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Employee Engagement Is A Good Start...But Then What?

This article is more than 9 years old.

In a mere 0.47 seconds, Google returns about 20,200,000 results when searching the term ‘employee engagement.’ Obviously, it’s a hot topic. And, it should be.

Employee engagement is the willingness of employees to apply their “discretionary effort” toward their work. Elevated levels of employee engagement are positively correlated with better business results. Therefore, the higher level of engagement, the better the chances of meeting or exceeding company goals and operating results.

The topic of engagement has gathered so much momentum in the past few years that most HR leaders have moved away from the employee satisfaction surveys of the past, in favor of newer, more relevant employee engagement surveys. This makes perfect sense. Research continues to show not just the value of engaged employees, but also the danger of disengaged employees. The Gallup Organization’s research suggests that actively disengaged workers spread discord among colleagues and customers and thwart organizational performance. In fact, according to its 2013 State of the Global Workplace report, Gallup found 13% of workers are fully engaged in their jobs, 63% are not engaged and 24% are actively disengaged

Those are some dismal numbers. To us, these scores seem shockingly low. In our interactions with primarily larger organizations across the US, Canada and the UK, we consistently see much higher engagement scores than those reported by Gallup’s study. Since there is no international standard for measuring employee engagement, either these companies are measuring engagement levels differently than Gallup, or they are all surprisingly higher than the global average.

Whatever their baseline levels of employee engagement, companies are investing considerable amounts of money in trying to increase the level of engagement among their people. Many of these efforts include upgrading their offices with new open areas, adding game areas for ping pong or foosball tables, lounges and couches, workout facilities, outdoor work environments, and other corporate perks. Companies are trying to make their work environments less “work-like” and more employee-friendly, less formal, and more livable. We think the breaking down of the stark contrast between where we work and where we live is a really good thing...but it doesn’t mean these changes will radically change results.

Time will tell what the ROI will be on these so-called ‘engagement’ investments. We suspect that in the short-term employers can “buy” increased employee engagement scores with these changes. Maybe they’ll even be able to maintain higher engagement scores for extended periods of time. Who doesn’t want to go to comfy workspaces and grab a quick workout at the company gym? However, the bigger question to ask is “after engagement, then what?”

Nobody gets paid for higher engagement levels, and for good reason. Leaders are paid for results.  Results come from the actual work people do, not simply from how engaged they are feeling.

The hope of engagement is that it will lead to great work—that the discretionary effort will actually be applied to do the kind of work that drives improved results. In some cases it might. In others, well, not so much.

In our research at the O.C. Tanner Institute, we found an unexpected relationship between engagement and results. When employees were involved in a difference-making initiative, their engagement levels went through the roof. This begs the question – do higher levels of engagement come from people accomplishing great things, or do great things come from people who are highly engaged?

Think of your own experience. Think of the times when you were most engaged at work. Chances are good that your engagement was highest when you were involved in making a difference. When you were improving something, using your creative energy, and impacting results in significant ways.

As leaders weigh their various options on improving employee engagement, we suggest that rather than focusing so much energy chasing elusive and often fickle survey scores, focus on engaging employees in difference-making actions and behaviors.

In our extensive research on how people accomplish award-winning work, we found five specific activities that were most highly correlated with driving better than expected results. And, they are actually better at predicting success than an engagement score.

Activity 1.  Ask curious and provoking questions. Instead of adopting prevailing assumptions about how work should be done, difference-makers pause and ask provoking questions that open up new thinking. Common questions include: “why does this take so long…,” “why can’t we…,” “what if we could….” Great questions inspire great ideas. 88% of great work outcomes began with an employee asking their version of “What difference would people love?”

Activity 2.  See how things work. People who do great work are compelled to go and see things for themselves and understand what’s working, and what’s not working. They go to where their work is being received.  Seeing how things work engages our minds in new ways. Employees who went and saw for themselves were 17 times more likely to be passionate about their work.

Activity 3.  Have engaging conversations. Those who achieve extraordinary results talk to people outside their “inner circle” of friends and colleagues. They thrive on conversations inspired by diverse perspectives and ideas. When you listen to their conversations, they don’t sound like informational transactions. They sound like explorations for disrupting their own perspectives and limited thinking. 72% of great work projects included people talking to people in their outer circle.

Activity 4.  Improve something.  Difference-makers have a knack for improvement. That knack is not a personality trait, it comes from something they do when they approach any project. They don’t see things as fixed or immoveable. Instead, they tinker. They test. Their confidence comes from the ongoing practice of building, shaping, trimming and fine-tuning. Work is 3 times more likely to be called “important” when someone has added or removed an element or two.

Activity 5.  Chase the change.  Those who do great work stick with their work and grit it out until they see the connection between their actions and results. 90% of great work projects include employees who remain involved through implementation.

Increasing employee engagement is a worthwhile endeavor. It is not, however, the destination. Much like a marriage proposal, engagement is just the first step. The daily activities that follow will determine the ultimate result.

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