement? Help Please!

[James Robbins]

Hey everyone. Would love some of your thoughts on this. I had someone ask me the other day, "What's employee engagement?" I got to thinking that this is actually an abstract concept...so I wanted to know your ideas on what is engagement in a tangible sense. ie Employees showing up to work on time etc...
In other words I am looking for tangible, observable behavior that you would classify as evidence an employee is engaged.
Thanks in advance...
James

[Peter A Hunter]

James
You are trying to ascribe a tangible measurable behaviour to an abstract concept and that is always going to create problems. Is buying flowers evidence of love, or does it mean you work in a funeral home?

Try asking, what is love? What is caring? What is boredom? What is happiness?
The answer is the same as for the question, what is engagement?

They are all words that describe the way that we feel about something.

There is a belief that engagement is a tangible thing that can be given to others using the right management strategy, except that you can’t actually give people happiness, in the same way that you can’t give someone boredom.

What you can do is create the conditions that will allow people to become happy or to become bored.

To engage your workforce the manager should not be looking for the tool that will make the workforce engaged, instead he should be creating the conditions that will allow his workforce to choose to become engaged.

Thus, engagement is what the workforce feel in response to the conditions created by management.

To allow the workforce to engage you have to know how to create those conditions.

Peter A Hunter
www.breakingthemould.co.uk

[James Robbins]

Peter,
I appreciate the time you put into the response. Thank you for sharing your thought. I agree with everything you said. What I am looking for however is something a bit different. Let's step into the CEO's shoes for a moment. He/she looks at the staff and sees they are engaged. My question is what does he/she see?
We know that engagement is a highly emotional value, but all emotions are expressed in universal tangible actions that everyone can understand. I.e. One CEO might say, "My employees are engaged because no one is sneaking out early." Now does this mean they are engaged? Who knows, but to the CEO this sign is a confirmation. So I guess what I am looking for are a list of tangible actions that some CEOs or Managers might look at and assume that their staff is engaged (whether its true or not).
James

[David Bowles]

James this is a great topic....your example of the CEO thinking that engagement is present when no one sneaks out early might however be an example of Peter's flowers from the funeral home not denoting love! I know its just a hypothetical....

I think that engagement is a behavior, a choice, driven by feelings. So we can access the behaviors which are nearly always present when engagement is present but sneaking out isn't one of them! (the "boss from hell" might have locked the door, lol). Advocacy is a well tested sign of engagement and many engagement surveys use questions on this: whether you as an employee would recommend this organization as a place to work, or to do business with. Its not sufficient, but it IS necessary, IMHO. One could argue that "going the extra mile" and so on is also present (which it is in the engaged employee) but again those behaviors can be coerced by management, not voluntary from the employee. So we have to be very very careful to avoid "funeral home syndrome"....and advocacy is a way. Its hard to imagine a disengaged person wanting to recommend their place of work to friends (as the question is usually worded).

The best way for a CEO to find out whether workers are engaged is to measure it with a good survey. Some here hate surveys but they are wrong. Observation by itself is not a useful method because of the mis-interpretation which is inherent in it...its Psych 101 that perception of this kind is perilous. A skilled practitioner can tell a CEO she has high morale and engagement or not, based on confidentially collected and carefully analyzed survey data.

Looking forward to seeing how this rolls out...fun.

David
www.moraleatwork.com

[Peter A Hunter]

James
Being aware of what engagement is should prevent you from asking how to measure it.
It is not a thing and therefore any measures that you make are simply a subjective guestimate with little practical value.

If you want to show the CEO the difference between an engaged workforce and one that is not, measure the bottom line performance. Show him how much money he was making when his workforce was not engaged then show him how much more he is making when they are engaged.

CEO's enjoy that.

