Actively disengaged employees continue to outnumber engaged employees by nearly two to one. This implies that at the global level, work is more often a source of frustration than one of fulfillment.
In South Africa, the picture is far worse…
According to an article published by FIN24 on the 10th of August 2017 by Amanda Visser, only 9% of the workforce in South Africa are actively engaged. Can you relate to this statement? Over the last few years, I’ve asked myself this question and asked my previous staff at various companies of various sizes to make sense of these statistics and statements from highly credible sources. To get my own perspective I asked my previous staff the following questions
- DOES YOUR MANAGER INSPIRE YOU?
- DO YOU TRUST THE DATA THAT IS SHARED WITH YOU?
- IS COMPANY PERFORMANCE SHARED WITH YOU?
- DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU AT WORK?
The response was somewhat negative and that’s what makes you want to hit the snooze button in the mornings. I have made it my purpose to partner with the right partners and find a solution for the South African people to improve the levels of employee engagement and culture within our businesses.
In part one of this post, we are just going to discuss what is employee engagement and what is the definition of employee engagement? Whilst people define engagement in various ways, I prefer a plain and simple definition:
“People want to come to work, understand their jobs, and know how their work contributes to the success of the organisation” – John Baldoni.
Jim Harter Ph.D., a chief scientist at Gallup Research explained what engaged employees do differently in an email interview: “Engaged employees are more attentive and vigilant. They look out for the needs of their coworkers and the overall enterprise, because they personally ‘own’ the result of their work and that of the organisation.
Many people thiink employee engagement is the same as employee satisfaction, but satisfaction doesn’t make a difference to the bottom line. We can be satisfied as we arrive at work and satisfied as we leave at 17h00 to hit the gym or pick up the kids. I’m satisfied but I’ll still take that talent recruiters call that says, “Shawn, are you interested in that job opening we posted on LinkedIn?” “I’m not sure, I’m pretty satisfied here, currently.” “I can get you flexi hours, secure parking and a raise.” “Really, well, okay, I’ll come to that job interview just to see.”
Satisfaction just doesn’t make you feel that sense of purpose. Others will say, it’s all really about happiness. We’re trying to create happy workers, a happy secure workplace. I’m not against happiness. In fact, we test for that when we do a climate (culture) survey using Teamphoria.
Just because you’re happy doesn’t mean you’re working on behalf of the organisation or happy with the organisation.
If engagement isn’t satisfaction and it isn’t happiness, what is it then? Basically, employee engagement is the emotional commitment much like you have with your partner/husband/wife that we have to our organisation and the organisation’s goals. When we’re engaged, when we’re emotionally committed, it means we’re going to give discretionary effort. We’re going to go the extra mile. That’s why engagement is so important and so powerful. When we are engaged, we give discretionary effort, we commit, we take accountability and control over our careers.
That means if you have an engaged worker, they are going to work just as hard on a Friday afternoon as they do on a Monday afternoon. Discretionary effort leads to better business results no matter what your job role or responsibility in an organisation is.
So would you agree that the C-level executives, would care more about engagement if they understood the differences? What do they care about? The C-level executives, really care about investor returns. They care about their share price. The truth is we should all care. To drive engagement, C-level executives, Managers and Individuals should all Communicate + Align + Recognise + Engage = CARE within an organisation.
Employee engagement is the switch that can move that profit needle towards a better ROI. We call it the start of the service profit chain. Engaged employees give discretionary effort. They’re going to sell harder (better internal ambassadors). The service is going to be better, productivity is going to be higher. That means customers are going to be happier. The more satisfied your customers are, the more they’re going to buy and the more they’re going to refer you, the more loyalty and customer lifetime value you can bank on. As sales increase, as well as profits, inevitably your share price is going to increase and Shareholder returns are going to increase. Employee engagement, so-called “soft stuff” or “fluff” leads to a real hard ROI.
In summary, employee engagement is a shared responsibility, to foster an environment of engagement, organisations need systems, technology, and strategies that promote and support it. This includes leadership training in skills such as coaching, influencing others and managing change, as well as performance management and accountability systems that provide direction and support to all stakeholders. Combine the above with CARE will yield results so great you’ll be wondering what took you so long in the first place. #restorethetrust we will explore further in Part 2. We will also be covering the reasons “why” businesses invest so much in employing and remunerating their staff but don’t truly invest in them.
Link to original article from LinkedIn.
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