We seem to be going through a period of very low employee engagement, in one survey I read employee engagement had reached a record low of just 30% of staff being engaged.
Which means that 70% of the team, organisation or company are disengaged, which is just staggering.
Even more staggering is that there doesn’t seem to be too much concern about this, and I find that very hard to understand. I have worked in a couple of companies where there was a belief that it was the top 20% of the staff that did 80% of the work, so maybe the thinking is that with having 30% of our teams engaged we have enough to achieve good results.
But this is flawed thinking!
It’s team work that gets companies to achieve outstanding results, and if we have 70% our teams disengaged then there will be little to no teamwork. It’s just not possible!
To create strong teams, with great team work, we need our teams to be engaged, because once they become engaged then they can become inspired, and its when we are inspired that we do our greatest work, when we achieve, and sometimes exceed, our full potential.
Often it’s not a question of engaging teams, it’s more to do with not disengaging them. Most people when they join a company are engaged, they want to come to work do a good job, they want to be successful.
But over time the companies, or their managers, do things which actively disengage them.
I can’t tell you how many times this has happened at companies I have been at.
Every Christmas I always remember those times when companies made the decision to cancel Christmas parties as part of some cost reduction program or other. Yes, maybe they save a few 10’s of thousands in cost, but the drop in employee engagement always seemed to offset any short term financial game.
At one company when they announced it, there was a massive negative reaction from the staff, yes it had been a tough year, but everyone hard worked hard and had been committed to working through the tough times. But when the announcement was made, you could see peoples heads drop, the productivity visibly dropped, and there were quite a few people who were outspoken in opposition to it.
They had gone from being engaged, to disengaged, to actively disengaged in a matter of days.
The company quickly reversed the decision once they saw the negative impact, but it was too late, they had disengaged their staff, and just giving them back something they had decided to take away doesn’t re-engage people.
You have to actively do something to engage people.
In this situation an apology might have gone some way to repairing the damage, but the company chose to do nothing other than just reinstate the christmas party. Even worse they blamed the negative reaction from staff as to the reason why they had re-instated it, which resulted in many people boycotting the event.
Creating engaged teams is much easier than many people believe, it just requires the leadership team to make a few positive actions to increase the involvement, commitment and engagement of their teams.
In 2015 I am looking to make it my goal to help companies create engaged teams, improve teamwork and inspire their organisations to new heights. If you’d like to be part of that journey contact me at Gordon@leadership-principles.com for a free consultation and lets look to make 2015 a great year.
Hello Gordon,
If don’t engage a workforce by wanting to engage a workforce.
Until executives start hiring managers that they should hire rather then ones they want to hire employee engagement will not improve.
Hello Gordon,
We don’t engage a workforce by wanting to engage a workforce.
Until executives start hiring managers that they should hire rather then ones they want to hire employee engagement will not improve.
Bob, you’re right just wanting it won’t engage them, but most managers/leaders can do it if they take the right actions.
True if companies put the right people in charge in the first place the problems wouldn’t exist, but telling companies to change their leadership times isn’t going to happen, and for some possibly isn’t even possible.
Its like in sports we can’t just change the entire team and get netter players, sometimes we have to focus on getting the players we have to play better
yes i can understand the importance of employee engagement…
Gordon,
Are you saying that you disagree with the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule) applies in a business setting, or are you saying that business leaders can overcome it? I’m pretty sure you mean the latter, but could you clarify?
Businesses can do quite a bit to encourage employee engagement, and business managers do often discourage engagement. One thing I have seen that discourages employee engagement is a relentless focus on doing more with less. Saving money by improving efficiency and employee productivity is good for a business, but there comes a point where a relentless mantra of “do more, do more, do more” with the same or fewer resources causes employees to turn off and disengage. Another thing that discourages employees, especially in a small company is having one person who is known to be the company “hatchet man” (or “hatchet woman”). I have been in situations where, when that person walked in the room, everyone froze, because they knew they were going to be yelled at for something that might or might not be under their control, and they worried about what would follow from that.
Your example of the company Christmas party was well taken. At the very least, an apology by the company was required. Blaming the employees for reinstating the Christmas party was really a bad move on the part of the management.
Thanks for another great post.
Pareto is about completing 80% of the task being complete with 20% of the effort, not that 20% of the organisation does 20% of the work.
The point i was making is that if we have 70% of the work force engaged rather than just 30% we will see significantly better results.
Gordon,
I have to say I agree in part with rhwoodman. Having led several teams in a corporate environment, the “do more with less” concept often causes chaos and discouragement. I have been on teams where when supplies that were needed, such as paper clips, pencils and paper – yes, the basics for any job, were counted out to the extreme. (I’m seriously talking about receiving ten paper clips and two pencils!)
A poor team structure is also a large part of employee’s becoming disengaged. A good leader knows how to choose team members and delegate aspects of a project to best meet the needs to complete the project. In doing so, employee talent and skills ought to be recognized. Far too often the “team” is not recognized for their efforts as individuals. I personally have seen teams created where there was active engagement by the entire team, when in the end only the manager was recognized (received a bonus, etc.) while the remaining team members walked away with their heads hanging down and reluctant to participate in future team projects.
When employee’s feel they are being “used” as opposed to being “contributors”, you will not find willing engagement. Corporate cut-backs on anything does create employee shut down. Companies that cut back on Christmas parties and the like to save a dollar, will find in the end they will spend twice as much in training costs for new hires as staff leaves to find positions where their talents and skills shine and are recognized.
Ronele, i think we are in agreement here, anything that disengages these team we should stop doing. I don’t necessarily think its just one thing, it can be a series of things or an individual that causes the start of this.
Hi Gordon,
Thanks for your valuable and beautiful article. You have rightly pointed out the issue and gave the right way forward.
Few months back, I personally faced this challenge and took actions what you have mentioned, during that time, I didn’t know the reason behind this. Trust me, got tremendous result. After reading your article, just tried to link the issue, what actually worked to get the results then. It was only “Engagement”
Thanks for sharing.
Akbar thanks for your comments, glad to hear you have achieved some success i this area, this is the essence of leadership
Hello Gordon, you correct about making changes but why do they continue to do the same things that have failed in the past?