David Zinger says “engagement has the potential to create excellent experiences of working for individuals fused with organizations capable of creating robust results” and points out that we ask hundreds of survey questions about it but many organisations fail dismally to achieve it. 

 

In Zinger’s ideal workplace engagement is about “Good work, done well, with others, every day”. Simple, not easy.

 

You could use a survey to ask your workforce about engagement and if they believe your survey represents their concerns and measures their engagement you may, or may not, amass some useful data around how passionate employees are about their work, how proud they are to tell others where they work, their belief in the organisational mission, and whether they feel their work is valued and their talents are well used. Won’t do any good though if you don’t use that data to address your workplace culture and engagement issues

 

 

Jim Harter PhD, a scientist at Gallup Research says “Many organizations measure either the wrong things, or too many things, or don’t make the data intuitively actionable. Many don’t make engagement a part of their overall strategy, or clarify why employee engagement is important, or provide quality education to help managers know what to do with the results, and in what order.”

 

So you could ask the Sunday evening question – each Sunday, employees at Kimberly-Clark’s Latin American office were encouraged to ask themselves: Am I looking forward to going to work tomorrow? If the answer was yes, they proceeded to work as usual, but if the answer was no, they were encouraged to speak with their boss. That’s how to assess and address engagement.

 

If you want to survey staff the CIPD has an on trend suggestion: “Social media potentially marks a major shift from the traditional survey approach, in particular because employees interact with each other as well as management. This means they can read and comment on their colleagues’ opinions in real time and before senior management or HR have digested them. It also makes gathering employee insight a more active process, closely linking it to collaboration.”

 

Management that motivates and maximises talent will focus on and build engagement. This is not a once a year performance review conversation, this is one to one what motivates the employee on a workaday, everyday basis. Many factors contribute to engagement – from corporate culture to management style to priorities outside of work – these factors are different for each employee. If you want an engaged employee then you must aim to empower them to take responsibility for their development and success at work.

 

 

All too many organisations treat their workforce as resources, as easy to replace as other materials; and assume that management are those who lead, control, decide and create value, using those expendable resources.

Many employees feel they aren’t making a contribution, says Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us “They are working hard, but they don’t understand or see how their work drives the business. That is a form of disengagement.” Start with what motivates the employee and give them the opportunity to do what they do best in order to foster engagement; good job fit translates into connection with customers and colleagues.

 

I think it doesn’t much matter how much you talk about transparency, trust and understanding if you fail to let employees know how decisions are reached. If you possibly can try to engage the workforce in key decisions, either with input or a comprehensive understanding of how a decision was reached. That way you are giving them the big picture. The MacLeod Report characterises this as “Visible, empowering leadership providing a strong strategic narrative about the organisation, where it’s come from and where it’s going”.

 

 

You can’t impose an inclusive and engaging culture and ethos on your organisation. If you have a problem with employee then you have a problem with your managers – people are engaged by other people and are engaged because they like their work, and the people they work with and for. A survey won’t help unless your managers have a vested interest in the success of the initiative and a robust commitment to empowering their teams to make real change stick.

 

Empowerment gives an employee the encouragement, power and autonomy to carry out job-related tasks. As a motivational strategy it invests an employee with ownership over their work and role and gives them control of their destiny in the workplace.

 

What I’m suggesting is that if you empower a worker with intrinsic rewards by encouraging them to make decisions on their own then they will associate their success with their own abilities, which motivates continued focus on productivity in future tasks.

 

Good employee engagement is when your people show up in the morning, and greet the security guard and receptionist, by name, as they cross the threshold looking forward to the day ahead. It goes to the quality of your management. Employee engagement is about connection.