What Gets Employees Engaged – Or Dis-Engaged?
By Bill Hatton
Sustainable Workforce
Employee engagement: There have been many words for the concept over the years. Back in the 90s, it was “Be Proactive.” Earlier, it was any of these: Take initiative;
get your head in the game; play to win, don’t play not to lose; apply yourself; buy the ticket, take the ride; grab the bull by the horns; once more into the breach; honest day’s work for honest day’s pay; mindfulness; engage!
The concept is clear: Get fully involved in the task. Engaged employees are not just going through the motions until they can do something else. They are not distracted. They are here, now, personally immersed in doing what they are doing. Managers have been trying to get others fully engaged as long as there has been management.
So what gets in the way? The same-old: distractions (there’s always something easier and more compelling), excuses (obstacles that either provided a reason to
check out), disincentives/wrong incentives (management measures and rewards the wrong things), and sometimes, issues of character.
What gets people engaged? One answer is to show how individuals connect to the big picture. Leaders who can show how a person’s talents and goals connect to
a worthy larger purpose, as well as connect to their co-workers and customers—and those leaders who reinforce that message—will have the best chance of motivating workers to engage. You don’t need to stress how easy something is; sometimes, you need to stress what it means for them, how they can grow, how they can contribute—sometimes, how it is difficult, and thus meaningful when they accomplish it.
As Aristotle put it: “[I]f any action is well performed, it is performed in accord with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, then happiness turns out to be an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.” Bottom line: Employee engagement not only creates better companies and better CR/shared value programs, but also creates lasting personal satisfaction for the employee, too.
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