Let’s face it, employees are either engaged or disengaged. There is generally very little middle ground, and that makes tracking and measuring employee engagement rates rather difficult for HR executives and the C-suite. I read a recent article on LinkedIn from Mark Crowley, Leadership Change Agent, consultant and author. He shared that employee engagement is not improving, which is alarming.
First off, the header says it all: “Employee engagement isn’t getting better and Gallup shares the surprising reasons why.” Yikes! As you may remember, Gallup launched a survey a couple of years ago and cited that only 30 percent of the U.S.’s workforce was engaged in their work. Seriously? That means that 70 percent of the workforce didn’t like what they were doing, didn’t feel a sense of worth to the greater good of their company, and that their work didn’t matter. This means they’d rather clock in, clock out, and collect a paycheck, rather than finding something more meaningful in their work.
Millions (and probably billions) of dollars have been invested from the largest Fortune 100 companies, down to small and mid-sized businesses to do whatever it takes to improve employee engagement and culture. But it’s barely moving the needle. Mark Crowley, along with Dr. Jim Harter of Gallup, dug deeper to find out why.
For them, it simply came down to this: put outdated engagement practices to rest and adopt new methods to inspire high performance. You can only learn that from listening to your employees through annual surveys, pulse surveys, and other means to provide immediate feedback that is heard and acted upon. The second big takeaway was that engagement rises when employees feel like managers and leaders care about them. It sounds very simple, but it can make a significant difference.
Do you know how engaged your employees are? How do you measure that? We’d love to hear from you, so leave your comments below. Also, be sure to watch our on-demand webinar, “What is Your Employee Data Telling You?” to get to the root of what matters most for your employees.
Written By Amy Brennan
