Many workers know how it feels to be unengaged with their employer, and if so, will unfortunately be familiar with the accompanying sense of paralysing indifference this brings to their work life. It’s a damaging and demoralising situation for everyone involved. But there are steps that can be taken by employers to swing the pendulum back the other way, short of whips, branding and other darker tools of motivation.

Most people want to feel good about their job, while every employer wants to feel that their workforce functions like a well oiled, highly motivated engine of efficiency. Alarmingly however, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has likened the relationship between British employers and their workers to “a marriage breakdown in progress”.

“Many employees feel like neglected spouses,” says Mike Emmott, CIPD employee relations adviser. “Good relationships need work and commitment. But with only three in ten employees engaged, the findings suggest many managers just aren’t doing enough to keep their staff interested.”

In a survey of 2000 employees, CIPD found that almost half were unsatisfied with the relationship they had with their employer, and the same number were looking for another job. In addition to this, a third said that they never received any feedback on their work and almost half said there was no way for them to feed their ideas upwards.

“Lack of communication means many employees feel unsupported and don’t feel their hard work is recognised,” says Emmott. “As a result the sparkle has gone out of the relationship, damaging productivity levels in many UK businesses.”

“Getting people to turn up for work is the easy bit,” he says. “Getting them to go the extra mile requires effort and imagination. Employers should be looking to generate passion and enthusiasm, and to make work a happier experience for all their employees.”

Why so glum?

Employee engagement (EE) is not some newfangled, wet-behind-the-ears term, hot out of the gizmo factory. It has been about, in its present form, for almost a decade. So why are so many employers failing to engage their workforce?

“Engagement simply isn’t given enough priority in business thinking,” says Emmott. “Organisations need to acknowledge the extent to which it can affect productivity.”

Doug Crawford, head of employee engagement at HR consultancy Chiumento, agrees that many companies “simply don’t get it”. But he also thinks that often, the problem runs deeper. “In a lot of instances we’re talking about fundamental cultural and organisational factors affecting engagement,” he says. “It’s not as simple as conducting an employee survey then improving the coffee in your coffee machines. That’s not going to change anything. Companies need to look closer and gain that important insight which will enable them to change the two or three things that really matter.”

“The answers this can throw up are sometimes unpalatable for management,” he adds. “And the action required all too often slips into the ‘just too difficult’ category. But if you’re serious, you’re going to have to deal with it.”

What does it all mean?

Creating EE is about creating a happy workforce. It doesn’t take a HR genius to realise that a happy employee is likely to be a more productive employee. The knock-on effect of a happy workforce, from a HR perspective, should be higher retention levels, less absenteeism and improved recruitment ability. But how is this achieved?

The Institute for Employment Studies (IES) defines EE as “a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation”.

It says employers should make an effort to understand the drivers of engagement, the strongest of which is “a sense of feeling valued and involved”. This means involving workers in decision making processes, making them feel that managers listen to their opinions, allowing them opportunities to develop their own roles and showing concern for their health and well-being.

While a good deal of responsibility for this falls at the feet of line-managers, the sense of involvement, or ‘family’, that employees need comes largely down to an effective internal communications strategy.

Know your audience

Tube Lines (TL) is the maintenance firm responsible for the up-keep of several of London Underground’s busiest lines. It has a workforce of almost 4000, situated at over 40 locations, and last year its internal communications team won several industry awards for its “business objectives/vision and values campaign”.

Its strategy was to make the company’s business objectives accessible and noticeable to its employees all the time. “The main challenge was the geographically remote nature of our workforce,” says Fran Chambers, head of internal communications at TL. “Out of around 4000 employees, only 1000 have access to email, so contacting them was difficult.”

The team had to find different ways to reach a workforce, diverse not only geographically, but also in terms of its people. A key tool in the campaign was the company’s staff magazine; a well produced 16 page monthly which included content reinforcing the company values and business aims.

The team designed a unique set of depictive symbols to accompany the values it was trying to instil in the employees, and made sure that these pictures were on display at various points across the organisation. “We really have to take people’s differences into account,” says Chambers. “A worker in a maintenance shed is not going to respond in the same way as a planner working in our main office.”

Following the main campaign, a TL employee survey found that 80% of workers knew and understood what the company’s aims and values were. What TL seems to have done particularly well is create a sense of teamwork within the organisation. Monthly team briefings are held for all groups in the company, tailored to their specific role, and ensure that everyone is up-to-date with the latest issues and developments.

“These briefings aren’t delivered by managers, but by fellow workers,” says Chambers. “We didn’t want it to seem like it was a briefing given by the management, but a team meeting where people felt able to ask questions and voice opinions.”

The company chief executive Terry Morgan has been heavily involved in the campaign. ‘Breakfast with Terry’ mornings are regularly held for employees to meet with him informally “over a bacon sandwich”. Chambers also says that the ‘Ask Terry’ section of the company magazine, where employees can email questions for Morgan to answer, has been inundated with responses.

This is something that Doug Crawford would like to see more of. “Unless there’s leadership from the top,” he says. “Your engagement scheme is not going to work.”

The success of TL’s campaign would seem to support this. “Know your audience,” adds Chambers. “Make sure they feel involved.”

By Matt Henkes