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To reap the rewards that a more engaged organization promises, your entire workforce needs to
be accountable for their piece of the 'engagement equation' every day. The 2011 Employee
Engagement Report clarifies those roles and responsibilities.
Individuals: Ownership, clarity and action. Individuals need to know what they want
— and what the organization needs — and then take action to achieve both.
Introdution:
Employee engagement is an idea whose time has come. We have seen it transition from academic
literature to OD practitioners to executive teams as a top strategic objective. Employee engagement , as
a metric of business success, is getting more attention than ever before.
And yet the topic remains elusive, even murky. The chemistry of individual engagement is complex,
many organization has stagnant engagement levels despite yearly cycles of measuring and action
planning
Why engagement is so important today
Organizational working relationships have changed since many of today’s CEOs started work.
Before the early 1990s recession an unspoken contract existed between employer and
employee: Commit to working here for the long term and we will offer you job security, good
pay and promotions. But the recession led to reengineering and downsizing, breaking that
contract.
Moreover, there is a new mindset among young people who began their careers in the boom
years after the 1990 recession. They do not expect lifetime employment with a single employer.
They consider personal fulfilment in their work as a birthright — and this is extremely unlikely
to change during economic downturn. They will just take different options —
for example, freeagency or self employment — rather than work for a low-reputation
employer.
Many organizations that have not recognized this significant change in agendaare struggling to
cope. Frustrated executives say,we raised their salaries, gave them performance-based
incentives and instituted flextime — but we’re still losing good employees and having
productivity problems. What do these people want anyway?
The demands of employees are beginning to mirror the demands customers now make on
businesses. In the past two decades, customers have become increasingly demanding and
businesses have responded by forging new “value propositions” for customers, usually through
value-added service.
Hay believes that you have to start thinking about the people you employ the same way you
think about customers. That means offering them a rewarding environment to work in, not just
financial rewards.
They are:
1.Quality of work
Perception of the Value of Work
Challenge/Interest
Achievement
Freedom & Autonomy
Workload
Quality of Work Relationship
,2. Future Growth/Opportunity:
3. Inspiration andValue:
Quality of Leadership
Organizational Valuesand Behaviors
Reputation ofOrganization
Risk Sharing
Recognition
Communication
4. Enabling Environment:
Physical Environment
Tools and Equipment
Job Training
Information and Processes
Safety/Personal Security
5.Work/Life Balance :
Supportive Environment
Recognition of Life Cycle
Security of Income
Social Environment
6. Tangible Rewards:
Competitive Pay
Good Benefits
Incentives for Higher
Performance
Ownership Potential
Recognition Awards
Major combination of engagement:
‘a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organisation and its values.
An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with colleagues to
improve performance within the job for the benefit of the organisation. The
organisation must work to develop and nurture engagement, which requires a two-
way relationship between employer and employee.
Employee engagement is often talked about these days, yet few organizations practically define,
measure or apply this concept. Consequently, job satisfaction, a major component of engagement, has
decreased 23% in the US in the last 20 years and 10% in the last 2 years.* Clearly, many companies are
not getting it.
Engagement is a relatively new way of thinking about leading people — a sort of magnetic rather than a
coerced approach to getting people to want to do whatever is necessary to ensure the continuous high
performance and success of the business. As a goal of management, employee engagement is about an
individual’s degree of dedication to the organization and its goals with an implied reward of personal
growth. The assumption in the business world is that engagement level predicts the positive intensity and
quality of effort the organization can expect from an individual within job confines. In this regard,
engagement’s value to the business is a predictor of future behavior and effort.
Business leaders should care about employee engagement because, when correctly measured,
engagement profiles provide management with a statistical method to maximize return on human capital.
For example, our studies show that positively engaged employees have higher than average individual
productivity and innovation events plus they remain with the company longer than disengaged
employees. In addition, the discretionary efforts of the fully engaged are of higher quality and of a more
positive intensity than other less-engaged employees: their economic contributions to the business
consistently exceed their employment costs. From a quality of work life perspective, positively engaged
employees are often energetic and enthusiastic which makes them more productive in group efforts and
makes them enjoyable to work with. Our research also shows that fully engaged employees solve
problems.
