Why Are So Many Employees Disengaged?

This ‘Psychology Today’ article is grrrrrr8. Not just because it declares the obvious – that most employees are disengaged. Your first question should be, Why?” The answer is:

“The number one factor the study cited influencing engagement and disengagement was ‘relationship with immediate supervisor.’”

The article also addresses the second question that doesn’t get asked that often – WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE IMMEDIATE SUPERVISORS?!

Often shouted by bosses is the phrase, “Recruit attitude; Train skill.” That makes sense. BUT most don’t do it although they do say it. It’s even more true of recruiting frontline leaders – the ones whose relationships are the most critical for the business. And what should those attitude qualities being recruited look like. Psychology Today says:

“the qualities companies traditionally look for when selecting and developing managers and executives are often not conducive to building positive, productive, engaged employee relationships.”

The problem is that employers are recruiting for skill not attitude, despite many saying the opposite. They’re hiring or promoting people into leadership roles because “they’re good at their jobs” or “they deserve a promotion” and leadership roles are the only promotions available. Other options might be better for those people. They deserve something but not to be given a role for which they’re not suited. It doesn’t help them or those they end up leading poorly.

So, a primary focus for Brain-Based Bosses should be redesigning your recruitment processes to attract and snare frontline leaders who have a demonstrated track record of repeatedly being inherently good at building (and maintaining) positive, productive, engaged employee relationships. Then ensuring they’re developed as leaders as soon as practicable, with emphasis on those relationship skills. (Professional relationships – not relationships as Fonzie would have seen them. If you don’t know who Fonzie is, Google him…)

'Stay' Interviews

Every employer does job interviews when seeking new people. Many employers do exit interviews when wondering why people leave. I like this idea of ‘Stay’ Interviews – interviewing people who are already working with you before they leave and on a regular basis. Why not find out as close to the current truth amongst your workforce as you can while there’s still time to do something with the information?
Personally, this is what a regular performance one-on-one chat should be anyway and coming up with a catchy and clever new name for it doesn’t make it different or separate. (Although , I really wish I’d come up with it!)

If it’s true that half your employees are actively seeking employment elsewhere at any given time, how focused on, or interested in, their outcomes for you are they really going to be? The metaphor here is keeping your finger on the pulse of the people in your business. As this article says, “Research by Towers Watson (2012) suggests organizations with high sustainable engagement have operating margins three times those of organizations with a disengaged workforce.”

A news item today laments that New Zealand mothers being visited by the free post natal support service Plunkett are highly prone to lying about what they do with their babies for fear of being judged by the visiting nurses. However counter-productive that attitude is, it is a very human one and quite predictable and understandable. So, would ‘Stay’ interviews be prone to the same problem of employees simply saying what they think bosses want to hear? The article I linked to above is sadly lacking on details about ‘Stay’ interviews and focuses mainly on surveys. There is way too much emphasis on surveys generally.

‘Stay’ interviews and engagement surveys aside, the best way to assess engagement levels is simple observation. Are people doing more than they have to because they choose to? Don’t worry about why they are (yet) but are they? If they are, they’re engaged. They can say what they like in a survey but there’s no hiding actual observed behaviour. Just be aware of surveys – Snow White did one once and discovered that six out of seven dwarves weren’t happy…

Congratulations On Your Engagement

Today’s business section in the Herald runs my latest column on employee engagement.

Q: I want to be a great leader. What’s this thing called “employee engagement” I’ve been hearing about? Is it just consultants coming up with some new term to sell me their services, or what? I’m hoping it’s real. Economic times are tough. I need something to get more out of the team I lead. – Bewildered of Birkenhead

A: Dear Bewildered of Birkenhead,

The phrase “employee engagement” might be new and it certainly is flavour of the month in leadership literature, but the underlying concept is true and timeless human nature.
Employee engagement is not “morale” or “satisfaction” or “happiness”. Plenty of unhappy people are highly productive and plenty of deliriously happy folk are fine with showing up, punching a clock, getting paid and going home regardless of whether anything productive happens. Employee engagement is the extent to which an employee chooses to apply discretionary effort. It’s doing more than you have to because you choose to.
So, there are engaged employees doing more than they have to, present employees who do only what they have to, and disengaged employees who are reading this careers section at work to find a new job with anyone who isn’t you.

The numbers vary a little across time, industry and geography, but they’re remarkably consistent: 26 per cent are engaged, 28 per cent are disengaged and 46 per cent are present.

These are averages. What are the proportions in your workplace?

Click here for more…

Improved Employee Engagement Reverses Downward Trend

Here’s some fresh research on employee engagement numbers. It contradicts some other surveys and suggests a trend. Maybe that’s accurate. Maybe that’s not. Whether some average in a survey is bigger or smaller than some average in another survey should be of little interest to me or you. What should matter is how your engagement levels are trending at your workplace. Survey that or, better still, wander around and observe it and immerse yourself in it yourself. That’s quicker, cheaper, more accurate, more timely and more useful to you right now.

Having just lambasted survey results and generalities, there are some specifics that could be of applicable relevance to you. Here’s a quote, “The report also identified three main drivers of improved employee engagement – career opportunities, recognition of employees’ hard work and organisational reputation… This last factor was particularly valued by European employees, who were more concerned about their employer’s public reputation and values than personal recognition.”

