Article
#4
Get Engaged -
Engagement is about creating an environment where people want to come
to work. It is up to managers to do what they can to make a positive
difference. - By John Baldoni - Jul 24, 2006
You can sense
the problem almost the moment you walk in the door. The receptionist,
if there is one, nods and points rather than saying anything. People
you pass in the hallway avoid eye contact. Even people you are scheduled
to meet seem distracted. They show up late for meetings, avoid small
talk and get straight to the point, or think they do.
The issue may
be poor communication, disaffected culture or declining performance;
the root cause, however, is obvious, at least to an outsider: lack
of engagement. The energy level in the organization rivals that in
a 1950s horror movie about zombies, creatures who had the life spirit
sucked from them and were doomed to walk the Earth like automatons—unthinking,
uncaring, unfeeling. On second thought, maybe the celluloid zombies
had it better; they felt no pain. Today’s workplace zombies
do think and care, and are in pain. Why? Because they are working
in an environment that has sucked away any initiative or spirit for
work they might have. In consultant terms, we call this the disengaged
workplace.
Engagement a Common
Concern
Engagement is
a top-of-mind topic in management today. Engagement implies connection
between worker and work. In the simplest terms it means that people
feel a part of what’s going on; they know their roles and pursue
them with purpose. More especially, engagement has come to refer to
a “switched on” workforce where people cannot wait to
come to work because they feel a part of something bigger than themselves.
To borrow a concept from Peter Drucker in reference to knowledge workers,
engaged workers have the mindset of volunteers; that is, they love
what they do because they know they are making a positive difference.
According to a
recent study by Towers Perrin, a leading human resource consultancy,
many workers feel estranged from their senior managers; they simply
do not trust them. This is particularly galling to employees when
they have stuck with a company in tough times. According to one Towers
Perrin consultant, “[Workers] don’t feel they see enough
in terms of pay raises, incentives or other rewards for their contributions—despite
hearing lots of talk about ‘pay for performance.’ ”1
All too often, those at the very top get plenty of rewards for their
performance while employees remain mired in the same pay grades. Such
inequity does breed disengagement.
The responsibility
for creating engagement is the responsibility of senior management,
but in reality those managers are often so engaged in their own work
that they really are unaware of what’s happening on floors below
them, metaphorically speaking. They may wonder why workers seem disinterested,
but that thought is fleeting. Therefore, creating engagement falls
to the manager; it is her responsibility to connect the work to meaning.
How managers do this distinguishes the good ones from those going
through the motions.
Communicate the
difference. So often people feel lost and bewildered at work because
no one has taken the time to talk about the nature of the work. For
example, it’s the manager’s job to talk to the IT team
and point out that what it does is vital to the entire enterprise.
It is not simply a matter of keeping a system running, but pointing
how the system contributes to specific functions, enabling people
to do their jobs better and more efficiently. And when people are
in the know, they may take it one step further and want to make improvements
so the entire system gets improved. Such will happen only if the manager
takes time to talk the big picture.
Reinvent the job.
One reason folks feel disenfranchised is that their job skills have
atrophied. They are like weekend bodybuilders who exercise only their
upper bodies and develop good pectoral muscles, but their legs look
withered by comparison. So it is with an employee in purchasing or
finance who does the same thing over and over again. The part of his
brain that does cost comparisons is vital; the part of the brain that
calls for creative thinking is shrunken. The challenge for the manager
is to keep the employee’s mind in the game, and to do that,
he should engineer job rotations and challenge people to upgrade their
skills. In fact, in today’s economic climate, if you are not
upgrading, you are falling behind; status quo is another word for
stagnation. Allowing people to have a say in the destiny of their
own job is liberating. It unleashes creativity that not only benefits
the individual, but also inspires the team. And that can only be good
for the entire organization; it may reap benefits in terms of streamlined
processes as well as new and improved products and services.
Let them try their
wings. “Young talent wants space to prove itself,” says
Charles Handy, the philosopher-author of the modern workplace. “And
giving command is a good way of testing [young talent] out. It makes
life more exciting for them and creates more energy in the company.”
Handy cautions that the picture of young folks at the helm may look
“less efficient from the outside,” but arguably letting
people grow and develop not only creates its own form of engagement,
but it is also a way for the firm to decide whether the emerging leader
is any kind of leader. And better to do that when the person is up
and coming than stuck in the middle mucking up the works.2
Make it pay. As the Towers Perrin study pointed out, employees feel
underappreciated. Therefore, it is up to senior managers to loosen
the purse strings, especially if employees have persevered during
the down times. When fortunes improve, so too should the fortunes
of everyone in the company. This is not a pipe dream; companies large
and small reward their employees for gutting it out. Sadly, such companies
may be the exception rather than the rule. But certainly engagement
levels would increase as pay improved. That said, more and more compensation
alone is not the solution to engagement. People also desire recognition
for a job well done and the satisfaction of contributing to a good
cause. Those forms of “psychic pay” matter too, and lead
to higher levels of engagement.
Proof that Engagement
Matters
So does engagement
really matter? Well, if management literature is any indicator, the
need for engagement has never been higher, perhaps because the demands
of the global economy keep all of us working at capacity in ways that
demand full attention. Research data supports the need for engagement,
too. Again according to Towers Perrin, engagement is a crucial differentiator
in performance. For example, eight in 10 workers feel “they
can positively impact the quality of their company’s products.”
Nearly 75 percent sense “they can positively impact customer
service.” And six in 10 plan to remain with their current employer.
Clearly, engagement pays in terms of quality, service and retention—all
critical differentiators of a successful enterprise.
Bottom line: Engagement
is not about numbers; it is about performance. More especially, it
is about creating an environment where people want to come to work.
For those who experience this kind of purposeful workplace, it seems
normal—in fact, the only kind of place to work. For those who
have never experienced an engaged workplace, work is drudgery. It
is up to managers to assume the role of leaders and do what they can
to make the positive difference.
John Baldoni -
www.johnbaldoni.com.
