The Employee Engagement Fad

Business is full of fads just like consumer electronics and other products or services.  The latest trend seems to be focused on employee engagement.  The root of this movement is noble and long overdue.  A number of surveys confirm that employees feel disengaged and not aligned with the organization they work for; clearly there is a problem.  However, the typical reaction of business is to create yet another set of tools, principles, authors, and consultants, all hoping to ‘cash in’ on the latest thing the executive suite seems to be fixated on.  In just the last several years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of companies and the amount of material available to address the employee engagement challenge.  But do you really think employees are not engaged?

Believe it or not, employees have always been engaged.  The real challenge for most companies is that what many of their employees are engaged in, isn’t aligned with or supporting the direction of the company.  Employees may be engaged in everything from their own outside interests, to the ‘coffee klatch’ in the office, or even in efforts to preserve their own niche in the organization.  Employees are engaged it’s just probably not in the way you would like them to be.  No number of surveys, workshops, or other initiatives is likely to have a significant effect on improving the alignment of the workforce to the organization’s strategy.  Engagement is an emotional response that is relatively immune to more information or training.  Improving employee engagement must begin with understanding ‘what’ is engaging people’s interests and commitments now and from there, you can begin to build upon and tap that energy.  You see, employee engagement is a full contact sport requiring leaders at all levels to be personally invested and authentically supportive. 

A carefully constructed approach to improving how actively supportive and strategically aligned employees are begins with leadership engagement.  This is nothing new; we just put a fresh label on it.  Organizations with leaders who are involved on not only a professional but a personal level with their employees have always experienced better performance, consistent alignment, and higher retention.  Remember that employees don’t leave companies they leave managers.  So before you invest significant money in a new employee engagement initiative, you may want to consider first, how engaged your leaders are.  It’s more common sense than you may think.  No magic formula, tool, or seminar is going to replace good ol’ fashioned care and empathy.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.