Peter A Hunter
www.breakingthemould.co.uk

[James Robbins]

Peter,
What I am looking for is not even accurate truth. I want to know what CEOs think engagement looks like. I know this may sound odd, and in some ways this is completely irrational, but CEOs will each have their own 'picture' of what engagement is. So what I am looking for are some of the possible 'pictures' a CEO might have.
Sometimes its easier to look at it from the opposite side. For example a CEO says "my staff is not engaged." We say "Why do you say that?" And they will go on with a list of items that may include things like "my employees don't show up on time, they don't make deadlines, they are always making excuses for why they didn't get the job done, they are always passing the buck" etc. So its very easy for us to understand tangible items that a CEO might relate to disengagement. What I am after is the opposite of this. What might a CEO say is evidence for engagement (and its not the bottom line).

[Peter A Hunter]

James
So what you are really trying to find out is what does someone who doesn't know what engagement is think it looks like.

Peter A Hunter
www.breakingthemould.co.uk

[James Robbins]

That's a great to put it. Much better than I have been attempting to get it across.
James

[Craig Althof]

Hello James and Peter:

The first couple posts here prompted me to start a discussion titled "Positioning and Pitching the E Word" earlier this morning. Your last exchange of thoughts validated my original hunch that the "E Word" discussion is relevant to what you're looking for.

I truly believe that our issues would be far fewer if we would frame our approach to hit our targets' interests and perspective more head-on and not dwell so much on the concept of engagement and all the other theories and research that we live and breathe and take as second nature. It's not second nature for those who really count--those who make the decisions and those we are trying to impact.

When in Rome...

[David Bowles]

Craig I could not agree more. If CEOs could see everyone arguing here about what engagement really IS they would never embark on anything related to it....

CEOs and all good managers are concerned with performance. The main thing they need to know is that morale and engagement not only correlate with but drive performance. There is much evidence to support that. Framing this all with performance front and center is the way forward, not the touchy-feely things which drive performance-oriented CEOs to distraction.

Practitioners of engagement need to get their act together, and soon, before the CEO users of this get fed up and move on to something more solid and better defined. The field has become very crowded, with definitions ranging from soup to nuts as a result of so many different disciplines now saying they are "engagement experts". As a result, "engagement fatigue" is already a topic in the blogosphere.

best,

David
www.moraleatwork.com

[Rob Fox]

1.Tell your CEO to think of her/his business using a metaphor of the Beaufort Wind Scale.

2.Google this term if not familiar with it.

3.Ask your CEO to gauge where her/his business, or different parts of it, is/are on the scale.

4.Obviously the scale descriptors would be different, but unless she/he is being deliberately obtuse he/she should get it. And it could be that he/she is being deliberately obtuse: a proven resistance to change tactic, as well as one that puts pressure on you.

5.Ask where the CEO would like to be on the scale.

6.A core source of the difference is in engagement.

7.Then ask your CEO what needs to be done to get to the right wind scale?

8.Get yourself an interesting project. Do good things. Live long and prosper.


Best,

Rob
www.engagingideas.co.uk

[Jacqueline M. Walters]

Employee Engagement is a business management concept. The extent to which the workforce commitment is passionate, to physically, emotionally, and intellectually accomplish the organization's goals, missions and visions. An engaged employee shows up at work whole, energized, alert, fullfill and challenge with a servicery attitude, works with a passion and feels a profound connection to the organization.

[Craig Althof]

See Ollie's "Indicators" discussion

A little further down the line, Positioning the "E" Word

And this thread....all on our current front page! This is probably the most long-lived quest on the EEN.

David Bowles is right (this thread, above):

If CEOs could see everyone arguing here about what engagement really IS they would never embark on anything related to it....

CEOs and all good managers are concerned with performance. The main thing they need to know is that morale and engagement not only correlate with but drive performance. There is much evidence to support that. Framing this all with performance front and center is the way forward, not the touchy-feely things which drive performance-oriented CEOs to distraction.

Practitioners of engagement need to get their act together, and soon, before the CEO users of this get fed up and move on to something more solid and better defined. The field has become very crowded, with definitions ranging from soup to nuts as a result of so many different disciplines now saying they are "engagement experts". As a result, "engagement fatigue" is already a topic in the blogosphere.Thanks David B!