It’s Not Employee “Engagement” If It’s Not Freely and Willingly Given

What exactly is “employee engagement?” Most definitions I see somehow reference “discretionary effort.” But my latest favorite definition of employee engagement comes from the HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn:

“Discretionary effort that you don’t have to threaten someone to get.”

I’m fairly certain you can’t call it “engagement” if you have to threaten to get it. Perhaps “enslavement” or “enforcement,” but definitely not “engagement.”

What are you asking employees to engage with?

This idea is an extreme extension of managers “making” employees feel engaged, an idea Lonnie Wilson debunked in a recent Industry Week article. Lonnie also pointed out focusing on helping employees want to do the job and do it better is not the best use of resources to help employees engage.

Instead managers should make sure employees understand what they need to do to accomplish the job, they have the appropriate skills and training to execute the work appropriately, and they have the necessary resources. Without those factors in place, it’s nearly guaranteed that your employees will not be engaged in their work.

Perhaps the most important question is what, precisely, are you asking employees to engage with? Indeed, you want them to “do the job.” But does that job – and the employee’s understanding of it – link up with what you are trying to achieve overall in your business?

The challenge for managers and leaders

Recent TNS research pointed out how significant the challenge is for supervisors and leaders to align business objectives with employees’ engagement efforts:

TNS analysis on employee engagement reports a 52 percent gap in operating costs between companies with highly engaged employees to companies with low engagement scores,’” says Mike Schroeder, Chief Executive Officer of TNS Employee Insights. …

Senior consultants at TNS identified four specific steps for organizations to capitalize on the economic value of employee engagement programs:

Link employee engagement to business objectives and measures of effectiveness.

Invest in employee programs specifically designed to increase engagement and that support business objectives,

Establish a system of measuring engagement and the effectiveness of these programs.

Make adjustments based on the discernible results.”

As I discussed last week in a webinar with BlessingWhite (recording available here), it’s not enough to implement employee engagement programs or run employee engagement surveys. You must be willing to take action and, critically, measure results. It’s the only way to align engagement efforts with what matters to your CEO: bottom-line results.

You can find more from Derek Irvine on his Recognize This! blog.