Recognize This! – Direction, training, and feedback are critical to increased engagement.
Thanks to a great article by Leslie Allen, I came across these interesting results of a recent CIPD study in the UK. (The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development is similar to SHRM in the US. This 2012 research reflects the employee satisfaction and engagement attitudes of nearly 300,000 employees and managers across industries throughout the UK.)
Key findings:
- 39% are engaged (up 3 percentage points)
- 3% are completely disengaged (constant from Winter 2011)
- 58% are neutrally engaged (up 2 percentage points from Winter 2011)
It’s the neutrally engaged I find most interesting. Though 72% of them say they are treated fairly by their boss, 22% are still job hunting. Keep in mind the definition of “neutrally engaged” – doing their job well enough to get along, but not bringing any extra effort, creativity or personal interest to their roles. To them, “it’s just a job” and they are quite satisfied with it, but they’re not going to go the extra distance or draw attention to themselves.
The Path to Engagement
These neutrally engaged employees were quite clear about what it would take for them to give that extra effort that organisations desperately need in today’s constrained economic environment. As Leslie pointed out in his article:
- 61% don’t have the personal career discussions they would like with their managers
- 70% are not getting the coaching they need
- 54% do not get regular performance feedback from their manager.
Employees themselves are laying out a clear path to engage them:
- Tell me where I’m going in my career.
- Give me the training I need to get there.
- Tell me how I’m doing along way so I can stay on course.
You can’t say fairer than that. Annual performance review and career discussions simply do not meet employee needs in the modern workplace. Frequent, timely social performance management far better suits today’s interconnected age.
How engaged are you in your work? What would you need to help you engage more?
