Bringing Employee Engagement to Life

Picture this: You come to work on a dreary Monday morning, only to have your spirits uplifted when you see your team members already hard at work. As you take a seat at your office desk, your product manager wheels his chair over and engages in an animated conversation with you. As it turns out, he had spent the entire weekend thinking of a new concept idea for your company's latest product line without being asked to!

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As you boot up your laptop to take down some notes of your discussion, you notice that the IT team had run the latest suite of anti-malware tests ahead of schedule! Pleasantly surprised, you stand up and try to look for a member of the IT team in the office to thank them. But they are nowhere to be found, and your gaze falls on the office janitor clearing the trash. Having witnessed his commitment to his work for the last five years, an inexplicable feeling struck you: you had no doubt that he would clear every single rubbish bin in the office even if nobody was watching.

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Make no mistake, this is no hypothetical scenario. You’ve probably met some of these gems, whom we call “engaged employees”, over the course of your career. Employee engagement, the emotional commitment that employees possess towards the organisation and its goals, has been the buzzword for some time now and has become increasingly important in today’s unprecedented environment. After all, who wouldn’t want an employee who doesn’t just work for a paycheck or the next promotion, but with the bigger picture in mind?

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The Understated Importance of Employee Engagement

It has been proven and rightly so that engaged employees are more productive. Did you know that according to research from the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), employees who are more engaged actually put in 57% more work effort than employees who are disengaged? Do not confuse this with running a sweatshop, however. These engaged employees are voluntarily contributing to their organisation’s success.

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The key differentiator between engaged and disengaged employees is that the former category will go the extra mile to define and shape the role that is given to them. In contrast, disengaged employees tend to barely scratch the boundaries of their assigned role. Engaged employees will also step up to become the positive voice for their organisation when the situation calls for it. Although not very quantifiable, it is still a good point to take note of if you are looking for people to champion your organisation’s cause. This category of employees also experiences higher retention rates and the benefits that emerge as a result.

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Not Everyone Can Be Engaged

I believe that employee engagement does not happen automatically. The only way that an employee can be automatically engaged is often hinged upon the organisation’s brand or, its strong purpose. Even then, this utopia seldom exists. Or, even if it exists, it is short-lived. This is because the needs of the organisation evolve as frequently as the needs of the individual. On occasions, when the organizational direction aligns with the employee’s professional goals, magic or resonance happens. But once the two are out of sync, dissonance sets in, and people start leaving or feeling disengaged. As the tenure in the organization increases, in most cases, the degree of engagement tends to wane or, some disillusionment tends to creep in. This is exactly why even the best of employers have some natural attrition.

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This is where most leaders should start making an effort to engage their employees. But, not all employees can be engaged. If I were to use the employee net promoter (eNPS) concept to illustrate this situation, it can be broken down into three distinct parts. Upfront, you have a bunch of extremely engaged employees, then you have a bunch of people on the fence who can either be engaged or disengaged depending on the context, and finally, the last group which is entirely disengaged.