The failure to positively engage people in organizations today often stems from poor definition and
measurement of employee engagement. Managing engagement cannot be effective without practical,
reliable measurement and reliable, concrete definition. Contrary to most published materials, calculated
responses to a host of random “benchmarked” opinion questions are not reliable measures of employee
engagement. In fact, this false assumption lies at the heart of leaderships’ failure to engage. Meaningful
engagement measurement is derived from tried and true attitude classification psychometrics, and
collected via survey responses to a validated, complete inventory of questions about employee feelings
and experiences towards verified engagement “drivers”. The fact is, few employee engagement surveys
reliably measure the 15 proven drivers of engagement.
Leading the way in thought leadership and employee engagement measurement, Scarlett Surveys
defines employee engagement as an individual’s degree of positive or negative
emotional attachment to their organization, their job and their
colleagues. Fully engaged employees, according to our proven measurement classification formula,
contribute better-than-average individual productivity, and the preponderance of innovation events.
Moreover, the fully engaged populations we classify routinely devote over 50% of their discretionary time
and efforts attempting to add extra value to their work and the business.
Group engagement profiles are best calculated from employee responses to battery question sets
encompassing 15 universal intrinsic and extrinsic engagement factorsproven to measure group dedication
and unity of effort. Individual engagement is best measured by classifying each individual’s level of
positive or negative emotional attachment to the organization and its goals using the same 15 bona fide
engagement factors but arranging the data profiles by engagement level, rather than work group. Both
engagement profile data sets show the effect of various employer practices on levels of engagement,
individually and collectively, thus making it easy to identify and address key opportunities for improvement
and better engage employees. After all, the validity of employee engagement measurement is in the
efficacy of improving human effort and business performance by applying engagement metrics.
In a world of fast-changing markets and hard-to-measure intellectual work, employee engagement has
emerged as an often misunderstood business imperative and responsibility of leadership to measure and
manage. When correctly defined and measured, employee engagement is a manageable predictor of
future behavior and effort that enables business leaders to boost associate economic contribution and
improve business performance while enhancing quality of work life.
EHere are 26 keys to employee engagement from A to Z.
Acceptance. We must begin with acceptance of the current state of engagement
and begin to make changes out of our full acceptance of what is as we move to
what can be.
Energy. Energy is the raw material of employee engagement and those who
master energy management have a huge resource to draw upon for their own
engagement and for energizing others.
Integrity. Our work must stem from integrity and our connections with others are
strengthened by our integrity fused with their integrity.
authentic and genuine employee engagement.
Leadership. Leaders need to create vision, direction, and strategy that foster
engagement and also communicate this fully to all employees while also being
open to employees helping to co-create the organization’s vision and direction.
Oprah. You know how engaged Oprah is in her work, imagine yourself on the
Oprah show and she is asking you how you engage in your work, how would you
answer her so that her audience would take notice and be inspired by your
response?
Questions? We are all looking for answers to enhance and improve employee
engagement but never overlook the value of a good question, such as: Who is
engaged, with what, for how long, and for what reason?
Today. Employee engagement is about today, don’t wait for some magic
measurement or better time - do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.
X-ray. We must get to the bare bones of engagement and avoid using
anonymous surveys that at times seem to measure engagement but actually
produce disengagement.
You. This alphabet list of employee engagement from A to Z will only only become
alive if you take the ideas from this article and put them into practice — did you
notice the only thing missing from the Corporate Alphabet picture at the start of
this article was “u”?
Zen. Zen teaches a person to engage with their breathing, their mind, and their
world — as you let yourself become more mindful in daily activities, including
work, you will find yourself becoming more and more engaged.
