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…)

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!’)

Paid Work Isn’t The Same As A Job

This really provocative ‘Democracy In America’ blog in The Economist got me thinking. They make various observations about all the noise from politicians and agencies about the need for, and urgency of, job creation. Jobs as a source of income and a sense of worth for those who need it are obviously critical. But as a tributary off the main argument flowed some thinking on the subset of people who had either lost a job or opted out of traditional fulltime employment. This, to me, was the provocative bit.

The blog suggests that a significant group of talented and educated people of a certain age were certainly searching for work but not necessarily for a job. They throw in a bit of terminology like ‘Post Materialists’ and ‘Threshold Earners.’ A threshold earner has an amount they think they need / want. Once they reach it, they choose not to work anymore. Enough is good enough. This might be a great philosophy for someone like me (or subscribers to The Economist – or, more likely, people reading bits of The Economist’ free online or in libraries.)

To me, time with my kids and being fit and creative is important. I don’t just say that, I live it – now. I didn’t always used to. I think I can label myself a ‘Threshold Earner’ although I doubt I’m a Post Materialist. Certainly my kids aren’t!

Work, be it paid or otherwise, provides us humans with a lot more than money. That said, whatever the amount is, we all do need money. I’ll hug a tree but I won’t live in one. Work gives us connection, purpose, health, development, esteem and so much more. A lack of money can mess with our heads but mere money itself is not such a drawcard anymore. If, as a leader, you want to truly start to spark genuine employee engagement at your workplace you need to understand the implications and benefits of this. Lots SAY they do.

So, by all means, let Government try and do their best to stimulate job creation or, at least, get out of the way but if you’re an employer searching to attract and retain the best talent you can, you must reconsider if the old ‘jobs’ paradigm will work for you in the future or the now. If they have the talent and can improve your business’s productivity, what can you do to make it easy for Post Materialists and Threshold Earners to work for you? Actually, let’s revisit that wording because it’s important. They don’t want to work FOR you – that’s the whole point. They want to do some of the work and get paid but they don’t want to work for you. Just because you’d love to work for you doesn’t mean everyone else would.

It’s raining heavily and I am so glad I’m not living in a tree right now.

How To Demotivate Employees (If You Really Want To)

 

This article with video from ‘Good To Great’ author Jim Collins identifies three primary employee demotivators. Actually, he doesn’t limit them to employees but rightly says they are inflicted on people in many forums. Parents especially are noted as perpetrators. Those three demotivators are:

• hype
• futurism and
• false democracy.

There may be others but these three are good ways to put out the fires that might be burning inside people you have who are already inherently motivated. Crazy. You’d think that employers would want to not do that, yet I see an awful lot of hype, futurism and false democracy in a lot of workplaces. All of it is well-intentioned.

In one of my previous management roles where I was a significant agent of change, I had a little personal catchphrase, “No fireworks, no bugles.” What I was trying to reinforce to myself and to others was my own anti-hype position. I really did not want to overpromise. I’d learned from being on the receiving end of too many projects or ideas that were going to magically transform everything into a wonderland of worker amenity and prosperity. Never quite panned out quite as wonderlandy as they painted it. Few things do. Honestly, I’m not anti-hype. It has its place. Used in short bursts at appropriate times, it can generate heat, energy, attention, focus and movement. My problem is that, often, the hype is all there is. In fact, isn’t that the meaning most of us apply when we see, hear or use the word? Too much hype. Nothing but hype. Over-hyped. Don’t believe the hype. What must follow hype to avoid demotivation is prompt and positive change of meaningful substance.

Workplace examples of death by overhyping I’ve seen have included introductions of performance management systems and departmental restructures. That said, I’ve also been involved in introductions of performance management systems and departmental restructures that were highly successful, well received and used hype, to some extent, very well. So, I’d disagree with Collins if he means that all hype is bad. I suspect he doesn’t mean that. I believe he means the hyperbole that isn’t followed up with action of substance. Far better to, as he says in the video, “…to confront the brutal facts.”
How is futurism bad? I thought we were all meant to be planning for the future, setting goals, anticipating and pre-solving problems etc? Once again, Collins isn’t slamming all futurism, merely those bosses who focus on nothing but the future with little or zero emphasis on the now or recent history. Those bosses can’t learn from mistakes, can’t celebrate successes and can’t leverage employees ‘in the zone’ or in ‘a state of flow.’ These high performers don’t ignore the future but when they’re at their most productive, they are very much solely in the now. Bosses who break that focus and drift off over the rainbow are counter-productive.

Collins says to show results as an indication of progress, to show that people are part of something that is actually working. He refers to this as ‘clicks on the flywheel.’ (I get what he’s saying but will admit to having to go look up what a flywheel is – a heavy disk or wheel rotating on a shaft so that its momentum gives almost uniform rotational speed to the shaft and to all connected machinery. I’m pedantic enough to argue that change never happens at a ‘uniform rotational speed’ and I don’t even like the metaphor’s ‘rotational’ representation of change. But I still get it and love the whole point of it which was the benefits of showing progress and being part of something that works!)

False democracy is a label for all the actions by those employers who have already made up their mind but would like to paint over their intentions with a thin veneer of dishonest inclusiveness by engaging in some token campaign of capturing ideas and inputs from the team. Not that anything ever amounts from these campaigns. This is worse than just being a blatant autocracy. At least that’s honest and transparent. Sometimes even well-meaning managers will engage in such a campaign even though the system of their workplace is so rigid and unresponsive that actual democracy is unlikely. That might be worse as it raises false hope?

Doctors have their oath and the first part is about at the very least not doing harm. Leaders, when it comes to motivating their people, could, at the very least, take that page out of the doctors’ book. (Don’t take a page out of their prescription pad though. You’ll never read their handwriting!)

How To Destroy An Employee's Work Life

This Washington Post article by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer takes a delightfully tongue-in cheek approach to what drives talented employees out of organisations. By reverse-engineering their faux recommendations, we can glean what it is we're supposed to do to attract and retain talented people.

Their research is primary. Rather than surveys or post-exit interviews which can be self-serving, inaccurate, subjective and occasionally fictional, they chose to provide daily electronic diaries to 200+ people. Rather than Bob or Kate saying out loud that they left ABC Limited for a better paying position at XYZ Limited, there is a trail of clues. It might actually have been an escalating and deteriorating relationship with "that jerk Barry from Accounts" which, over time, led to their departure. Accumulating all those trails of clues, Amabile and Kramer have come up with their list of commandments.

Their 'advice' to leaders wanting to "completely and utterly destroy an employee's life at work" were:

1. Never allow pride of accomplishment
2. Miss no opportunity to block progress on employees' projects
3. Give yourself some credit
4. Kill the messengers

My building blocks of a workplace that allow and generate self motivation amongst employees are self awareness, mastery, autonomy, purpose and influencing others. Human minds need them like human bodies need food. Mostly, people are only going to get that at work. Without accomplishment, a sense of progess, recognition, or blame-free communication, people are not going to attain or even move towards mastery, autonomy or a sense of purpose. If you, as a leader, prevent your people from getting them, they will leave because they're hungry for a basic need.

After all that, if you still really do want to destroy an employee, take their advice and, as a cherry on top, wait until that employee leaves their PC, sneak on and hack their FaceBook account...