I recently blogged about the extent to which corporate social responsibility could be a lever to attract and retain talent and to enhance employee engagement. In short, I thought it could if there was a direct, personal and emotional connection between the type of corporate social responsibility and the individual employees. Otherwise it could just be hype and spin – a superficial facade or off-target wasted effort.

So, if we accept this new research tagging employer reputation as being a genuine driver (or represser) of employee engagement, then that would seem to further suggest that corporate social responsibility might be a good thing, not just because it is inherently a good thing, but because it drives employee engagement. AND, as I am at pains to often stress, employee engagement is a good thing, not just because it is inherently a good thing, but because it drives improved revenue and profitability. And that’s a good thing even for bean counters* who might not personally care about employees or society.

*

Feedback: What Happens In Vagueness Stays In Vagueness

Here’s a blog post about the dangers of non-specific feedback. The blogger references the work of psychologist Carol Dweck who I also quote in my book ‘The Brain-Based Boss’ on the subject of fixed versus growth mindsets. Here’s an excerpt:

The work of psychologist Carol Dweck is germane here. What she’s found is that, when children are praised in abstract–”You’re so smart” or “You’re so creative”–rather than concretely about how they improved their performance–”You put in an enormous amount of work, and it paid off”–the feedback is diminished. How come? Because the child takes from the teacher or parent the idea that she is innately smart or creative, and that she doesn’t need to work at it–so she doesn’t.

On the other hand, very specific feedback–especially about something an individual can control–can work wonders.

Quite rightly, the blogger points out that general statements such as ‘Good job’ might make you feel better and make you think that you’re dishing out some positive feedback but it needs to be more than merely positive to be useful and conducive to enhanced productivity. That phrase would need to:

• be said at the time the specific action warranting praise occurred or as immediately afterwards as possible.
• be said to the specific individual performing and controlling the praiseworthy action that you’d like to see more of.
• contain a few more details and expectations than 2 words of generality (what exactly was the bit that was good?)
• some connection to a greater goal, the wider team or higher purpose.

So, here’s some specific feedback to several new Twitter followers I’ve gotten recently – If you’ve only got 17 Twitter followers yourself, best not describe yourself as a ‘social media guru.’

Never Go Shopping When You’re Hungry: The Perils Of ‘Impulse Buying’ When Recruiting

Here’s a recent newspaper article about impulse buying. They say you should never go shopping when you’re hungry. You get too much of the wrong stuff that you don’t need that does you harm and that you’ll regret. It’s the same with recruitment. I mean metaphorically hungry though, of course. Mind you, it’s probably not good to recruit when literally hungry either. Who knows what lowered blood sugar levels will do to your concentration as you stare at, and steer through, the dross, irrelevance and incomprehensibility on many applicants’ CVs?

The inherent problem is that many bosses recruit precisely when they have a vacancy. Of course, duh! BUT that is when they’re experiencing all the downside of having that vacancy – extra workload, inconvenience, lowered morale of those who remain and are doing that extra work, the ramifications if there were negative circumstances surrounding the departure of the previous incumbent, etc. So often, too often, there is a disproportionate drive to ‘get the vacancy filled.’ That’s totally natural, totally understandable and definitely something a brain-based boss would be mindful to manage. Clearly if the maths says that there should be more people to do the work, you need to recruit, but that is quite different from simply filling a vacancy via automatic replacement. Vacancies are always going to arise and workplace leaders should always have a part of their time allocated to thinking about the ‘what-ifs.’

Vacancies present a chance to re-evaluate the team’s set-up. Does it need to be filled at all? Should / can that role be changed? Should / can other roles be changed? Could others step up and a lesser role be back-filled? Yes, there is a cost to being a person down, but there is a greater and longer-term cost in recruiting with reckless pace and haste and getting it wrong or missing out on team enhancement opportunities.

If you do go shopping when you’re hungry, remember, beggars can’t be choosers. (Thank you ’2-for-1 cliche sale!’)

Employee Entanglement

It’s a new year so is it time for a new leadership buzzword? I have got to start inventing new words or phrases. Here’s an article that introduced me to the term ‘Employee Entanglement’ as the better thing beyond mere ‘Employee Engagement.’

I was quite prepared to put on my cynical hat and mock yet another buzzword that some author or consultant had invented to be a guru about. I’m not saying that Employee Entanglement isn’t that but, based on this brief article, I like what he’s saying, it seems to be a fresh and novel way to catch attention about a timeless and essential approach to leadership and I want to read more.

The article cites a book by Ramon Benedetto, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and co-author of It’s My Company Too! How Entangled Companies Move Beyond Employee Engagement For Remarkable Results. I haven’t checked it out yet. I’ll do so though. The Kindle sample chapter awaits me.  I’m intrigued. Nevermind judging books by their covers, many of us can’t get past the title. And this is a good one.

The article’s final paragraph nicely sums up Benedetto’s key point, “So if leadership is wrapped up in a command-and-control mentality, they’re not going to achieve success. Instead, they need to foster a trust-and-track type approach: hire the right people and give them the ability to succeed.” Sounds very engagementy to me with its strong autonomy references. I applaud the attention-getting because it’s getting attention for something very worthwhile.
That said, they definitely want to you to buy the book and the subsequent speaking and consultancy but, hey, who doesn’t?

Happy new year everyone – the time when many of us resolve to give things up like smoking, over-eating and making unachieveable resolutions.