Influences
* Employer engagement - A company's "commitment to improving the partnership between employees
and...employer."[15] Employers can stay engaged with their employees by actively seeking to understand
and act on behalf of the expectations and preferences of their employees.
* Employee perceptions of job importance - According to a 2006 study by Gerard Seijts and Dan Crim,
"...an employees attitude toward the job['s importance] and the company had the greatest impact on
loyalty and customer service then all other employee factors combined."[13]
* Employee clarity of job expectations - "If expectations are not clear and basic materials and
equipment not provided, negative emotions such as boredom or resentment may result, and the
employee may then become focused on surviving more than thinking about how he can help the
organization succeed."[5]
* Quality of working relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates - "...if employees'
relationship with their managers is fractured, then no amount of perks will persuade the employees to
perform at top levels. Employee engagement is a direct reflection of how employees feel about their
relationship with the boss."[13]
* Perceptions of the ethos and values of the organization - "'Inspiration and values' is the most
important of the six drivers in our Engaged Performance model. Inspirational leadership is the ultimate
perk. In its absence, [it] is unlikely to engage employees."[10]
* Effective Internal Employee Communications - which convey a clear description of "what's going on".
"'If you accept that employees want to be involved in what they are doing then this trend is clear (from
small businesses to large global organisations). The effect of poor internal communications is seen as its
most destructive in global organisations which suffer from employee annexation - where the head office in
one country is buoyant (since they are closest to the action, know what is going on, and are heavily
engaged) but its annexes (who are furthest away from the action and know little about what is happening)
are dis-engaged. In the worst case, employee annexation can be very destructive when the head office
attributes the annex's low engagement to its poor performance… when its poor performance is really due
to its poor communications.
* Reward to engage - Look at employee benefits and acknowledge the role of incentives. "An incentive to
reward good work is a tried and test way of boosting staff morale and enhancing engagement." There are
a range of tactics you can employ to ensure your incentive scheme hits the mark with your workforce
such as: Setting realistic targets, selecting the right rewards for your incentive programme,
communicating the scheme effectively and frequently, have lots of winners and reward all achievers,
encouraging sustained effort, present awards publicly and evaluate the incentive scheme regularly
The ten C’s of employee engagement
by G EO RG E A MB LER on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2007
How can leaders engage employees’ heads, hearts, and hands?“, by starting to apply the following 10
C’s of employee engagement:
1. Connect: Leaders must show that they value employees. Employee engagement is a direct
reflection of how employees feel about their relationship with the boss.
2. Career: Leaders should provide challenging and meaningful work with opportunities for career
advancement. Most people want to do new things in their job. For example, do organizations
provide job rotation for their top talent? Are people assigned stretch goals?
3. Clarity: Leaders must communicate a clear vision. Success in life and organizations is, to a
great extent, determined by how clear individuals are about their goals and what they really want
to achieve. In sum, employees need to understand what the organization’s goals are, why they
are important, and how the goals can best be attained.
4. Convey: Leaders clarify their expectations about employees and provide feedback on their
functioning in the organization.
5. Congratulate: Exceptional leaders give recognition, and they do so a lot; they coach and
convey.
6. Contribute: People want to know that their input matters and that they are contributing to
the organization’s success in a meaningful way. In sum, good leaders help people see and feel
how they are contributing to the organization’s success and future.
7. Control: Employees value control over the flow and pace of their jobs and leaders can create
opportunities for employees to exercise this control. A feeling of “being in on things,” and of being
given opportunities to participate in decision making often reduces stress; it also creates trust
and a culture where people want to take ownership of problems and their solutions.
8. Collaborate: Studies show that, when employees work in teams and have the trust and
cooperation of their team members, they outperform individuals and teams which lack good
relationships. Great leaders are team builders; they create an environment that fosters trust and
collaboration.
9. Credibility: Leaders should strive to maintain a company’s reputation and demonstrate high
ethical standards.
10. Confidence: Good leaders help create confidence in a company by being exemplars of high
ethical and performance standards.